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elements were the intensity of
the heat, the burn pattern, and the careful burial. Not a lot,
but it nagged her just the same.
    "What killed her?" asked Reed.
    "Will you people please!" Kerwin said. "Reed, we did
know the woman, for heaven's sake. It's bad enough that
Lindsay spends her time doing this. Don't encourage her to
bring in the grisly details to us." He got up from the sofa
and left the room with his journal.

    Lindsay and Reed watched Kerwin's retreating back.
"Exactly what did you ever do to him?" Reed asked.
    "Oh, I kind of gave him a hard time about the way he handled the media during the Ferguson business," said Lindsay.
    Reed chuckled. Lindsay got up and poured her coffee in
the sink. "Who made this stuff?"
    "I did. Don't you like it?"
    "It's awful." Lindsay started out the door.
    "Don't forget the faculty meeting next week. You know
what's up, don't you?"
    Lindsay turned and leaned against the door frame. "No,
what?"
    "Administration wants to merge Anthropology and
Archaeology."
    "Why?" Lindsay asked.
    "They say efficiency, but who knows? It's something
political. This coffee is awful." He poured out his cup and
left the break room with Lindsay.
    As Lindsay was going past the departmental office,
Edwina, one of the secretaries, called out to her.
    "Yes?" Lindsay asked.
    "You got a phone call first thing this morning. Some
woman. Said it was important but wouldn't leave a name."
    "Did she say what it was about?" asked Lindsay.
    "No. Just that she would call back."
    "Thank you, Edwina."
    Lindsay walked down the series of hallways and stairways to her office in the basement. She sat down in her
chair and turned on her computer. As it was booting up, she
thought about the possibility of merging with Anthropology, a huge department with over twenty faculty members.
Positions would be eliminated. That meant the dean probably had plans to downsize Archaeology. Downsize, what a
word. Lindsay sighed. She was the third to last person hired
and had no tenure. She could guess who would be the first to go-not the tenured faculty. She would have to watch
her step and not get into any arguments with the dean's
favorite, Kenneth Kerwin. She would have to keep a low
profile these days. She couldn't afford to lose her job.

    Toward the end of the day, Lindsay called to get the
report on her water analysis.
    "Yeah, hard water," the voice on the other end told her.
"You have both iron algae and iron mineral. I imagine it
must be dyeing all your whites a rusty color."
    "Not yet," Lindsay said. "It's a new well."
    "That'll be good then, you can get a filtration system
before the stuff contaminates your pipes too much. I'll send
the report to you."
    Lindsay thanked him and called the number Edgar
Dante had given her. They invited her to come by their
office on her way home. The slender, brunette saleswoman
at Crystal Clear Water, Inc. shook her head sympathetically
when Lindsay told her what minerals she had in her new
water supply. After giving Lindsay a sales pitch, the
woman armed her with a load of brochures and a list of a
few people in town who had the system that she could call
for testimonials. That evening, Lindsay called several
people and decided to have the system installed. She didn't
have much of a choice. She was tired of lugging water
home in plastic containers and showering at the Ramsey
Center, and the water apparently wasn't going to clear up.
Every time she tried the spigot on the well, the water ran an
ugly brown-red color.
    By the end of the week, Lindsay had a new twelve-footby-twelve-foot well house, a system of chemical, charcoal,
and brine filtering tanks, a set of instructions on how to
maintain them, and pure water. She also had an enormous
bill that the company graciously financed, telling her the
payment booklet would arrive in the mail shortly.
    Now, she thought, sitting at her desk in her office, I'll just have to figure out how to pay for all this. She