Mel drove them to the scene of the body dump. That's how Grissom was thinking of it now. After looking closely at the crime scene photos, Grissom and Catherine were convinced that Deputy Lawrence was correct. Lividity indicated the body had been face down; the body was found face up.

Grissom was especially excited now that he had seen the ant specimen. Bullet ants were definitely not found in the southern United States andthey were not a breed easily kept in captivity. Cincinnati had a nice colony, as well as a back up colony, but he didn't know of any in the South. In fact, he had made a few calls this morning to find out whether he was correct or not. He hoped to be receiving some return calls soon.

The drive was long and tedious. Maybe it was just that he was anxious to get to the scene. Deputy Lawrence drove superbly up the curved mountain highway. He had let Catherine take the front seat, knowing that the climbing curves would get to her. To him it was no worse than the anticipatory climb of a roller coaster.

He was glad she had gotten interested in the crime. He had been a little apprehensive that this would be a wild goose chase. He would then have to listen to her sarcastic barbs all the way back to Vegas, and then back to the lab, since they both rode in his Denali to the airport. Once she had realized that the ant had no place in the southern mountains, she had gotten that familiar Catherine excitement. It was another puzzle for her to piece together. Though she was much more subjective than he, she was an excellent CSI. He wasn't sure how she was going to fare as a supervisor. He had never understood her blind ambition to achieve that status. He himself would have been content to remain a senior CSI; the supervisor bit had been thrust upon him.

Once he had become supervisor, he didn't really want to go back. He felt that the lab needed guys like him in those roles. People who understood that truth trumped all other cards, whether those cards were politics, emotions, or whatever. He had hoped that Catherine would join him in this system. The jury was still out. He remained hopeful.

Still, he had sincerely enjoyed having her on this trip with him. The fact was, even Gil Grissom needed back up, whether he liked to believe it or not. And Catherine had been that back up on more than one occasion. He liked to think that he had seen a similar relationship developing between Warrick and Sara before the split. They were the younger Butch and Sundance, with Warrick as Sundance. But those thoughts brought him back to Sara, which was a subject he avoided with himself whenever possible. And it never seemed quite possible.

The deputy turned the Suburban onto a small gravel road off of the mountain highway.

"Were you able to get any tire treads off of this road?" Catherine asked.

"Believe it or not, this is a well traveled road," said Mel. "We had possibles for ten vehicles, and most of those were partials at best," she said. As if to punctuate her point, an old CJ-5 Jeep came barreling up the road, white dust billowing behind it. Mel pulled as far to the right as she could; the Jeep did the same. Catherine sucked in a sharp breath as the two passed each other. It looked as though there couldn't be enough room.

"So, would someone have to know where this field was to dump the body?" Gil asked from the back seat.

"Well, anyone who hunts, anyone who has lived here for most of their lives. Most locals know about where the field is. I mean, they would have had to walk into it, or use a four wheeler. We found a lot of ATV tracks in the field and the surrounding woods. You have to remember, when we first found the body, we thought he had been stung by a bee or something and died in an allergic attack. The crime scene wasn't exactly treated as such at first," Mel explained.

"But you noticed the lividity," Catherine stated. Grissom thought that Deputy Mel blushed a little at that comment.

"Yes ma'am. It just looked odd to me. I'm not trained like you folks, but I've been attending seminars when I can, and reading the journals. I like to talk to those in the know. So when I saw the body, it didn't feel right. And then, when I noticed all the stings, and how large they were, I knew this wasn't someone who had happened up on a yellow jacket nest. The ant was the clincher. I've never seen anything like it before."

"So why wait for us? Wasn't there anyone in entomology that you could contact?" Catherine asked. Gil was surprised at this question. He had been so excited about seeing the ant for himself that he hadn't thought to ask if anyone else had attempted to identify it.

"I had tried to get someone from the university up here, but it's the beginning of summer session, and there hardly anyone but grad students, and they haven't been very responsive. I wanted someone to come to us ... I wasn't about to send that ant anywhere. So when I read up on Dr. Grissom, I figured it wouldn't hurt to ask him about it. I was going to the seminar anyway." She glanced at Gil in the rear view mirror. "I do appreciate you both coming up here like this. Sheriff Doublon was impressed, and I feel like we are a little closer to getting to the bottom of the case." Gil smiled at her and was surprised at how quickly she averted her glance.

He liked the deputy. She was obviously smart, and had apparently taught herself about many aspects of crime scene analysis. When she had come up to him after his lecture on using an ant colony and flies to backdate a corpse found in a truck toolbox, he had been surprised when she asked him if his expertise only applied to forensic entomology.

"Why?" he had asked. She had gone on to describe the bullet ant in her very thick Southern accent. "Do you think you could identify it? Or does your expertise only apply to those bugs that feed on carcasses?" The way she had said it was almost like a gauntlet being thrown down. He knew now that she had not meant to offend. She was just blunt, like him. He had looked her up and down in his clinical way. She was short, but powerful, and the punky blond hair reminded him a bit of Sanders. It wasn't so much the look as it was that it was a statement of personality. Whereas Greg's was a statement of punkish disregard, Mel Lawrence's was a statement of serious individuality. For a person who so obviously tried to blend in with her male counterparts, her hair defined her as separate. She had offered to bring the specimen back with her the next day, but Gil decided he wanted to see the area where it was discovered as well. He had neglected to tell Catherine that little bit of information.

The deputy in question pulled the Suburban off of the gravel road, bringing Gil out of his reverie. They got out of the truck and faced a small trail through the spring growth of the forest.

"It's not much more than a quarter of a mile down this trail," Mel said. Catherine shot daggers at Gil. But if she could kill with her eyes, he would have been dead a long time before now, as would several others.

"Do you want me to carry you, Catherine?" Gil joked. Catherine had pulled her strawberry blond hair up into a loose ponytail and was getting a digital camera out of her bag.

"Oh, bite me, bug boy," she growled. Gil chuckled at her and followed Mel into the woods. Catherine quickly fell in step with him.

"Well, P. clavata prefer nesting in first or secondary rain forest growth. I don't think that is what we have here," Gil said, looking around from the middle of a grassy field. The sun was getting high, and he could see sweat trickling down the sides of Mel's face. He could feel it on himself. Catherine looked cool, as always, but her increasing bitchiness told how hot she felt. The field was bordered on all sides with woods like they had walked through, thick with pines, poplars and oaks. They had surveyed the perimeter and then the field itself. Though Gil knew there was no way the Bullet ants were nesting here, they had proven it. There was no sign of the tropical ant anywhere.

Mel was talking on her cell phone. From the way she was holding one finger in the ear not connected to the phone, Catherine could tell she was fighting the reception on the mountain.

"So how did that ant get here? Or the body for that matter?" she said aloud to no one in particular.

"I don't think this field has anymore to tell us," said Grissom. She wanted to strangle him for making them even walk into it, but that would have taken more effort. She sat down on the ground, putting the case file copy out in front of her.

"So, a local fellow found the body and called it in," Catherine summarized. From the notes Mel has made on his subsequent interviews, he had no idea who the victim was. He's some kind of operator in a local manufacturing plant. Doesn't seem to have any connection to tropical insects."

"Yes, but did he have a connection to the victim?" Gil asked.

"Well, it looks like they went to the same technical college, but it was five years apart," she answered.

"If you looked at everyone in the county, quite a few have gone to that technical school," Mel interjected, having finished with her telephone conversation. "It's the only one within an hour's drive. I think that fellow just happened on the body."

"What was he doing out here?" Catherine asked as she put the file back together and stood up, absentmindedly brushing the seat of her pants.

"I think he was doing a bit of poaching; claims he was just walking the trails." Mel turned to face Grissom. "If y'all are ready, we'll head back down the mountain. As luck would have it, both the medical examiner's report and the tox screen from the State Law Enforcement Department have come in back at the office. And the sheriff wanted you to know that he'll have lunch waiting."

"Great," said Grissom. "I was just telling Catherine that I think we are done here anyway." The deputy nodded and stared across the field the trail they had walked from the vehicle.

"You can't be hungry already," said Catherine, still feeling full from the biscuit she had hours earlier.

"You know, I am really starting to like this southern hospitality," Gil answered.