Robberies? A weird hourglass symbol spray-painted on the victims' groins? Make and model, names, professions. Everything but the damn crime-scene photos right there for all the world to see! "

The headline was huge:

"What was I supposed to do?" West said.

"Keep him out of trouble."

"I'm not a babysitter."

"A businessman from Orlando, a salesman from Atlanta, a banker from South Carolina, a Baptist minister. From Tennessee. Welcome to our lovely city." Hammer tossed the paper on a couch.

"What do we do?"

"Letting him ride wasn't my idea," West reminded her.

"What's done is done." Hammer sat behind her desk. She picked up the phone and dialed.

"We can't get rid of him. Got any idea how that would look? On top of all the rest of it?" Her eyes glazed as the mayor's secretary answered.

"Listen, Ruth, get him now. I don't care what he's doing." Hammer started drumming polished nails on the blotter.

West was in a worse mood when she left her boss's office. It wasn't fair. Life was hard enough, and she was beginning to wonder about Hammer. What did West know about her, anyway, except that she had come to Charlotte from Chicago, a huge city where people froze their asses off half the year and the mob had its way with public officials. Next thing, Hammer sailed here, that housewife husband of hers tagging along.

Brazil wasn't pleased with his circumstances, either. He was punishing himself again this morning, pounding up bleacher steps in the stadium where the Davidson Wildcats lost every football game, even some they hadn't played, it seemed. He was going at it and didn't care if he had a heart attack or was sore tomorrow. Deputy Chief West was a lowlife cowboy, and as insensitive as shit, and Chief Hammer wasn't at all what he had fantasized. Hammer could have at least smiled or glanced at him, and made him feel welcome last night. Brazil headed back up the steps again, sweat leaving gray spots on cement.

Hammer wanted to hang up on the mayor. She had had just about enough of his unimaginative way of solving problems.

"I understand the medical examiner believes these murders have a homosexual connection," he was saying over the phone.

"That's one opinion," Hammer answered.

"The fact is that we don't know. All the victims were married with children."

"Exactly," he slyly said.

"For God's sake, Chuck, don't pile this on me so early in the morning." Hammer looked out the window and could almost see the bastard's office from where she sat.

"Point is, the theory is helpful," he went on in his South Carolina drawl.

Mayor Charles Search was from Charleston. He was

Hammer's age and often considered what it might be like to bed her. If nothing else, it would remind her of things she seemed to have forgotten. Her place, for starters. If she wasn't married, he would swear-she was a lesbian. He sat in his leather judge's chair, headset on, and doodled on a legal pad.

"The city, out of town businesses, won't be as bothered by this…"

he was trying to say.

"Where are you so I can break your neck," Hammer said over the phone.

"When was your lobotomy? I would have sent flowers."

"Judy." This doodle was really good. He focused on it, putting his glasses on.

"Calm down. I know exactly what I'm doing."

"Of course you don't."

Maybe she was a lesbian, or bisexual, anyway, with a grating Midwestern accent. He reached for a red pen, getting excited over his art. It was an atom with orbits of little molecules that looked weirdly like eggs. Birth. This was seminal.

To make matters ever so much worse this morning, West had to go to the morgue. North Carolina didn't have the best system, it was West's opinion. Some cases were taken care of locally, by Dr. Odom and the police forensic labs. Other bodies were sent to the Chief Medical Examiner in Chapel Hill. Go figure. It was probably all about sports again. Hornets fans stayed in town, Tarheels got their lovely Y-incision in the big university town.

The Mecklenburg County Medical Examiner's office was on North College Street, across from the award- winning new public library. West was buzzed in at the glass entrance. She had to give the place credit. The building, which was the former Sears Garden Center, was brighter and more modern than most morgues, and had added another cold room the last time US Air had crashed another plane around here. It was a shame that North Carolina didn't seem inclined to hire a few more MEs for the great state of Mecklenburg, as some sour senators were inclined to disparage the state's fastest-growing, most progressive region.

There were only two forensic pathologists to handle more than a hundred homicides a year, and both of them were in the necropsy room when West arrived. The dead businessman didn't look any better now that Dr. Odom had started on him. Brewster was at the table, wearing a disposable plastic apron and gloves. He nodded at her as she tied a gown in back, because West didn't take chances. Dr. Odom was splashed with blood, and holding the scalpel like a pencil as he reflected back tissue. His patient had a lot of fat, which always looked worse inside out.

The morgue assistant was a big man who was always sweating. He plugged an autopsy saw into the overhead cord reel, and started on the skull.

This West could do without. The sound was worse than the dentist's drill, the bony smell, not to mention the idea, awful. West would not be murdered or turn up dead suspiciously in any form or fashion. She would not have this done to her naked body with people like Brewster looking on while clerks passed around her pictures and made comments.

"Contact wounds, entrances here behind the right ear." Dr. Odom pointed a bloody gloved finger, mostly for her benefit.

"Large caliber. This is execution style."

"Exactly like the others," Brewster remarked.

"What about cartridge cases?" Dr. Odom asked.

"Forty-fives, Winchester, probably Silvertips," West replied, thinking about Brazil's article again and all that he had revealed.

"Five each time. Perp doesn't bother picking them up, doesn't care. We need to get the FBI on this."

"Fucking press," Brewster said.

West had never been to Quantico. Her dream had always been to attend the FBI's National Academy, which was rather much the Oxford University of police training. But she'd been busy. Then she kept getting promoted. Finally, the only thing she was eligible for was executive training up there, for God's sake. That meant a bunch of big-bellied chiefs, assistant chiefs, and sheriffs, out on the firing range trying to make the transition from. 38 specials to semiautomatic pistols. She'd heard the stories. All these guys blasting away, dumping brass into their hands, and taking the time to stuff it neatly in their pockets. Hammer offered to send West last year. Forget it.

West didn't need to learn a thing from the FBI.

"I'd like to know what their profilers would have to say," West said.

"Forget it," Brewster said, chewing a toothpick and swiping Vicks up his nose.

Dr. Odom picked up a big sponge, and squeezed water over organs. He grabbed a tan rubber hose, and suctioned blood out of the chest cavity.

"He smells like he was drinking," said Brewster, who could no longer smell anything except childhood memories of colds.

"Maybe on the plane," Odom agreed.

"What about those guys at Quantico?" He eyed Brewster, as if West had never brought up the subject.

"Busy as jumping beans," Brewster replied.

"Like I said, forget it.

They got what? Ten, eleven profilers and are about a thousand cases behind? Think the government's going to fund shit? Shit no. Too damn bad, too.

"Cause those profilers are damn good."

Brewster had applied to the FBI early on, but forget that, too. They weren't hiring, or maybe it had to do with the polygraph test he wasn't about to take. He sniffed more Vicks. God, he hated death. It was ugly and it stunk. It was a tattletale. Like this fellow's dick, for example. The guy looked like a balloon with this little knot, so all his air didn't get out.

West was angry, her face hard, as she stared at the fleshy nude body opened up from neck to navel, and blaze orange paint no amount of scrubbing would wash away. She thought of his wife and family. No human should ever have to come to such a grim place and be put through something like this, and she felt fresh anger toward Brazil.

She was waiting for him when he trotted out of the Knight-Ridder building, his notepad in hand as he headed to his car and a story.

West, in uniform, climbed out of her unmarked Ford, and she strode toward Brazil like she might tackle him. She wished she could have bottled that dead smell and sprayed it in Brazil's face, and rubbed his nose in the reality West had to live with every day. Brazil was in a hurry and had a lot on his mind. A Honda was on fire in the Mental Health parking lot, according to the scanner. Possibly, it was nothing, but what if someone was in it? Brazil stopped. He was startled as West jabbed a finger into his breastbone.

"Hey!" He grabbed her wrist.

"So how's the Black Widow reporter today?" West coldly said.

"I just came from the morgue, you know, where reality's laid out and carved up? Bet you've never been there. Maybe they'll let you watch someday.

What a good story that would be, right? A man not old enough to be your daddy. Red hair, hundred and ninety-seven pounds. Guess what his hobby was. "

Brazil released West's arm. He groped for words but didn't have any.

"Backgammon, photography. He wrote the newsletter for his church, wife's dying of cancer. They got two kids, one grown, other a freshman at UNC. Anything else you want to know about him? Or is Mr. Parsons nothing but a story to you? Little words on paper?"

Brazil was visibly shaken. He started walking off to his old BMW as the Honda in the Mental Health parking lot burned and he no longer cared. West wasn't going to let him off so easy. She grabbed his arm.

"Get your goddamn hands off me," Brazil said. He jerked his arm free, unlocked his car door, and got in.

"You screwed me, Andy," West told him.