I pointed the highlights out to Boyd. The giant phallus of the Bank of America Corporate Center. The syringelike office building on The Square housing the Charlotte City Club, with its circular green cap of a roof and antenna sticking straight up from the center. The jukebox contour of One First Union Center.

"Look at that, boy. Sex, drugs, and rock and roll."

Boyd raised his ears but said nothing.

While Charlotte's neighborhoods may be small-town cozy, its downtown is a city of polished stone and tinted glass, and its attitude toward crime is au courant. The Charlotte-Mecklenburg Police Department is housed in the Law Enforcement Center, an enormous concrete structure at Fourth and McDowell. The CMPD employs approximately 1,900 officers and 400 unsworn support personnel, and maintains its own crime laboratory, second only to that of the SBI. Not bad for a populace of less than 600,000.

Exiting the expressway, I cut across downtown and pulled into the visitors' lot at the LEC.

Officers entered and left the building, each uniformed in deep blue. Boyd growled softly as one crossed close to the car.

"See the emblem on the shoulder patch? It's a hornet's nest."

Boyd made a yodel-like noise but kept his nose at the window.

"During the Revolutionary War, General Cornwallis encountered such pockets of intense resistance in Charlotte that he branded the area a hornet's nest."

No comment.

"I have to go inside, Boyd. You can't."

Disagreeing, Boyd stood.

I promised to be gone less than an hour, gave him my last emergency granola bar, cracked the windows, and left him.

I found Ron Gillman in his corner office on the fourth floor.

Ron was a tall, silver-haired man with a body that suggested basketball or tennis. The only blemish was a Lauren Hutton gap in his upper dentition.

He listened without interrupting as I told him my theory about Mitchell and the foot. When I'd finished, he held out a hand.

"Let's see it."

He slipped on horn-rimmed glasses and studied the fragment, rolling the vial from side to side. Then he picked up the phone and spoke to someone in the DNA section.

"Things move faster if the request comes from here," he said, replacing the receiver.

"Fast would be good," I said.

"I've already checked on your bone sample. That's done, and the profile's gone into the database we set up for the crash victims. If we get results on this"-he indicated the vial-"we'll feed them in and search for a hit."

"I can't tell you how much I appreciate this."

He leaned back and placed his hands behind his head.

"You really put your finger in someone's eye, Dr. Brennan."

"Guess I did."

"Any thoughts as to whose?"

"Parker Davenport."

"The lieutenant governor?"

"That's the one."

"How did you rile Davenport?"

I turned palms up and shrugged.

"It's hard to help if you're not forthcoming."

I stared at him, torn. I'd shared my theory with Lucy Crowe. But that was Swain County. This was home. Ron Gillman directed the second largest crime lab in the state. While the force was funded locally, money came to it via federal grants administered in Raleigh.

Like the ME. Like the university.

What the hell.

I gave him a condensed version of what I'd told Lucy Crowe.

"So you think the M. P. Veckhoff on your list is state senator Pat Veckhoff from Charlotte?"

I nodded.

"And that Pat Veckhoff and Parker Davenport are tied together in some way?"

Another nod.

"Davenport and Veckhoff. The lieutenant governor and a state senator. That's heavy."

"Henry Preston was a judge."

"What's the link?"

Before I could answer, a man appeared in the doorway, the name "Krueger" embroidered above the pocket of his lab coat. Gillman introduced Krueger as the technical leader of the DNA section. He, along with another analyst, examined all DNA evidence at the lab. I rose and we shook hands.

Gillman handed Krueger the vial and explained what I wanted.

"If there's something there, we'll get it," he said, giving a thumbsup-gesture.

"How long?"

"We'll have to purify, amplify, document all along the way. I might be able to give you a verbal in four or five days."

"That would be great." Forty-eight hours would be great, I thought.

Krueger and I signed evidence transfer forms, and he disappeared with the specimen. I waited as Gillman took a call. When he hung up, I asked a question.

"Did you know Pat Veckhoff?"

"No."

"Parker Davenport?"

"I've met him."

"And?"

"He's popular. People vote for him."

"And?"

"He's a royal pain in the ass."

I produced the Tramper funeral photo.

"That's him. But it was a long time ago."

"Yes."

He handed back the picture.

"So what's your explanation for all this?"

"I don't have one."

"But you will."

"But I will."

"Can I help?"

"There is something you can do for me."

I found Boyd curled in granola crumbs, sound asleep. At the sound of the key, he shot to his feet and barked. Realizing this was not a sneak attack, he placed one forepaw on each front seat and wagged his hips. I slid behind the wheel, and he began removing makeup from the side of my face.

Forty minutes later I pulled up at the address Gillman had found for me. Though the residence was only ten minutes from downtown, and five minutes from my condo at Sharon Hall, it had taken that long to work through my usual Queens Road confusion.

Charlotte's street names reflect its schizoid personality. On the one hand the street-naming approach was simple: They found a winner and stuck with it. The city has Queens Road, Queens Road West, and Queens Road East. Sharon Road, Sharon Lane, Sharon Amity, Sharon View, and Sharon Avenue. I've sat at the intersection of Rea Road and Rea Road, Park Road and Park Road. There was also a biblical influence: Providence Road, Carmel Road, Sardis Road.

On the other hand, no appellation seemed adequate for more than a few miles. Streets change names with whimsy. Tyvola becomes Fairview, then Sardis. At one point Providence Road reaches an intersection at which a hard right keeps one on Providence; going straight places one on Queens Road, which immediately becomes Morehead; and going left puts one on Queens Road, which immediately becomes Selwyn. The Billy Graham Parkway begets Woodlawn, then Runnymede. Wendover gives rise to Eastway.

The Queens sisters are the most evil by far. I give visitors and newcomers one driving rule of thumb: If you get onto anything named Queens, get off. The policy has always worked for me.

Marion Veckhoff lived in a large stone Tudor on Queens Road East. The stucco was cream, the woodwork dark, and each downstairs window was a latticework of lead and glass. A neatly trimmed hedge bordered the property, and brightly colored flowers crowded beds along the front and sides of the house. A pair of enormous magnolias all but filled the front yard.

A lady in pearls, pumps, and a turquoise pantsuit was watering pansies along a walk bisecting the front lawn. Her skin was pale, her hair the color of ginger ale.

With a warning to Boyd, I got out and locked the door. I shouted, but the woman seemed oblivious to my presence.

"Mrs. Veckhoff?" I repeated as I drew close.

She spun, spraying my feet with her hose. Her hand jerked, and the water was redirected onto the grass.

"Oh, dear. Oh, my. I'm so sorry."

"It's no problem at all." I stepped back from the water puddling the flagstone. "Are you Mrs. Veckhoff?"

"Yes, dear. You're Carla's niece?"

"No, ma'am. I'm Dr. Brennan."

Her eyes went slightly out of focus, as if consulting a calendar somewhere over my shoulder.

"Did I forget an appointment?"

"No, Mrs. Veckhoff. I wondered if I might ask you a few questions about your husband."

She recentered on me.

"Pat was a state senator for sixteen years. Are you a reporter?"

"No, I'm not. Four terms is quite an achievement."

"Being in public office took him away from home too much, but he loved it."

"Where did he travel?"

"Raleigh, mostly."

"Did he ever visit Bryson City?"

"Where's that, dear?"

"It's in the mountains."

"Oh, Pat loved the mountains, went there whenever he could."

"Did you travel with your husband?"

"Oh no, no. I have the arthritis, and . . ." Her voice trailed off, as though uncertain where to go with the thought.

"Arthritis can be very painful."