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performance. Tomorrow he’d report a similar story: The panacean dropped dead and then his incendiaries exploded, taking the camera along with everything else. The only new wrinkle would be that Nelson had obtained samples of the panacea before everything blew to hell.
    Nelson dry-swallowed three of the Advil as he put the car in gear and drove away. Was that irony? Taking Advil when he had something in his pocket that would cure his headaches forever?
    He thought about it—he could take one dose and use the other to convince Pickens. No more headaches. Even better, the panacea wouldn’t limit itself to his headaches. It would cure Nelson of everything —these migraines and all other maladies, known and unknown. Really, who knew what was lurking in one’s body? He took care of himself, got a checkup every couple of years, and led a life rigorously free of risky behavior: didn’t smoke or do drugs, ate a vegetarian diet, drank only wine, and that sparingly. But that didn’t mean a cancer couldn’t be smoldering somewhere in his body—say, his pancreas, for instance—hiding, waiting until it had progressed to a terminal stage before revealing itself.
    Tempting, but no. That would be just plain wrong. He had a higher calling. But perhaps …
    He exited the LIE and took the Northern State Parkway toward East Meadow …

 
    7
    â€œWe’ve got to stop meeting like this,” Deputy Lawson said. “Three times in one day. Tongues will be wagging.”
    You wish, Laura thought, as she surveyed the chaotic scene before her.
    She was tired. She wanted to be home. But instead she’d felt compelled to drive out to the North Fork to view another crime scene. Jeff Hager, one of her fellow MEs, had been on deck to take this one, but Deputy Lawson had said the scene was so damn near identical to the Sunken Meadow fire that Laura just had to see it.
    Long Island’s South Fork was the crowded home of all the sundry Hamptons—South, East, West, and Bridge—and their moneyed inhabitants. The North Fork was still relatively rural and had reinvented itself, morphing from corn and potato farms into wine country.
    Smoke drifted from the charred ruins of a double-wide trailer situated on the southwest corner of a ten- or twelve-acre rectangle of plowed earth. Two fire trucks and an EMS rig idled around it, red and blue flashers lighting the night. Their work done, the Cutchogue firemen were winding up their hoses while the EMTs hung out.
    Waiting for her most likely.
    What appeared to be a corpse lay on the brown grass under a plastic sheet.
    Also waiting.
    Phil waved toward the firemen. “These boys were just on their way back from Southold when they spotted the smoke and turned in for a look-see. Good thing they did. They managed to pull the body from the trailer but weren’t able to kill the blaze. We don’t have a crime scene—well, not in any useful sense—but at least you’ve got an uncooked DB to work with.”
    â€œWas he growing something too?”
    â€œYep.” He popped his neck as he led her over to the embers. “And it looks like the same kind of super accelerant as before.”
    â€œSo we still don’t know what he was growing.”
    Phil looked at her. “Really? You think he was growing geraniums or something? He had big light racks. It’s an indoor pot farm.”
    She wasn’t convinced. “ Cannabis sativa grows how tall?”
    â€œEight, ten feet. Oh, I see what you’re getting at: Too tall for a trailer. But these were probably seedlings he was getting started to transplant somewhere else. Or maybe some shorter strain. You won’t believe the hybrids some of these pot farmers are developing these days.”
    Laura shook her head. “Don’t they know GMO is politically incorrect?”
    She’d heard of cannabis hybrids. But something about this didn’t sit