Emma owned a property so "old Charleston" it should have been dressed in a hoopskirt and crinolines. The two-story house was peach with white trim and double porches, and sat on a lot enclosed by wrought iron fencing. A giant magnolia shaded the tiny front yard.

Emma had been negotiating to purchase the home when we met. She'd fallen in love with its woodwork, its gardens, and its Duncan Street location, just minutes from both the College of Charleston and the MUSC complex. Though the house was beyond her means in those days, she'd been overjoyed when her bid was accepted.

Good timing. In the years that followed, Charleston real estate shot into the stratosphere. Though her little slice of history was now worth a small fortune, Emma refused to sell. Her monthly payments were stiff, but she made it work by spending money on little other than food and her home.

It had rained throughout the night, freeing the city from its premature skin of oppressive heat. The air felt almost cool as I pushed open Emma's gate. Details seemed magnified. The rusty squeak of old hinges. Buckled cement where a magnolia root snaked beneath. The scent of oleander, confederate jasmine, crepe myrtle, and camellia floating from the garden.

Emma answered the door wearing a bathrobe and slippers. Her skin looked pasty, her lips dry and cracked. Greasy stragglers hung from an Indian-print scarf knotted on her head.

I tried to keep the shock from my face. "Hey, girlfriend."

"You're more persistent than a Yahoo! pop-up."

"I'm not selling products to enlarge your man's penis."

"Already got a magnifying glass." Emma mustered a weak smile. "Come on in."

Emma stepped back, and I brushed past her into the foyer. The smell of pine and wood polish replaced the perfume of flowers.

The inside of Emma's house was exactly as promised by the outside. Straight ahead, double mahogany doors gave way to a wide hallway. A large parlor opened to the right. A bannistered staircase curved up to the left. Everywhere, Baluchi and Shiraz carpets topped gleaming wood floors.

"Tea?" Emma asked, exhaustion emanating from every part of her body.

"If you let me make it."

As I followed Emma, I scoped out the house.

One look told me where my friend's money was going. The place was furnished with pieces that had been crafted before the founding fathers inked up their pens. Had she needed cash, Emma could have sold off antiques through the next millennium. Christie's would have taken months just to write catalog copy.

Emma led me to a kitchen the size of a convenience store, and settled herself at a round oak table. While I started a kettle and got tea bags, I told her about Cruikshank's boxes. She listened without comment.

"Cream and sugar?" I asked, pouring boiling water into a pot.

Emma pointed to a china bird on the counter. I carried it to the table and took a carton of milk from the fridge.

As Emma sipped I brought her fully up to date. The missing computer. The images on the disc. The odd fractures on the two cervical vertebrae.

Emma asked a few questions. It was all very friendly. Then I changed the tone.

"Why are you ignoring my calls?"

Emma looked at me as you might a squeegee kid asking to do your windshield, uncertain whether to say "thanks" or "buzz off." A few seconds passed. Setting her mug carefully on the table, she seemed to make a decision.

"I'm sick, Tempe."

"I know that."

"I'm not responding to treatment."

"I know that, too."

"This latest round is knocking me on my ass." Emma turned her face away, but not before I saw the pain in her eyes. "I've been unable to do my job. First Monday, now today. I've got a skeleton I'm failing to get ID'd. You tell me I've got a dead former cop who might not have killed himself. And what am I doing? I'm home sleeping."

"Dr. Russell said you might experience some fatigue."

Emma laughed. There was no humor in it. "Dr. Russell's not here to see me heaving my guts out."

I started to protest. She cut me off with a raised hand.

"I'm not going to get better. I need to face that." Emma's eyes came round and dropped to her mug. "I need to consider my staff and the community I've been elected to serve."

"You don't have to make any major decisions right now." My mouth felt dry.

A wind chime danced outside the window, merry, oblivious to the anguish on the opposite side of the glass.

"Soon," Emma said softly.

I set down my mug. The tea was cold, untouched.

Ask?

The chimes tinkled softly.

"Does your sister know?"

Emma's eyes came up to mine. Her lips opened. I thought she was about to tell me to go to hell, to stop meddling and mind my own business. Instead she just shook her head no.

"What's her name?"

"Sarah Purvis." Barely audible.

"Do you know where she is?"

"Married to some doctor in Nashville."

"Would you like me to contact her?"

"Like she'd care."

Pushing from the table, Emma walked to the window. I followed, stood at her back and lay a hand on each of her shoulders. For several moments no one spoke.

"I love baby's breath." Emma was gazing at a stand of delicate white flowers in the garden outside. "The flower ladies sell baby's breath at the marketplace. That, too." She pointed at a cluster of green and white stalks topped by long, slender leaves. "Know what that is?"

I shook my head.

"Rabbit tobacco. Tea brewed from rabbit tobacco was once considered the best cold remedy in the Carolina Lowcountry. Rural folks still smoke it for asthma. Its other name is life everlasting. I planted it when..."

Emma took a deep, ragged breath.

Though my throat felt tight, I kept my voice low and even.

"Let me help you, Emma. Please."

A beat passed. Another.

Without turning, Emma nodded.

"But don't call my sister." She drew a deep breath, let it out slowly. "Not yet."

Driving from Emma's home, emotions battled in my head. Anxiety concerning my relationship with Ryan. Frustration with the Dewees and Cruikshank cases. Worry for Emma. Anger at my impotence in the face of her illness.

Moving through the sunshine of that glorious morning, I swallowed the fear and fury and doubt, and reshaped them into something new. Something positive.

I couldn't reach into my friend's marrow and restore the life her own cells were taking from her. But I could ply my trade and ease her professional concerns. I could work to give Emma the answers she wanted regarding the skeletons.

A stubborn resolve formed in my heart.

As it did so, the Lowcountry was again preparing to give up a secret. Another body would be discovered within twenty-four hours. This one would present me with more than dry bones.

16.

MY NEW RESOLVE TOOK ME BACK TO MUSC. WHY? LACK OF A better idea.

Finding a morgue attendant, I explained who I was and that I was acting on behalf of the coroner. I requested CCC-2006020277 and CCC-2006020285. When the gurneys arrived, I extracted the sixth cervical vertebrae from Cruikshank and from the Dewees skeleton, and carried both to the scope. A quick check confirmed that the fracture patterning was the same on each neck bone. OK. I was dead certain.

Cause?

Connection between the two cases?

As before, I gave the questions some thought. Then I moved on to the dirt that Topher had collected from the Dewees grave. Why? Lack of a better idea.

Placing a rectangular stainless steel pan in the sink with a screen positioned above, I retrieved one of three black plastic garbage bags lying at the foot of the Dewees gurney. Disengaging the bag's wire twister, I poured a layer of dirt and gently shook the screen.

The sandy soil filtered through the mesh, leaving behind pebbles, snail shells, bits of sand dollar, starfish, mollusk, and crab. After checking the debris with a magnifying glass, I dumped it and poured more dirt.

Same rocks and shards of marine life.

I was on my second bag when a minuscule sliver caught my eye.

The thing was embedded in a broken snail shell, and so small I almost missed it.

A filament of some sort? A thread?

Using forceps, I extracted the snail and placed it in my gloved palm. The creature's shell was less than three centimeters long, brown and coiled, but rounder and more squat than those I was used to seeing on the beach.

I returned to the gurney and checked Topher's label. The bag I'd chosen held dirt from directly around the bones.

Moving to a side counter, I carefully tweezed the filament free from the shell, centered it on a slide, and covered it with a tiny glass plate. Then I placed the slide under the microscope, and leaned into the eyepiece.

The object appeared as a blurry curved line. Some knob fiddling brought it into focus.

The thing was an eyelash. A black eyelash.

I was thinking about that when my cell phone sounded. The caller ID showed an eight-four-three area code.

Not Ryan.

Disappointed, I stripped off a glove and took the call.

"Tempe Brennan."

"Gullet here. Got us a Dell Latitude laptop PC and a Pentax Optio 5.5 digital camera."

"It was all an unfortunate misunderstanding."

"It was. Parrot senior was most apologetic. Parrot junior looked like he'd had better mornings."

"What now?"

"Camera's empty. Either Cruikshank left nothing on it, or Junior wiped it clean to cover his rear. The computer is password protected. We played with it some. Got nowhere."

"May I take a crack?"

There was a pause before Gullet spoke again.

"You got experience with these things?"

"I do." Said with more conviction than I actually felt. I'd always used passwords on my PC, but wasn't actually a Sherlock at cracking security codes. Fact was, I'd never hacked into a computer.

I listened to several more seconds of dead air. Then, "Can't hurt. Miz Rousseau trusts you, and my deputies have got other things filling their dance cards today."

"I'm at the morgue."

"Be by in an hour."

The remaining soil produced nothing of interest. I was retying the last bag when the sheriff arrived.

Gullet placed a plastic-wrapped bundle on a side counter. Then he folded his shades and hung them by a bow from his breast pocket. For a moment, his gaze lingered on the two gurneys at my back.

"Miz Rousseau here?" he asked.