EMMA'S KNOCK HAD BEEN ANSWERED BY A MAN IN BAGGY YELLOW pants, homemade tire-tread sandals, and an apricot T that said: Go home. Earth is full. The man had black-rimmed glasses and hair greased into the worst comb-over I'd ever seen.

"Who's banging on my damn door?"

I froze, mouth open, staring at Chester Pinckney.

Emma had not seen Pinckney's license, and had no idea she was addressing the man pictured on it. She proceeded, unaware of my reaction.

"How do you do, sir. May I ask if you're a member of the Pinckney family?"

"Last I looked, this was my damn house."

"Yes, sir. And you would be?"

"You ladies needing crawlers?"

"No, sir. I'd like to talk to you about Chester Tyrus Pinckney."

Pinckney's eyes slithered to me.

"This some kinda joke?"

"No, sir," Emma said.

"Emma," I whispered.

Emma shushed me with a low backward wave of one hand.

A smile crawled Pinckney's lips, revealing teeth browned by smoking and years of neglect.

"Harlan send you?" Pinckney asked.

"No, sir. I'm the Charleston County coroner."

"We got a girl coroner?"

Emma badged him.

Pinckney ignored it.

"Emma," I tried again.

"That's dead bodies, right, like I seen on TV?"

"Yes, sir. Do you know Chester Pinckney?"

Maybe Emma's question confused him. Or maybe Pinckney was working on his idea of clever riposte. He gave her a blank stare.

"Mr. Pinckney," I jumped in.

Emma and Pinckney both looked at me.

"Any chance you've lost your wallet?"

Emma's brows dipped, rose, then her eyes rolled skyward. Giving a small head shake, she turned back to Pinckney.

"That what this is about?" Pinckney asked.

"You are Chester Tyrus Pinckney?" Emma's tone was somewhat more relaxed.

"I look like Hillary damn Clinton?"

"You don't, sir."

"You finally nail the little pissant what fingered my wallet? Am I getting my money back?"

"When did you lose your billfold, sir?"

"Didn't lose the damn thing. It was stole."

"When was that?"

"Been so long I hardly remember."

"Please try."

Pinckney gave the question some thought.

"Afore the truck got drove into the ditch. Didn't sweat the license none after that."

We waited for Pinckney to continue. He didn't.

"The date?" Emma prompted.

"February. March. It was cold. Nearly froze my ass walking home."

"Did you file a police report?"

"Weren't worth spit. Sold it for scrap."

"I'm referring to your wallet."

"Damn right I filed a report." It came out "ree-port." "Sixty-four bucks is sixty-four bucks."

"Where did the loss take place?" Emma was now scribbling notes.

"It weren't no loss. I was robbed."

"You're certain?"

"I look like some kinda damn bonehead can't retain his own belongings?" Ree-tain.

"No, sir. Please describe the incident."

"We was out looking to meet some ladies."

"We?"

"Me and my buddy Alf"

"Tell me what happened."

"Not much to tell. Alf and me had us some barbecue, knocked back some beers and shots. I woke up the next morning, I got no wallet."

"Did you inquire at each of the establishments you'd visited?"

"Ones as we could remember."

"Where were you?"

"Think for a while we was at the Double L." Pinckney shrugged. "Alf and me was drinking pretty heavy."

Emma slid her notepad into a shirt pocket.

"Your property has been located, Mr. Pinckney."

Pinckney hooted. "Already kissed that sixty-four smackers goodbye. Don't need the license. Got no truck."

"I'm sorry, sir."

Pinckney's eyes narrowed. "Why's a coroner come calling to tell me this?"

Emma regarded Pinckney, considering, I suspected, how much to disclose about the recovery of his billfold.

"Just lending the sheriff a hand," Emma said.

Thanking Pinckney for his time, Emma descended the steps. When she joined me, we both turned to cross the yard.

Blocking our path was a mangy gray poodle in a studded pink collar. Between its forepaws lay a dead squirrel.

The poodle regarded us with curiosity. We reciprocated.

"Douglas." Pinckney gave a short, sharp whistle. "Get in here."

Douglas rose, clamped the squirrel in his teeth, and circled us.

I heard a thrup, then a bang as Emma and I continued toward the car.

"Nice old coot," Emma said.

"Douglas?"

"Pinckney."

"Travels with Squirrely."

Emma shot me a look.

I started the car, made a U-ey, and plowed up the drive.

"Douglas?" Emma asked.

"Collar's a bit of a fashion risk, but Doug makes it work. Color highlights his eyes."

"What are the chances the old coot was robbed?" Emma asked.

"What are the chances I'll be this year's American Idol?" I replied.

"And then there were two," Emma said when we'd reached the blacktop.

"The man in the trees. The man on Dewees."

"Nice rhyme."

"Irish blood. By the way, how's yours today?"

"I'm a little tired, but OK."

"Honestly?"

She nodded.

"Good."

Emma didn't ask if I'd help with the skeletal analysis of the man in the trees. We both knew the answer. We also knew that Gullet would be doing some legwork, and that he'd be skeptical of my involvement in yet another case.

Imagining the conversation he and Emma would have, I drove straight to the morgue.

===OO=OOO=OO===

After Emma called Gullet to give him the news, Tuesday afternoon was a replay of Saturday morning. Same morgue cooler. Same tile and stainless steel autopsy room. Same smell of disinfected death.

Miller had logged the hanging victim as CCC-2006020285.

After changing into scrubs, Emma and I transferred CCC-2006020285 from his bag to the autopsy table. First the articulated portions, next the skull, finally the body parts that had fallen or been yanked free and dragged off by scavengers.

The brain and internal organs were gone. The torso, arms, and upper leg bones remained encased in muscle and ligament, at some points putrefied, at others browned and toughened by sun and wind. Though inconvenient for skeletal analysis, the flesh was a potential bonus for a quick ID. Tissue means skin. Skin means prints.

A jacket sleeve had protected the right hand, sparing it full-out mummification. But decomposition had rendered the tissue extremely fragile.

"Got TES?" I asked Emma. Tissue Enhancing Solution, a citric acid-buffered salt solution useful for restoring dried or damaged tissue.

"Courtesy of my favorite embalmer."

"Warm it to about fifty Celsius, please." As with the Dewees case, Emma had made me head honcho during examination of these bones. I wasn't sure how long she'd get away with it, but I was determined to do the job until someone pulled the plug.

"Microwave?"

"Fine."

While Emma was gone, I removed each of the right digits at the level of the first interphalangeal joint. When she returned, I placed the severed fingers in the solution and set them aside to soak.

"Mind if I slide out for a while? There's a construction site death needs my attention. When the prints are ready, give them to the tech and he'll shoot them to Gullet."

"No problem."

The skeletal exam was straightforward enough. And, save for the tedium of cutting and stripping tissue, somewhat reminiscent of Saturday's analysis of the Dewees unknown.

The vertebral column was the most difficult to separate into component parts. While it soaked, I began with those bones less tenaciously imprisoned in flesh.

Skull and pelvic shape said this vic was male.

Dental, rib, and pubic symphyseal indicators said he'd lived thirty-five to fifty years.

Cranial and facial architecture said his ancestors came from Europe.

Another white guy in his forties.

There the physical similarities ended.

While the man from Dewees was tall, long-bone measurements said the man from the trees stood only five-six to five-eight.

The former had long blond hair. This guy sported short brown curls.

Unlike the man from Dewees, the man from the trees had no dental work, and was, in fact, missing three upper molars and an upper bicuspid. The lowers were a mystery since I had no jaw. Tongue-side staining suggested the deceased had enjoyed cigarettes.

When I'd completed the biological profile, I began my search for skeletal abnormalities. As usual, I was looking for congenital oddities, bony remodeling due to repetitive activities, healed injuries, and evidence of medical history.

The man from the trees had taken his lumps, including a broken right fibula, fractured cheekbones, and some type of injury to his left shoulder blade, all healed. The X-rays showed an abnormal opacity on the left collarbone, suggesting the possibility of another old fracture.

The guy wasn't big, but he was a scrapper. And a great mender.

Straightening, I rolled my shoulders, then my head. My back felt like the Panthers had run scrimmages on my spine.

The wall clock said four forty. Time to check the digits.

The tissue had softened nicely. Using a small syringe, I injected TES beneath the dermal pads. The fingertips plumped. I wiped each with alcohol, blotted, ink-rolled, then printed. The ridge detail came out reasonably clear.

I called the tech. He collected the prints and I went back to the bones.

Postmortem damage was limited to the lower legs. Gnawing and splintering, coupled with the presence of small circular puncture wounds, suggested the culprits were probably dogs.

I found no evidence of perimortem injury, nothing to suggest that death had resulted from anything but the obvious: asphyxiation due to compression of the neck structures. In laymen's terms, hanging.

Emma called at seven. I updated her. She said she planned to swing by the sheriff's office shortly to "goose" Gullet. Her words.

Reminded of my hunger by the reference to fowl, I hit the cafeteria. After an exquisite repast of undersauced lasagna and overdressed salad, I returned to the autopsy room.

Though some segments were still insufficiently rehydrated, I was able to free most of the spine from its sleeve of putrefied muscle. Leaving one obstinate chunk to soak, I placed the newly liberated cervical and thoracic vertebrae on a tray with the two neck vertebrae I'd detached from the skull base.

Moving to the scope, I started with C-l, then, slowly, worked my way south. I found no surprises until I got to C-6.

Then it was Saturday all over again.

There was the vertebral body. There was the arch. There were the transverse processes with their small holes for the passage of cranial vessels.

There, on the left, was the hinge fracture.

I adjusted focus and repositioned the light.

No question. A hairline crack kinked across the left transverse process, radiating from opposite sides of the foramen.

It was the exact pattern I'd seen on the Dewees skeleton. The hinging and lack of bony reaction told me that this fracture had also resulted from force applied to fresh bone. This injury had also been sustained around the time of death.

But how?

C-6. Lower neck. Too far down to have resulted from hanging. Though the head had fallen off, probably dislodged by yanking scavengers, the noose had remained, embedded between C-3 and C-4.

Sudden wrenching when the victim jumped from the branch? If he had jumped from the branch, how had he gotten up there? Shinnied six feet up the trunk? Maybe.

Closing my eyes, I conjured a picture of the body hanging from the tree. The knot had been at the back of the neck, not at the side. That seemed inconsistent with unilateral fracturing. I made a mental note to check Miller's scene photos.

Could hanging explain the Dewees victim's neck injury? Had he, too, committed suicide?

Maybe. But the guy sure hadn't dug his own grave.

Could Emma be on the right track? Might the Dewees man have killed himself, then been buried by a friend or family member? Why? Shame? Reluctance to pony up funeral expenses? Fear that insurance payments might be denied? That seemed unlikely. It took years to have a missing person declared dead.

Might the Dewees case turn out to be nothing more than improper disposal of a human corpse?

I ran through alternative explanations for the unilateral neck trauma I was seeing on the man in the trees. The same explanations I'd considered for the man from Dewees.

Fall? Strangulation? Whiplash? Blow to the head?

Nothing made sense, given the type of fracture and its location.

I was still pondering when Emma burst through the door.

"We've got him!"

I turned from the scope.

Emma waved a printout at the skeleton. "Gullet ran the prints through AFIS." The Automated Fingerprint Identification System. "Our boy popped right up."

The name she announced blew vertebral fractures right off my radar.