That evening, the group ate shrimp and oysters at the Boat House at Breach Inlet. After dinner, we reconvened on Anne's veranda for one final class meeting. The students reviewed what they'd done, and double-checked cataloging on all artifacts and bones. Around nine, they redistributed equipment among their vehicles, exchanged hugs, and were gone.

I suffered the usual post-collective experience letdown. Sure, I was relieved. Field school was concluded without any disasters of note, and now I could focus on Emma's skeleton. But the students' departure also left me feeling dismally empty.

The kids could be exasperating, no question. The unending hubbub. The clowning. The inattention. But my students were also energizing, bursting with enthusiasm, and lousy with youth.

I sat a few moments, enveloped by the silence in Anne's million-dollar home. Irrationally, I felt the stillness as ominous, not calming.

Moving through the house, I extinguished lights, then climbed the stairs to my room. Opening the glass doors, I welcomed the sound of waves on sand.

By eight thirty the next morning, I was roller-coastering the Cooper River Bridge, a soaring postmodern structure linking Mount Pleasant and the offshore islands with Charleston proper. With its colossal struts and arching backbone, the thing always makes me think of an impressionistic triceratops, frozen in steel. The bridge rises so high above terra firma, Anne still white-knuckles it every time she crosses.

MUSC is in the northwestern part of the Peninsula, halfway between the Citadel and the historic district. Continuing on Highway 17, I found Rutledge Avenue, then wound through campus to the parking deck Emma had indicated.

The sun warmed my neck and hair as I angled across Sabin Street to a massive brick building known simply as the main hospital. Following Emma's directions, I located the morgue entrance, climbed the ramp, and pressed a buzzer beside a rectangular speaker. In seconds a motor hummed, and one of two gray metal doors rolled up.