“Does the whole freakazoid world think I was drunk?”

“Some do.”

“I saw Annaliese Ruben murdered. She was standing six feet from me. Afterward I took a shot of Scotch to calm myself.”

“That’s another reason we do it.”

“Yes.”

We locked eyes. Hers were as green as mine.

“Do you believe me?” I asked.

“Sergeant Hasty says you’re solid.”

Does he?

“I understand you know Nellie Snook,” she said. “Lives on Ragged Ass.”

“She tells an interesting tale.”

King gave a go-ahead gesture with one hand.

I explained the dead babies, the relationship between Snook and Ruben, Scarborough and Snook. I relayed what Snook had said about Scarborough protecting Ruben. She listened without interrupting.

“Now Ruben and Scarborough are both dead,” I concluded.

“Runs in the family, I’m afraid.”

“That’s cold.” I remembered Snook’s comment about anglophone attitudes toward aboriginals.

“Don’t mean it to be. I’m just stating a fact. Snook’s other half brother also died violently.”

“Daryl Beck.”

“Yes.”

“Was Beck drinking or doping at the time of his death?”

“Daryl had his problems.”

“You knew him?”

“I might have seen him now and again.”

Her eyes held steady on mine. I knew what she was saying. By not saying. She and Beck had attended the same meetings. She was respecting the A.A. bond of privacy.

“Did the Coroners Service investigate Beck’s death?” I asked.

“We did. You’ve got to understand, Beck spent a lot of years waking up in his own vomit or sleeping off benders in the tank. Everyone assumed he got wasted that night and passed out while smoking.”

“The chief coroner ruled his death accidental,” I guessed.

“He did.” Something in King’s voice suggested I’d struck a chord.

“Do you disagree?”

King smiled in a way that imparted no humor. “There wasn’t much of Daryl left to examine, and we’re not exactly flush with anthropologist help up here. Besides, who’d want to kill the town drunk?”

“Snook says Beck was working toward a high school GED.”

“I could verify that.” She hesitated. Decided. “That call I just finished was Nellie Snook. Seems you made quite an impression.”

“That’s news to me.”

“Yeah. I heard about the frog pond.”

You gotta love small towns.

“Why did Snook phone you?”

“She wants me to dig her brother up.”

“What?” I was stunned. “Why? Does she suspect murder? Arson?”

“Snook’s always questioned the coroner’s finding of accidental death. She knows you’re here, and she understands what you do.”

“You have the authority to order an exhumation?”

“At the request of the family.”

This was insane. I’d gone from dead babies to a murdered hooker to a possible drug war. Now I was being asked to examine a corpse four years in the ground.