"This one came from eighteen inches below the ground surface, in dirt directly associated with the body."

Gullet's face didn't change.

"This eyelash is black," I said. "The man on Dewees had pale blond hair."

"Could it belong to one of your diggers?"

I shook my head no. "They're both too fair."

One bushy brow might have ascended a micromillimeter.

"Lashes good for DNA?"

"Mitochondrial," I said.

Gullet didn't react.

"A type of DNA that traces through maternal relatives." Oversimplified, but good enough.

Gullet nodded, walked to the counter, and withdrew an evidence transfer form from his bundle.

I joined him and signed my name and the date.

Gullet tore off and handed me my copy. Then he folded the form and shoved it into an inside jacket pocket. His eyes again wandered to the gurneys.

"You find anything tying these fellas together?"

"No."

"Except each managed to break his neck."

"Except that."

"If these boys are linked, we got us a double homicide. Hypothetically speaking, of course."

"Hypothetically speaking," I agreed.

"Serial?"

I shrugged "maybe." "Or the two might have known each other."

"Go on."

"Maybe they witnessed something that got them both killed."

Not a flicker in Gullet's face.

"Maybe they were involved in something."

"Such as?"

"Drugs. Counterfeiting. The Lindbergh kidnapping."

"Hypothetically speaking."

"Hypothetically speaking."

"My chief deputy of special ops nailed that building."

My face showed something. Confusion.

"Cruikshank's CD. The photos. My staffer says that brick building's a free clinic over on Nassau."

"Who runs it?" I asked, at last making the leap.

"GMC."

"Herron and his flock. Jesus! Could it be the one where Helene Flynn worked?"

"Now I understand your boyfriend's got an interest in those boys, but a law degree doesn't make him a cop in my town. If we're looking at murder, and I'm not yet saying we are, I don't want some wingtipped cowboy spooking potential suspects."

It seemed pointless to mention that Pete wasn't my boyfriend. Or that he owned not a single wingtip.

Gullet pointed a warning finger. "You keep that boy reined in. Things go sideways, I'm the one takes the heat."

"Will you check out the clinic?" I asked.

"Not much to justify that at the moment."

Gullet tapped the PC. "You come up with the password, you call. Otherwise we shoot this thing up to SLED." South Carolina Law Enforcement.

"Won't that mean queuing up for a long wait?" I asked.

Gullet repositioned his Ray-Bans. "You take your shot, ma'am."

When the sheriff had gone, I phoned Emma. She told me to leave the eyelash and snail and she'd have Lee Ann Miller pick them up and send them to the state crime lab.

After photographing the vertebral fractures, I bagged and delivered the lash and shell, and told the tech I was through for the day. The clock said two. I headed home.

On the way, I phoned Pete's BlackBerry. No answer. Big surprise.

I was so pumped about getting into Cruikshank's hard drive, I didn't stop for lunch. At "Sea for Miles" I took Boyd out to the road for a quick health break, threw together a ham and cheese sandwich, then settled at the kitchen table.

The laptop booted through the Windows opening sequence to a blue screen. There, a cursor blinked, awaiting clearance to load personal settings.

I started with commonly used passwords: 123123. 123456. 1A2B3C. Password. Open.

No go.

Cruikshank's initials? Birthday?

I got up and retrieved the AFIS printout that Emma had given me.

Noble Carter Cruikshank.

I tried NCC, CCN, and varying combinations of the man's initials, with and without his date of birth, forward and backward. I inverted each name, then rearranged groupings of letters. Then I substituted digits for letters and letters for digits.

The cursor didn't budge.

Charlotte Mecklenburg Police Department.

I tried every combination using CMPD in differing positions with the name and DOB.

Nope.

Shannon. I didn't have Shannon 's middle or last name. When had they married? No idea. The beach photo was dated July 1976. I tried more combinations.

The cursor wouldn't buy it.

Baseball. I got the box and pulled the trophy. June 24, 1983.

DOB. Date of league championship. Combined. Scrambled. Inverted.

No sale.

I played with Cruikshank's address and every date on the AFIS sheet.

By four thirty I'd run out of ideas.

"I don't have enough personal information," I said to the empty kitchen.

Boyd shot to his feet.

"Still mad about the stingy walk?"

Boyd's mouth opened and his tongue drooped over one purple gum.

"You chows are a forgiving breed."

The chow cocked his head and tipped his ears forward.

"Let's switch to the files."

Shutting down the laptop, I moved to the den. Boyd padded along.

Cruikshank's file carton was still on the window seat. I took it to the coffee table and sat on the couch.

Boyd hopped up beside me. Our eyes met. Boyd dropped back to the floor.

The box held about forty manila folders, each with a handwritten date and name. Some files were fat, others thin. I ran through the tabs.

The files were organized chronologically. I could tell from the dates there were times Cruikshank was working multiple cases. There were also gaps, presumably his periods of heavy drinking.

I pulled the oldest file.

Murdock, Deborah Anne. August 2000. C.

Deborah Murdock's folder held the following:

Shorthand notes similar to those in Helene Flynn's file.

Canceled checks drawn on the joint account of Deborah and Jason Murdock. The last was written December 4, 2000.

Photos of a couple entering or exiting a restaurant, bar, or motel.

Letters addressed to Jason Murdock in Moncks Corner, South Carolina, and signed by Noble Cruikshank. The letters spanned the period from September to November 2000.

I was getting the drift. I read only one letter.

Yep. Deborah was the woman in the pics. The man wasn't Jason.

I moved on.

Lang, Henry. December 2000. C.

Same deal. Notes, checks, photos, reports. Cruikshank spent six months on this one. Here it was hubby who was stepping out.

Next folder.

Todman, Kyle. February 2001. C.

This case involved an antiques dealer who suspected his partner of ripping him off. It took Cruikshank a month to nail the swindler.

I pulled file after file. The stories had a sad sameness to them. Cheating spouses. Missing parents. Runaway teens. Few had happy endings. What is it they say? If you acknowledge your suspicion, it's probably true.

I looked at the clock. Six fifteen. I wondered what Pete was doing.

I wondered what Ryan was doing.

I checked my cell. No messages. The battery was fine.

Of course it was.

Back to the files.

Ethridge, Parker. March 2002.

This was one of the fattest jackets in the carton.

Parker Ethridge, age fifty-eight, lived by himself. In March 2002 Parker's son went to collect him for a long-planned fishing trip. Ethridge wasn't home and was never seen again. Cruikshank spent over a year investigating, but to no avail. Ethridge junior fired him in May 2003.

Franklin , Georgia . March 2004. C.

In November 2003, a nineteen-year-old coed disappeared from her dorm at the College of Charleston. Four months later, dissatisfied with police progress, Georgia 's parents hired Cruikshank to find their daughter. He did. Living with a Buddhist jewelry maker in Asheville, North Carolina.

Poe, Harmon. April 2004. Unemployed male. Last seen at the Ralph H. Johnson VA Medical Center. Reported missing by a friend.