At that moment blades whumped, and we saw a helicopter come in low over the trees. I spotted a familiar figure beside the pilot, another silhouette in the rear. The chopper circled twice, then headed in the opposite direction from where I assumed the road to be.

'Where are they going?'

'Hel if I know. We're not oversupplied with landing pads up here.' Crowe lowered her gaze and replaced her hat, tucking in frizz with a backhand gesture.

'Coffee?'

===OO=OOO=OO===

Thirty minutes later the chief medical examiner of the State of North Carolina walked into the site from the west, folowed by the state's lieutenant governor. The former wore Thirty minutes later the chief medical examiner of the State of North Carolina walked into the site from the west, folowed by the state's lieutenant governor. The former wore the basic deployment uniform of boots and khaki, the latter a business suit. I watched them pick their way through the debris, the pathologist looking around, assessing, the politician with head bowed, glancing neither left nor right, holding himself gathered tightly, as if contact with his surroundings might draw him in as a participant rather than an observer. At one point they stopped and the ME spoke to a deputy. The man pointed in our direction, and the pair angled toward us.

'Hot damn. A superb photo op.' Said with the same sarcasm she'd directed toward Charles Hanover, the Air TransSouth CEO.

Crowe crumpled her Styrofoam cup and jammed it into a thermos bag. I handed her mine, wondering at the vehemence of her disapproval. Did she disagree with the lieutenant governor's politics, or was there personal history between Lucy Crowe and Parker Davenport?

When the men drew close the ME showed ID. Crowe waved it aside.

'No need for that, Doc. I know who you are.'

So did I, having worked with Larke Tyrel since his appointment as North Carolina's chief medical examiner in the mid-1980s. Larke was cynical, dictatorial, and one of the best pathologist-administrators in the country. Working with an inadequate budget and a disinterested legislature, he had taken an office in chaos and turned it into one of the most efficient death investigative systems in North America.

My forensic career was in its infancy at the time of Larke's appointment, and I had just qualified for certification by the American Board of Forensic Anthropology. We met through work I was doing for the North Carolina State Bureau of Investigation, reassembling and identifying the corpses of two drug dealers murdered and dismembered by outlaw bikers. I was one of Larke's first hires as a consulting specialist, and had handled the skeletal, the decomposed, the mummified, the burned, and the mutilated dead of North Carolina ever since.

The lieutenant governor extended one hand, pressed a hankie to his mouth with the other. His face was the color of a frog's bely. He said nothing as we shook.