The body was as I remembered, headless, charred, upper limbs curled into the pugilist pose. The hands were shriveled claws. There would be no prints on this one either.

  Hawkins had centered my plastic tubs in a clump above the passenger’s shoulders, as though trying to simulate the shattered head. Transferring the tubs, I rezipped the bag and wheeled the cart to the small autopsy room.

  The X rays glowed black and white like the test patterns in the olden days of television. The second film showed two metallic objects mingled with teeth and chunks of jaw. One object looked like a fleur-de-lis, the other like Oklahoma.

  Good. The passenger had also seen a dentist.

  I gloved, spread a sheet across the table, and emptied container two. It took several minutes to locate and remove the two loose dental restorations. After sealing those items in a vial, I picked out all jaw and tooth fragments, placed them on a tray, and set it aside.

  Then I turned to the skull.

  There would be no reconstruction for this guy. The fire damage was too severe.

  Teasing off charred flesh and flaky black gunk, I began working my way through the jigsaw puzzle of cranial architecture.

  A segment of frontal bone rolled down into a pair of prominent brow ridges. Occipital pieces showed bulbous mastoids and the largest neck muscle attachment I’d ever seen. The back of the guy’s head must have bulged like a golf ball.

  The rear-seat passenger had definitely been male. Not that useful. Larabee would nail that during his post.

  On to age.

  Taking two steps to the right, I studied the tray of dental fragments.

  Like plants, teeth send roots into their sockets long after the crowns have sprouted through the gums. By twenty-five, the garden is in full bloom, and the third molars, or wisdom teeth, are complete to their tips. That’s a wrap, dentally speaking. From that point on, it’s dental breakdown.

  Though the passenger’s enamel was either missing or too crumbly to evaluate, every viewable root was complete. I’d need X rays to observe those hidden in the sockets.

  I returned to the cranial wreckage.

  As with dentition, skulls come with some assembly required. At birth, the twenty-two bones are in place, but unglued. They meet along squiggly lines called sutures. In adulthood, the squiggles fill in, until the vault forms a rigid sphere.

  Generally, the more birthday candles, the smoother the squiggles.

  By stripping blackened scalp from the cranial fragments, I was able to view portions of suture from the crown, back, and base of the head.

  The basilar squiggle was fused. Most others were open. Only the sagittal, which runs from front to back across the top of the head, showed any bony bridging.

  Though vault closure is notoriously variable, this pattern suggested a young adult.

  On to ancestry.

  Race is a tough call at any time. With a shattered skull it’s a bitch.

  The upper third of one nasal bone remained in place on the large frontal fragment. Its slope downward from the midline was acute, giving the nasal bridge a high, angled shape, like a church steeple.

  I swapped the piece of forehead for a chunk of midface.

  The nasal opening was narrow, with a rolled lower edge and a tiny spike at the midway point. The bone between the bottom of the nose and the upper-tooth row dropped straight down when viewed from the side. The cheekbones ballooned out in wide, sweeping arcs.

  The steepled nasal bridge, sharp inferior nasal border, and nonprojecting lower face suggested European ancestry.

  The flaring zygomatics, or cheekbones, suggested Asian or Native American ancestry.

  Great.

  Back to the dentition.

  Only one front tooth retained a partial crown. I turned it over. The back was slightly ridged at the point where the enamel met the gum line.

  I was staring at the incisor when Joe Hawkins poked his head through the door.

  “You look stumped.”

  I held out my hand.

  “I’m not sure it’s shoveled, but there’s something weird there.”

  Joe looked at the tooth.

  “If you say so, Doc.”

  Shoveling refers to a U-shaped rimming on the tongue side of the center four teeth. Shoveled incisors are usually indicative of Asian or Native American ancestry.

  I returned the tooth to the tray and requested X rays of the jaw fragments.

  I checked the time. One-forty.

  No wonder I was starving.

  Stripping off gloves and mask, I washed with antibacterial soap and threw a lab coat over my scrubs. Then I went to my office and washed down a granola bar with a can of Diet Coke.

  As I ate, I scanned my phone messages.

  A journalist from the Charlotte Observer.

  Skinny Slidell. Something about the Banks baby case.

  Sheila Jansen. She’d called early. The NTSB works hard.

  The fourth pink slip caught my attention.

  Geneva Banks.

  I tried the Bankses’ number. No answer.

  I tried Jansen.

  Her voice mail invited a message.

  I left one.

  I stopped back into the main autopsy room. The passenger lay where the pilot had been, and Larabee had just made his second Y incision of the day.

  I walked over and looked at the body. Though gender was clear, age and race were not. Those aspects would have to be determined skeletally.

  I explained the discrepancy in racial features. Larabee said he’d spotted nothing useful in the body.

  I asked for the pubic symphyses, the portions of the pelvis where the two halves meet in front, and the sternal ends of the third through fifth ribs to tighten my age estimate. Larabee said he’d send them over.

  Larabee told me he’d talked with Jansen. The NTSB investigator would be dropping by in the late afternoon. Neither Geneva Banks nor Skinny Slidell had phoned him.

  When I returned to the stinky room, Hawkins had popped the dental X rays onto the light boxes.

  The roots of the left canine and second molar, and of both wisdom teeth, were visible in various jaw fragments. While the canine and M-2 were complete to their tips, the M-3s were not quite over the plate.

  Dentally, the passenger looked eighteen to twenty-five.

  Race was still a crapshoot.

  Back to the zygomatic arch.

  Yep. Mongoloid-looking cheeks.

  Back to the maxilla and frontal.

  Yep. Caucasoid-looking nose.

  As I was staring at the frontal bone, an irregularity on the nasal caught my eye. I carried the fragment to the scope and adjusted focus.

  Under magnification the irregularity looked circular and more porous than the surrounding bone. The edges of the circle were clearly defined.

  A puzzling lesion, unlike usual findings in nasal bones. I had no idea what it meant.

  I spent the next hour mining fragments, stripping flesh, and recording observations. Though I found no other signs of disease, I decided to request X rays of the rest of the skeleton. The nasal lesion looked active, suggesting a chronic condition of some sort.

  At three-thirty, Hawkins delivered the ribs and pubes. He promised to take a full set of films when Larabee finished with the passenger’s body.

  I was placing the pubes and ribs in a solution of hot water and Spic and Span when Larabee entered, followed by Sheila Jansen. Today the NTSB investigator wore black jeans and a sleeveless red shirt.

  Hours of exposure had numbed me to the smell of the passenger’s unrefrigerated head, now decomposing on my table. My greasy, soot-stained gloves and scrubs undoubtedly added to the room’s bouquet.

  Jansen’s lips and nostrils tightened. Her expression went opaque as she attempted to regain control of her face.

  “Time to swap stories?” I asked, peeling off mask and gloves and tossing them into a biohazard container.

  Jansen nodded.

  “Why don’t I meet you two in the conference room?”

  “Good idea,” Larabee said.

  When I joined them, the ME was going over his findings.

  “—multiple traumatic injuries.”

  “Soot in the airways?” Jansen asked.

  “No.”

  “That makes sense,” Jansen said. “When the plane slammed the cliff face, the fuel tanks ruptured. There was immediate ignition and fireball. I figure both victims died on impact.”

  “External burning was severe, but I didn’t find a lot of deep-tissue destruction.” Larabee.

  “After impact gravity took over and the fuel cascaded down the cliff face,” Jansen explained.

  In my mind’s eye I saw the trail of burned vegetation.

  “So the victims were exposed to the fireball effect of the explosion, but the burning wouldn’t have lasted very long.”

  “That fits,” Larabee said.

  “Both bodies show evidence of a black residue,” I said, settling into a chair. “Especially the passenger.”

  “I found the same stuff all over the cockpit. I’ve sent a sample off for testing.”

  “We’re screening for alcohol, amphetamines, methamphetamines, barbiturates, cannabinoids, opiates,” Larabee said. “If these guys were flying high, we’ll catch it.”

  “You’re calling them guys.” Jansen.

  “Pilot was a white male, probably in his thirties, five-eight to five-ten, lots of dental work, great tattoo.”

  Jansen was nodding as she wrote it all down.

  “Passenger was also male. Taller. With his head, that is.” He turned to me. “Tempe?”

  “Probably early twenties,” I said.

  “Racial background?” Jansen asked.

  “Yes.”

  She looked up.

  “I’m working on it.”

  “Any unique identifiers?”

  “At least two fillings.” I pictured the nasal. “And he had something going on with his nose. I’ll let you know on that, too.”

  “My turn.” Jansen flipped pages in her notebook. “The plane was registered to one Richard Donald Dorton. Ricky Don to his friends.”

  “Age?” I asked.

  “Fifty-two. But Dorton wasn’t flying yesterday. He’s riding out the heat wave at Grandfather Mountain. Claims he left the Cessna safe and sound at a private airstrip near Concord.”

  “Did anyone see the plane take off?” I asked.

  “No.”

  “Flight plan?”

  “No.”

  “And no one spotted it in flight.”

  “No.”

  “Do you know why it crashed?”

  “Pilot flew it into a rock face.”

  We let that hang a moment.

  “Who is Ricky Don Dorton?” I asked.

  “Ricky Don Dorton owns two strip joints, the Club of Jacks and the Heart of Queens, both in Kannapolis. That’s a mill town just north of here, right?”

  Nods all around.

  “Ricky Don supplied sleaze for gentlemen of every lifestyle.”

  “Man’s a poet.” Larabee.

  “Man’s a lizard.” Jansen. “But a rich lizard. The Cessna-210’s just one of his many toys.”

  “Are tits and ass that profitable?” I asked.

  Jansen gave a beats-me shrug.

  “Could it be that Ricky Don is also in the import business?” I asked.

  “That thought has crossed the minds of local law enforcement. They’ve had Dorton under surveillance for some time.”

  “Let me guess,” I said. “Ricky Don doesn’t hang with the Baptist choir.”

  Larabee clapped me on the shoulder. “She’s good, isn’t she?”

  Jansen smiled. “One problem. The plane was clean.”

  “No drugs?”

  “Nothing so far.”

  We all stood.

  I asked one last question.

  “Why would a grown man call himself Ricky Don?” It sounded like one of Harry’s Texas saloons.

  “Perhaps he doesn’t want to appear pretentious.”

  “I see,” I said.

  I didn’t.

  * * *

  It was four-thirty by the time Jansen left. I wanted to go home, take another long shower, tap into the Victoria’s Secret knockoff reserve, and spend the evening with Ryan.

  But I also wanted to split for the beach first thing in the morning.

  And I had bear bones in the cooler.

  If annoying tasks are avoidable, I am a world-class procrastinator. I advance mail from pile to pile, then chuck it when the deadline or opportunity has passed. I wait out snow until it melts. I coexist with dandelions and weeds. My garden relies on rain.

  Conversely, unfinished but ultimately unavoidable chores hang over my head like guillotine blades. All through school I submitted papers in advance of due dates. I never pulled an all-nighter. I pay bills on time. I can’t rest until the inescapable is put to bed.

  I phoned Ryan’s cell. Four rings, then his voice requested a message in French then in English.

  “Get cooking, slick. I’ll be home by seven.”

  Hanging up, I questioned the wisdom of my phrasing. I was referring to steak and potatoes. Ryan might take it to mean something else.

  I tried Geneva Banks. Still no answer.

  I considered Skinny Slidell.

  Avoidable.

  Returning to the autopsy room, I tied on a new paper apron, changed the soaking solution for the pubes and ribs, and packed up the remains of the passenger’s skull. Then I went to the cooler, reunited the tubs with their headless owner, and rolled out The Three Bears.

  Only a portion of one bag remained unexamined. How long could it take?

  Untwisting the plastic, I dumped the contents onto the table.

  The large bones took ten minutes. All bear.

  I was laying down the last tibia when something crawled into my peripheral vision. I turned to the mound of smaller material I’d scooped into a pile by my left elbow.

  My eyes went to an object that had rolled free.

  My heart plunged.

  I poked through the pile, teased free another.

  My fingers curled into fists and my head flopped forward like a Dalí clock.

  I DREW A DEEP BREATH, OPENED MY EYES, AND REEXAMINED THE two small bones. One was cuboid with a hooklike process. The other resembled a miniature, half-carved bust.

  Neither had anything to do with Ursus.

  Damn!

  My heart was in free fall.

  Scooping the carpals onto my glove, I sought out Larabee. He was in his office.

  I held out the bones.

  He glanced at them, then up at me.

  “A hamate and a capitate,” I said.

  “From the Goldilocks gang?”

  I nodded.

  “Paw?”

  “Hand.”

  His face skewed into a frown.

  “Human?”

  “Very.”

  “You’re sure?”

  I did not reply.

  “Damn!” Larabee tossed his pen onto the desk.

  “My thought precisely.”

  He leaned back in his chair.

  “Damn it to blue blazes!”

  “I’ll go with that, too.”

  “We’ll have to haul ass back out there.”

  “Yes.”

  “If that”—he jabbed a thumb at my upturned palm—“hand is recent, whoever did the burying might rethink his arrangement.”

  “Could be searching for a shovel as we speak.”

  “Tomorrow?”

  I nodded.

  Larabee reached for the phone. “Could it be an old unmarked grave?”

  “Anything’s possible.”

  I didn’t believe it.

  * * *

  Joe Hawkins dropped me at the annex.

  Ryan was stretched out watching an I Love Lucy rerun. His day had obviously included shopping, for he now featured plaid shorts and a T-shirt that proclaimed BEER: NOT JUST FOR BREAKFAST ANYMORE. Though his face was tanned, his legs were the color of uncooked perch.

  Boyd was dozing at his end of the couch.

  The coffee table held a dead Heineken and a cereal bowl containing a half-dozen chips. An empty bowl sat on the floor.

  Four eyes scanned me when I appeared in the doorway. Birdie was sulking out of sight.

  Boyd slunk to the floor.

  “Bonjour, Madam La Docteure.”

  I allowed my pack and purse to slide from my shoulder.

  “Rough day?” Ryan asked.

  I nodded, smiled. “Hope yours was better.”

  “Hooch and I went to Kings Mountain.”

  “The national park?”

  “The Yanks kicked some serious British butt there, right, podna?” He scratched Boyd’s ear. Boyd laid his chin on Ryan’s chest.

  While I was up to my elbows in putrid flesh, these two were strolling down history lane. At least someone had enjoyed the day.

  Ryan palmed chips into his mouth. Boyd’s eyes followed his hand.

  “Hooch kicked some serious squirrel butt.”

  I crossed to the couch. Ryan drew back his feet, and I dropped into the spot Boyd had vacated.

  Boyd sniffed Ryan’s chip bowl. I nudged him and he turned and gave me the eyebrows.

  Lucy and Ethel were hiding in a closet, trying to change out of work clothes. Lucy was cautioning Ethel not to tell Ricky.

  “Why doesn’t she just get a job?” Ryan asked.

  “Ricky won’t let her.”

  I thought about Ricky Don Dorton.

  “Turns out the Cessna belongs to a local bar owner who’s probably running drugs on the side.”

  “Who’s that?”

  “Doesn’t matter.” I wanted no comments on the naming preferences of my Dixie brethren. “The plane was clean and the owner wasn’t flying.”

  “The fine citizen’s aircraft was stolen.”

  “Yep.”

  “I hate it when that happens to me.”

  I cuffed Ryan on the chest and gave him the spare-me face.

  “Who was on board?”

  “Don’t know. The NTSB investigator is liaising with the cops. They’ll check their missing persons, then run our descriptors through NCIC.”

  Ryan fought back a smile.

  “But you already know that.” I scratched at a mosquito bite on my elbow. “I’ve got some bad news.”

  Boyd shifted his chin to my knee.

  “Remember the animal bones I mentioned?”