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her and then give a death certificate that lists the cause of death as homicide."
    "The sergeant has some good men on the police staff, but they're not historians," McGloughlan said. "We don't have any idea how to research this. The sergeant tells me that he thinks you might be willing to help us."
"What kind of information do you need?" Simon said.
"Stuff like her height, weight, age, any injury that might leave a skeletal record, maybe dental records," McGloughlan said.
    Simon thought for a few minutes. He had run across newspaper articles about Anne Bloodworth's disappearance when he was researching his book, and he remembered the details fairly well. The police departments of the entire state had been alerted. Her father had hired the Pinkerton Detective Agency to search for her all over the country. Surely a detailed description of her must have been circulated by the authorities.
"I'll see what I can find out. If there is anything, it shouldn't take long to find it," Simon said. "I'll try to let you know something in a couple of days."
     
"Good," Gates said. "Let's see, today is Friday, and the autopsy is Monday. That should work out okay."
     
Gates and McGloughlan stood up to leave.
     
"Listen," Gates said. "I've got to get back to the office. Julia wants to see the site. Would you have time to take her over there?"
    Simon checked his watch. He had almost an hour until his meeting. "Sure," he said. "I'd appreciate it," Julia said. "But if you have something else to do, just say so."
"No problem at all," Simon said. If only she knew, Simon thought, just how little I have to do.
    Together, the two walked across the Kenan campus, obsessing about the same things all North Carolinians obsessed about at this time of year: the weather and the pollen count.
    Each year May brought rampant floral beauty and a massive accumulation of plant reproductive matter. Pollen and giant tree pods lay in clumps all over the ground. Little seeds with various wing configurations helicoptered out of the trees to the ground. Children couldn't go barefoot, for fear of stepping on the countless little round seed canisters with spikes that were thick on the ground.
    The oak pollen was the worst. Huge clumps of oak flowers clogged up sewers and drains, gummed up windshields, and ruined car finishes. Everyone constantly prayed for rain to wash the stuff away and signal the coming of the month of June, that limited, blessed time that precedes the heat and humidity of July.
    So Julia and Simon discussed the possibility of rain. Did all those black clouds and the oppressive atmosphere mean rain? If it rained, would all the pollen wash away, and would there be a final onslaught? Was ridding the neighborhood of pollen a worthy trade for canceling a Durham Bulls doubleheader and having to sandbag Crabtree Creek? Yes, they unanimously agreed as cascades of yellow dust drifted out of the trees around them.
After they had disposed of the weather as a topic, Julia wanted to talk about Anne Bloodworth's disappearance.
     
"Don't you think the FBI would have information on microfiche or something?" she asked.
    Simon shook his head. "Probably not," he said. This happened in 1926 . Most of the crimes we think of as federal crimes weren't designated as such by Congress until the 1930s, when the Depression caused a crime wave. For instance, kidnapping became a federal crime after the Lindbergh baby was abducted in 1932."
"So what did people do if they wanted to search for someone in another state?" Julia asked.
    "If they had any money, they hired the Pinkerton Detective Agency. It had offices in every major city in the country. But the best place to begin researching anything is the newspapers. I'll start there tomorrow."
    The crime-scene tape was gone from the site, and David Morgan was back at work excavating. He was watching the sky while supervising two students spreading plastic over the site.
"So you think it's going to rain?" Simon said by way of a