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desperately, desperately to see the body,” begged Ynema. “I can tell if it’s Regina.”
    “No, you can’t,” he said again. “There’s not that much left.” The deputy didn’t tell Mangum that the left side of Hartwell’s body was burned away, that her brain had been cooked into Jell-O.
    A bone, a hair—Ynema felt she could recognize Regina from those. “I know I can.”
    “We need dental records to identify the body.”
     
     
    At 10:30 a.m., APD Detective Douglas Dukes was also informed by Sergeant Reveles about the Bastrop County body and Jeep, that Bastrop Deputy Don Nelson had spoken with a male at the phone number of the apartment listed for the Jeep’s Vehicle Identification Number, and that Nelson was en route to APD.
    Since two different counties were involved in the homicide, Dukes phoned the Texas Rangers—Texas Ranger L. R. “Rocky” Wardlow. Wardlow was known to work closely with the Bastrop Sheriff’s Department.
    Upon Wardlow’s and Nelson’s arrivals in Austin, Nelson briefed the APD detectives and Texas Ranger.
     
     
    Ynema Mangum phoned Officer Timothy Pruett. “A lot of money’s missing from Regina’s account,” she said. “Just last February she had $3 million dollars. Look, Officer Pruett, we don’t like the way Kim was acting yesterday. This is all really suspicious.”
     
     
    “I checked Reg’s messages,” said Barnes to Morales and Reid. “I saw a Bastrop number and called it. It was the sheriff’s department. They told me that Reg’s car had been found, and there was a burned body in it.”
    “No!” Anita cried.
    Jeremy reached out to hug her, but she shoved him away.
    The police officers arrived, and Morales believed there was no time for sorrow. She had to talk to the police. She had to remember what had happened during the past few days. She had to call Regina’s friends. There was just too much to do to cry. Not then. She wouldn’t let herself.
     
     
    APD cordoned off the area, stringing yellow tape. Between cops and friends, approximately twenty people were wedged into Jeremy Barnes’s apartment.
    Carla Reid stared at the production, the hysteria, the show. “Well, Regina,” she said, “you did it again. You just had to do it your way. No one else’s way.” Regina Hartwell always wanted to be the star of the show.
     
     
    Texas Ranger Rocky Wardlow prepared a search warrant for the Hartwell apartment, and District Judge Jon Wisser signed the warrant. It was 3:42 p.m. Wardlow and Detective Dukes met the Texas Department of Public Safety Crime Lab team at the South Lamar apartment. Dukes, in his own words, spent much of the time “holding up a wall” while the Crime Lab team collected evidence.
     
     
    Ynema Mangum closed Hartwell’s bank account so that no more transactions could be made. There was only $8,000 left in the account.
     
     
    Wardlow wrote down the approximately sixty phone calls on Hartwell’s caller ID. There were two calls from Bastrop County—the first at 11:28 p.m. on June 30th, the second at 8:13 a.m. on July 5th. There was also one on July 5th from the residence of James Thomas.
    Continually, Wardlow heard the names Kim LeBlanc and Justin Thomas. He obtained LeBlanc’s pager number, dialed it, and tapped in the phone number of Regina Hartwell. When the phone rang at Regina’s, the number that came up on the caller ID was that of James Thomas.
    Sgt. Reveles crisscrossed the name and number and got an address on Whirlaway Drive in Garfield, Texas in Bastrop County.

    APD had transported Anita Morales, Carla Reid, Jeremy Barnes, and Brad Wilson, another Château resident, to headquarters, and Detective Carter interviewed Barnes for, what seemed to Jeremy, like hours. He was scared to death. Since he had scoured clean the apartment, he was terrified that the police would think he was involved.
    “Jeremy, we know you’re not involved. We don’t suspect you.”
    But Barnes was intimidated as hell. His thought was,