I was in the incident morgue, sorting body parts. Ryan ran past. I called out, asking what had happened to the foot. He didn't stop. I tried to chase him, but my feet wouldn't move. I kept shouting, reached out, but he drew farther and farther away.
Boyd raced around a cemetery, a dead squirrel hanging from his mouth.
Willow Lynette Gist and Jonas Mitchell posed for a wedding picture. In her hand the Cherokee bride clutched the foot I'd taken from coyotes.
Judge Henry Arlen Preston held a book out to an old man. The man started to walk away, but Preston followed, insisting he take the offering. The old man turned and Preston dropped the book. Boyd snatched it up and ran down a long gravel road. When I caught up and took the object from him, it was no longer a book but a stone tablet, the name “Tucker Adams” carved on its face, and 1943, the year they both died, one a prominent citizen, the other obscure.
Simon Midkiff sat on a chair in the P & T garage office. Next to him was a man with long gray braids and a Cherokee headband.
“Why are you here?” Midkiff asked me.
“I can't drive,” I replied. “There was a crash. People were killed.”
“Is Birkby dead?” asked gray braids.
“Yes.”
“Did they find Edna?”
“No.”
“They won't find me either.”
Gray braid's face morphed into that of Ruby McCready, then into the bloated features of Primrose Hobbs.
I screamed and my head jerked from the pillow. My eyes flew to the clock. Five-thirty.
Though the room was chilly, my back was slick with perspiration, my hair plastered to my head. I threw back the covers and ran on tiptoes for a drink of water. Gazing into the mirror, I rolled the glass across my forehead.
I returned to the bedroom and flicked on a light. The window was opaque with predawn blackness. Frost spiderwebbed the corners of the glass.
I pulled on sweats and socks, took out a tablet, and settled at the table. After dividing several sheets into thirds, I began writing down images from my dream.
Henry Arlen Preston. The coyote foot. The braided old man in Cherokee headgear. Had that been Charlie Wayne Tramper? I wrote the name, followed by a question mark. Edna Farrell. Tucker Adams. Birkby. Jonas and Willow Mitchell. Ruby McCready. Simon Midkiff.
Next, I added what I knew about each character.
Henry Arlen Preston: Died 1943. Age eighty-nine. Attorney, judge, writer. Birds. Family man.
Coyote foot: Elderly male. Native-American ancestry. Height approximately five foot six. Dead last summer. Found near Arthur/ H&F property. TransSouth passenger?
Charlie Wayne Tramper: Cherokee. Died 1959. Age seventy-four. Bear attack. Midkiff and Davenport attended the funeral.
Edna Farrelclass="underline" Died 1949. Holiness follower. Drowned. Remains not recovered.
Tucker Adams: Born 1871. Disappeared then died, 1943.
Anthony Allen Birkby: Died 1959. Car crash. C. A. Birkby on list of H&F officers.
Jonas Mitchelclass="underline" African American. Married Willow Lynette Gist. Father of Jeremiah Mitchell.
Willow Lynette Gist: Daughter of Martha Rose Gist, Cherokee potter. Mother of Jeremiah Mitchell. Died of TB, 1930.
Though he wasn't in the dream, I made out a slip for Jeremiah Mitchell. African American–Cherokee. Born 1929. Loner. Disappeared last February.
Ruby McCready: Alive and well. Husband Enoch dead, 1986.
Simon Midkiff: Doctorate from Oxford, 1955. Duke, 1955 to 1961. University of Tennessee, 1961 to 1968. Attended Tramper funeral in 1959. Knew Davenport (or was at least at the same funeral). Lied about working for Department of Cultural Resources.
When I'd finished I spread the slips on the table and studied them. Then I began arranging them according to different criteria, starting with gender. The piles were very lopsided, the smaller containing only Edna Farrell, Willow Lynette Gist, and Ruby McCready. I created a slip for Martha Rose Gist. Nothing seemed to connect the women.
Next I tried race. Charlie Wayne Tramper and the Gist-Mitchell lineage went into one pile, along with the coyote foot. I began a chart and drew a line between Jeremiah Mitchell and the foot.
Age. Again I was struck by the number of old people. Though Henry Arlen Preston had managed to die in bed, appropriate, perhaps, for a distinguished judge, few others on the list had had that luxury. Tucker Adams, seventy-two. Charlie Wayne Tramper, seventy-four. Jeremiah Mitchell, seventy-two. I made out a slip for the missing fisherman, George Adair, sixty-seven. All were old.
The window was moving from black to pewter. I decided to sort by birth dates. Nothing. I tried death dates.
Judge Henry Arlen Preston passed away in 1943. According to his tombstone, Tucker Adams also died in 1943. I remembered the feature article on Preston, the brief inside report on Adams's disappearance less than a week later. I placed their slips together.
A. A. Birkby died in 1959. Charlie Wayne Tramper died in 1959. When was the wreck in which Birkby died? May. The same month Charlie Wayne went missing.
Oh?
I paired the slips.
Edna Farrell died in 1949. Hadn't someone drowned just the day before?
Sheldon Brodie, professor of biology at Appalachian State University. Brodie's body was found. Farrell's wasn't.
I made a slip for Brodie and set it with the one for Edna Farrell.
I stared at the three sets of paired slips. Was it a pattern? Someone is killed or dies, within days another death occurs? Were people dying in pairs?
I started a list of questions.
Edna Farrell's age?
Earlier drowning. Strawberry pie. Age? Date?
Tucker Adams's cause of death?
Jeremiah Mitchell, February. George Adair, September. Others?
The room was the color of the rising sun, and I could hear bird sounds through the closed window. A rectangle of light fell across the table, illuminating my questions and scribbled notes.
I stared at the paired slips, feeling there was something else. Something important. Something my subconscious had not had time to place in the collage.
Laslo was devouring biscuits and gravy when I arrived at the Everett Street Diner. I ordered pecan pancakes, juice, and coffee. While we ate, he told me about the conference he was going to attend at UNC-Asheville. I told him about Crowe's inability to obtain a search warrant.
“So the good old boys are skeptical,” he said, nodding to the waitress that he had finished.
“And girls. The DA is a woman.”
“Then this may not help.”
He pulled a paper from his briefcase and handed it to me. As I read, the waitress refilled our cups. I looked up when I'd finished.
“Basically the report agrees with what you told me on Monday at your lab.”
“Yes. Except for the part about the caproic and heptanoic acid concentrations.”
“The conclusion that they look unusually high.”
“Yes.”
“What does that mean?”
“Elevated levels of the longer-chained VFAs usually mean the corpse has been exposed to cold, or that it underwent a period of decreased insect and bacterial activity.”
“Does that alter your estimate of time since death?”
“I still think decomposition began in late summer.”
“Then what's the significance?”
“I'm not sure.”
“Is this a common finding?”
“Not really.”
“Great. That will convert the disbelievers.”
“Maybe this will be more helpful.”
This time he took a small plastic vial from his briefcase.
“I found this when filtering the rest of your soil sample.”
The container held a tiny white chip, no larger than a grain of rice. I unscrewed the cap, slid the object onto my palm, and studied it closely.
“It's a fragment of tooth root,” I said.
“That's what I thought, so I didn't treat it with anything, just brushed off the dirt.”
“Holy shit.”
“That's what I thought.”