Using her key card, she entered the path lab and turned on the lights. The cramped entrance was more crowded than usual by the stacks of unopened cartons and boxes that had accumulated. This, she’d learned, was an ongoing problem—the loading dock was just beyond the lab, and the hall and entryway of the lab had become a convenient place to cache newly ordered supplies that people were too lazy to unpack and store quickly. Lathrop himself seemed particularly guilty of this, as Corrie could see many of the labels came from medical and laboratory supply houses.

She threaded her way through the mess to the operating theater. It, too, was crowded, with examination tables with movable hoods, wet gurneys, and forensic equipment. On the far side of the room was a refrigeration unit with several drawers; one was currently occupied by the remains of James Gower, and another by his mule—hinnie, goddamn it, she’d never remember that stupid word.

She gowned up, put on gloves, mask, and hood, and began an examination of the skeletal remains. Wheeling over one of the empty tables, she opened the locker containing the animal. Unlike its owner, it was almost completely skeletonized, having been more exposed to the elements. She rolled out the drawer and transferred the bones to the examination cart. Before moving the cart under the lights, she took a moment to open Gower’s locker as well, and slid the drawer out. With the refreshing absence of Lathrop she decided to examine those remains again without the pressure of someone breathing down her neck. The mummified corpse, missing some of its internal organs, was still in a fetal-like position, one arm extended. Again she was struck by the unnatural position of the body; it just didn’t look like someone, even a person dying in agony, would have assumed that position. And the skin coming off in sheets like that—was that really a product of having spent three-quarters of a century desiccating in an arid environment? It, too, looked odd.

She turned her attention back to the animal bones and decided to start her examination with the hooves and legs. The animal might have been shot because it was injured or lamed. As she worked, the silence of the lab seemed to grow. She was accustomed to morgues and the dead bodies that tenanted them, but she had never been able to shake the feeling—especially at times like this, when she was alone in the lab—that they weren’t really dead after all, but only sleeping. And sometimes, not even sleeping … but awake and listening.

She shook off this ridiculous thought and continued the naked-eye examination. There was nothing unusual about the hooves or leg bones, no obvious fractures. The pelvis also looked normal. As she moved on to the rib cage, she noticed something interesting. The third and fourth left posterior ribs had spots that stood out—just shadows, really. She peered at them closely. She turned toward the cabinet that stored microscope goggles, near the lab entrance. Naturally, there were some boxes blocking the door, which she shifted with irritation to open the cabinet. She pulled out a pair of Galilean-type binocular loupes, fixed with 2.5× goggles, and fitted them onto her head. As she was adjusting the straps to make them comfortable, she heard a muffled beeping noise from behind her, faint but regular. Was it a UPS truck, backing up to the loading dock? No—too early. She shut the cabinet and pushed the boxes against it.

Under magnification, she saw that she’d been correct. What had seemed to the naked eye like a shadow on the weathered bone was, with the help of the goggles, two side-by-side hairline fractures in the ribs, with no signs of healing. Another perimortem injury, and oddly similar to the rib fractures she had seen in Gower. Now, this was strange. Had both mule and rider had a bad fall? That seemed the likely explanation. But this would not account for the fact that the mule had been shot.

She now focused her examination to the entrance hole, which was directly between the eyes. Under magnification she could see clear microscopic pitting just around the rim, indicating a point-blank shot; the barrel of the gun had probably been pressed right to the animal’s head. The .22 round had not been powerful enough to exit the skull, so it bounced around inside, killing the animal instantly and preserving the round.

Slowly, Corrie straightened up and pulled the magnifying goggles from her head. She still had not found any indication of why the animal had been put down. The legs looked sound, and a few hairline fractures in the ribs would in no way cripple the animal. There might have been internal injuries, but that was doubtful.

Her examination finished, feeling frustrated, she covered the cart and rolled it aside to bring out Gower’s remains for examination.

Once again, the muffled beeping noise intruded on her thoughts. This time, she looked around, her irritation mounting. It sounded too close to be from the loading dock—it seemed to be somewhere inside the lab itself. Had somebody left a phone in here, its alarm on? Because that’s exactly what it sounded like—low, regular, insistent.

As she looked around, her ear directed her to a stack of recently delivered boxes near the goggle cabinet. The beeping seemed to be coming from that area.

She approached, curious. The examination table on which the hinnie bones were laid out was in the way, and she rolled it aside in order to get a closer look.

The beeping stopped—but not before she was able to zero in on its source: a box atop the stack.

For a crazy moment, she wondered if it was a bomb. But that was silly: bombs only beeped in the movies. Reaching over, she picked up the box and shook it—first gingerly, and then with a little more severity. She held it to her ear.