Chap­ter 167 of “All the Col­ors of the Dark” begins with the dis­cov­ery of a body at Ion­a’s Beach. Saint received the call late at night while she was still at her desk, con­vers­ing with Himes. The atmos­phere is punc­tu­at­ed by the sounds of a Newton’s cra­dle and Himes munch­ing on food. Their play­ful ban­ter sets the tone of their rela­tion­ship, with Saint com­ment­ing on Himes’s ten­den­cy to eat regard­less of appro­pri­ate­ness.

As they talk, a fax reveals images from the crime scene, show­ing pink sand—a detail attrib­uted to the unique com­po­si­tion of the rock­face and the action of the waves. Saint express­es her appre­ci­a­tion for Himes’s tech­ni­cal com­men­tary, indi­cat­ing a lev­el of com­fort and famil­iar­i­ty between the two. They delve into the grim real­i­ty of the eight pages of infor­ma­tion, which even­tu­al­ly cul­mi­nate in the iden­ti­fi­ca­tion of the vic­tim as Crys­tal Wright. The descrip­tion of the site high­lights its des­o­la­tion, filled only with bones, evok­ing a sense of loss and tragedy.

Sain­t’s atten­tion is drawn to pre­served rosary beads at the scene, prompt­ing her to remark, “He trav­eled,” sug­gest­ing some con­nec­tion between the vic­tim and the broad­er con­text of these crimes. Himes affirms her sen­ti­ment, rein­forc­ing the sever­i­ty and emo­tion­al weight of the sit­u­a­tion. Saint, con­cerned for the poten­tial for fur­ther vic­tims, asks how many more might be found, to which Himes responds somber­ly that “one is too many,” empha­siz­ing the urgency and grav­i­ty of their inves­ti­ga­tion.

This chap­ter encap­su­lates the chill­ing dis­cov­ery and the com­plex dynam­ics of Saint and Himes’s pro­fes­sion­al rela­tion­ship as they con­front the stark real­i­ties of their work. The dia­logue flows nat­u­ral­ly, fur­ther illu­mi­nat­ing the emo­tion­al impact of the grim sit­u­a­tion they are inves­ti­gat­ing while main­tain­ing a con­sis­tent nar­ra­tive style.