I could picture that scene, Winborne with his Nikon, Cruikshank threatening to make liver mush of him.

"I played it cool, told him I thought he was feeding me a line, said I'd keep on him until he came clean."

"Cruikshank told you to scram or he'd beat the crap out of you," I interpreted.

"OK. I backed off. So what? You ever meet the dude?"

I'd seen Cruikshank's photo, and had to confess. Though not big, the guy looked wiry and mean. He'd have frightened me, too.

"When was this?"

"March nineteenth."

"What did you tell Cruikshank about Lonnie Aikman?" I asked.

"What his mother told me. Guy was weird, thought government agents had implanted some kind of device in his brain. Used to e-mail everyone from the dog catcher right up to George W. Thirty-four years old, unemployed, lived with his mom. Nice lady, by the way."

"In your article you described Aikman as schizophrenic. Did he take medication?"

"On and off, you know how that goes."

"Do you know where he was treated?"

"Subject never came up."

"You didn't ask?"

"Didn't seem important." Winborne crossed hairy arms over an ample chest. "Susie Ruth worked her whole life for some tailoring service. Maybe she had insurance that she was able to keep him on because of his disability."

"Was she employed at the time Lonnie went missing?"

"She'd been retired for years." Digging into a back pocket, Winborne unfolded a copy of his 2004 article and handed it to me. "Mama Aikman's little boy."

The text provided nothing beyond what had appeared in Winborne's follow-up story. It was the photo that caught my attention.

Lonnie Aikman's eyes were dark and luminous, his mouth wide, his lips parted, revealing widely gapped teeth. Shoulder-length hair. Studded ears. Aikman looked about seventeen.

"How old was this print?" I asked.

"The guy was under the delusion that the CIA was monitoring his brain. Wouldn't let anyone take his picture, trashed every old one he could find. That was copied from a high school shot Susie Ruth kept hidden." Winborne curled the fingers of both hands. "Now you. Give. What's the deal with Cruikshank?"

I weighed my words carefully. "From his files, it appears Cruikshank was looking at MPs in the Charleston area. Some were addicts or sex trade workers, others were not."

"Hookers and druggies drop out of sight all the time." Winborne sounded like Cleopatra's jilted owner, Isabella Halsey. "Gimme a who's who."

Pulling out a paper, I read the names I'd copied from my spreadsheet, leaving out Unique Montague and Willie Helms. "Rosemarie Moon. Ruby Anne Watley. Harmon Poe. Parker Ethridge. Daniel Snype. Jimmie Ray Teal. Matthew Summerfield."

"And the church lady. Who was she again?"

"Helene Flynn."

"One of those storm-trooping to save everyone's butt from fiery retribution, right?"

"GMC.".

"Creeping Christians are a pain in the ass, you ask me. Jimmie Ray Teal and that councilman's kid, Matthew Summerfield, got coverage lately, so I'm hip to those names. The others..." Shrugging, Winborne pooched out his lips.

I offered him the paper on which I'd jotted the names. "Do you remember any more details about Aikman?"

"It wasn't exactly the story of the year."

Impulse. "Ever hear of a guy named Chester Pinckney?"

Winborne shook his head. "Why?"

"Cruikshank might have known him." I didn't share the fact that Pinckney's wallet had been found in Cruikshank's jacket. "Call me if you think of anything else," I said, wondering why this conversation had warranted a clandestine meeting.

I was two steps up the path when Winborne's voice stopped me.

"Cruikshank did let one thing slip."

I turned.

"Said he'd stumbled onto something bigger than a missing church worker."

"Meaning?"

"I don't know. But within months Cruikshank's found hanging from a tree." Again Winborne glanced over his shoulder. "And now Susie Ruth Aikman's found dead in her car."

As soon as Ryan and I got home I booted my laptop and opened the file in which I'd saved Cruikshank's CD images. Pete joined us as we were cruising through the JPEGs. I could feel the two of them on either side of me, each as truculent as an elk in rut.

Though a few of those pictured bore a vague resemblance to Lonnie Aikman, no one entering or leaving the clinic was a dead ringer match. Big surprise. Susie Ruth's photo was at least fifteen years out of date, and the detail in Winborne's photocopy was lousy. In addition, many of the subjects in Cruikshank's shots were turned away from the camera. Those faces that were visible became unrecognizable blurs when enlarged.

As we searched, Pete and Ryan matched sarcasm for sarcasm, the air of politeness never leaving their voices. After an hour I tired of their jousting and went to my room to try Nelson Teal's number again. My efforts were unrewarded.

In my absence Pete made sandwiches and Ryan phoned Lily. His daughter's mobile continued to ignore him. A call to Lutetia confirmed that Lily was fine, but still refusing contact with her father.

At noon we reconvened in the kitchen, and the mental cut and thrust between the men started anew. Halfway through lunch, I'd had it.

"You two are acting like escapees from a school for the criminally immature."

Two faces went puppy dog innocent.

"How about we all take a sabbatical. It's a holiday weekend, a timeout will be rejuvenating." I couldn't believe I was saying this. But the constant bickering was grating on my nerves.

"Pete, go play another eighteen holes. Ryan, let's drive into town and ambush Emma for a day at the beach."

I got no arguments.

It took twenty minutes of urging, but Emma finally gave in.

The sun was hot, the sky ceramic blue and unmarred by a single cloud. When we arrived, weekend sun worshippers were already out in force, baking on towels, lazing in sand chairs, destroying epidermis.

Emma and I alternated between floating on air mattresses and walking the beach, waves cresting into froth around our ankles. High up, pelicans drifted in formation. Now and then a squadron member would tuck its wings and plunge seaward. The lucky ones would surface with fish, the unlucky with water streaming from their beaks.

As we strolled, I described my conversations with Gullet and Winborne, and asked if I could work at the morgue in the morning. Emma assured me she'd again arrange clearance. Though tempted, I didn't inquire about Susie Ruth Aikman. Nor did I query the thorny cruise ship fatality that I'd read about in Winborne's article on Aikman.

Ryan passed the hours reading a Pat Conroy novel in the shade of an enormous umbrella we'd dragged from under Anne's house. Now and then he'd venture forth, swim alternating laps of the crawl and some French Canadian form of the backstroke, then towel off, lather up, and resettle in his chair.

By the time we headed back to "Sea for Miles," Emma's color was approaching normal. Ryan's had gone from chicken white to lemonade pink.

After I showered, the three of us hit Melvin's for barbecue, then Ryan and I drove Emma home. It was a frivolous, tranquil, and altogether soothing afternoon.

And well timed. Holiday weekend or not, I was about to hit Gullet's trifecta.

28.

AT EIGHT THIRTY THE NEXT MORNING RYAN AND I WERE ON our way to MUSC. He looked relaxed for the first time since arriving in Charleston. The night before he'd had another conversation with Lily's mother. Though his daughter still felt angry and hostile toward him, Lily had agreed to speak with a counselor. Lutetia was setting up a series of appointments.

Or maybe it was the sunburn. Or the post-barbecue nooky. Whatever the cause, Ryan seemed much less tense.

Lee Ann Miller met us at the morgue door. After a virtual replay of Ryan's early morning comments concerning the rainbow bruise on my arm, she went to retrieve the barrel lady from the cooler. In her absence, I again tried Nelson Teal. This time the line was engaged.

Possible progress. A busy signal meant someone was home, unless another incoming call was tying up the line.

Having delivered the remains to the autopsy room, Miller took off to do paperwork. Ryan settled in a chair with his Conroy book.

I gloved, then laid out the skeleton. Based on my experience with Cruikshank and Helms, my impulse was to go straight to the vertebrae. Instead, I followed protocol, methodically moving from the head toward the feet, examining each bone under magnification.

The skull showed no signs of violence. The jaw was undamaged. I found nothing on the hands, nothing on the arm or shoulder bones. The sternum and upper cervical vertebrae were intact.

Then everything changed.

"Look at this," I said to Ryan, a cold dread sprouting in my gut.

Ryan squinted into the scope.

"You're looking at the left transverse process of C-6. The fractures are identical to those I found on Helms and Cruikshank. Same vertebra, same side."

"Hyoid broken?" Ryan referred to a U-shaped throat bone that's often fractured during manual strangulation.

"No."

Ryan straightened. "Hanging?"

"The fracturing is limited to one side."

"Sudden wrenching?" Ryan was going through the same mental checklist I'd considered.

"Maybe." I pointed to the vertical hinge fracture on the anterior lamina of the transverse process. "This is where the anterior scalene muscle originates." I moved the tip of my pen to a bony prominence beside the fracture. "This little bump is called the carotid tubercle, because it's the pressure point for the carotid artery. Sudden wrenching could cause compression of the carotid sheath. If compression was severe enough it could cut off blood flow to and from the brain, and that could result in death."

"Half nelson?" Ryan referred to the wrestling hold in which one arm is passed under the opponent's armpit from behind and brought around to the back of the neck.

I raised both palms in frustration. I'd been thinking about this since first seeing the fractures on Willie Helms's vertebra. I still hadn't figured it out.

"I understand the physiology of the injury, it's the mechanism that confuses me. The hinge fracture suggests quite a bit of force was applied. A sufficiently severe back and crosswise wrench of the head against the contraction of the anterior scalene usually tears or loosens the anterior tubercles of the fourth through the sixth vertebrae. So how could so much force be delivered yet only a single bone be broken?"

Ryan delivered a "don't look at me" look, then settled back with his book.

I returned to the bones.

And minutes later found the first nick. L-3. Belly side. Like Helms. The dread expanded into my chest. I continued my examination.

It took less than an hour. When done, I summarized my findings for Ryan, indicating each area of trauma with a pen.

"Hinge fracture on the left transverse process of the C-6 vertebra. A total of eight cut marks on the belly surfaces of lumbar vertebrae two, three, and four. That's it. No other damage to the skeleton."

"Think she was gut-stabbed?" Ryan asked.

"If this is a stabbing, the perp was cranked. The blade would need to have penetrated her entire abdomen to nick the vertebrae on their anterior sides."

"Any idea of tool type?"

"The cuts are tiny, V-shaped in cross section, with clean edges and no striations. All I can say is that it's an implement with a very sharp, nonserrated blade."

"Defense wounds?"

I shook my head. "The hand and lower arm bones are undamaged."

"So Cruikshank had the fractured neck vertebrae, but not the nicks. Helms and Montague had both." I could tell Ryan was thinking out loud.

"Yes. If they were killed by a common killer, they may have been killed for different reasons."

Neither of us came up with a good explanation. But Ryan's earlier comment had tickled a memory. Years back a colleague had reported on unilateral midneck fractures. Who? And where? Was it a presentation at a professional meeting? A published article? In what journal?

I needed to get online.