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skull. What are you doing with it now? Or do I want to know?”
    “I’m an archaeologist, Bart. Skulls are our thing. Don’t you know we bone botherers like to tote around various bits and bones to keep us company?”
    Another groan. She was having far too much fun teasing him when she knew the situation was serious. A dead thief could account for that.
    “I’m taking it to a professor at Columbia right now. Going to have him date it and see if I can begin to place it on a historical time line. If I can do that I might be able to track it to a point of origin. And then we’ll have an M.O. on the thief. Maybe.”
    “What makes you think your alleged thief isn’t just a wacko? A killer? What if it’s a random skull? Annja, what if it’s from one of his kills?”
    “You surprise me, Bart. I didn’t think you jumped to conclusions so easily. And why would someone kill for a random skull?”
    “Why would someone kill and not go after said random skull?”
    Annja glanced over her shoulder. She was sure she hadn’t been followed because she kept a keen eye to her periphery. No snow today; in fact, it was warmer by fifteen degrees, so it felt almost tropical. In a thirty-degree kind of way.
    “It’s pretty hard to go after something sitting at the bottom of the canal. Besides, it’s an infant skull.”
    “A baby? Christ, Annja, it doesn’t add up.”
    “It does from my end of the stick. It’s an artifact, Bart, not a victim. At least, not from this century.”
    “I hate working on crimes against children. It’s so sad. Fine. I’m heading out to the canal. You keep an eye over your shoulder. And please, promise me, you won’t meet any more strangers without having them vetted by me first?”
    “I can’t promise…”
    “Woman, you are going to give me a heart attack.”
    “Hey, that reminds me, we haven’t had a decent meal out lately.”
    “Because you’re always trekking across the world, posing for TV cameras and sticking your nose in danger.”
    “You love me for it, admit it.”
    Bart’s sigh made her smile. She’d successfully redirected him from her dangerous dabbling with the criminal mien.
    “Give me a call after you’ve talked to the professor, will you? I’ve got some time tomorrow night. We can meet and you can bring along the evidence you’ve contaminated. How about Tito’s?”
    “Sounds like a plan. Me and my contaminants can make it.”
    Tito’s was one of their favorite places to meet over a plate of Cuban pulled pork with sweet plantains.
    Bart was one of few friends Annja had in the city, and she valued that friendship tremendously. Though she couldn’t deny he was also a handsome single man who, on more than a few occasions, sat closer to her than a friend should, stared into her eyes longer than a friend should and made her think of him much more than the average friend should.
    The redbrick front of Schermerhorn Hall popped into view through a line of lindens. “I’ll talk to you later. Thanks, Bart.”

6
    Schermerhorn Hall, a four-story colonial redbrick building, sat just off Amsterdam Avenue. Annja liked the street name. How cool would it have been to live in the seventeenth century when New York was New Amsterdam?
    “Not as cool as you wish,” she admonished.
    While it was interesting to conjecture a life lived in a previous century, the appeal of it only lasted until Annja reminded herself of lacking plumbing, sanitation, medicine and the Internet.
    The building was quiet as she entered. Classes must be in session, she thought. As she passed various classrooms the doors were open to reveal dark quiet rooms. No one about. Odd.
    Professor Danzinger was the rock star of the Sociology and Anthropology department. At least in the minds of the attending females. Pushing sixty, the man was still in fine form. Tall, slender and with a head full of curly salt-and-pepper hair, a quick glance would place him onstage, guitar in hand. Closer observation—perhaps a genial