Now, sitting in the back of the room without any makeup, her big, green eyes staring at him, her dark coppery hair twisted away from her face to reveal a clean jaw, straight nose, and high cheekbones, Kristi watched him intently. She sat low on her back, arms folded over her chest almost insolently, as if she were daring him to teach her anything she didn’t know.

Or maybe he was imagining things.

He barely let his gaze touch hers before he turned toward the other side of the room and focused on a tall boy with thick glasses and a scrawny black beard that didn’t cover his case of acne.

“I’ll send each of you a syllabus tonight via e-mail, and my office hours are Friday afternoons from four to six. I know, that’s a bummer for those of you who like to take off for the weekend, but it’s the best the department could do as they have to work around my schedule. You can e-mail me at anytime; my e-mail address is on the syllabus.

“So, let’s start with a little basic anatomy. Tonight, we’ll talk about how a person can be killed, and what the body might show in an autopsy. After the break we’ll discuss the crime scene and collection of evidence. This might seem a little backward, but I thought for our first ‘case’ we’d go at it from the body back to the scene. Next week, we’ll take another case and do it in just the opposite manner, which, of course, is usually the normal procedure, though, not always. Can anyone tell me why?”

One arm shot up and waved frantically as if she could barely contain herself. She looked to be less than five feet tall and couldn’t weigh a hundred pounds. Her light blond hair fairly shivered as she tried to get his attention.

He nodded at her. “Yes?”

“Sometimes the crime scene evidence doesn’t make sense because the body might have been moved. In that case you would have the dump site but you’d also find evidence from the place where the attack or killing actually occurred.”

“That’s right,” Jay said, nodding to the girl, who smiled smugly and beamed at being correct.