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content of every note. Then we’d asked for its return. Today, we carried that backpack in the trunk of our car.
    When Tolliver came in, I was still lying on my bed. I’d rotated again, to lie flat on my back as I gazed at the ceiling, thinking about my sister.
    â€œThe car from the hotel’s going to pick up Art at the airport,” he said. “I got it all arranged.”
    â€œThanks,” I said, moving over to give him room. He lay on the other half of the vast king bed, shoes properly off. I let him have a pillow. Then I gave him another one.
    â€œLooking back on the cemetery thing this morning,” hebegan, and gave me a moment to fix my attention back on the nearer past.
    â€œOkay,” I said, to let him know I was ready to listen.
    â€œDid you notice that man mixed in with the kids?”
    â€œYes, the guy who looked to be about thirty-five or so?”
    â€œDark brown hair, five ten, medium build.”
    â€œRight. Yes, of course I noticed him. He stood out.”
    â€œYou think there was something fishy about him?”
    â€œThere was another older student,” I said, not really protesting Tolliver’s direction, but testing it out.
    â€œYeah, but she was a regular person. There was something off about this guy; he was there for a purpose, not because he had to be. You think he was some kind of professional debunker? There to spot how we did it, and expose us?”
    â€œWell, I think that was Clyde Nunley’s goal in teaching the course, don’t you? Not an inquiry to stimulate students’ minds to seriously consider spiritualism and the people who practice it, but to prove that it’s all claptrap.”
    â€œBut not as…I don’t know, this guy seemed to have an agenda. He was purposeful.”
    â€œI know what you mean,” I said.
    â€œYou think we’ve been set up?”
    â€œYes, I sure do think so. Unless this is most amazing coincidence in the history of coincidences.”
    â€œBut why?” Tolliver turned his head to look at me.
    â€œAnd who?” I countered.
    The worry in his face mirrored my own.
    My business would die without word of mouth. But ithas to be a quiet word. If I brought a trail of newspaper and television reporters with me, half the people who use my services wouldn’t want to see me coming. There are a few who’d love nothing better, but only a few. Most clients are embarrassed at hiring me at all, because they don’t want to seem gullible. Some are desperate enough to be just that. But very few of them want any outside scrutiny.
    So restrained coverage from time to time is okay. Once, a really good reporter wrote a story on me for a law enforcement journal, and I still get business from that exposure. Lots of officers clipped that story; when all else fails, they may get in touch with me through my website. My prices scare off some of the people who apply for my services. I’m not a lawyer, and no one asks me to do pro bono work.
    Well, that’s not true. People do. But I refuse.
    However, I’ve never left a body unreported. If I find one in the course of a job, I’ll report it, and I never ask for extra money for that.
    If I got into the news too much, I’d be absolutely grabbing at pro bono work, just to get the good press. I didn’t want to have to do that.
    â€œWho do you think would hire such a person? Someone I didn’t satisfy?” I asked the ceiling.
    â€œWe’ve found everyone since Tabitha,” Tolliver said.
    Yes, I’d had a long string of successes: cases with enough information to go on and enough persistence on my part. Bodies found, causes of death confirmed. Money in the bank.
    â€œMaybe someone connected with the college who wanted to check on what the class was being exposed to?” I guessed.
    â€œCould be. Or someone connected with St. Margaret’s, who felt the cemetery was being used in some irreligious