“Where’s the preacher man?” Grayson asked. “He’s a good guy. He’ll help.”

“Lieutenant Peterson reached him on his cell. He’s in Atlanta, at a church retreat. The custodian is supposed to be coming over to let us in.”

A red-and-white station wagon was guided around the parked vehicles by one of the cops. Two men got out and were admitted through the gates, quickly mounting the steps to introduce themselves as fire marshals, Dan Daniels and Frank Russo. Both of them knew Mike.

“Who’s the deceased?” Russo asked.

“Don’t know,” Mike said.

“Any kind of ID?”

Bixby tore his eyes away from his BlackBerry and introduced himself. “I didn’t do a full exam. Didn’t want to turn her over until you gentlemen arrived. Have you got a camera?”

Daniels put his heavy case on the ground and opened it to get his equipment out. A camera and large flash attachment were on top. As he set up, I checked the progress of the uniformed cops, who were hanging yellow crime-scene tape to establish a wider perimeter on the sidewalk in front of the church, pushing back the ever-growing group of gawkers.

“Looks like they used straight-stream to put out the fire,” Russo said.

Mike had talked to the men on the truck that had first responded to the 911 calls of a blaze at Mount Neboh. “Said they had no choice. They didn’t know when they got here if whoever was under that blanket was dead or alive.”

The straight-stream nozzle was effective in dousing the flames quickly, but more destructive in dispersing the evidence.

“She must have been decapitated first, don’t you think?” I asked Bixby while Daniels finished dressing himself to move in and work on the body.

“I assume so.”

Something more interesting than my questions caught Bixby’s attention as his BlackBerry vibrated in his hand. His lack of focus was annoying.