There was a pause. I could picture Emma checking her watch.

"I'll be there in about an hour and a half. Need anything?"

"Body bag."

I was waiting on the pier when Emma arrived in a twin-engine Sea Ray. Her hair was tucked under a baseball cap, and her face seemed thinner than I remembered. She wore Dolce amp; Gabbana shades, jeans, and a yellow T with Charleston County Coroner lettered in black.

I watched Emma drop fenders, maneuver to the dock, and tie up. When I reached the boat, she handed out a body bag, grabbed camera equipment, and stepped over the side.

In the cart I explained that, following our phone conversation, I'd returned to the site, staked out a simple ten-by-ten square, and shot a series of photographs. I described in more detail what I'd seen in the ground. And gave warning that my students were totally jazzed.

Emma spoke little as I drove. She seemed moody, distracted. Or maybe she trusted that I'd told her all she needed to know. All I knew.

Now and then I stole a sideways glance. Emma's sunglasses made it impossible to know her expression. As we moved in and out of sunlight, shadows threw patterns across her features.

I didn't share that I was feeling uneasy, anxious that I might be wrong and wasting Emma's time.

More accurately, anxious that I might be right.

A shallow grave off a lonely beach. A decomposing corpse. I could think of few explanations. All of them involved suspicious death and body disposal.

Emma looked outwardly calm. Like me, she'd worked dozens, perhaps hundreds of scenes. Incinerated bodies, severed heads, mummified infants, plastic-wrapped body parts. For me, it was never easy. I wondered if Emma's adrenaline was pumping like mine.

"That guy an undergrad?" Emma's question broke into my thoughts.

I followed her line of vision.

Homer Winborne. Each time Topher turned his back, the creep was snapping photos with a pocket-size digital.