Chap­ter 167 of All the Col­ors of the Dark opens with the dis­turb­ing dis­cov­ery of a body at Ion­a’s Beach. Saint, still work­ing late into the night at her desk, receives a call from Himes while they’re deep in con­ver­sa­tion. The famil­iar sound of the Newton’s cra­dle gen­tly tap­ping in the back­ground, along with Himes casu­al­ly munch­ing on food, pro­vides an odd con­trast to the intense sub­ject mat­ter they dis­cuss. The ease of their banter—especially regard­ing Himes’s ten­den­cy to eat at inap­pro­pri­ate moments—provides a rare light­heart­ed moment in the oth­er­wise dark atmos­phere. Despite the chill­ing sub­ject of their dis­cus­sion, the play­ful back-and-forth reveals a com­fort­able, almost famil­ial bond between them.

As their con­ver­sa­tion pro­gress­es, a fax comes through with pho­tos from the crime scene, reveal­ing the shock­ing image of pink sand. This star­tling detail is attrib­uted to the unusu­al com­bi­na­tion of the local rock­face and the action of the waves, mak­ing the sand appear strange­ly beau­ti­ful despite the hor­rif­ic cir­cum­stances. Saint express­es her grat­i­tude for Himes’s insight­ful tech­ni­cal com­men­tary on the scene, appre­ci­at­ing how his words help her process the com­plex­i­ty of the sit­u­a­tion. The con­trast between the beau­ty of the land­scape and the tragedy at hand only inten­si­fies the grav­i­ty of their task. The eight pages of infor­ma­tion, detail­ing the grim crime scene, even­tu­al­ly lead to the iden­ti­fi­ca­tion of the victim—Crystal Wright. As the details are revealed, the site is described as a bar­ren, des­o­late place where noth­ing remains except the bones, sym­bol­iz­ing the pro­found loss at the heart of this case.

Saint’s focus sharp­ens when she notices pre­served rosary beads found at the crime scene, and her com­ment, “He trav­eled,” sug­gests a larg­er, omi­nous con­nec­tion between the vic­tim and the crimes they’ve been inves­ti­gat­ing. Himes acknowl­edges her sen­ti­ment, indi­cat­ing that the dis­cov­ery of the beads might hold deep­er sig­nif­i­cance that could shed light on the larg­er scope of the sit­u­a­tion. The sever­i­ty of their inves­ti­ga­tion deep­ens as Saint becomes increas­ing­ly con­cerned about the pos­si­bil­i­ty of more vic­tims. She queries Himes about the num­ber of poten­tial bod­ies they may uncov­er, to which he responds somber­ly, empha­siz­ing that even one death is one too many. His reply under­lines the emo­tion­al urgency of their mis­sion, and the con­ver­sa­tion reflects the pro­fes­sion­al com­mit­ment both char­ac­ters share, as well as the emo­tion­al weight they car­ry as they nav­i­gate the com­plex­i­ties of the case.

As the chap­ter unfolds, it becomes evi­dent that the rela­tion­ship between Saint and Himes is not only root­ed in pro­fes­sion­al col­lab­o­ra­tion but also marked by a pro­found emo­tion­al con­nec­tion. Their inter­ac­tions reveal lay­ers of both individuals—their shared under­stand­ing of the harsh real­i­ties they face and their abil­i­ty to com­fort one anoth­er dur­ing moments of silence. The grim dis­cov­ery at Iona’s Beach serves as a poignant reminder of the ongo­ing vio­lence they are try­ing to solve, yet it also pro­vides an oppor­tu­ni­ty for Saint and Himes to reflect on the larg­er moral impli­ca­tions of their work. The urgency of the inves­ti­ga­tion and the sense of loss that looms large are bal­anced by the occa­sion­al moments of lev­i­ty that emerge dur­ing their con­ver­sa­tions, mak­ing their pro­fes­sion­al rela­tion­ship dynam­ic and mul­ti-dimen­sion­al.

This chap­ter explores themes of grief, respon­si­bil­i­ty, and the com­plex­i­ty of human rela­tion­ships. It shows Saint and Himes not only as pro­fes­sion­als but as indi­vid­u­als who are emo­tion­al­ly affect­ed by the cas­es they work on. While they are both dri­ven by the need to solve the case, they also bear the emo­tion­al weight of the tragedy that con­tin­ues to unfold around them. The jux­ta­po­si­tion of their ban­ter with the intense sub­ject mat­ter high­lights the con­trast between their per­son­al con­nec­tion and the grim real­i­ty of their work. Through this bal­ance, the chap­ter suc­ceeds in deep­en­ing the read­er’s under­stand­ing of these char­ac­ters, mak­ing their emo­tion­al jour­neys just as cap­ti­vat­ing as the mys­tery they are try­ing to solve.