Hawkins and Tim Larabee were engaged in conversation outside the histology room. The ME looked agitated.

I was retreating when Larabee spotted me.

“Tempe. I’m glad to see you. I’ve been phoning your cel .” He was wearing jeans and a tweedy golf shirt with black col ar and trim. His hair was wet, as though he’d just showered.

“I don’t bring my purse to an autopsy.”

He looked past me to the table.

“That the stuff from out near Cowans Ford?”

“Yes.”

“Animal?”

“Uh-huh.”

“Good. I need your help on something else.”

Oh, no.

“I got a cal from the Davidson PD about an hour ago. A smal plane went down just past one.”

“Where?”

“East of Davidson, that spot whereMecklenburgCounty corners out to meet Cabarrus and Iredel .”

“Tim, I’m pretty—”

“Plane slammed into a rock face, then firebal ed.”

“How many on board?”

“That’s unclear.”

“Can’t Joe help you out?”

“If the victims are both burned and segmented, it’l take a trained eye to spot the pieces.” This couldn’t be happening.

I checked my watch. Two-forty. Ninety minutes to touchdown.

Larabee was gazing at me with soulful eyes.

“I have to clean up and make a few phone cal s.”

Larabee reached out and squeezed my upper arm.

“I knew I could count on you.”

Tel that to Detective Studpuppy, who’l be hailing a cab in an hour and a half. Alone.

I hoped I’d make it home before he was sound asleep.

6

AT4P.M.THE TEMPERATURE WAS NINETY-SEVEN,THE HUMIDITYroughly the same. Slam dunk for the record keepers.

The crash site was almost an hour north of town, in the far northeastern corner of the county. Unlike theLakeNorman sector to the west, with its Sea-Doos and Hobie Cats, and J-32s, this part ofMecklenburg was corn and soybeans.

Joe Hawkins was already there when Larabee and I pul ed up in his Land Rover. The DI was smoking a cigaril o, leaning against a quarter panel of the transport van.

“Where’d she go down?” I asked, slinging my backpack over a shoulder.

Hawkins pointed with a sideways gesture of his cigaril o.

“How far?” I was already perspiring.

“’Bout two hundred yards.”

By the time our little trio traversed three cornfields, Larabee and Hawkins with the equipment locker, I with my pack, we were wheezy, itchy, and thoroughly soaked.

Though smal er than usual, the normal cast of players was present. Cops. Firemen. A journalist. Locals, viewing the proceedings like tourists on a double-decker.

Someone had run crime scene tape around the perimeter of the wreckage. Looking at it across the field, I was struck by how little there seemed to be.

Two fire trucks sat outside the yel ow tape, scars of flattened cornstalks running up to their tires. They were at ease now, but I could see that a lot of water had been pumped onto the wreckage.