Behind the brightly colored flowers and flickering candles is the rust-colored smudge left where Steve Lo's head hit the garage wall as he slipped toward death one week ago.
His widow, Sia Vang, did her best to clean up the bloodstains when she came back Sunday morning to the lonely house on Tambor Way.
What she couldn't remove, she covered with a makeshift shrine to her husband of 10 years.
Around her, a revolving cast of relatives and friends is spinning. They have been arriving in waves, trying, as Hmong tradition dictates, to bring warmth to a home left cold by a departing spirit.
Vang welcomes the distraction. It's the quieter moments that haunt her.
"There's never a plan of burying your husband this young," said Vang, who turned 31 two days after her husband's death. "I keep thinking, 'I hope this is a dream. When I wake up, I want him next to me.' "
Clinging to a stuffed animal belonging to the couple's 3-year-old daughter, she added softly, "It's not fair."
Last Wednesday morning, Lo, a 39-year-old correctional officer assigned to the California Medical Facility in Vacaville, was gunned down as he prepared to leave for his shift. He died at the hospital.
Police have released little information about the case. A Sacramento County sheriff's deputy has been questioned in the case and is on paid administrative leave, stripped of his gun and badge, but police have not named him as a suspect.
The morning of his death, Lo's alarm clock sounded at 4:30 a.m., Vang said. She heard every step of his morning routine.
She heard the rumble of the garage door opening and then, seconds later, a series of loud noises she described like a "bark." A gunshot followed.
Vang ran into the garage and found Lo slumped on the floor, in full uniform, his utility belt still slung over his arm. Fearing the assailant remained nearby, she scrambled to shut the garage door.
While on the phone with emergency dispatchers, Vang patted down her husband, searching for the source of all the blood.
She found it in the back of his head. Vang heard gurgling sounds and wonders now if she was listening to him take his last breaths.
After Lo was rushed to the hospital, detectives escorted Vang to the Sacramento police station. She was about to leave just before 11 a.m. when two lieutenants stopped her.
"My world just exploded," Vang said. "As soon as they say those words – 'Take a seat, I have something to tell you' – you know it's bad news."
Lo's relatives remember him as a quiet, respectful man who "is very sincere about everything he does," said Xiong Thao, Lo's 39-year-old brother-in-law.
Lo, a Hmong immigrant from Laos, changed careers in 2005 to find a better-paying job to support his family.
"He's just a loving person. He's a wonderful man," Vang said of her husband. "It's hard to let go."
Lo is survived by his wife, five children and seven siblings.
He will be laid to rest in a private memorial Oct. 31 – far too soon for his young widow.
"His life with me is too short," Vang said. "I need more time."
Call The Bee's Kim Minugh, (916) 321-1038.
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