NINETY MINUTES LATER THE SMALL CAULDRON SAT EMPTY. A macabre assortment of objects lined the counter behind me.

Twenty-one sticks.

Four strings of beads, one white, two alternating red and black, one alternating black and white.

Seven railroad spikes, four painted black, three painted red.

Avian bones, some chicken, others probably pigeon or dove.

Blood-stained feathers.

Two sawn bones, both from nonhuman limbs. By consulting Gilbert’s Mammalian Osteology, I identified one as goat, the other as domestic dog.

Two quarters, four nickels, and one dime. The most recent was stamped 1987.

I felt mild satisfaction. The placement of the coin deep within the fill suggested 1987 as a baseline date for the packing of the cauldron. That date fell within my estimated PMI range for the skull.

Get real, Brennan. The skull could have joined the display long after the cauldron was filled, or have become a skull long before.

Nevertheless, energized, I returned to the large cauldron.

Ever been on a road trip and decided you needed KFC? Passed a million, but now not a single exit’s offering chicken. You pull off, eat a burger. Within a mile there’s the Colonel smiling from a billboard.

That’s what I’d done. I’d given up too soon.

On the second trowel dive the large cauldron began to produce. Sticks. Beads. Necklaces. Feathers. Iron objects, including railroad spikes, horseshoes, and the head of a hoe. Pennies, the legible dates ranging from the sixties to the eighties.

I checked the clock. Five fifty-five. Choice. Drive home to shower and blow-dry? Sift on, toilette here, and meet Katy wet-headed?

I resumed digging and screening.

Six ten. My trowel struck something hard. As with the brain matter, I shifted to quarrying with my fingers.

A brown button appeared. I burrowed around it. The button became a mushroom, cap on top, thick-stemmed below. The cap was dimpled by one small pit.

Uh-oh.

I followed the stem.

Larabee opened the door, spoke. I answered, not really listening. He moved in beside me.

The stem angled from a tubular base shooting horizontally across the cauldron. I dug, estimating length and, as contour emerged, diameter.

Within minutes, I could see that the tube ended in two round prominences, condyles for articulation in a bipedal knee.

“That’s a femur,” Larabee said.

“Yes.” I felt a neural hum of excitement.

“Human?”

“Yes.” I was flipping dirt like a ratter scratching at a burrow.

A second button appeared.

“There’s another underneath.” Larabee continued his play-by-play. “Also lying sideways, head up, but oriented in the opposite direction.”

I glanced at the clock.

Six forty-two.

“Crap.”

“What?”

“I have to meet my daughter in twenty minutes.”

Grabbing my cell, I dialed Katy.

No answer. I tried her mobile. Got voice mail.

“Let this go until morning,” Larabee said. “I’ll secure everything.”

“You’re sure?”

“Scram.”

I raced to the locker room.

Fortunately, I didn’t have far to go.

Since high school, Volare has been Katy’s favorite eatery. In those days the restaurant was housed in a Providence Road strip mall, in space that allowed but a dozen tables. Several years back, the owners relocated to a larger, freestanding building in Elizabeth, the Queen City’s only neighborhood named for a woman. Irony there?

Here’s the scoop. In 1897 Charles B. King picked Charlotte as the site for a small Lutheran college, and named the school in honor of his mother-in-law, Anne Elizabeth Watts. Smooth move, Charlie.

In 1915, Elizabeth College moved to Virginia. In 1917, a fledgling hospital purchased the property. Almost a century later, the original building is gone, but the Presbyterian Hospital complex occupying the site is massive.

Bottom line. The college split, but the name stuck. Today, in addition to Presby, Independence Park, and Central Piedmont Community College, Elizabeth is home to a hodgepodge of medical offices, cafés, galleries, resale shops, and, of course, churches and tree-shaded old homes.

At 7:10, I pulled to the curb on Elizabeth Avenue. Yep. The old gal also scored a street name.

Hurrying to the door, I felt a twinge of regret. Sure, it’s now easier to reserve a table at Volare, but the intimacy of the smaller venue is gone. Nevertheless, the food still rocks.

Katy was at a back table, sipping red wine and talking to a waiter. The guy looked captivated. Nothing new. My daughter has that effect on those who pee standing.

I thought of Pete as I often did when I saw her. With wheat blond hair and jade green eyes, Katy is a genetic ricochet of her father. I am reminded of the resemblance when I see either one.

Katy waved. The waiter yammered on.

“Sorry I’m late.” Sliding into a chair. “No excuse.”

Katy arched one carefully groomed brow. “Nice ’do.”

I was hearing that a lot lately.

“Who knew the wet look was coming back?”

The waiter asked if I’d like a beverage.

“Perrier with lime. Lots of ice.”

He looked at Katy.

“She’s an alkie.” My daughter has many endearing qualities. Tact is not among them. “But I’ll have another Pinot.”

The waiter set off, charged with a papal command.

Katy and I ignored the menus. We already knew everything on them.

“Split a Caesar salad?” I asked.

“Sure.”

“Sole meunière?”

Katy nodded.

“I think I’ll go for the veal piccata.”

“You always go for the veal piccata.”

“That’s not true.” It was close.

Katy leaned forward, eyes wide. “So. Voodoo, vampires, or vegan devil worshippers?”

“Nice alliteration. When are we going shopping?”

“Saturday. Don’t ignore my question. The cellar?”

“It was used for something”—what?—“ceremonial.”

Two jade eyes rolled skyward.

“You know I can’t talk about an ongoing investigation.”

“What? I’m going to call in a scoop to WSOC?”

“You know why.”

“Jesus, Mom. This dungeon is practically in Coop’s backyard.”

Katy was living two blocks from Greenleaf, in the townhouse of a mysteriously absent gentleman named Coop.

“It’s hardly a dungeon. Tell me again. Who is Coop?”

“A guy I dated in college.”

“And where is Coop?”

“In Haiti. With the Peace Corps. It’s a win-win. I get a break on rent. He gets someone looking after his place.”

The waiter delivered drinks, then stood smiling at Katy, pen and hopes poised.

I recited our order. The waiter left.

“What’s up with Billy?”

Billy Eugene Ringer. The current boyfriend. One in a trail leading back to Katy’s middle school years.

“He’s a dickhead.”

A promotion or demotion from peckerhead? I wasn’t sure.

“Care to be more specific?”

Theatrical sigh. “We’re incompatible.”

“Really.”

“Rather, he’s too compatible.” Katy took a hit of Pinot. “With Sam Adams and Bud. Billy likes to drink beer and watch sports. That’s it. It’s like dating a gourd. You know?”

I made a noncommittal noise.

“We have nothing in common.”

“It took you a year to figure that out?”

“I can’t imagine what we talked about in the beginning.” More Pinot. “I think he’s too old for me.”

Billy was twenty-eight.

Katy’s palm smacked the tabletop. “Which brings us to Dad. Can you believe this shit with Summer? I don’t understand why you’re being so cooperative.”

My estranged husband was almost fifty. We’d lived apart for years, but never divorced. Recently Pete had requested that we file. He wanted to remarry. Summer, his beloved, was twenty-nine.

“The woman squeezes puppy glands for a living.” Katy’s tone redefined the term scornful.

Summer was a veterinary assistant.

“Our marital status is strictly between your father and me.”

“She’s probably sucked his brain right out through his—”

“New topic.”

Katy drew back in her chair. “OK. What’s up with Ryan?”

Mercifully, our salad arrived. As the waiter ground pepper from a mill the size of my vacuum, I thought about my own on-again off-again, what, boyfriend?

What was Ryan doing now? Was he happily reunited with his long-ago lover? Did they cook together? Window-shop while strolling hand in hand along rue Ste-Catherine? Listen to music at Hurley’s Irish Pub?

I felt a heaviness in my chest. Ryan was gone from my life. For now. For good? Who knew?

“Hell-o?” Katy’s voice brought me back. “Ryan?”

“He and Lutetia are trying to make it as a couple. To provide stability for Lily.”

“Lutetia is his old girlfriend. Lily is his kid.”

“Yes.”

“The druggie.”

“She’s doing well in rehab.”

“So you’re just out on your ass.”

“Lily’s going through a rough patch. She needs her father.”

Katy chose not to reply.

The waiter arrived with our food. When he’d gone, I changed direction.

“Tell me about work.”

“Shoot-me-in-the-head dull.”

“So you’ve said.”

“I’m a glorified secretary. Scratch that. There’s nothing glorified in what I do.”

“Which is?”

“Maintain folders. Feed info into a computer. Assemble criminal histories. My most exciting task to date was a credit check. Heart-pounding.”

“Did you think you’d be arguing before the Supreme Court?”

“No.” Defensive. “But I didn’t expect mind-numbing drudgery.”

I let her vent on.

“I make next to nothing. And the people I work with are slammed by their caseloads and just want to negotiate pleas and move on to the next file. They don’t have time for a lot of interaction with staff. Talk about boring. There’s only one guy with spunk, and he’s got to be fifty.” Katy’s tone changed ever so slightly. “Actually, he’s bodaciously hot. If he weren’t so old I wouldn’t mind slipping off his tighty whities.”

“Too much information.”

Katy rolled on.

“You’d like this guy. And he’s single. It’s really sad. His wife was killed on nine-eleven. I think she was an investment banker or something.”

“I’ll find my own men, thanks.”

“All right, all right. Anyway, half the staff are fossils, the other half are too harried to notice there’s a world outside the PD’s office.”

I was beginning to grasp the problem. Billy was no longer making grade, and no twenty-something cute-boy lawyer was waiting in the wings.

We ate in silence for a few moments. When Katy spoke again I could tell her thoughts had circled.

“So what are we going to do about Summer?”

“For my part, nothing.”

“Jesus, Mom. The woman hasn’t finished forming a full set of molars.”

“Your father’s life is his own.”

Katy said something that sounded like “cha,” then fork-jabbed her fish. I took another mouthful of veal.

Seconds later I heard a whispered “Ohmygod.”

I looked up.

Katy was gazing at something over my shoulder.

“Oh my god.”