Knowing it would be a late night, I detoured toLa Paz , a Mexican restaurant at South End, for carryout enchiladas. Guacamole and extra sour cream for Birdie.

My home is referred to as the “coach house annex,” or simply the “annex” by old-timers at Sharon Hal , a nineteenth-century manor-turned-condo-complex in theMyersPark neighborhood in southeastCharlotte . No one knows why the annex was built. It is a strange little outbuilding that doesn’t appear on the estate’s original plans. The hal is there. The coach house. The herb and formal gardens. No annex.

No matter. Though cramped, the place is perfect for me. Bedroom and bath up. Kitchen, dining room, parlor, guest room/study down. Twelve hundred square feet. What realtors cal “cozy.”

By six forty-five I was parked beside my patio.

The annex was blissful y quiet. Entering through the kitchen, I heard nothing but the hum of the Frigidaire and the soft ticking of Gran Brennan’s mantel clock.

“Hey, Bird.”

My cat did not appear.

“Birdie.”

No cat.

Setting down my dinner, purse, and briefcase, I crossed to the refrigerator and popped a can of Diet Coke. When I turned, Birdie was stretching in the dining room doorway.

“Never miss the sound of a pop-top, do you, big guy?”

I went over and scratched his ears.

Birdie sat, shot a leg in the air, and began licking his genitals.

I knocked back a swig of Coke. Not Pinot, but it would do. My days of boogying with Pinot were over. OrShiraz , or Heineken, or cheap Merlot. It had been a long struggle but that curtain was down for good.

Did I miss alcohol? Damn right. Sometimes so much I could taste and smel it in my sleep. What I didn’t miss were the mornings after. The trembling hands, the dilated brain, the self-loathing, the anxiety over words and actions not remembered.

From now on, Coke. The real thing.

The rest of the evening I spent writing reports. Birdie hung in until the guacamole and sour cream ran out. Then he lay on the couch, paws in the air, and dozed.

In addition to Tamela Banks’s baby, I’d examined three sets of remains since my return toCharlotte fromMontreal . Each required a report.

A partial y skeletonized corpse was discovered under a pile of tires at a dump inGastonia . Female, white, twenty-seven to thirty-two years of age, five-foot-two to five-foot-five in height. Extensive dental work. Healed fractures of the nose, right maxil a, and jaw. Sharp instrument trauma on the anterior ribs and sternum. Defense wounds on the hands. Probable homicide.

A boater onLakeNorman had snagged a portion of an upper arm. Adult, probably white, probably male. Height five-foot-six to six feet.

A skul was found on the banks of Sugar Creek. Older adult, female, black, no teeth. Not recent. Probably a disturbed cemetery burial.