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as he said. ”There’s a roof up at the top that overhangs the house,” Lily said. ”Is that what you’re pointing out?”
    ”Yes,” Harry said. ”They were dying of drought.”
    ”But the bushes look ancient. How did they suddenly die of drought?”
    ”Miss Brewster,” Harry said very politely, ”haven’t you noticed how little rain we’ve had the last couple years?”
    ”We never knew. We haven’t been here for decades like some people in Voorburg,” Robert said. Thinking this might have sounded surly, he amended, ”I wish we had.”
    ”Why did you cut off all the branches and leave the trunks?” Lily asked.
    ”Because we’re going to take the trunks out by themselves,” Harry said. ”Hook them up to the truck with ropes and pull them out. We’ll bring some gravel in for drainage when it starts to rain again. If you want new shrubs here, plant them farther away from the foundation so they get more water.”
    ”Good advice,” Lily said.
    ”What’s that smell?” Jim said, looking at Lily as he stood beside her.
    ”Me,” Lily said. ”Or rather my dog. She rolled in some dead creature and I just bathed her, but I haven’t washed the stench off myself yet.”
    Harry said, ”Jim, quit embarrassing Miss Brewster and help me with digging out around these stumps, tying a chain around them so we can haul them to the dump.”
    Lily and Robert stood back to watch as the first stump was jerked out of the ground.
    ”Oh, how horrible!” she exclaimed as the big root ball was dragged a few feet away. ”That’s the skeleton of someone’s hand sticking out of the roots.” She sat down on the ground, breathing hard to keep from fainting.
    Chief Walker was there in fifteen minutes. He’d looked at the hand and told the Harbinger boys to find a tarp to cover the hole. ”Nobody touch anything. I’m going to call for some experts.”
    Chief Walker was lucky. He found two experts that were attending a professional meeting in Fishkill. There was a pathologist from Albany and an anthropologist from New York City with a bag of tools he’d been using to demonstrate techniques of detailed, careful investigation.
    On Tuesday they were both at Grace and Favor. The pathologist, a Dr. Meredith, was all for simply digging up the rest of the bones as quickly as possible so he could examine them. The anthropologist disagreed. ”Haste in such a case is wrong. He or she has been here a long time. There is no hurry and valuable hints might be lost.”
    He introduced himself as Dr. Sam Toller and set about getting out his equipment from a bag he’d brought along. He was a long-limbed, sandy-haired man in his late thirties. He had a perpetual smile.
    The hole wasn’t terribly deep and he and the Harbinger boys got flat on their stomachs with tiny trowels and small brushes he’d brought in the bag. ”It’s a good thing this is loose soil. It won’t take long. All I need is the skull and pelvis to determine the age and sex of the victim.”
    Chief Walker was assigned to sit behind them with an assortment of paper bags in a variety of sizes. Robert went inside, fearing what nasty things might be revealed, but Lily stayed back, fascinated once she’d gotten over the shock. It was tedious work as the expert and the Harbingers kept delicately scooping away soil. Lily was assigned to sift the dirt in a set of sieves. First with large holes, then smaller ones, and then very fine ones. She was the first to notice the beads.
    ”Get someone to bring a big pot of warm water, would you, miss?” Dr. Toller said with excitement.
    Dr. Meredith was impatient, but had found a bench not far away to sit and read a textbook he’d had in his automobile.
    Robert was quick to return with a pot. The beads were swished gently and then the water was poured back out through the finest sieve. The beads turned out to be rather pretty balls about the size of a child’s fingernail. They were various shades of brown, green, dark red, orange,