Patricia tried to unclutter her mind as they meandered back toward her sister"s house. She frowned to herself when Ernie turned his back to her.

It was that same distraction again-raging, fraying her s.e.xual nerves. Whenever she tried to focus on something else, his aura kept dragging her eyes back to his unknowing body: the long flow of his hair, the strong legs in tight workman"s jeans, the strong back. What if I weren"t married; what if I weren"t. . . ? Her thoughts kept betraying her.

Just remember what Dr. Sallee said. Women my age experience their actual s.e.xual peak. It"s normal for me to feel this way . . . as long as I don"t act on those feelings.

His boots crunched up the trail before her, and that alternate voice kept asking her: What if I weren"t married?

It didn"t matter.

"Well, how do ya like that?"

Patricia reclaimed her attention; Ernie had stopped on the incline of the trail, looking up toward the main road.

"What are you . . ." But then she spotted the vehicle herself, a new large pickup truck parked at the shoulder. Even at this considerable distance she could see the man sitting in the driver"s seat peering down into the center of Squatterville, as though he were actually watching the clan families trudging away from their homes in order to leave town.

The man in the pickup truck was Gordon Felps.

Ten.

(I).

Less than a twenty-minute drive took Patricia to Luntville and the rather drab county hospital. She knew it was her imagination, yet it bothered her the way two clerks at the information kiosk gave her the eye when she asked directions to the morgue. The bas.e.m.e.nt, of course. They were always in the bas.e.m.e.nt.

The downstairs unnerved her; it was dark and dead silent. Her footsteps clattered about her head as she made her way to the yellowish gla.s.s-windowed door that read, OFFICE OF THE COUNTY CORONER.

Let"s see how much pull my boss really has, she thought. Getting a morgue to release recent records was usually akin to pulling the teeth out of a ferret. When she entered, she expected more odd looks from the personnel here and was nearly shocked to find herself standing before a human dichotomy: an utterly striking blonde in tight jeans and an open lab coat that revealed a haltered bosom and a perfect bare abdomen. She had the kind of body that spurred jealousy even from the most extraordinarily attractive women.

Her body"s ten times better than mine! Patricia thought. I"m p.i.s.sed! "Hi," she began, and got out her driver"s license. "I"m-"

"Patricia White, right?" A s.e.xy Southern accent preceded the blond woman when she hurried around the registration desk. She spoke very quickly. "The governor"s office called this morning, and I"d just like you to know that we"ll do whatever we can to accommodate you." Then she pulled out a folder. "You wanted to see the post records for a decedent named Dwayne Parker?"

That"s what I call the red-carpet treatment, Patricia thought, amused. Tim"s brother lit a fire under somebody"s b.u.t.t. "Yes, and I"m sorry it was such short notice. I"m the attorney for the decedent"s wife, and I won"t be in town long, so I didn"t really have time to file a FOIA request."

"Oh, well, there"s no reason to do that"-the beautiful woman kept speaking very quickly-"because, after all, we"re a branch of the government that exists to serve the taxpayers" needs."

Now she"s absolutely kissing my a.s.s, Patricia realized. The coroner"s office for a rural county like this probably didn"t keep the best records anyway. The last thing they"d want is a government inspection. But it was working, and that all Patricia cared about "Are you the receptionist? I was hoping to talk to the county coroner himself."

"Herself, and you are, ma"am," the blonde corrected, and gestured to the nametag on her lab coat. It read c. BAKER, RUSSELL COUNTY CORONER. "And I"d be happy to answer any questions you have, since the postmortem report might be . . . confusing to you."

Patricia opened the folder and scanned the top sheet: Anomalous death-COD, it read. Decapitation via smooth Transection of levator scapulae muscular process and #5 & 6 cervical vertebrae. Mode of transection as yet undetermined and curious. She blinked, looked back up at Baker, and admitted, "I"m only good with legalese, not medical tech talk. I guess this means that the manner in which Dwayne Parker lost his head . . . that"s what they"re calling "undetermined and curious"?"

The coroner nodded curtly, but she was obviously curtailing something. "It"s just kind of odd, and its difficult to explain in any way that makes sense. But every now and then any medical examiner"s office will get a cause of death that simply can never be determined."

Patricia frowned at the sheet. This was much less than she"d hoped for. "How was his head cut off, is what I want to be able to tell the family. Was it cut off, shot off? Was it knocked off in some sort of freak accident?"

Another curt look from the pretty coroner. "It was . . . none of those things, and that"s about the only thing we do know. No blade striations, no evidence of severe impact to the body, no evidence of firearm discharge."

"But the head was never recovered-that"s what I heard from the locals, anyway. Is that true?"

"Quite true, ma"am."

This was frustrating. "I"m sorry, but I just don"t get it."

"Look on the next page, Ms. White."

Patricia followed the instruction and immediately fell silent.

What she looked at now was the most macabre photograph she"d ever seen in her life. . . .

The clarity of the bright digital picture-Dwayne"s autopsy photo-seemed to shout at her. "This . . . can"t be real, can it?"

"Oh, it"s real, ma"am. I took the picture myself. It hasn"t been altered, and there weren"t any defects in the film or processing. I took several with several different cameras."

The photograph framed Dwayne"s chest and shoulders, as well as the area of s.p.a.ce that his head would occupy, if he"d had a head. Patricia expected a clot-caked stump or some other kind of ragged wound to indicate the decapitation. But there was nothing.

There was just skin.

"There"s not even a-"

"Not even a neck," Baker finished. "And the osteo X-rays actually show a round-not a severed-cervical vertebra. There"s actually no clinical evidence of a decapitation-which I know is silly, because he"s got no head. But the picture looks like he"d never had one. Look at the next picture."

Patricia, with some trepidation, turned to the next sheet: a close-up of where the "stump" should be.

"This," she started, shaking her head, "this . . ." She tried to frame words. "This looks like there"s just skin grown over the place where his neck should be."

"Um-hmm."

Patricia looked up again, grateful to take her eyes off the creepy photograph. "You"re the coroner. How do you account for this?"

"I really can"t. It happens in this business, and I realize that"s not an acceptable answer, but it"s all I can give you. It"s just one of those rare deaths that"s a big question mark."

"And you"re sure this is Dwayne Parker? You"re sure it"s not some elaborate stage dummy or something, some kind of joke?"

"It"s no dummy, Ms. White. I personally performed the Y-section and a clinical evisceration. I weighed every organ in that man"s body. There are pictures of that too, if you"d like to-"

"No, no, that won"t be necessary," Patricia hastened to say.

"The Bureau of Prisons verified the fingerprints, along with two five-probe DNA profiles. And the body that I autopsied had tattoos that matched the county corrections inductee log of distinguishing marks. The body in the photograph is Dwayne Parker, and I"m very sorry I can"t give you any useful information regarding his decapitation. One of the dermatologists at the hospital suggested that maybe some kind of mold or fungus grew over the transection area-"

"Is that possible?"

"In my opinion, no." The coroner shrugged, just as frustrated now as Patricia. "That"s why we call this kind of death undetermined and curious."

You can say that again. . . . Patricia pa.s.sed back the folder. She was glad not to have it in her hands anymore. What am I going to tell Judy? She struggled with the thought.

Nothing, I guess. I just won"t tell her anything.

"What"s stranger," Baker said, "is the fact that Dwayne Parker was a resident of Agan"s Point, the crabbing town out on the water."

"Why is that strange?" Patricia asked.

"Because it really is a quiet little place. I don"t think I"ve ever seen a decedent from Agan"s Point who didn"t die from old age. Then all of a sudden, in little more than a week we get Dwayne Parker, plus two brutal mutilations and two people burned to death."

The Hilds and the Ealds, Patricia knew. "All from Agan"s Point. Did you find any evidence of drugs in any of the bodies?"

Baker shook her head. "The narcotics unit and the Agan"s Point police chief both asked me for full tox screens-something about crystal methamphetamine. There was nothing in any of them, no CDS of any kind, no marijuana, not even any trace alcohol. But that"s not even what I was going to mention. That"s not the strange part."

"What is?"

"The body that came in this morning."

Patricia"s brow furrowed. "Not another Agan"s Point resident . . ."

"I"m afraid so. The sixth one now."

"Who?"

"Forty-five-year-old male Caucasian named Robert Caudill, aka Junior."

The name rang a bell. "I remember when I was a kid, he and his twin brother were the neighborhood bullies." Patricia pinched her chin. "And he was murdered?"

"Don"t know," Baker replied. "I don"t see how it could be a homicide, but . . ." She sighed, blowing a tress of blond hair. "Since the governor"s office told me to open all doors to you . . . I guess I can show you. You want to see?"

She"s asking me if I want to see a fat redneck"s corpse. Patricia told herself. She gritted her teeth and said, "Yes, please."

Whatever it is, it can"t be any weirder than the picture of Dwayne.

Patricia was quite wrong about that, which she would discern in a moment. She followed the attractive coroner through the front office and into a door that read, SUITE 1-DO NOT ENTER. At once a strong scent accosted her nostrils. "It"s formalin; you"ll get used to it," Baker said. "All-purpose preservative." Overhead fluorescent tubes threw the ghastliest tint about the room; Patricia supposed it was just her imagination-she was in a morgue-but somehow that tint made her feel unnaturally close to death. Ranks of storage shelves behind them sat heavy with big smoke-colored gla.s.s bottles: JORE"S, ZENKER"S SOLUTION, PHENOL 20 PERCENT. A tin tray marked AMYLOID/FAT NECROSIS PREP held several bottles of iodine and copper sulphate. A large sink and heat-sealing iron hung on the same wall. Basically the room could"ve pa.s.sed for any high school biology lab, save for one fact: high school biology labs didn"t have a covered dead body sitting in the middle of them.

Patricia"s stomach flipped when she glimpsed the covered bulk. White light glinted like abstract art in the crinkles of the black plastic sheet.

Baker seemed nonchalant when she whipped the sheet off the table.

What am I doing here? Patricia yelled at herself.

The body lay there so candidly it seemed surreal, like the graphics in a CD-ROM game-a spooky veil like tulle that somehow enhanced details instead of detracting from them. The body lay on a stainless-steel morgue platform that came equipped with a removable drain trap, gutters for "organic outflow," and a motorized height adjustment. The corpse"s image was blatant, like a surprise shout in the dark.

"Here he is," Baker announced in her snippy Southern drawl. "Robert-Junior-Caudill."

Patricia didn"t allow herself to look at the body directly, opting for peripheral side glances. The pallor of the flesh reminded her of the water chestnuts that Byron used to make rumaki at home; the unused chestnuts would always sit in the fridge too long, and start to turn brown. Junior Caudill was a big man-and a plump one-much of his body fat settling like raw lard on the stainless-steel table. One morbid glimpse at his groin showed her the purple nose of a p.e.n.i.s shriveled so severely that it could"ve been a mushroom in a bird"s nest. Oh, my G.o.d, I"m looking at a cadaver. . . . When she closed her eyes she found the formalin fumes seemed to sting. The afterimage of the white face lingered behind her eyes. She only vaguely remembered the man from her youth, a problem child and troublemaker who"d dropped out of school early. Had she seen him and his brother at Dwayne"s funeral? Probably, but she didn"t even care. Come to think of it, she didn"t even care that he was dead. At least the body hadn"t been cut open yet. Had Baker been able to establish cause of death without a full autopsy?

Finally she choked out the question: "Okay, it"s a dead body, so what"s so strange about it?"

Baker snapped on a light board on the wall. "Here"s a transabdominal X-ray of Dwayne Parker," she said, clipping a large sheet of film to the board. Murky shades and shapes seemed to throb. "It"s normal." Her lithe finger pointed. "Normal GI tract, cardiopulmonary process, liver, bladder, spleen. Everything that"s supposed to be there is there."

"Except his head," Patricia noted when she looked higher and saw that the boundary of the X-ray ended at the shoulders.

"Yes, but this isn"t about Dwayne Parker"s head. This is about Robert Caudill." And then just as quickly as she spoke, she pinned up another sheet of X-ray film.

Patricia caught the dissimilarity in an instant. Dwayne"s X-ray clearly showed the presence of his internal organs.

Junior Caudill"s X-ray clearly showed an absence of internal organs.

"Where are his organs?" Patricia asked baldly. "You haven"t autopsied the body yet-I don"t even see any cuts on it."

"There aren"t any cuts, and, no, I haven"t done the post yet. I"ve only done some preliminaries so far." Baker sat down as if fatigued or repressing an agitation. "The only thing I can think of is maybe the decedent was exposed to a strain of flesh-eating bacteria, like an internalized version of the one in England, or maybe he died from a corrosive digestive virus."

Patricia asked the strangest question, then, ever to pa.s.s her lips: "So his organs dissolved?"

Baker"s sleek shoulders shrugged. "I don"t know. Maybe. There are no other contraindications if that"s the case. E. coli, for instance, has been known to liquefy parts of the digestive system, and then the effluent drains from the rectal ca.n.a.l-"

Patricia was suddenly delighted she hadn"t eaten yet today, for surely she would"ve deposited her last meal right here on the floor or perhaps even on the corpse of Robert "Junior" Caudill.

"But there"s virtually no clinical evidence of an effluent void from the r.e.c.t.u.m, because I inspected his r.e.c.t.u.m thoroughly, Baker insisted, as though her competency were in question.

Patricia closed her eyes. This woman has a lousy. job. . . . She let her eyes stray around the room, to any place away from the corpse. Her mind was ticking with questions. But then something snagged an eye: something on the counter, at the other side of the room.

Two clear plastic bags, one large, one smaller.

"What"s that? In those bags?"

Baker looked over, uninterested. "Oh, that"s some stuff the EMTs brought over; some of it was in his pockets or near the corpse on the floor. I bagged it as evidence."

Patricia walked over; she was pretty sure she noticed what was in the larger bag. "But what is it exactly?"

"Looks like a couple of pieces of crystal meth in the little bag, and-"

"An envelope in the other bag?"

"Yes."

Patricia leaned over and saw the outside of the envelope. Junior Caudill"s name and address, in craggy handwriting.

"Don"t open the bags," Baker reminded her. "You don"t want your fingerprints on police evidence."