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that left me sweat soaked and cramp calved. After a grudging, almost angry, session with the weights, I began to see events with a clearer eye, and wrote off Jeremy’s call as an aberration; frighteningly resourceful, he’d somehow managed to get hold of a phone.
    But hadn’t I listened as it was taken from him? It wouldn’t happen a second time; the episode was over.
    I showered and ate a breakfast of cheese grits with andouille. My mood began to lift and I headed to work. Harry flipped a coin, and tails bought me autopsy duty. I had time before the cut, and headed to the criminalists’ offices, a science lab grafted to a computer store. Two white-jacketed technicians studied a toilet float as if it were the Grail. Another tapped a pencil against a Mason jar full of squirming bugs. Hembree sat beside a microscope drinking coffee.
    â€œWe got a print hit on the headless man,” he said, picking up a sheet of paper.
    I made a drum-roll sound with my tongue. “And the winner is?”
    Hembree mimicked a cymbal crash. “One Jerrold Elton Nelson, aka L’il Jerry, aka Jerry Elton, aka Nelson Gerald aka Elton Jelson.”
    â€œA big list of aliases.”
    â€œA pissant list of priors,” he said, reading from the page. “Twenty-two years old. Eyes and hair are blue and brown wherever they are. Petty city and county raps for shoplifting, male prostitution, possession of stolen goods, possession of a couple joints. In March a woman charged him with borrowing eleven grand and not paying it back, charges later dropped.”
    â€œHooker and a gigolo con artist? Guess his door swang bothways.” I said, turning away. Though the autopsy was an hour off, I planned to head to the ME’s office.
    â€œI almost forgot,” Hembree said as I was halfway out the door. “That bit last night with the petals and the streetlight was inspired, Carson, pure Sherlock. Squill’s got his head so far up his ass, he spies on his teeth from his throat. I loved how you pointed that out to him.”
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    The morgue’s front desk was empty and my footsteps in the hall caused Will Lindy to come to the door of his office. The new facility had been open officially only a few days, but Lindy looked dug in, forms stacked on his desk, manuals alphabetized across shelves, calendars and schedules on his wall.
    â€œMorning, Detective Ryder.”
    â€œHowdy, Will. I’m here for the post on Nelson. Clair around?”
    I was maybe the only person in the universe who called Dr. Peltier by her first name; I’d used it since our introduction and she hadn’t torched me yet. She countered by using only my last name, addressing everyone else by first name or title. Lindy looked at his watch. “She’s due at nine, which means—”
    I glanced at my timepiece, 8:58. “She’ll be here in one minute.”
    We heard a burst of masculine laughter from down the hall and saw a pair of funeral-home staffers retrieving a body for burial. They rolled a covered body toward the back dock like kids playing with a supermarket buggy, weaving the clattering gurney from side to side. Lindy was down the hall like a shot.
    â€œHey, fellas,” he said. “What you do at the parlor is your business. Around here we show respect.”
    The funeral home guys froze, reddened. They mumbled apologies and continued on their way, slow and silent.
    â€œGood going, Will,” I said when he returned.
    Lindy gave a half smile; funny how half a smile indicates sadness. “Poor guy’s on his last ride, Detective Ryder. There’s no need to treat it like a game.”
    I admired Will Lindy for his stand; too many homicide cops andmorgue workers forget the bodies passing by were once the exact center of the universe, to themselves anyway. No one knows why we were chosen to be here, or if we had much hand in the choices we made during our presence. In any event, for the