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of all possible worlds to Squill, the entire concept of PSIT would be floating facedown in the Mobile River?”
    We passed Linette Bowling, Squill’s charmless, donkey-faced administrative assistant. Harry snatched a fistful of droopy flowers from a vase on her desk and handed them to me.
    â€œYou’re beautiful when you finally get the picture, Carson.”
    â€œNautilus, you asshole,” Linette brayed from behind us, “gimme back my fuckin’ flowers.”

C HAPTER 7
    I t was eighty-eight degrees at 11:00 P . M . A wet haze smothered the stars and gauzed the moon. Two days had passed since Nelson’s murder, and the team Squill had assigned to the case hadn’t made any progress. I stood at water’s edge and cast the spinning rig, retrieved the lure slowly, cast again. I usually fish with a fly rod and know what I’m fishing for: specs, reds, pompano, Spanish mac. But now and then I use a spinning rig to dredge the night waters. Sometimes my line ties me to a shark. Or a big ray. Familiar species. But on rare occasions I’ve reeled in bizarre life-forms not mentioned in my books on Gulf fishing. I never know what trick of tide or current directs them to my line, but there they are, wriggling species from unknown depths, daring my touch. It’s strange, but without them I doubt I’d enjoy fishing as much.
    It’s the soothing aspect of angling that often compels me to fish when troubled, and I had been upset since hearing Clair’s buzz-sawing of Dr. Davanelle. I hadn’t meant to overhear, nor spy on Dr. Davanelle’s private horror, but it was acid-etched in my mind.
    Of Dr. Davanelle’s choice for the pathologist position, I knew only the edges of the story: she was the second choice for the job, hired only after the horror of Dr. Caulfield’s injury. It took a tragedy for her to gain the position in Mobile, her first professional assignment. AsHarry had reminded me during our session at Cake’s bar, I, too, had stumbled into my position through the misfortunes of others. I knew such a thing could feel like a form of dishonesty. It didn’t help that Dr. Davanelle worked with Clair—brilliant, renowned, sought at forensics symposia worldwide—a total perfectionist who demanded nothing less than the best from every staff member, every second.
    I reeled in my line and set the rod in the spike. I sat in the sand with my arms wrapping my knees and stared across the rippling plain of water, liquid obsidian burnished by moonlight. After several minutes of reflection I scrabbled through the cooler bag where I’d tossed my cell phone at the last minute. Phone on ice; Freud would have enjoyed that.
    Information provided Ava Davanelle’s number and I dialed. Her recorded voice was as cold as the device in my hand. She provided her number, referred to the beep, and was gone. I heard the tone, listened to the emptiness, clicked the call dead. Only then did it hit me—had she answered the phone, what would I have said?
    â€œHello, Dr. Davanelle, it’s Detective Ryder. I’m sorry for being a pain in the ass at the Nelson autopsy, I didn’t mean to add to your problems. What problems? I was, uh, skulking in Willet Lindy’s office yesterday when you came down the hall and watched as you . . .”
    I sighed and unzipped the cooler bag, preparing to refrost the phone, when it started chirping.
    It was Harry. “Got a call from the ME’s man on the scene,” he said. “We got us another headless horseman at Eight thirty-seven Caleria. Saddle up and ride, Ichabod. I’ll meet you in Sleepy Hollow.”
    Â 
    The scene was a large Italianate-style home near the southern outskirts of downtown, a neighborhood of stately historic homes intermingled with apartments. Insects burred from the hovering pines and wide-spread oaks. Several patrol cars fronted the scene, as did the crime-scene van and an