Bonjour, Tempe. I miss you. We should talk.

Pop-up image. Lanky build, sandy hair, Carolina blue eyes. Andrew Ryan, lieutenant-détective, Section des crimes contre la personne, Sûreté du Québec.

So there’s the Quebec thing. I work two jobs, one in Charlotte, North Carolina, USA, one in Montreal, Quebec, Canada, where I am forensic anthropologist for the Bureau du coroner. Ryan is a homicide detective with the provincial police. In other words, for murders in La Belle Province , I work the vics and Ryan detects.

Years back, when I began at the Montreal lab, Ryan had a reputation as the station-house stud. And I had a rule against office romance. Turned out the lieutenant-détective was lousy with rules. When hopes of salvaging my marriage finally hit the scrap heap, we began seeing each other socially. For a while, things went well. Very well.

My mind ran an X-rated slide show of memorable plays. Beaufort, South Carolina, the first deflected pass, me in cutoffs sans panties, aboard a forty-two-foot Chris-Craft at the Lady’s Island Marina. Charlotte, North Carolina, the first touchdown, me in a man-eater black dress and one of Victoria’s most secret thongs.

Recalling other sports moments, I felt a wee tummy flip. Yep, the guy was that good. And that good-looking.

Then Ryan blew a hole in my heart. The daughter he’d newly discovered but had never known, Lily, was rebellious, angry, addicted to heroin. Racked with guilt, Daddy had decided to reconnect with Mommy and launch a joint effort to save daughter.

And I was out like last year’s shade of lipstick. That was four months ago.

“Screw it.”

Face upturned to the spigot, I belted out a jumbled version of Gloria Gaynor.

“I will survive. I’ve got all my life to live-”

Suddenly, the water went cold. And I was starving. Totally engaged in processing the cellar, and nerve-fried by the underground context in which I was forced to work, I’d been oblivious to hunger. Until now.

Bird strolled in as I was toweling off.

“Sorry,” I said. “Night op. No choice.”

The cat looked skeptical. Or quizzical. Or bored.

“How about a hit of zoom-around-the-room?”

Bird sat and licked one forepaw, indicating forgiveness would not be hurried with a catnip bribe.

Pulling on a nightshirt and fuzzy pink socks, I returned to the kitchen.

Another character weakness. I hate errands. Dry cleaning. Car maintenance. Supermarket. I may construct lists, but follow-through is usually delayed until I’m back-against-the-wall. Consequently, my larder offered the following delicacies:

One frozen meat loaf entrée. One frozen chow mein entrée. Cans of tuna, peaches, tomato paste, and green beans. Mushroom, vegetable, and chicken noodle soup. Packages of dried macaroni and cheese and mushroom risotto.

Bird reappeared as the chow mein was leaving the microwave. Setting the tray on the counter, I got catnip from the pantry and placed it in his mouse.

The cat flopped to his side, clawed the toy with all fours, and sniffed. His character weakness? He likes to get high.

I ate standing at the sink while Bird jazzed his pheromonic receptors on the floor at my feet. Then Ozzy Osbourne and I hit the sack.

Though I was anxious to begin my analysis of the skull and cauldrons, Tuesdays I belonged to UNCC.

Much to Slidell’s annoyance.

As appeasement, I agreed to drop by the MCME at the butt crack of dawn. Skinny’s wording, not mine.

I spent an hour sampling from the chicken and the goat head, and double-checking the bugs I’d collected from the cellar. Fortunately, I’d taken time on-site to separate and label them.

Insects packaged and shipped to an entomologist in Hawaii, I rushed to campus to teach my morning seminar. In the afternoon I advised students. Legions of them, all concerned about upcoming midterms. Dusk was nothing but a memory when I finally slipped away.

Wednesday, I was again up with the sun. Rising at daybreak is not my style. I wasn’t enjoying it.

The Mecklenburg County Medical Examiner is located at Tenth and College, on the cusp of uptown, in a building that started life as a Sears Garden Center. Which is exactly what it resembles, sans the pansies and philodendra. Squat and featureless, the one-story brick bunker is also home to several Charlotte-Mecklenburg PD satellite offices.

In tune with the original mall theme, landscaping consists of an acre of concrete. Bad news if you’re hoping for a shot at Southern Homes and Gardens. Good news if you’re trying to park your car.

Which I was, at 7:35 A.M.

Card-swiping myself through double glass doors, I entered an empty reception area. A purring silence told me I was first to arrive.

Weekdays, Eunice Flowers screens visitors through a plate-glass window above her desk, granting entrance to some, turning others away. She does scheduling, types and enters reports, and maintains hard-copy documents in gray metal cabinets lining the walls of her domain.

Regardless of the weather, Mrs. Flowers’s clothes remain pressed, her hair fixed with balanced precision. Though kind and generous, the woman inevitably makes me feel messy.

And her work space totally confounds me. No matter the chaos throughout the rest of the lab, her desktop is perpetually clean and clutter-free. All papers stay militarily squared, all bulletin board Post-its aligned and equi-spaced. I am incapable of such tidiness, and suspicious of those who are.

I knew the gatekeeper would arrive in fifteen minutes. Precisely. Mrs. Flowers had clocked in at 7:50 for more than two decades, would continue to do so until she retired. Or her toes pointed north.

Turning right, I walked past a row of death investigator cubicles to a large whiteboard on the back wall. While penning that day’s date in the square beside my name, I checked those beside the names of the three pathologists.

Dr. Germaine Hartigan was away for a week of vacation. Dr. Ken Siu had blocked off three days for court testimony.

Bummer for Larabee. He was on his own this week.

I looked at the intake log. Overnight, two cases had been entered in black Magic Marker.

A burned body had been found in a Dumpster behind a Winn-Dixie supermarket. MCME 522-08.

A jawless human skull had been found in a cellar. MCME 523-08.

My office is in back, near those of the pathologists. The square footage is such that the room probably qualifies by code as a closet.

Unlocking the door, I slid behind my desk and placed my purse in a drawer. Then I pulled a form from plastic mini-shelving topping a filing cabinet at my back, filled in the case number, and wrote a brief description of the remains and the circumstances surrounding their discovery. Worksheet ready, I hurried to the locker room.

The MCME facility has a pair of autopsy suites, each with a single table. The smaller of the two has special ventilation for combating odor.

The stinky room. For decomps and floaters. My kinds of cases.

After laying out cameras, calipers, a screen, picks, and a small trowel, I crossed to the morgue. The stainless steel door whooshed open, enveloping me in the smell of refrigerated flesh. I flicked on the light.

And said a prayer of thanks to Joe Hawkins. Metaphorically.

On Tuesday, I’d been too grumpy because of the butt-crack hour to notice. The dilemma struck me as I was changing into scrubs. If the cauldrons were on the floor, how would I move them?

No problem. Hawkins had left both on the gurney he’d employed to transport them from Greenleaf. Gathering the cardboard box containing the skulls and the chicken, I toed the brake release, turned, and rump-pushed the door. It flew open.

Hands caught me as I sailed into a full-out pratfall. Recovering, I turned.