We followed Hawkins down the corridor and around the corner to the intake bay, where a gurney had been rolled onto the weigh-in scale. The pouch it held showed a very large bulge.

Wordlessly, Hawkins unzipped the body bag and laid back the flap. Like a class on a field trip, we leaned in.

Gran called it fay, claimed prescience as a family trait. I call it deductive reasoning.

Perhaps it was Hawkins's demeanor. Perhaps it was the image I'd conjured in my mind. Though we'd never met, I knew I was staring at Ricky Don Dorton.

The man's skin was the color of old leather, creased by vertical lines beside his eyes and ears and at the corners of his mouth. The cheeks were high and broad, the nose wide, the hair dead black and combed straight back. Irregular, yellowed teeth peeked from purple, death-slacked lips.

Ricky Don Dorton had died bare-chested. I could see two gold chains in the folds of his neck, and the Marine Corps emblem on his right upper arm, the words SEMPER FI circling below.

Larabee scanned the police report.

'Well, well. Mr. Richard Donald Dorton.'

'Son of a bitch.' Slidell spoke for us all.

Larabee handed the paper to me. I stepped close to Jansen so we could read together.

Larabee asked Hawkins, 'You just bring him in?'

Hawkins nodded.

According to the report, Ricky Don was found dead in his bed in an uptown motel.

'Dorton checked in with a woman around one-thirty A.M.,' Hawkins said. 'Desk clerk said they both looked hammered. Maid found the body about eight this morning. Knocked, got no answer, figured the room had been vacated. Poor thing's probably looking through the want ads even as we speak.'

'Who caught the case?' Slidell asked.

'Sherrill and Bucks.'

'Narco.'

'Room held enough pharmaceuticals and hypodermics to stock a Third World clinic,' said Hawkins.

'Suppose Dorton's midnight companion was Sister Mary Innocent working to save his soul?' Slidell asked.

'Desk clerk suspected the woman was a hooker,' said Hawkins. 'Thought Dorton had been there before. Same deal. Late-night check-in. Floozy date.'

'Get hopped. Get lucky. Get a room.' Larabee.

'Guess Ricky Don's luck ran out.' Slidell tossed the report onto the body bag.

I watched the paper slip to the gurney and settle against Ricky Don's pricey gold neckwear.

===OO=OOO=OO===

Before his departure, Ryan extracted a promise that I would discuss the previous day's e-mails with Slidell or Rinaldi. Though my anxiety had diminished considerably overnight, my nerves were still on edge. I was inclined to view the messages as the work of some warped cyber-moron, but had promised myself not to let fear alter my life. Business as usual. But I agreed with Ryan on one point.

If the threat was real, Katy was also at risk.

I'd tried to caution my daughter on the night of her party, but Katy's reaction had been to scoff at the e-mails. When I'd persisted, she'd become annoyed, told me my job was making me paranoid.

Twenty-something, bulletproof, and immortal. Like mother, like daughter.

In the privacy of my office, I described the pictures of Boyd, Katy, and myself. I acknowledged yesterday's terror, today's continuing uneasiness.

Rinaldi spoke first.

'You have no idea who this Grim Reaper is?'

I shook my head.

'What Ryan and I could make out from the AOL tracking information was that the messages were sent to my mailbox at UNCC through a couple of re-mailers, then forwarded from the university to my AOL address.'

'That last part your doing?'

'Yes. I have all my e-mail forwarded.' I shook my head. 'You'll never trace the original sender.'

'It can be done,' Rinaldi said. 'But it isn't easy.'

'The pictures began on Wednesday morning?' Slidell asked.

I nodded. 'Probably taken with a digital camera.'

'So there's no way to track prints through a film processing company.' Slidell.

'And the call was probably placed at a pay phone.' Rinaldi. 'Would you like us to order surveillance for you?'

'Do you think that's warranted?'

I had expected indifference, perhaps impatience. The sincerity of their responses was unsettling.

'We'll step up patrols past your place.'

'Thank you.'

'How about your kid's crib?' Slidell.

I saw Katy, relaxed and unaware on a front porch swing.

'Stepped up patrols would be good.'

'Done.'

When they'd gone I checked again with Mrs. Flowers. Still no fax from Cagle. She assured me she would deliver the report the second it finished printing.

Returning to my office, I tried to concentrate on a backlog of mail and paperwork. Thirty minutes later, the phone rang. I nearly knocked my soda to the floor snatching up the receiver.

It was Mrs. Flowers.

Cagle's fax with the Lancaster skeletal report had not arrived, but Brian Aiker's dental records had. Dr. Larabee had requested my presence in the main autopsy room.

When I arrived, the ME was arranging radiographs on two light boxes, each set consisting of twelve tiny films showing teeth in the upper and lower jaws. Joe Hawkins had taken one series on the privy skull and jaw. Brian Aiker's dentist had provided the other.

One look was enough.

'Don't think we'll need a forensic dentist for this one,' Larabee said.

'Nope,' I agreed.

Brian Aiker's X rays showed crowns and posts in two upper and two lower molars, clear evidence of root canal work.

The privy skull X rays showed none.

===OO=OOO=OO===

Wally Cagle's report did not arrive on Friday. Nor did it come on Saturday. Or Sunday.

Twice each day I visited the MCME. Twice each day I called Cagle at his office, his home, and on his cell.

Never an answer.

Twice each day I checked my e-mail for the scanned images.

Bad news and good news.

No photos from Cagle.

No photos from the Grim Reaper.

I spent the weekend wondering about the Lancaster bones. If the skull and postcranial remains belonged to the same person, it wasn't Brian Aiker. Who was it?

Did the privy skull really go with Cagle's skeleton? I'd been so sure, but it was just instinct. I had no hard data. Could we actually have two unknowns?

What had happened to Brian Aiker? To Charlotte Grant Cobb?

I also pondered the whereabouts of Tamela Banks and her family. The Bankses were unsophisticated people. How could they simply disappear? Why would they do so?

On Saturday morning I made a quick visit to the Bankses' home. The shades were still drawn. A pile of newspapers lay on the porch. No one answered my rings or knocking.

Ryan phoned daily, updating me on the condition of his sister and niece. Things were not sunny in Halifax.

I told Ryan about Ricky Don Dorton's demise, about my discussions with Hershey Zamzow concerning bear poaching and the missing wildlife agents, and about Jansen's goldenseal findings. He asked if I'd reported the Grim Reaper e-mails to Slidell or Rinaldi. I assured him that I had, and that they were increasing surveillance of my place and Lija's town house.

Each time we disconnected, the annex felt oddly empty. Ryan was gone, his belongings, his smell, his laugh, his cooking. Though he'd only been in my home a short time, his presence had filled the place. I missed him. A lot. Much more than I ever would have imagined.

Otherwise, I puttered, as my mother would call it. Runs and walks with Boyd. Talks with Birdie. Hair conditioning. Eyebrow plucking. Plant watering. Always with an eye to my back. An ear to the air for strange noises.

Saturday Katy talked me into a late-night soiree at Amos's to listen to a band named Weekend Excursion. The group was punchy, talented, and powerful enough to be picked up by instruments in deserts listening for signs of life in space. The crowd stood and listened, enthralled. At one point I screamed a question into Katy's ear.

'Doesn't anyone dance?'

'A few geeks might.'

The old ABBA song 'Dancing Queen' ran through my head.

Times change.

After Amos's, we had nightcaps one door over at a pub called the Gin Mill. Perrier and lime for me, a Grey Goose martini for Katy. Straight up. Dirty. With extra olives. My daughter was definitely a big girl now.

On Sunday we did manicure-pedicure mother-daughter bonding, then hit golf balls on the driving range at Carmel Country Club.

Katy had been a star on the Carmel swim team, semi-swimming her first lane rope-clinging freestyle at age four. She'd grown up on Carmel's golf courses and tennis courts, hunted Easter eggs, and watched Fourth of July fireworks on its lawns.

Pete and I had feasted on Carmel buffets, danced under the twirling New Year's Eve globes, drunk champagne, admired the ice sculptures. Many of our closest friendships had been formed at the club.

Though I remained legally married, entitling me to use of all facilities, it felt strange to be there, like revisiting a vaguely remembered place. The people I saw were like visions in a dream, familiar yet distant.

That evening Katy and I ordered pizza and watched Meet the Parents. I didn't ask if there was significance to her movie selection. Nor did I query the weekend whereabouts of Palmer Cousins.

Monday morning I rose early and checked my e-mail.

Still no photos from Cagle or messages from the Grim Reaper.

After spinning Boyd around the block, I headed to the MCME, confident that the Cagle report would be on my desk.

No fax.

By nine-thirty I'd called Cagle four times at each of his numbers. The professor still didn't answer.

When the phone rang at ten I nearly burst from my skin.

'Guess you heard.'

'Heard what?'

Slidell picked up on the disappointment in my voice.

'What? You were expecting a call from Sting?'

'I was hoping it was Wally Cagle.'

'You still waiting on that report?'

'Yes.' I twisted the spirals of the cord around my finger. 'It's odd. Cagle said he'd fax it on Thursday.'

'Walter?' Slidell drew the name into three syllables.

'That was four days ago.'

'Maybe the guy hurt himself pulling up his tights.'

'Have you considered a support group for homophobics?'

'Look, way I see it, men are men and women are women, and everyone should sleep in the tent he was born with. You start crossing lines, no one's going to know where to buy their undies.'

I didn't point out the number of metaphoric lines Slidell had just crossed.

'Cagle was also going to scan photos of the bones and send them by e-mail,' I said.

'Jesus in a fish market, everything's e-mail these days. If you ask me, e-mail's some kinda voodoo witchcraft.'

I heard Slidell's chair groan under the strain of his buttocks.

'If Aiker's out, what about the other one?'

'Different tent.'

'What?'

'The other FWS agent was female.'

'Maybe you got it wrong with the bones.'

Not bad, Skinny.

'That's possible for the privy remains, but not for the Lancaster skeleton.'

'Why's that?'

'Cagle sent a bone sample for DNA testing. Amelogenin came back male.'

'Here we go again. The black arts.'

I let him listen to silence for a while.

'You still there?'

'Do you want me to explain amelogenin, or do you prefer to remain in the nineteenth century?'

'Keep it short.'

'You've heard of DNA?'

'I'm not a total cretin.'

Questionable.

'Amelogenin is actually a locus for tooth pulp.'

'Locus?'

'A place on the DNA molecule that codes for a specific trait.'

'What the hell's tooth pulp got to do with sex?'

'Nothing. But in females, the left side of the gene contains a small deletion of nonessential DNA, and produces a shorter product when amplified by PCR.'

'So this pulp locus shows length variation between the sexes.'

'Exactly.' I was incredulous that Slidell had grasped this so quickly. 'Do you understand sex chromosomes?'

'Girls got two X's, boys got an X and a Y. That's what I'm saying. Nature throws the dice, you stick with the toss.'

The metaphor thickened.

'When the amelogenin region is analyzed,' I went on, 'a female, having two X chromosomes, will show one band. A male, having both an X and a Y chromosome, will show two bands, one the same size as the female and one slightly larger.'

'And Cagle's bones came up male.'

'Yes.'

'And your skull is male.'

'Probably.'

'Probably?'

'My gut feeling is yes, but there's nothing definitive about it.'

'Genderwise.'

'Genderwise.'

'But it's not Aiker.'

'Not if we have the right dental records.'

'But the skeleton could be.'

'Not if it goes with the privy skull.'

'And you think it does.'

'It sounds like a fit. But I haven't seen photos or the original bones.'

'Any reason Cagle might have changed his mind, started avoiding your calls?'

'He was very cooperative when we talked.'

Now the empty air was of Slidell's choosing.

'You game for a little spin down to Columbia?'

'I'll be waiting on the steps.'