“His home. His office. His lab. Thinking about setting up a séance with his dead granny.” Slidel spoke to someone else, came back to me.

“Department secretary final y hooked me up with his top-secret, tel -you-and-I’l -have-to-kil -you cel phone number. Guy sounded like he was wearing fuchsia tights.”

“And?”

“Walter”—Slidel gave the name a three-note tril —“was excavating on some island off Beaufort, South Carolina. Said he’d get hold of his grad student to read him the Lancaster report as soon as he finished digging up some dead Indian.”

“That was nice of him.”

“Yeah. I’m thinking of mailing him some chocolate chips.”

“Did you run the descriptors through NCIC?”

“Not sure about sex, not sure about time of death. No dentals, tattoos, prints, height, weight. I’d get a printout the length of Soldier Field.” Slidel was right. Based on what we knew, a national database search of missing persons would be pointless. I changed tacks.

“Ryan and I just met with an ornithologist. Your feathers come from a bird that’s been extinct in the wild since 2000.”

“How’d they get into Pounder’s basement?”

“Good question.”

“Got a good answer?”

“These birds can go for a hundred thousand dol ars.”

“You’re shitting me. Who’d pay a hundred grand for a bird?”

“People with more money than brains.”

“That legal?”

“Not if the bird is wild.”

“You’re thinking black market?”

“Could explain why the feathers were hidden with the coke.”

“Doesn’t Tweetie have to be chirping to bring the bucks?”

“It could have died in transport.”

“So the mope saves the feathers thinking they might be worth something.”

“And buries the carcass with the other animals he’s slaughtered.”

“The bear bones?”

“That’s what I’m thinking.”

“Thought you said they were garden-variety black bears.”

“I did.”

“That an endangered species?”

“No.”

A moment of empty air.

“Doesn’t hang,” Slidel said.

“Why so many bears?”

“Where’s the money?”

That had been Ryan’s question, too.

“I’m not sure, but I intend to find out.”

And I knew just whom I was going to ask.

19

FOR THE FIRST DAY IN ALMOST A WEEK,THERE WAS NO NEED TOgo to the MCME. I’d done what I could with the privy remains, the Cessna passenger, and the bears. Slidel could get the feathers personal y if he needed them quickly.

Over gril ed cheese sandwiches at Pike’s Soda Shop, Ryan and I discussed the wisdom of leaving for the beach. We decided it was better to hold off for a few days than to be yanked back to Charlotte.