"Bees?"
"Killer bees. From Brazil."
"Why do you ask about bees?"
"There's a swarm of them attached to the light post over the crime scene."
"And why do you call it a crime scene, may I ask?"
"We'll get to that. Answer my question and I'll answer yours."
"I did not perform the autopsy on Doyal Rand, I confess."
"Oh. Well, I need to talk to the guy who did."
"I am sorry to disappoint you, but you cannot do that."
"You don't know how determined I am."
"I am sure you are quite capable, but the man in question happens to be the man I am presently autopsying."
Tammy blinked and said, "What?" and then added, "What did you say?"
"I am the new medical examiner. My predecessor lies here on this slab."
Tammy walked up, looked at the dead face and asked, "What happened to him?"
"He was found dead in this very room this morning."
"What killed him?"
"That, I am attempting to ascertain."
"Could it have been killer bees?"
"Killer bees, as I recall, are not normally fatal unless one is stung by great numbers of them."
"Was this guy stung at all?"
"It is a thought." And the M.E. went back to his duties.
Tammy watched.
The M.E. was speaking into a microphone suspended before his face on a flexible snake.
"Subject is a white male 180 centimeters tall and weighing seventy-seven kilograms. There are no discernible marks or contusions visible on the body ...."
"Are you getting this?" Tammy hissed to her cameraman.
The man rolled tape.
The M.E. was saying, "The throat and tongue appear swollen, and there is evidence of cardiac arrest. Lividity is normal, and rigor has not yet commenced."
"What's that?" Tammy interrupted.
The M.E. looked up. He saw Tammy's gesturing finger, and his eyes jumped to the spot on the dead man's shoulder where she was pointing.
Taking up a magnifying glass, the surviving M.E. examined the mark.
"Looks red," Tammy said helpfully.
"I can see that," the M.E. snapped.
"A moment ago, you were saying there were no marks."
"Hush!" the M.E. said.
With a tweezer taken up from a stainless-steel tray, he brushed at a tiny dark dimple embedded in the center of the red mark.
"Odd."
"What?"
"It appears to be insect fragments."
"A bee! Could it be a bee?"
"They appear to be too small for that."
"Oh," said Tammy, deflating.
Carefully, the M.E. scraped the fragments into a waiting envelope. He carried them over to a microscope, deposited the fragments onto a glass slide and inserted it into the microscope.
Bending over, he peered within.
"Can I see?"
"No."
"Okay, can you tell me what you see?"
"I see the crushed remains of a very small insect."
"A killer bee! It's got to be a killer bee!"
"I am no specialist, but bees don't grow to this size. It cannot be a bee."