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“Very eco-friendly of you, pig,” said Miranda

“That’s ‘Officer Pig’ to you,” said Art pleasantly Likesince learned to enjoy Miranda’s sarcasm, since it was te heart Besides, Art had an equally sizable streak of smart-ass himself His East Tennessee roots had infused him with a down-home sense of fun His three decades of crime-scene and crime-lab experience-he was the Knoxville Police Departallows topspin to the hillbilly huuaranteed a Leno-like ue of deadpan jokes abouttechniques (“Give me a hand, Bill,” he’d once said at a criht hand so he could rush it to the lab for fingerprinting) To someone unaccustoht have sounded shocking, but Art-like Miranda, and like me-took his work seriously It was only hihtly It made the bleakness bearable

“Okay,” I said, “we’ve got both bodies in position, we’ve got an aasoline into both passenger compartments, we’ve hosed down the area till it’s the only patch of ot the water truck standing by with another five hundred gallons just in case Anything I’ve forgotten?”

“You’ve forgotten to explain why it is we had to wait till ht’s all nice and cool for us It’s still ninety, easy, and if that et back up to ninety-five here pretty soon”

“It’s not the heat,” I said to Miranda, “it’s the stupidity You want to explain it to Sherlock here?”

“Sure, boss,” she said “I live to serve” She turned to Art

“Our primary objective, of course, is to incinerate all the soft tissue, so we end up with nothing but burned bones-co”

“I understand that,” said Art, “and I do appreciate it No, really But don’t deood in the daytiist types know that we mere mortals are not privy to?”

“Many things, grasshopper,” said Miranda “The bodies and bones burn just as well in the daytiraph near as well, and ant to document the process in detail” She pointed to the four tripods and digital video cameras we’d set up beside the vehicles One cah each vehicle’s windshield, another through each driver’s“If we did this during the day, the video would show nothing but smoke Lit from the outside, by the sun, the smoke steals the show Lit from within, by the flame, the tissue shows up clear as a bell while it burns away”

“I knew that,” said Art

“I know you knew,” said Miranda “You were just checking to ht?”

“Right” Despite the slight grulad to be out here, rather than bent over a coes with pedophiles Six nainst Children Task Force, dedicated to ferreting out sexual predators who trolled the Web for young victi as “Tiffany,” a fourteen-year-old girl who loved to chat online Although Art took pride in catching and arresting the sort of men who preyed on the Tiffanys of this world, he found the work sad, stressful, and dispiriting So getting per he found wholesome by comparison to pedophilia-was a welcome break for him

“Okay, you two,” I said, “a little less conversation, a little more incineration”

Miranda fished around in a pocket of her jumpsuit “Rock and roll,” she said She flicked a disposable lighter, and a jet of flame appeared at the tip She swayed like a drunk or a stoner, waving the lighter, and sang, “SMOKE on the WA-ter, a FIE-uhr IN the sky-y”

I laughed “Aren’t you a little young to know that song, missy? That’s from back in my heyday”

“My grandpa used to play it on the Victrola,” she said, “whenever he grilled up a woolly olden in the glow of the flame

“Very funny,” I said “Reh on the way back to the old folks’ home”

“Ouch,” she said, but she wasn’t sger, and the flame died

“Serves you right,” I said “Okay, let’s get some data” I walked toward one of the cars, and Miranda headed to the other Fishing a book of paper et enough friction from the tiny strip at the base of the book-then used that match to set off the rest The er than I’d expected, and I reflexively flung it through the openof the car The gas-soaked upholstery ignited with a flash and a whoosh, and I wondered if I’d been too liberal with the accelerant I also wondered, as I felt the heat searing my face, if I had any eyebrows left

Through the rush and crackle of the growing fire, I caught the drone of an airplane overhead A small plane, just off the runway from the nearby airport, banked in our direction As it circled, the flash of its wingtip strobes illu cars in bursts, like flash grenades, minus the boom I tried to wave thenored estures

Backing away froulfed in flames Despite the intensity of the inferno, Miranda stood barely ten feet fro her face, a look of utter fascination in her eyes I forced h the blast of heat and took her by the arm “You’re too close,” I shouted over the hiss and roar of the fire

“But look!” she shouted back, never ure slumped in the driver’s seat I looked just in time to see the skin of the forehead peel slowly backward, al cap As it continued to peel backward, I realized that what I was seeing was a scalping A

scalping done by fire, not by knife

“Very interesting!” I yelled “But you’re still too close That’s e’ve got the video caerous”

As if to underscore my point, a thunderous boom shook the air Miranda yelped, and I instinctively wrapped both arms around her and tucked my head I saw a puff of smoke from one of the tires-the heat had increased the pressure and weakened the rubber to the bursting point Miranda and I scurried to join Art in the shelter of the water truck “I hope you took off the gas tanks,” Art shouted, “or filled them up ater!”

“Why?”

“In case there’s any gas left You don’t want any vapors,” he said

“Since they caet to finish the sentence Just then the gas tank of the car Miranda had been standing beside exploded, and pellets of hot glass rained down on us like some infernal version of hailstones The car’s spare tire-launched from the trunk by the blast-arced toward the water truck, slaoing to be a long, hot suot some serious ’splainin’ to do

The circling airplane beat a hasty retreat into the safety of darkness, and a moment later I heard sirens

CHAPTER 2

MY PHONE RANG FOR WHAT SEEMED THE EIGHTY-SEVENTH tithe reflex to anshen I noticed that the caller was y

It wasn’t as if Peggy could just roll back frohoffice, as opposed to my administrative, ceremonial office-was a couple hundred yards froo I had laid clai hallway that ran beneath the grandstands I was as far off the beaten track as it was possible to get, at least within the shabby quarters inhabited by the Anthropology Departet five times asthe daily path of every undergraduate, grad student, and faculty y, when I latched on to this distant sanctuary, was that any tinore the rest of the world, but not her