Seeing that Larabee had a visitor, I started to move on. Blue Shirt’s words caused me to linger. He was asking about MCME 227-11, the John Doe whom Hawkins and I had just examined.

“—body from the landfill could be Ted Raines, the guy who went missing earlier this week.”

“The man visiting from Atlanta.”

“Yeah. He came to make business calls, but mainly for Race Week. Bought tickets for the All-Star Race tomorrow night, the Nationwide and Coca-Cola 600 next weekend. Visited clients, as planned, on Monday. After that he stopped calling home or answering his cell phone. Wife’s gone apeshit. Thinks something bad happened in Charlotte.”

“We haven’t begun the autopsy.” Larabee sounded anxious to be rid of the guy. “An anthropologist will first assess the condition of the remains.”

A rubber sole squeaked on the tile behind me. I turned. Hawkins was staring past me toward Larabee’s half-open door, scowling deeply.

“Next of kin are coming out of the woodwork,” I said, feeling guilty at having been caught eavesdropping.

Still scowling, Hawkins continued down the hall.

Allrighty, then.

I photocopied my case form and gave it to Mrs. Flowers to deliver to Larabee.

My watch said 1:48 p.m.

I considered my options. I’d finished with the sandpit bones. The landfill John Doe was now Larabee’s problem. Since I work only when anthropology cases come in, and there was nothing to keep me at the MCME, the afternoon was mine to spend as I chose.

I chose to placate my cat.

Birdie was miffed. First I’d dumped him with a neighbor while I was away in Hawaii. Then, his first day home, I’d abandoned him to dig up a sandpit.

Or maybe it was the thunder rumbling again. Birdie hates storms.

“Come on out.” I waggled a saucer at floor level. “I’ve got lo mein.”

Birdie held position, entrenched beneath the sideboard.

“Fine.” I placed the noodles on the floor. “It’s here when you want it.”

I pulled a Diet Coke from the fridge, served myself from the little white carton I’d picked up at Baoding, and settled at the kitchen table. Opening my laptop, I Googled the names Cindi Gamble and Cale Lovette.

The results were useless. Most led to fan sites for Lyle Lovett.

I tried Cindi Gamble alone. The name generated links to a Face-book page, and to stories about a woman mauled to death by a tiger.

I paused to consider. And to slurp lo mein.

Local disappearance. Local paper.

I tried the online archives of The Charlotte Observer. 1998.

On September 27 a short article updated the case of a twelve-year-old girl missing for nine months. Nothing on Cindi Gamble.

More lo mein.

Why would the disappearance of a seventeen-year-old kid receive no coverage?

I began checking sites devoted to finding MPs and to securing names for unidentified bodies.

Neither Cindi Gamble nor Cale Lovette was registered on the Doe Network.