"Holy shit. Why shirts and socks and nothing else?"

I wasn't in the mood for a lecture.

"That's right," he sniggered, staring into the pit. "They made them go shoeless and carry their shoes. But where the fuck are their pants?"

"Ashes to ashes, remember?" I said curtly

"Shit to shit is more like it." His voice was tense with excitement, as though the scrambler had been ratcheted up.

I found his cal ousness irritating. Death hurts. It's as simple as that. It hurts those who die, it hurts those who love them, and it hurts those who find them.

"Actual y, you've got it backward," I spat. "It's the shit that survives longest. Natural fibers, like cotton Levi's, decompose much sooner than synthetics.

Your buddies were into polyester."

"Fuck, do they look gross. Anything else in there with them?" he asked, peering into the grave. His eyes glinted, like those of a rat sitting on a carcass.

"Bad decision about that party, eh?" he snorted.

Yes, I thought. A deadly decision.

I began cleaning the blade of my trowel, using activity to calm myself. Two bodies lay dead at our feet and this little rodent was getting high on it.

I turned to check if the photographers had finished and saw Quickwater walking in my direction.

Great. Make my day, I thought, hoping he was looking for someone else. He wasn't. I watched him approach with as much enthusiasm as I'd have for frostbite.

Quickwater drew close and dril ed me with one of his looks, his face rigid as granite. He smel ed of male sweat and pine, and I realized he'd worked throughout the afternoon, While others had taken breaks to check the progress at the main burial, Quickwater had stayed at his task. Maybe he just wanted to keep some distance between us. Fine with me.

"There's something you need to see."

There was a stil ness about him I found unnerving. I waited for further explanation, but Quickwater merely turned and walked back toward his site, ful y confident that I would fol ow.

Arrogant prick, I thought.

The trees were casting long shadows, and the temperature was fal ing by the minute. I looked at my watch. Almost six. The bologna and cheese seemed like prehistory.

This better be good, I thought.

I trudged across the cleared area to coordinates 3 North 9 East, the site of the disturbance to which Quickwater's team had been assigned. I was amazed to see they'd dug my entire grid.

The object of Quickwater's concern lay one meter down, left in place as I'd instructed. The team had excavated the rest of the square to a depth of two meters.

"That's it?"

Quickwater nodded.

"Nothing else?"

His expression did not change.