RYAN LEFT EARLY THE NEXT MORNING. SOMETHING ABOUT ALL-WEATHERradials and balance and a warped rim. I am not a good listener at 7A.M. Nor am I the least bit interested in tires.

I am interested in air routing between Charlotte and Montreal. I can recite the entire USAirways flight schedule. Knowing the daily direct flight had been eliminated, I was certain Jake wouldn’t arrive before midafternoon. I rol ed over and went back to sleep.

A bagel and coffee around eight, and I headed to the lab. I was leaving for five days, and knew the Ferris family was anxious for information.

And for the body.

I spent another Elmer’s morning joining the dozens of segments I’d built the day before. Like assembling atoms into molecules into whole cel s, I built larger and larger sections of vault.

The facial bones were a different story. Splintering was extensive, either due to the cats, or simply due to the fragile nature of the bones themselves.

There would be no reconstructing the left side of Ferris’s face.

Nevertheless, a pattern emerged.

Though the lines were complex, it appeared that no break crossed the starburst radiating from the hole behind Ferris’s right ear. Fracture sequencing pointed to that wound as the entrance.

But why were the hole’s edges beveled on the outside of the skul ? An entrance site should have been beveled on the inside.

I could think of one explanation, but fragments were missing from the area immediately above and to the left of the defect. To be certain, I’d need those fragments.

At two I wrote LaManche a note, explaining what I lacked. I reminded him that I was going to the annual meeting of the American Academy of Forensic Sciences in New Orleans, and that I would return to Montreal Wednesday night.

For the next two hours I ran errands. Bank. Dry cleaner. Cat chow. Birdseed. Ryan had agreed to take Birdie and Charlie, but the man has interesting views on pet care. I wanted to raise the odds in favor of proper feeding.

Jake phoned as I was driving underground into my garage. He was in the outer vestibule. Hurrying upstairs, I let him in the front door and led him down the corridor to my condo.

As we walked, I remembered the first time I’d laid eyes on Jake Drum. I was new to UNCC, and had met few faculty members outside my discipline.

None from the Department of Religious Studies. Jake appeared in my lab late one evening, at a time when assaults on female students had caused security announcements to be broadcast campus-wide.

I was nervous as a mouse staring across a tank at an underweight python.

My fears were ungrounded. Jake had a question concerning bone preservation.

“Tea?” I offered now.

“You bet. I got pretzels and Sprite on the plane.”

“The dishes are behind you.”