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the autopsy when…something happened.”
    When I found I couldn’t say more, he prompted: “Something?”
    I nodded mutely.
    “What?” he asked. The chief was watching me carefully, waiting for the rest.
    Crazy shit
, I thought, but couldn’t quite bring myself to say.
    Yet this was the moment, wasn’t it? I had to say something.
    I held up my arm to show the snake. “Do you see this?”
    Again, the nod came.
    “Okay. This was in his chest cavity, only three-dimensional and squirming, but somehow it’s on me now. At least it’s not alive anymore. I think.”
    “Uh-huh. Jones, you said?”
    Was the chief about to tell me this was all a joke and that Jones was known for pulling off real kickers? My throat was dry and scratchy. “Uh, yeah, he and Stone brought the body in.”
    “Stone. Right.”
    Oh no. I’d heard the skeptical tone in Stan’s acknowledgment far too many times before. “Is there some kind of problem with them?” I asked far too quickly.
    But he’d turned his back to me already. He was walking behind his desk and pulling out a notepad.
    Even as I watched him scribble something down, I was trying to make myself believed. “You know, I have pictures,” I said, pulling my phone out. “Those tattoos on the body were definitely not normal.”
    Stan looked up at me then, but didn’t say a word. He just reached his hand across his desk, offering me the note he’d written.
    I took it. “What’s this?” I asked.
    “I want you to talk to these people. They can help.”
    Oh great, more psychologists. I didn’t need that. “I already have a therapist.”
    “These aren’t shrinks,” the chief said. “They can
really
help.”
    I felt miserable. I didn’t want any more help; I wanted all this to be normal and okay. “I swear this is true this time.”
    Stan shocked me by saying, “It’s not that. I believe you. It’s out of my jurisdiction is all.”
    He believed me? “Oh.”
    I looked down at the note. He’d written an address and the words
Precinct 13
.
    I wandered out into the melting snow of the capitol grounds in a daze. I used my cell to call the courier service to come pick up the lab work I’d done on my AWOL patient, and nearly told the receptionist I loved her, I was so happy.
    Coming to South Dakota hadn’t been a mistake; things
were
different. Someone believed me. Or at least pretended to. I supposed Precinct 13 could be code for “the guys with little white coats” that would take me to the padded room, but the chief had shaken my hand pleasantly and wished me good luck. That didn’t seem like the actions of a guy setting me up. I decided to remain cautiously optimistic.
    Even though it was mid-April, spring was returning slowly to Pierre. Patches of snow still covered the lawn in front of the capitol building. Meanwhile, the branches of the tall maples had begun to green with buds. I walked along the sidewalk that led along the riverfront. Whitecaps flashed on the Missouri, which had swelled with snowmelt.
    I pulled the collar of my coat up against my ears to ward off the chill. The pavement was wet with slush, and the sky was gray and heavily overcast. A group of life-sized bronzesoldiers saluted me from where they stood on a wooden dock. Seagulls circled overhead.
    My foot slipped, but I managed to catch myself before I stumbled. I looked down, expecting a patch of stubborn ice, but found a cardboard rectangle. Picking it up, I recognized it instantly as the necromancer’s toe tag. He’d come this way!
    Though I knew it was probably useless, I looked around for other signs of his passage. Hardly anyone was outside. I could see someone sitting on a wooden park bench closer to the capitol, but otherwise I was alone. Clutching the toe tag in my hand, I headed that way. As I drew closer, I could see that the person was an older woman and probably homeless, given the matted state of the gray hair that frizzled out from under a knit hat. She wore an oversized parka that