later. I placed their slips together.
A. A. Birkby died in 1959. Charlie Wayne Tramper died in 1959. When was the wreck in which Birkby died? May. The same month Charlie Wayne went missing.
Oh?
I paired the slips.
Edna Farrell died in 1949. Hadn't someone drowned just the day before?
Sheldon Brodie, professor of biology at Appalachian State University. Brodie's body was found. Farrell's wasn't.
I made a slip for Brodie and set it with the one for Edna Farrell.
I stared at the three sets of paired slips. Was it a pattern? Someone is killed or dies, within days another death occurs? Were people dying in pairs?
I started a list of questions.
Edna Farrell's age?
Earlier drowning. Strawberry pie. Age? Date?
Tucker Adams's cause of death?
Jeremiah Mitchell, February. George Adair, September. Others?
The room was the color of the rising sun, and I could hear bird sounds through the closed window. A rectangle of light fell across the table, illuminating my questions and scribbled notes.
I stared at the paired slips, feeling there was something else. Something important. Something my subconscious had not had time to place in the collage.
Laslo was devouring biscuits and gravy when I arrived at the Everett Street Diner. I ordered pecan pancakes, juice, and coffee. While we ate, he told me about the conference he was going to attend at UNC-Asheville. I told him about Crowe's inability to obtain a search warrant.
“So the good old boys are skeptical,” he said, nodding to the waitress that he had finished.
“And girls. The DA is a woman.”
“Then this may not help.”
He pulled a paper from his briefcase and handed it to me. As I read, the waitress refilled our cups. I looked up when I'd finished.
“Basically the report agrees with what you told me on Monday at your lab.”
“Yes. Except for the part about the caproic and heptanoic acid concentrations.”
“The conclusion that they look unusually high.”
“Yes.”
“What does that mean?”
“Elevated levels of the longer-chained VFAs usually mean the corpse has been exposed to cold, or that it underwent a period of decreased insect and bacterial activity.”
“Does that alter your estimate of time since death?”
“I still think decomposition began in late summer.”
“Then what's the significance?”
“I'm not sure.”
“Is this a common finding?”
“Not really.”
“Great. That will convert the disbelievers.”
“Maybe this will be more helpful.”
This time he took a small plastic vial from his briefcase.
“I found this when filtering the rest of your soil sample.”
The container held a tiny white chip, no larger than a grain of rice. I unscrewed the cap, slid the object onto my palm, and studied it closely.
“It's a fragment of tooth root,” I said.
“That's what I thought, so I didn't treat it with anything, just brushed off the dirt.”
“Holy shit.”
“That's what I thought.”
“Did you take a peek under the scope?”
“Yep.”
“How does the pulp chamber look?”
“Chock-full.”
