“Fort Mil . Gaffney. Chester.” Rinaldi flapped a long, bony hand. “Nothing is centralized down there, it’s hard to backtrack.” Unlike the Tarheel State, South Carolina relies on a coroner system, with practitioners operating independently in each county. Coroners are elected. A nurse, a funeral director, a cemetery owner. Few are trained in medicine, fewer stil in forensic pathology. Autopsies are farmed out to local doctors.

“Most South Carolina coroners don’t have the facilities to keep a corpse very long.”

“Got that damn straight,” Slidel snorted. “Gave Michael Jordan’s daddy, what, three days before they smoked him?” Slidel had the tact of a sledgehammer. But he was right.

“I’ve sent out a query,” Rinaldi said. “I hope to hear back by the end of the day.”

“Was this headless, handless body in good shape?”

“As I recal , the remains were skeletonized. But it wasn’t relevant to anything we were investigating at the time, so I didn’t take much notice.”

“Black or white?”

Rinaldi raised then dropped his shoulders.

“Male or female?”

“Definitely,” Rinaldi said.

When the detectives had gone I phoned the university. A col eague could look at the feathers the fol owing day.

Next I went to the cooler and rol ed out the gurney with the animal remains. I packaged everything that looked like bird, and placed the bundle in a sack with Rinaldi’s baggie of feathers.

Exchanging the animal gurney for that holding the privy remains, I spent the next several hours doing as thorough an analysis as possible.

My initial impressions changed little, though I was able to be more precise on the age estimate.

Race: white.

Age: twenty-five to forty years.

Sex: rol the dice.

When I returned to my office, Ryan was leafing through a copy ofCreative Loafing,Nikes resting on the edge of my desk. He was wearing the same luau shirt and shorts he’d had on that morning and a Winston Cup cap. He looked like Hawaii Five-O does NASCAR.

“Have a good day?”

“Latta Plantation then Freedom Park.”

“Didn’t know you were such a history buff.”

“Hooch can’t get enough of the stuff.”

“Where is he?”

“The cal of Alpo overpowered the cal of the wild.”

“Surprised he let you out on your own.”

“When last seen, man’s best friend was investigating the contents of an Oreo bag.”

“Chocolate is bad for dogs.”

“We discussed that. Hooch thought he could handle it.”

“If Hooch guessed wrong, you’re cleaning the carpet.”

“Making progress with privy man?”

“Apt segue.” Tossing the privy case folder onto my desk, I dropped into my chair. “I just finished.”

“That took a while,” Ryan said.

“Toody and Muldoon came by twice today.”

“Slidel and his partner?”

I nodded.

“Aren’t you kind of hard on the guy?”

“Slidel probably needs instructions to make ice cubes.”

“Is he real y that stupid?”

I thought about that.