This column first appeared in the St. Petersburg Times, Florida newspaperon the controversy over the decision not to renew pathologist Dr. Valerie Rao's contract.

The jet sweeps low over the rippling Atlantic waves, the setting sun glinting off its wings. The peaceful beaches and turquoise waters of Bermuda beckon below, but Dr. Valerie Rao (pictured) has no time for sightseeing. She is on a mission.

Once again, an emergency call has yanked Rao from her medical examiner's office in Leesburg and placed her on an overnight flight to this tiny group of islands. Another suspicious death needs her expert analysis. It's another challenge for the one-woman international forensics team known as CSI: Bermuda.

“Dr. Rao, so good of you to take time from your busy schedule in Florida to help us,” says chief of detectives Wellington Ascot, as he lifts Rao's luggage off the tarmac.

“No problem, mon,” Rao replies, slipping easily into island-speak. “It's always a treat to get away from those backwoods people with their small-town mentality.”

“We're always happy to have you, especially now,” Ascot says. “This case is a real hottie.”

After zipping to the crime scene on police mopeds, Rao is briefed on what the police have uncovered so far.

“The victim is Archie D. Back, Bermuda's renowned limbo dancer,” says Ascot.

“He has no known enemies, but in the cutthroat world of high-stakes limbo dancing, evil lurks behind every tiki lamp.” Rao scans the surroundings with a critical eye. Slipping off her shoes, she performs her trademark shuffle through the sandy crime scene, gathering a unique feel for the evidence, along with a few discarded cigarette butts, with her highly trained toes.

She gently prods the bloody corpse with a branch she broke off a nearby mango tree. “One thing I can say with certainty,” Rao announces to the gathered officers. “This man is dead.”

“How does she do it?” one detective whispers to his partner.

“Chalk up another one for CSI: Bermuda,” his partner says appreciatively.

With the mystery solved, Ascot offers to escort Rao to the airport to catch the red-eye back to Florida.

“Don't bother,” Rao says. “I'm out of a job. I've been railroaded by those small-town yahoos who don't understand how a real medical examiner's office is supposed to operate.”

“But I don't understand,” Ascot says. “You're the ME for the entire 5th District, five large counties, any one of which is bigger than all of Bermuda. You have important responsibilities. How can they just force you out?”

“Politics,” Rao grumbles.

“Just because some crybaby sheriffs, funeral directors and organ donation groups all griped about me, they wouldn't reappoint me. This from a bunch of people who never noticed that the guy before me was living in Maine while he was supposed to be running the office. But what can you expect from people who barely blinked while their most famous citizen, a baseball legend no less, gets frozen like a Popsicle and hauled off to Arizona?

“They have no respect for medical examiners,” Rao rails. “Don't they realise that we ‘stiff stickers' are hot stuff these days? Flip on any channel, and sexy coroners from Las Vegas to Miami and Boston are burning up the airwaves. None of that Quincy stuff anymore.”

“Their loss can be our gain,” Ascot says. “Would you consider working here on something more than your overnight moonlighting basis?”

“Gee, I don't know,” Rao replies. “Working in Bermuda, the Cayman Islands, the Turks and Caicos Islands or slaving away for a bunch of yokels in Citrus, Hernando, Sumter, Lake and Marion counties. What do you think?”

“Excellent!” Ascot says, clapping his hands with joy.

“We should share this good news with all of the island. I'll call my friends at The Royal Gazette newspaper. I'm certain they will want to talk to you.”

“Newspaper, eh? I don't know about that,” says the good doctor. “I'm not talking to any of the papers in the 5th District.”

“Not to worry,” Ascot says with a chuckle.

“This is an island newspaper. Anything you say in Bermuda stays in Bermuda.

“Besides, what's the chance of anyone back in Florida reading your interview? It's not as if they have the Internet in, how do you call it, small-town USA.”