Apple picking? Based on the state of preservation, I guessed this individual had died more recently than those buried in the tunnel graves. The apple farmer, Albert Odel?

Skeleton number one was that of an elderly white female with advanced arthritis and only seven teeth. Mary Francis Rafferty, the woman from Dilsboro whose daughter had found her mother's house empty in 1972?

By late afternoon Saturday, I felt confident I had matched the bones with their proper names. Lucy Crowe helped by finding Albert Odel's dental records, the Reverend Luke Bowman by remembering Tucker Adams's height. Six foot three.

And I had a pretty good idea as to manner of death.

The hyoid is a smal, horseshoe-shaped bone embedded in the soft tissue of the neck, high up behind the lower jaw. In the elderly, whose bones are often brittle, the hyoid fractures when its wings are compressed. The most common source of compressive force is strangulation.

Tommy Albright phoned as I was preparing to close up.

'Find any more hyoid fractures?'

'Five out of the six.'

'Mitchel, too. He must have put up a heluva fight. When they couldn't strangle him, they smashed his head in.'

'Adair?'

'No. But there's petechial hemorrhage.'

Petechiae are minute blood clots that appear as dots in the eyes and throat, and are strong indicators of asphyxiation.

'Who the hel would want to strangle old people?'

I did not answer. I'd seen other trauma on the skeletons. Trauma I found puzzling. Trauma I would not mention until I understood more.

When he hung up, I went to burial four, picked up the thighbones, and brought them to the magnifier light.

Yes. It was there. It was real.

I colected the femora from every skeleton, and took the bones to a dissecting scope.

Tiny grooves circled each right proximal shaft and ran the length of each linea aspera, the roughened ridge for muscle attachment on the back side of the bone. Other gashes ran horizontaly, above and below the joint surfaces. Though the number of marks varied, their distribution was consistent from victim to victim.

I cranked the magnification as high as it would

go. When I focused, the grooves crystalized into

sharp-edged crevices, V-shaped in cross section.

Cut marks. But how could that be? I'd seen cut marks on bone, but only in cases of dismemberment. Except for Charlie Wayne Tramper and Jeremiah Mitchel, these individuals had been buried whole.

Then why? And why only the right femora? Was it only the right femora?

I was about to begin a reexamination of every bone when Andrew Ryan burst through the door.

Maggie, Stan, and I looked up, startled.

'Have you been listening to the news?' Ryan asked, flushed and perspiring despite the coolness.

We shook our heads.

'Parker Davenport was found dead about three hours ago.'

CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE

'Dead?'

Emotions snapped inside me. Shock. Pity. Anger. Wariness.

'How?'