“If the tox screen comes back negative, MOD goes down as undetermined.” Larabee used the acronym for one of the five categories of manner of death: natural, homicide, suicide, accidental, or undetermined.

“So how’d the guy end up in a barrel of asphalt?”

“In my report I’ll note suspicious circumstances.”

“What about ID?”

“Nothing. Even though you think it’s unlikely the PMI works, I’m following up on Raines. According to the wife, his last dental checkup was in 2007. The dentist died in 2009, and no one knows what happened to his files.”

“Any hit on the prints?”

“No. The landfill guy’s not in any system.”

I told Larabee about my conversations with Wayne Gamble and Skinny Slidell. “I suppose the John Doe could be Cale Lovette.” I didn’t really believe it.

“Your age estimate looks pretty solid. At least dentally, the landfill guy looks older than twenty-four. How about you get Lovette’s profile, maybe a photo, then check the John Doe’s skeletal markers, try to narrow the range?”

“Today?”

“Galimore phoned twice this morning. The folks at the Speedway are pissing their shorts for resolution on this.”

My eyes met Birdie’s. The cat was giving me an accusatory look. I think.

“Is Joe working this afternoon?”

“Yes.”

“I’ll be there shortly.” Resisting the impulse to sigh theatrically.

“You’re a trouper.”

I checked my list of incoming calls, scrolled down, hit dial. I’d been on the phone so long, the handset was now the same temperature as my liver.

Wayne Gamble answered after two rings. Background noise told me he was still at the track.

“Can you describe Cale Lovette?” I asked.

“Dirtbag.”

“His physical appearance.”

“Brown hair, brown eyes, wiry, maybe a hundred and sixty pounds.”

“How tall?”

“Five-six or -seven. Why? What’s happened?”

“Nothing. I just need descriptors.”

“I saw the little snake who’s been tailing me. First at the hauler, then by Sandy’s trailer. Whenever I spot him, he cuts into the crowd.”

“Mr. Gamble, I—”

“Next time I’ll twist his balls until he tells me what the hell’s going on.”

“Thank you for the information.”

Driving to the MCME, I pondered Larabee’s closing “attagirl.” Wondered. Was “trouper” a promotion or demotion from “champ”?

When I arrived, Larabee had left a photocopied picture on my desk. The name Ted Raines was written at the bottom.

Raines wasn’t exactly a looker. His weak chin and prominent nose made me think of a bottlenose dolphin.

Hawkins had already rolled the John Doe to the stinky room and plugged in the Stryker saw. With his help, I removed the collarbones and the pubic symphyses, the little projections that meet at the midline on the belly side of the pelvis.

While Joe stripped flesh from the harvested bones, I retracted the scalp to observe the cranial surface.