Grave Surprise Page 0,2

hum in the air even before I'd passed through the rusted gate, and now it increased in intensity, vibrating just below the surface of my skin. It was like getting closer and closer to a hive of bees.

I shut my eyes, because it was easier to concentrate that way. The bones were directly underneath me, waiting for me. I sent that extra sense down into the ground under my feet, and the knowledge entered me with the familiarity of a lover.

"Cart fell on him," I said. "This is a man, I think in his thirties. Ephraim? Something like that? His leg was crushed, and he went into shock. He bled out."

There was a long silence. I opened my eyes. The professor had stopped smirking. The students were busily making notations on their clipboards. One girl's eyes were wide as she looked at me.

"All right," said Dr. Clyde Nunley, his voice suddenly a lot less scornful. "Let's try another one."

Gotcha, I thought.

The next grave was Ephraim's wife. The bones didn't tell me that; I deduced her identity from the similar headstone positioned side by side with Ephraim's. "Isabelle," I said with certainty. "Isabelle. Oh, she died in childbirth." My hand grazed my lower stomach. Isabelle must have been pregnant when her husband met with his accident. Hard luck. "Wait a minute," I said. I wanted to interpret that faint echo I was picking up underneath Isabelle's. To hell with what they thought. I pulled off my shoes, but kept my socks on in a compromise with the cold weather. "The baby's in there with her," I told them. "Poor little thing," I added very softly. There was no pain in the baby's death.

I opened my eyes.

The group had shifted its configuration. They stood closer to each other, but farther from me.

"Next?" I asked.

Clyde Nunley, his mouth compressed into a straight line, gestured toward a grave so old its headstone had split and fallen. The marble had been white when it had been situated.

As Tolliver and I went over to the next body, his hand on my back, one of the students said, "He should stand somewhere else. What if he's somehow feeding her information?"

It was the older male student, the guy in his thirties. He had brown hair, a thread or two of gray mixed in. He had a narrow face and the broad shoulders of a swimmer. He didn't sound as if he actually suspected me. He sounded objective.

"Good point, Rick. Mr. Lang, if you'd stand out of Miss Connelly's sight?"

I felt a tiny flutter of anxiety. But I made myself nod at Tolliver in a calm way. He went back to lean against our car, parked outside what remained of the cemetery fence. While I watched him, another car pulled up, and a young black man with a camera got out. It was a dilapidated car, dented and scraped, but clean.

"Hey, y'all," the newcomer called, and several of the younger students waved at him. "Sorry I'm late."

The professor said, "Miss Connelly, this is Clark. I forgot to tell you that the student newspaper wanted to get a few shots."

I didn't think he'd forgotten. He just didn't care if I objected or not.

I considered for a moment. I really didn't care. I was ready to have a good fight with Clyde Nunley, but not a frivolous one. I shrugged. "I don't mind," I said. I stepped onto the grave, close to the headstone, and focused my whole attention on ground below me. This one was hard to decipher. It was very old, and the bones were scattered; the coffin had disintegrated. I hardly felt my right hand begin to twitch, or my head begin to turn from side to side. My facial muscles danced beneath my skin.

"Kidneys," I said, at last. "Something with his kidneys." The ache in my back swelled to a level of pain that was almost unbearable, and then it was gone. I opened my eyes and took a deep breath. I fought the impulse to turn to look at my brother.

One of the youngest of the students was white as a sheet. I'd spooked her good. I smiled at her, trying to look friendly and reassuring. I don't think I achieved it. She took another step away from me. I sighed and turned my attention back to my job.

Next, I found a woman who'd died of pneumonia; a child who'd died of an infected appendix; a baby who'd had a heart malformation; a baby who'd had