Hammer wanted to hang up on the mayor. She had just about enough of his unimaginative way of solving problems.

“I understand the medical examiner believes these murders have a homosexual connection,” he was saying over the phone.

“That’s one opinion,” Hammer answered. “The fact is that we don’t know. All the victims were married with children.”

“Exactly,” he slyly said.

“For God’s sake, Chuck, don’t pile this on me so early in the morning.” Hammer looked out the window and could almost see the bastard’s office from where she sat.

“Point is, the theory is helpful,” he went on in his South Carolina drawl.

Mayor Charles Search was from Charleston. He was Hammer’s age and often considered what it might be like to bed her. If nothing else, it would remind her of things she seemed to have forgotten. Her place, for starters. If she wasn’t married, he would swear she was a lesbian. He sat in his leather judge’s chair, headset on, and doodled on a legal pad.

“The city, out-of-town businesses, won’t be as bothered by this . . .” he was trying to say.

“Where are you so I can break your neck,” Hammer said over the phone. “When was your lobotomy? I would have sent flowers.”

“Judy.” This doodle was really good. He focused on it, putting his glasses on. “Calm down. I know exactly what I’m doing.”

“Of course you don’t.”

Maybe she was a lesbian, or bisexual anyway, with a grating Midwestern accent. He reached for a red pen, getting excited over his art. It was an atom with orbits of little molecules that looked weirdly like eggs. Birth. This was seminal.

To make matters ever so much worse this morning, West had to go to the morgue. North Carolina didn’t have the best system, it was West’s opinion. Some cases were taken care of locally, by Dr. Odom and the police forensic labs. Other bodies were sent to the chief medical examiner in Chapel Hill. Go figure. It was probably all about sports again. Hornets fans stayed in Charlotte, Tarheels got their lovely Y-incision in the big university town.

The Mecklenburg County Medical Examiner’s office was on North College Street, across from the award-winning new public library. West was buzzed in at the glass entrance. She had to give the place credit. The building, which was the former Sears Garden Center, was brighter and more modern than most morgues, and had added another cold room the last time USAir had crashed another plane around here. It was a shame that North Carolina didn’t seem inclined to hire a few more M.E.s for the great state of Mecklenburg, as some sour senators were inclined to disparage the state’s fastest-growing, most progressive region.

There were only two forensic pathologists to handle more than a hundred homicides a year, and both of them were in the necropsy room when West arrived. The dead businessman didn’t look any better now that Dr. Odom had started on him. Brewster was at the table, wearing a disposable plastic apron and gloves. He nodded at her as she tied a gown in back, because West didn’t take chances. Dr. Odom was splashed with blood, and holding the scalpel like a pencil as he reflected back tissue. His patient had a lot of fat, which looked worse inside out.