This sinkhole was thirty feet wide and perfectly round. Nothing else was in sight but slash pines, palmetto, and scrub brush for two hundred yards. That was why the place had been chosen. Not many open lots remained in Pine County. Only an accident could have unearthed the body.

Female. The movement of the earth had shifted her into an upright position. She seemed to be sitting quietly, surrounded by debris.

A man walking his dog found her. She had been stuffed into a plastic bag, but the dog was having none of that. He went for meat and bone and found enough to worry. His owner returned home and called the police, which in this place meant the County Sheriff. The homicide department was twelve strong, plus the captain. Templeton caught the call.

“I make her twenty-four, twenty-six,” said Joe.

“You’re the expert on young tail.”

Joe Davey, a junior college transfer from Mars, took offense at nothing but his vice, which was very young women. His longish, blow-dried brown hair should have put him in a leisure suit, but the rest of the package was well assembled and current: pale green suit, mocha shirt, cafe-au-lait tie, whiskey shades. Joe drew on the plastic gloves, then pulled the fingers down—all but the middle one—which he held up for Templeton.

“I’ve got the whole department on my ass,” he said. “I need this kind of shit from my partner.”

They moved down into the sinkhole. The sides were cluttered with roots, shell, and some legitimate stones that had been lifted from the ocean floor when the subcontinent of Florida reared from the sea millions of years ago. Templeton bounced on his heels when they reached the bottom. The ground seemed solid.

“Twenty-six,” said Joe. “Or maybe that’s because her lips are rotted.”