It was quickly becoming apparent that the woman lacked a sense of humor—a human personality defect that Nick found particularly annoying. He hoisted himself out of the hole and stood up beside her. She was even taller than she appeared to be from below, flat-chested, and thin as a wire. She lifted the front of the mosquito netting and pulled it back over her head, exposing her face. You may now kiss the bride was the thought that flashed through Nick’s mind—and it was not a pleasant thought. Her face matched the rest of her: It was long and thin with high cheekbones that ran down into sinewy sunken hollows like wax dripping over a ledge. Her hair was pulled back from her face in a bundle of tight curls of black and gray, and her dark eyes seemed to be frozen in a permanent glare—and right now they were glaring at Nick.

“Who are you?” she asked in exactly the same tone of voice Nick used when he came across an unfamiliar species of dung beetle.

He wiped his hands on his cargo shorts and extended one. “Nick Polchak,” he said. “I’m a forensic entomologist from NC State.”

She raised her gloved hands in front of her like a surgeon. “I need you to leave the area immediately.”

Nick paused. “I’m afraid that’s a bit of a problem. See, the FBI hired me too, and my job is to collect insect evidence from the—”

“Mr. Polchak, do you understand how a forensic detection dog operates?”

“I’m an entomologist,” Nick said, “but I imagine it’s similar to the way an insect operates. As the human body decomposes, it emits a series of chemical compounds as by-products; so far, about four hundred of these substances have been identified. These chemicals work their way to the surface of the soil where insects can detect them. I suppose a cadaver dog works the same way: Because it possesses far more sensitive olfactory abilities than a human being, the dog is able to detect the same chemical indicators that insects do.”

“That is essentially correct.”

“Some of these graves might date back to colonial times. Can a dog find a body that old?”

“A border collie in the Czech Republic once detected a grave that was two thousand years old.”

“Impressive.”

“It’s a very delicate process—so I’m sure you can understand that there must be no distracting odors when the detection dog is attempting to do its work.”

“And I’m a distracting odor.”

“How clever of you.”

“Let me get this straight. ‘Bosco’ is over there trying to sniff out a grave—”

“His name is not Bosco,” she said through clenched teeth. “His pedigree name is Augusta’s King Edward of Stanroph. I address him simply as ‘King.’”