MONDO GATOR. SIX, MAYBE SEVEN FEET. I COULD SEE MUD-caked scales, a yellow-white throat, jagged teeth jutting up from a powerful jaw.

A jaw that was pointed directly at me.

As I watched, the gator slipped from the bank and disappeared below the surface.

Heart banging, limbs pumping, I churned shoreward.

Gullet jumped from the pier and slip-slid across the mud. Balancing on the barrel with one hand, he extended the other. I grabbed on and pulled with all my strength. Pain jolted my bottle-battered elbow.

The oil-slick mud sent me slithering through Gullet's grasp. I fell back and muddy water closed over me. The waders filled and grew heavy.

Adrenaline fired through my system. Throwing one shoulder, I rolled and groped, enveloped in darkness.

Where was the barrel?

Dear God. Where was the gator?

Desperate, I frog-kicked, found the bank with my hands. Planting both feet, I surfaced. Gullet whistled and pointed to a rope he'd tossed into the water.

Miller was shouting, "Haul ass, darlin'! Haul ass!"

A Moultrie brother stood beside Miller. He had something in his hands. He and Zamzow were looking off to my left.

The engorged waders made movement a struggle, last night's nightmare in real time. Muscles straining, I slogged toward the rope, aware of the reptile behind me.

Was it behind me?

Something splashed to my left. I braced for teeth on my flesh.

"Pull!" Miller shouted.

Reaching the rope, I crooked one knee against the bank, hauled, and lunged upward. I felt Gullet's hands. I felt terra firma.

For a moment I stood doubled over, legs trembling, muddy water pouring from the waders. When I looked up Miller raised both thumbs and beamed.

"Didn't think gators liked salt water," I panted.

"This un ain't picky." Grinning, Moultrie scooped a chicken neck from his bait bucket and tossed it upstream.

Inverted V's rippled outward as the gator swam toward the poultry.

===OO=OOO=OO===

We waited twenty minutes on the pier, drinking coffee and watching the gator maintain a holding pattern ten yards up the creek, submerged save for its vertebrae and snout tip. It was unclear if the animal was looking back at us, protecting its dinner, or dozing.

"Tide's not getting any lower." Gullet tossed his dregs down onto the mud. "Who wants to wrestle Ramon?"

Oswald Moultrie had provided us with the gator's name, and the fact that he was a regular in the creek.

"Might as well be me. I'm already wet." Wet hardly covered it. Mud smeared every inch of my body.

"No need to prove you ain't afraid of gators," Miller said

"I'm not afraid of gators," I said. True enough. I'm afraid of snakes. I kept that to myself.

"Got some heat now." Zamzow brandished a Remington shotgun that he'd retrieved from the trunk of his cruiser. "Critter starts moving this way, I'll park a bullet in his brain."

"No need to kill him," Gullet observed. "Shoot into his path and he'll turn back."

I handed Miller my Styrofoam cup. "Tell Moultrie to keep the Bojangles ready."

As before, I dropped from the pier, crossed the mud, then sidestepped around the barrel into the creek.

The sheriff was right. The tide was coming in. The water had crept to a point just below the barrel's brim.

This time we had a plan. I would go underwater and maneuver the lasso under the bottom rim of the barrel. That accomplished, I would hold the up-side while Gullet and Zamzow heaved on two auxiliary lines attached to the down-side.

Though not without mishap, the plan worked. After three tries the second rope looped the barrel. Panting and dripping, I tightened both nooses and tugged, testing. The lines seemed secure.

I signaled to Gullet. Gullet signaled to Miller. Miller called to Tybee. Beyond the pier, the cruiser's engine turned over.

Slowly, the ropes grew taut. The barrel shifted, rocked back into place.

Gullet waved. Miller shouted. The cruiser's engine raced again. Holding my breath, I crouched down like a baseball catcher and pushed on the bottom of the barrel with my shoulders. Nothing budged.

Lungs burning, I pushed again and felt movement.

I surfaced to the sounds of sucking and scraping. The barrel was oozing from the water onto the mud.

With Gullet and me pushing and Zamzow guiding, the barrel crept up the bank, filthy water pouring from gashes in its sides.

One eon and we'd gotten above the high tide line. Another and we'd moved from mud to solid ground. When we finally crested the bank, Miller was waiting with her camera and a hand trolley.

Wordlessly, Leland Moultrie indicated a spigot beside his veranda. Thanking him, I moved to the house, stripped off the waders, bent at the waist, and ran water through my hair and over my face. Oswald Moultrie appeared from inside and offered me a towel. I almost hugged him.

When I returned from my cleanup, Miller was still snapping photos. I watched fluid ooze from the barrel, wondering about the person inside. Had he or she been dead decades? Years? One full moon? Was the body bloated and discolored from its time in the sea? Had scavengers slithered, crawled, or swum through fissures in the metal, long ago stripping the flesh from the bones?

If a full autopsy was impossible, would Emma ask that I examine the bones?

Did the queen like bad hats?

A sudden thought. Could the body in the barrel be one of Cruikshank's MPs?

A terrible thought. Could it be Helene Flynn?

A clapper rail called from some hidden perch. Its rattle snapped me back to the present.

Miller was snugging her trolley to the barrel. Gullet pushed, raising one side, and the prongs slid beneath. With Tybee and Zamzow spotting, Miller wheeled her cargo off to the coroner's van.

That was it. I'd done my part. Miller and the deputies could load the damn thing.

The clean, dry deputies.

Leaning on Tybee's cruiser, I laced on my sneakers. Then I crossed to Gullet's Explorer, dug out my pack, and dragged a comb through my hair.

I caught my image in the rearview. Mascara had been a really bad idea.

===OO=OOO=OO===

Tybee and Zamzow stayed behind to shoot video and walk the area, and to continue interrogating the Moultries. Gullet and I followed Miller to the MUSC morgue, a plastic sheet separating us from the Explorer's seats.

While I showered and changed into scrubs, Miller offloaded the barrel. Fifteen minutes after arriving, I rejoined her at the intake area just inside the rolling metal doors.

"Where's Gullet?" I asked.

"Got a call."

"From his couturier?"

Miller laughed. "Could be. Sheriff's mindful of his appearance, and that don't mean mud up his gumpy. I suspect he may also be detailing that SUV of his. You're to let him know what we find."

"You phone Emma?"

Miller nodded. "Coroner says open her up. Allocation's my call. Either you or one of our pathologists wins the cigar."

"You sticking around?"

"Wouldn't miss it."

Miller logged the case and prepared an ID marker, CCC-2006020299. I positioned the card while she shot close-ups of the barrel and chain.

"Chain's in good shape." Miller was squinting through her viewfinder. "Barrel's a bucket of rust."

"The two could be made of different metals."

"Or could be a new chain wrapping an old barrel."

A puddle spread across the cement as we worked, carrying with it the smell of decay. When Miller finished with photography, we both inspected the barrel's exterior. As she'd predicted, any words or logos were long gone.

"There must be lots of companies that manufacture fifty-five-gallon drums," I said.

"Dozens," Miller agreed.

After snapping a few Polaroid backups, Miller disappeared, returned with a crowbar and chain saw.

"OK, sweetie, how do you want to go about this?"

"No reason we can't just knock it open," I said.

"Worked for Larry and Moe." Miller pulled on big leather gloves, crowbarred one edge, then tried to lever the lid. The thing stayed put.

"You whacked this sucker pretty good," Miller said.

"I had a little adrenaline working."

After prying more edge, Miller inserted the crowbar and thrust down on the shaft. Half the lid popped free, sending wet rust particles cascading downward. Miller inserted her fingers, tugged at intervals along the lid's perimeter, then yanked upward. The metal disc came away in her hands.

An old, damp smell rose from the barrel. Rotten seaweed. Stale salt water. And more. The smell of death.

Setting the lid on the concrete, Miller picked up a flashlight, and we both leaned in.

The form was human, but not human, a grotesque reproduction in waxy white. It sat humped over, head between its knees.

Miller's nostrils narrowed. "You may be off the hook on this one, doc."

I wasn't so sure. In the presence of moisture, the hydrogenation and hydrolysis of body fat can lead to the formation of matter containing fatty acids and glycerol. This greasy, sometimes waxy substance is known as adipocere, or grave wax.

Once formed, grave wax can hang around a long time, forming a cast of the fatty tissues. I'd seen corpses in which adipocere preserved the body and facial features, while putrefaction turned the insides to soup.

"Body was put in feet first, then shoved down," Miller said.

"Or the victim was forced to climb in and squat," I said.

"Naked."

"Looks small." I spoke without thinking, caught up in the usual swirl of sadness and anger.

"Female?" Taut. Miller was swirling with me.

"I'd rather not speculate."

But I already knew. I'd seen too many ravaged wives, coeds, stepdaughters, waitresses, hookers. My gender was the little guy, the one who took the punches.

"Lots of sand," I said, refocusing my anger. "Probably used to weight the barrel."

"Rocks would have been a better choice," Miller said. "One whack with a boat propeller, one erosion point, sand's outta there. Probably why the thing became buoyant and washed up."

"Let's get her on a table," I said.

Together we lowered the trolley so it lay parallel to the concrete, moving carefully, as though afraid to jostle the occupant. Pointless. She was past caring.

Miller donned goggles, revved the chain saw, and cut the barrel lengthwise from rim to rim on two sides and the bottom, removing the section immediately overlying the body.

The remains were back-side down in the barrel's lower half, head tucked between tightly flexed legs. I could see abrasions in the adipocere where the knees and shins had scraped against the drum's inner surface.

While I'd showered and changed to scrubs, Miller had draped a gurney with plastic sheeting. Removing her goggles and leather gloves, she now wheeled it into position. Together, we shifted the gurney's removable tray to the floor beside the barrel. When we'd pulled on surgical gloves, I took the head and Miller took the buttocks.

"Ready?" Tense.

I nodded.

We lifted an inch, testing. The soapy flesh held.

"OK," I said.

We lifted another inch, then another, tugging gently at any resistance. Slowly, the barrel released its prisoner. We held a moment, allowing fetid liquid to drip. I nodded. Stepping sideways, we lowered the body and raised the tray. I circled the gurney.

Though the flesh was grotesquely distorted, the hair and skin sloughed, the genitals told me the victim was, indeed, female. Her time in the barrel had left her molded into a fetal curl.

Crazy, but the woman seemed to be shielding herself from the indignities her unnatural death would call down upon her. From me. From Miller. From the army that would gather to reconstruct the horror of her final moments, to detail the destruction wrought by her watery confinement.

Some part of me wanted to cover this woman, to protect her from the gowned figures, the glaring lights, the flashing bulbs, the gleaming instruments. But the rational part of me knew that would do her no good. Like the man on Dewees, and the man in the trees, the woman in the barrel needed a name.

I vowed to give that to her. To find the identity that would link her with the living. To end the anonymity that kept her from being mourned, from having her suffering recognized.

Working together, Miller and I eased the woman from her side to her back. I waited while Miller shot pictures. Then, using gentle pressure, we tried to manipulate the tightly clasped limbs.

"Poor gal's kinked like a cement contortionist," Miller said. "This may take muscle."

We increased our pressure. One by one, the arms yielded and we straightened them at the woman's sides.

We shifted to the legs. While Miller pushed on the right knee, I pulled on the ankle. The rigor yielded.

As the woman's leg straightened, a glob slid from her belly and settled by her hip.

Thup.

Miller voiced my thought.

"Holy hell, what's that?"