Simon Midkiff: Doctorate from Oxford, 1955. Duke, 1955 to 1961. University of Tennessee, 1961 to 1968. Attended Tramper funeral in 1959. Knew Davenport (or was at least at the same funeral). Lied about working for Department of Cultural Resources.

When I'd finished I spread the slips on the table and studied them. Then I began arranging them according to different criteria, starting with gender. The piles were very lopsided, the smaler containing only Edna Farrel, Wilow Lynette Gist, and Ruby McCready. I created a slip for Martha Rose Gist. Nothing seemed to connect the women.

Next I tried race. Charlie Wayne Tramper and the Gist-Mitchel lineage went into one pile, along with the coyote foot. I began a chart and drew a line between Jeremiah Mitchel and the foot.

Age. Again I was struck by the number of old people. Though Henry Arlen Preston had managed to die in bed, appropriate, perhaps, for a distinguished judge, few others on the list had had that luxury. Tucker Adams, seventy-two. Charlie Wayne Tramper, seventy-four. Jeremiah Mitchel, seventy-two. I made out a slip for the missing fisherman, George Adair, sixty-seven. Al were old.

The window was moving from black to pewter. I decided to sort by birth dates. Nothing. I tried death dates.

Judge Henry Arlen Preston passed away in 1943. According to his tombstone, Tucker Adams also died in 1943. I remembered the feature article on Preston, the brief inside report on Adams's disappearance less than a week later. I placed their slips together.

A. A. Birkby died in 1959. Charlie Wayne Tramper died in 1959. When was the wreck in which Birkby died? May. The same month Charlie Wayne went missing.

Oh?

I paired the slips.

Edna Farrel died in 1949. Hadn't someone drowned just the day before?

Sheldon Brodie, professor of biology at Appalachian State University. Brodie's body was found. Farrel's wasn't.

I made a slip for Brodie and set it with the one for Edna Farrel.

I stared at the three sets of paired slips. Was it a pattern? Someone is kiled or dies, within days another death occurs? Were people dying in pairs?

I started a list of questions.

Edna Farrel's age?

Earlier drowning. Strawberry pie. Age? Date?

Tucker Adams's cause of death?

Jeremiah Mitchel, February. George Adair, September. Others?

The room was the color of the rising sun, and I could hear bird sounds through the closed window. A rectangle of light fel across the table, iluminating my questions and scribbled notes.

I stared at the paired slips, feeling there was something else. Something important. Something my subconscious had not had time to place in the colage.

===OO=OOO=OO===

Laslo was devouring biscuits and gravy when I arrived at the Everett Street Diner. I ordered pecan pancakes, juice, and coffee. While we ate, he told me about the conference he was going to attend at UNC-Ashevile. I told him about Crowe's inability to obtain a search warrant.

'So the good old boys are skeptical,' he said, nodding to the waitress that he had finished.