"Hell, yes. I poked through what was left of that ole boy."

"Which was?"

"I've seen my share of bear bait, but Tramper was the worst. Those little bastards tore the bejeezus out of him. Carried his head clean off."

"The skull was not recovered?"

"No."

"How did you ID him?"

"Wife recognized the rifle and clothing."

I found the Reverend Luke Bowman gathering fallen branches in his shadowy front yard. Save for the substitution of a black windbreaker, he was dressed exactly as on our previous meetings.

Bowman watched me pull next to his pickup, added his armful to a pile beside the drive, and approached my car. We spoke through the open window.

"Good morning, Miss Temperance."

"Good morning. Beautiful day for yard work."

"Yes, ma'am, it is." Fragments of bark and dry leaves clung to his jacket.

"Could I ask you something, Reverend Mr. Bowman?"

"Of course."

"How old was Edna Farrell when she died?"

"I believe Sister Farrell was just shy of eighty."

"Do you remember a man named Tucker Adams?"

His eyes narrowed, and the tip of his tongue slid across his upper lip.

"Adams was elderly, died in 1943," I prompted.

The tongue disappeared and a gnarled finger sighted on me. "I surely do. I was ten years old when that old fellow wandered off from his farm. I helped search for him. Brother Adams was blind and half deaf, so the whole community pitched in."

"How did Adams die?"

"Everyone assumed he just died in the woods. We never found him."

"But his grave is in the cemetery on Schoolhouse Hill."

"No one's buried there. Sister Adams put the headstone up a couple years after her husband went missing."

"Thank you. You've been very helpful."

"I see the boys got your car to running."

"Yes."

"Hope they didn't charge too much."

"No, sir. It seemed fair."

I pulled into the sheriff 's department lot directly behind Lucy Crowe. She parked her cruiser, then waited with hands on hips as I turned off the engine and retrieved my briefcase. Her face looked drawn and cheerless.

"Rough morning?"

"Some morons stole a golf cart from the country club, left it a mile up Conleys Creek Road. Two seven-year-olds found the thing and ran it into a tree. One's got a broken collarbone, the other a concussion."

"Teenagers?"

"Probably."

We spoke as we walked.

"Anything new on the Hobbs murder?"

"One of my deputies was working security Sunday morning. He remembers seeing Hobbs enter the morgue around eight, remembers you. The computer shows she checked the foot out at nine-fifteen, back in at two."

"She kept it that long after talking to me?"

"Apparently."

We climbed the steps and were buzzed through the outside door, then again through a barred prison gate. I followed Crowe down a corridor and across an outer workroom to her office.

"Hobbs signed out of the morgue at three-ten. A guy from Bryson City PD was working the afternoon shift. He doesn't recall seeing her leave."

"What about the surveillance camera?"

"This is beautiful."

Crowe unclipped a radio from her belt, placed it on a cabinet, and dropped into her chair. I took one of those opposite the desk.

"The thing went out around two Sunday afternoon, stayed down until eleven Monday morning."

"Did anyone see Primrose after she left the morgue?"

"Nope."

"Did you discover anything in her room?"

"The lady was fond of Post-its. Phone numbers. Times. Names. Lots of notes, mostly work-related."

"Primrose was always losing her glasses, wore them on a cord around her neck. She worried about being forgetful." I felt a cold spot in my chest. "Any clue about her destination Sunday afternoon?"

"Not a word."

A deputy entered and placed a paper on the sheriff 's desk. She glanced at it briefly, back to me.

"I see your wheels are running again."

My Mazda was the talk of Swain County.

"I'm heading down to Charlotte, but I want to show you a couple of things before I go."

I handed her the purloined photo of the Tramper funeral.

"Recognize anyone?"

"I'll be goddamned. Parker Davenport, our venerable lieutenant governor. The little twerp looks like he's fifteen." She returned the print. "What's the significance?"

"I'm not sure."

Next, I handed her Laslo's report, waited while she read.

"So the DA was right."

"Or I was right."

"Oh?"

"How about this scenario? Jeremiah Mitchell died after leaving the Mighty High Tap last February. His body was stored in a freezer or refrigerator, removed, then placed outside later."

"Why?" She tried to keep the skepticism out of her voice.

I withdrew the notes I'd taken at the library, took a deep breath, and began.

"Henry Arlen Preston died here in 1943. Three days later a farmer named Tucker Adams disappeared. He was seventy-two. Adams's body was never found."

"What does that have to d-"

I held up a hand.

"In 1949 a biology professor named Sheldon Brodie drowned in the Tuckasegee River. A day later Edna Farrell disappeared. She was around eighty. Her body was never found."

Crowe picked up a pen, placed the tip on the blotter, and slid it end over end through her fingers.

"In 1959 Allen Birkby was killed in an automobile accident on Highway 19. Two days after the wreck Charlie Wayne Tramper disappeared. Tramper was seventy-four. His body was recovered, but it was badly mangled, the head missing. The ID was strictly circumstantial."

I looked up at her.

"That's it?"

"What day did Jeremiah Mitchell disappear?"

Crowe dropped the pen, opened a drawer, and withdrew a file.

"February fifteenth."

"Martin Patrick Veckhoff died in Charlotte on February twelfth."

"Lots of people die in February. It's a lousy month."

"The name 'Veckhoff' is on the list of H&F officers."

"The investment group that owns that weird property near Running Goat Branch?"

I nodded.

"So is 'Birkby.'"

She leaned back and rubbed the corner of one eye. I pulled out Laslo's find and set it in front of her.

"Laslo Sparkes found this in the dirt we collected near the wall at the Running Goat house."

She studied but did not reach for the vial.

"It's a tooth fragment. I'm taking it to Charlotte for DNA testing to establish whether it goes with the foot."

Her phone rang. She ignored it.

"You need to get a reference sample for Mitchell."

She hesitated a moment. Then, "I can look into it."

"Sheriff."

The kiwi eyes met mine.

"This may be bigger than Jeremiah Mitchell."

Three hours later Boyd and I were crossing Little Rock Road, heading north on I-85. The Charlotte skyline rose in the distance, like a stand of saguaro in the Sonoran Desert.