You can tell Vern I appreciate that, Kate said.

Conversation wandered around a little after that, from the computer installation just begun at the school to the ongoing talks with three different communications companies vying with one another to provide cell phone access to the Park. At one point, Haynes said, Sergeant Chopin told us that the body in the woods was confirmed as Dewayne Gammons.

Whatever misgivings Kate had had over the gentleman who had walked into the Park to make of himself a bear‘s breakfast, they had waned over the intervening month, to the point that it took her a moment to place the name. Oh yeah, she said, the blood matched the employee record. What with the note and his girlfriend and his coworkers saying he was depressed, the coroner came back with suicide. He had a girlfriend?

Yeah, maybe not girlfriend, Kate said, but I got the feeling it might have been if he hadn‘t gone into the woods. But I suppose if he‘d had any real feeling for her he wouldn‘t have gone into the woods in the first place. She shook her head. I don‘t know, I guess it‘s one of the more environmentally friendly ways to off yourself. Was the, what, the un-girlfriend very upset?

Kate looked at her. You know, for a workforce of only a hundred you people sure don‘t talk to each other a lot.

Haynes looked startled. What do you mean?

You didn‘t even know who Gammons was when Sergeant Chopin asked you about him. Haynes looked blank, and Kate reminded her. At the café the day his body was found.

Haynes shifted in her seat and looked defensive. The work‘s pretty intense, especially when they‘re pulling five core samples out of the ground every day. Rick Allen was the only worker who wasn‘t staff who I had a lot to do with. He was‘? What, you lose another employee?

Haynes grimaced. We lose some with every paycheck. Attrition is always a problem on a job like this. Working out in the middle of nowhere isn‘t everyone‘s cup of tea. It‘ll get better when we go into production and the camp gets bigger, more amenities, a movie theater, a swimming pool.

Kate remembered Lyda saying more or less the same thing. Did the mine notify Gammons‘s next of kin?

He didn‘t have any, Haynes said.

Kate stared at her. None?

He didn‘t put an emergency contact on his employee form. Kate already knew that from Lyda Blue. Lyda called his high school and the principal barely remembered him, much less his parents. She called his voc ed school and they barely remembered Gammons, either. Vern and I talked it over and decided we‘d done as much as we could. Maybe someone will come looking.

Kate wondered what it would be like to have no one looking for you if you disappeared. How‘s Lyda doing?

Haynes looked surprised. Fine. One of the best exec assistants I‘ve ever worked with, smart, takes the initiative, never makes the same mistake twice. Why? Then in sudden realization, Lyda was Gammons‘s girlfriend?