“Some of her belongings also appear to be unaccounted for. Others are scattered, and possibly a necklace was broken and whatever might have been on it is missing at the moment.” I don’t mention the gold skull.

I don’t want to tell anybody what to look for. I continue to remind myself to be careful about influencing the investigation because of a personal theory I might have based on an experience that may be nothing more than a fluke. So what if I met Elisa Vandersteel—if that’s what turns out to be the undisputed truth? What does that have to do with her death or anything we may or may not find here?

Even as I try to dismiss the encounter as irrelevant I know it’s not. If nothing else, it won’t be helpful if it comes out in court that I met her not long before she was murdered. It won’t make the case stronger. Quite the opposite. The defense will use it against me. I’ll be accused of not being objective, of being influenced and distracted by crossing the path of the victim not once but twice just hours before her death.

“Forcibly removed,” Harold assumes about the broken chain I mentioned.

“Assuming the jewelry is hers, that’s what it looks like,” I reply.

“Sounds like there was a violent struggle and the perpetrator tried to stage something after the fact,” he suggests, and their headlamps are blinding when they turn toward me.

“There was violence,” I reply. “But I can’t say if there was a struggle because I don’t know enough yet. As soon as we have the enclosure up, I’ll know a lot more.”

“We had a discussion about what would be best. We thought you’d want the canopied tent, and we recommended that to Marino.” Harold always sounds a little unctuous, as if he’s greeting people at the chapel door or giving a tour of a casket showroom or a slumber parlor. “We know the area of course. But we also pulled up a map.”

I glance up at Eliot House’s upper-story student apartments, and I can see several people looking out the lighted windows. I look at the bridge, and there’s a steady stream of cars on it in both directions. Aluminum clinks and clacks, and I hear the sound of bags shoved around on the ground.

“Will you post her tonight?” Rusty asks.

“Usually I would wait until the morning. But this isn’t usual,” I reply.

“Because I’m wondering if Anne should come in.” He lifts out another folded frame that’s cumbersome but lightweight, and his headlamp is a blazing Cyclops eye. “If so, she should be heading back to the CFC now, in other words.”

The scaffolding of tent sections going up around us brings to mind a crazed Stonehenge fashioned of silver tubes.