"COPS ON THE SCENE FOUND NO SIGNS OF FOUL PLAY, FIGURED Susie Ruth fell asleep or konked out and veered off the road."

"How old was she?"

"Seventy-two." All jollity had left Winborne's voice.

"Was she ill? Heart problems? Dementia?"

"Not that anyone knew."

My mind was racing. An unexplained traffic fatality would normally call for a coroner's investigation. Susie Ruth Aikman's body was found on Tuesday. Emma and I had spent that whole day together. Why hadn't she mentioned the old woman's death? She was too ill? Forgot? Didn't see the relevance?

"Look, I wasn't bucking at the bit to crash your dig. That was my editor's brilliant idea. But when you found those bones…" Winborne hesitated, as though weighing how much to reveal, how much to hold back. "I've been poking at something for a couple months now."

I waited out another, longer pause.

"I don't want to do this over the phone. Meet me tomorrow."

"Tell me when and where."

"Unitarian Church, corner of Clifford and Archdale. Follow the brick walkway to the path connecting to King. I'll be there at nine. I'll wait ten minutes."

"Do I come solo and dress in black?"

"Yeah, come alone. Wear what you want."

I was treated to another dial tone. Lately that was happening a lot. While preparing for bed, I told Ryan about my upcoming rendezvous with Winborne.

"Hang a flag on the balcony?"

"Oh, yeah," I agreed. "Very Deep Throat."

Ryan removed my panties and draped them on the deck.

===OO=OOO=OO===

At nine the next morning I was passing through the Unitarian churchyard gates. Ryan was next door at St. John's Lutheran. Bells were gonging at the cathedral, First Baptist, Emmanuel A.M.E., Bethel United Methodist, St. Michael's Episcopal, and First Scots Presbyterian. Really. It's no fluke Charleston's nicknamed the Holy City.

The Unitarian churchyard was like a hothouse gone feral. Lush trees ruled the path. Crepe myrtles, lantana, and daylilies held sway at the cemetery.

Winborne was at the spot he'd described, five-o'clock shadow making his face resemble an unwashed ashtray. My guess? Plankton looked unshaven long before stubble was cool.

Winborne watched me approach, a guarded smile on his lips.

"Good morning."

"Good morning," I replied. This better be good, I held back.

"Look, I know we got off on the wrong foo—"

"I appreciate your holding the Cruikshank story."

"My editor killed the piece."

I should have known. "What is it you have to tell me?"

"I've been digging into something."

"So you said last night."

Winborne glanced over his shoulder. "Something's rotten in this town."

Did the little twerp really say "rotten in this town"?

"What is it you've been investigating, Mr. Winborne?"

"I'm looking at Cruikshank. I already told you that. What I didn't tell you is that March's story on Lonnie Aikman wasn't my first. I did a piece when the guy first went missing in 2004. Cruikshank dug it up and tracked me down."

"You met with Cruikshank? When?" I wanted to ask how he'd learned of the Cruikshank ID, but put that off until later.

"Last March. Cruikshank came asking about Lonnie Aikman. You know me, first thing, I gotta know why. Cruikshank wouldn't give, so I had to use my powers of persuasion."

"Itchy and scratchy."

"Name of the game. And I got a nose." Winborne tapped a finger to one nostril. "I see a PI bird-dogging a lead, I figure maybe there's a story. So I start sniffing down the same hole."

An old man shuffled up the path, grunted hello as he passed. We both nodded. Winborne watched the man's retreat, looking as relaxed as a vegan in a stockyard.

"Cruikshank tells me he's looking for some church lady or clinic worker or something went missing last fall, thinks she may have known Aikman. So I tell him about Lonnie, but I'm suspicious, see. Lonnie vanished in 2004. How could this chick have known him? So I follow him, and sure enough, Cruikshank doesn't go places a nun would be hanging."

"Meaning?"

"One night, he parks in a tavern on King's. Real sleaze joint. Second night he's cruising the titty bars, schmoozing the working girls, if you take my meaning."

That made no sense. Cruikshank was hired to find Helene Flynn. Was he doing that? Or sliding into a binge?

"How do you know Cruikshank was on the job?" I asked.

Winborne shrugged.

"Did you confront him?"

Winborne's eyes slid to his shoes, came back to a spot somewhere over my shoulder. "Third night out he spotted my tail."

I could picture that scene, Winborne with his Nikon, Cruikshank threatening to make liver mush of him.

"I played it cool, told him I thought he was feeding me a line, said I'd keep on him until he came clean."

"Cruikshank told you to scram or he'd beat the crap out of you," I interpreted.

"OK. I backed off. So what? You ever meet the dude?"

I'd seen Cruikshank's photo, and had to confess. Though not big, the guy looked wiry and mean. He'd have frightened me, too.

"When was this?"

"March nineteenth."

"What did you tell Cruikshank about Lonnie Aikman?" I asked.

"What his mother told me. Guy was weird, thought government agents had implanted some kind of device in his brain. Used to e-mail everyone from the dog catcher right up to George W. Thirty-four years old, unemployed, lived with his mom. Nice lady, by the way."

"In your article you described Aikman as schizophrenic. Did he take medication?"

"On and off, you know how that goes."

"Do you know where he was treated?"

"Subject never came up."

"You didn't ask?"

"Didn't seem important." Winborne crossed hairy arms over an ample chest. "Susie Ruth worked her whole life for some tailoring service. Maybe she had insurance that she was able to keep him on because of his disability."

"Was she employed at the time Lonnie went missing?"

"She'd been retired for years." Digging into a back pocket, Win-borne unfolded a copy of his 2004 article and handed it to me. "Mama Aikman's little boy."

The text provided nothing beyond what had appeared in Winborne's follow-up story. It was the photo that caught my attention.

Lonnie Aikman's eyes were dark and luminous, his mouth wide, his lips parted, revealing widely gapped teeth. Shoulder-length hair. Studded ears. Aikman looked about seventeen.

"How old was this print?" I asked.

"The guy was under the delusion that the CIA was monitoring his brain. Wouldn't let anyone take his picture, trashed every old one he could find. That was copied from a high school shot Susie Ruth kept hidden." Winborne curled the fingers of both hands. "Now you. Give. What's the deal with Cruikshank?"

I weighed my words carefully. "From his files, it appears Cruikshank was looking at MPs in the Charleston area. Some were addicts or sex trade workers, others were not."

"Hookers and druggies drop out of sight all the time." Winborne sounded like Cleopatra's jilted owner, Isabella Halsey. "Gimme a who's who."

Pulling out a paper, I read the names I'd copied from my spreadsheet, leaving out Unique Montague and Willie Helms. "Rosemarie Moon. Ruby Anne Watley. Harmon Poe. Parker Ethridge. Daniel Snype. Jimmie Ray Teal. Matthew Summerfield."

"And the church lady. Who was she again?"

"Helene Flynn."

"One of those storm-trooping to save everyone's butt from fiery retribution, right?"

"GMC."

"Creeping Christians are a pain in the ass, you ask me. Jimmie Ray Teal and that councilman's kid, Matthew Summerfield, got coverage lately, so I'm hip to those names. The others…" Shrugging, Winborne pooched out his lips.

I offered him the paper on which I'd jotted the names. "Do you remember any more details about Aikman?"

"It wasn't exactly the story of the year."

Impulse. "Ever hear of a guy named Chester Pinckney?"

Winborne shook his head. "Why?"

"Cruikshank might have known him." I didn't share the fact that Pinckney's wallet had been found in Cruikshank's jacket. "Call me if you think of anything else," I said, wondering why this conversation had warranted a clandestine meeting.

I was two steps up the path when Winborne's voice stopped me.

"Cruikshank did let one thing slip."

I turned.

"Said he'd stumbled onto something bigger than a missing church worker."

"Meaning?"

"I don't know. But within months Cruikshank's found hanging from a tree." Again Winborne glanced over his shoulder. "And now Susie Ruth Aikman's found dead in her car."

===OO=OOO=OO===

As soon as Ryan and I got home I booted my laptop and opened the file in which I'd saved Cruikshank's CD images. Pete joined us as we were cruising through the JPEGs. I could feel the two of them on either side of me, each as truculent as an elk in rut.

Though a few of those pictured bore a vague resemblance to Lonnie Aikman, no one entering or leaving the clinic was a dead ringer match. Big surprise. Susie Ruth's photo was at least fifteen years out of date, and the detail in Winborne's photocopy was lousy. In addition, many of the subjects in Cruikshank's shots were turned away from the camera. Those faces that were visible became unrecognizable blurs when enlarged.

As we searched, Pete and Ryan matched sarcasm for sarcasm, the air of politeness never leaving their voices. After an hour I tired of their jousting and went to my room to try Nelson Teal's number again. My efforts were unrewarded.

In my absence Pete made sandwiches and Ryan phoned Lily. His daughter's mobile continued to ignore him. A call to Lutetia confirmed that Lily was fine, but still refusing contact with her father.

At noon we reconvened in the kitchen, and the mental cut and thrust between the men started anew. Halfway through lunch, I'd had it.

"You two are acting like escapees from a school for the criminally immature."

Two faces went puppy dog innocent.

"How about we all take a sabbatical. It's a holiday weekend, a timeout will be rejuvenating." I couldn't believe I was saying this. But the constant bickering was grating on my nerves.

"Pete, go play another eighteen holes. Ryan, let's drive into town and ambush Emma for a day at the beach."

I got no arguments.

It took twenty minutes of urging, but Emma finally gave in.

The sun was hot, the sky ceramic blue and unmarred by a single cloud. When we arrived, weekend sun worshippers were already out in force, baking on towels, lazing in sand chairs, destroying epidermis.

Emma and I alternated between floating on air mattresses and walking the beach, waves cresting into froth around our ankles. High up, pelicans drifted in formation. Now and then a squadron member would tuck its wings and plunge seaward. The lucky ones would surface with fish, the unlucky with water streaming from their beaks.

As we strolled, I described my conversations with Gullet and Win-borne, and asked if I could work at the morgue in the morning. Emma assured me she'd again arrange clearance. Though tempted, I didn't inquire about Susie Ruth Aikman. Nor did I query the thorny cruise ship fatality that I'd read about in Winborne's article on Aikman.

Ryan passed the hours reading a Pat Conroy novel in the shade of an enormous umbrella we'd dragged from under Anne's house. Now and then he'd venture forth, swim alternating laps of the crawl and some French Canadian form of the backstroke, then towel off, lather up, and resettle in his chair.

By the time we headed back to "Sea for Miles," Emma's color was approaching normal. Ryan's had gone from chicken white to lemonade pink.

After I showered, the three of us hit Melvin's for barbecue, then Ryan and I drove Emma home. It was a frivolous, tranquil, and altogether soothing afternoon.

And well timed. Holiday weekend or not, I was about to hit Gullet's trifecta.