Cause Of Death

Chapter 10

A CAR WAS DISPATCHED THERE, I ZIPPED THE body inside a pouch, and when I stood I felt faint. For an instant I had to steady myself as my face got cold and I could not see.

"The squad can move him," I told Marino. "Can't someone get those goddamn television cameras out of here?"

Their bright lights floated like satellites up on the dark street as they waited for us to emerge. He gave me a look because we both knew nobody could do a thing about reporters or what they used to record us. As long as they did not interfere with the scene, they could do as they pleased, especially if they were in helicopters we could not stop or catch.

"You going to transport him yourself?" he asked me.

"No. A squad's already there," I said. "And we need some help getting him back up there. Tell them to come on now.

He got on the radio as our flashlights continued to lick over trash and leaves and potholes filled with muddy water.

Then Marino said to me, "I'm going to keep a few guys out here poking around for a while. Unless the perp collected his cartridge case, it's got to be out here somewhere." He looked up the hill. "Problem is, some of those mothers can eject a long way and that goddamn chopper blew stuff all the hell over the place."

Within minutes, paramedics were coming down with a stretcher, feet crunching broken glass, metal clanging, We waited until they had lifted the body, and I probed the ground where it had been. I stared into the black opening of a tunnel that long ago had been dug into a Mountainside too soft to support it, and I moved closer until I was just inside its mouth. A wall scaled it deep inside, and whitewash on bricks glinted in my light. Rusting railroad spikes protruded from rotting ties covered with mud, and scattered about were old tires and bottles.

"Doc, there's nothing in there." Marino was picking his way right behind me. "Shit." He almost slipped. "We've already looked."

"Well, obviously, he couldn't have escaped through here," I said as my light discovered cobblestones and dead weeds. "And no one could hide in here. And your average person shouldn't have known about this place, either."

"Come on." Marino's voice was gentle but firm as he touched my arm.

"This wasn't picked randomly. Not many people around here even know where this is." My light moved more.

"This was someone who knew exactly what he was doing."

"Doc," he said as water dripped, "this ain't safe."

"I doubt Danny knew about this place. This was premeditated and cold-blooded." My voice echoed off old, dark walls.

Marino held my arm this time, and I did not resist him.

"You've done all you can do here. Let's go."

Mud sucked at my boots and oozed over his black military shoes as we followed the rotting railroad bed back out into the night. Together, we climbed up the littered hillside, carefully stepping around blood spilled when Danny's body had been rolled down the steep slope like garbage. Much of it had been displaced by the helicopter's violent wind, and that would one day matter if a defense attorney thought it did. I averted my face from the glare of cameras and flashing strobes. Marino and I got out of the way, and we did not talk to anyone.

"I want to see my car," I said to him as his unit number blared.

"One hundred," he answered, holding the radio close to his mouth.

"Go ahead, one-seventeen, II the dispatcher said to some body else.

"I checked the lot front and back, Captain," Unit 117 said to Marino. "No sign of the vehicle you described."

"Ten-four." Marino lowered the radio and looked very annoyed. "Lucy's Suburban ain't at your office. I don't get it," he said to me. "None of this is making sense."

We began walking back to Libby Hill Park because it really wasn't far, and we wanted to talk.

"What it's looking like to me is Danny might have picked somebody up," Marino said as he lit a cigarette.

"Sure sounds like it could be drugs."

"He wouldn't do that when he was delivering my car," I said, and I knew I sounded naive. "He wouldn't pick anybody up."

Marino turned to me. "Come on," he said. "You don't know that."

"I've never had any reason to think he was irresponsible or into drugs or anything else."

"Well, I think it's obvious he was into an alternative life, as they say."

"I don't know that at all." I was tired of that talk.

"You better find out because you got a lot of blood on YOU."

"These days I worry about that no matter who it is."

"Look, what I'm saying is people you know do disappointing things," he went on as the lights of the city spread below us. "And sometimes people you don't know very well are worse than ones you don't know at all. You trusted I Danny because you liked him and thought he did a good job. But he could have been into anything behind the scenes, and you weren't going to know."

I did not reply. What he said was true.

"He's a nice-looking kid, a pretty boy. And now He's driving this unbelievable ride. The best could have been tempted to maybe do a little trolling before turning in the boss's ride. Or maybe he just wanted to score a little dope." I was more concerned that Danny had fallen prey to an attempted carjacking, and I pointed out that there had been a rash of them downtown and in this area.

"Maybe," Marino said as my car came into view. "But your ride's still here. Why do you walk someone down the street and shoot them, and leave the car right where it is?

Why not steal it? Maybe we should be worried about a gay bashing. You thought about that?" I We had arrived at my Mercedes, and reporters took more photographs and asked more questions as if this were the crime of all time. We ignored them as we moved around to the open driver's door and looked inside my S-320. I scanned armrests, ashtrays, dashboard and saddle leather upholstery, and saw nothing out of place. I saw no sign of a struggle, but the floor mat on the passenger's side was dirty. I noted the faint impressions left by shoes.

"This was the way it was found?" I asked. "What about the door being opened?"

"We opened the door. It was unlocked," Marino said.

"Nobody got inside?"

"No."

"This wasn't there before." I pointed to the floor mat.

"What?" Marino asked.

"See those shoe impressions and the dirt?" I spoke quietly so reporters could not hear. "There shouldn't have seat. Not while Danny was been anybody in the passenger's driving, and not earlier when it was being repaired at Virginia Beach." -What about Lucy?"

"No. She hasn't ridden with me recently. I can't think of anybody who has since it was cleaned last."

"Don't worry, we're going to vacuum everything." He looked away from me and reluctantly added, "You know we're going to have to impound it, Doc." -I understand." I said, and we started walking back to the street near the tunnel, where we had parked.

"I'm wondering if Danny was familiar with Richmond," Marino said.

"He's been to my office before," I replied, and my soul felt heavy. "In fact, when he was first hired, he did a week's internship with us. I don't remember where he stayed, but I think it was the Comfort Inn on Broad Street."

We walked in silence for a moment, and I added, "Obviously, he knew the area around my office."

"Yeah, and that includes here since your office is only about fifteen blocks from here."

Something occurred to me. "We don't know that he didn't just come up here tonight to get something to eat before the bus ride home. How do we know he wasn't just doing something mundane like that?"

Our cars were near several cruisers and a crime scene van, and the reporters had gone. I unlocked the station wagon door and got in. Marino stood with his hands in his pockets, a suspicious expression on his face because he knew me so well.

"You aren't posting him tonight, are you," he said.

"No." It wasn't necessary and I wouldn't put myself through it.

"And you don't want to go home. I can tell."

"There are things to do," I said. "The longer we wait, the more we might lose."

"Which places do you want to try?" he asked, because he knew what it was like to have someone you worked With killed. - Well, there's a number of places to eat right around here. Millie's, for example."

"Nope. Too high-dollar. Same with Patrick Henry's and Most of the joints in the Slip and Shockoe Bottom. Remember, Danny's not going to have a lot of money unless he's getting it from places we don't know about."

"Let's assume he's getting nothing from anywhere," I said. "Let's assume he wanted something that was a straight shot from my office, so he stayed on Broad Street."

"Poe's, which isn't on Broad, but is very close to Libby Hill Park. And of course there's the Cafe," he said.

"That's what I would say, too," I agreed.

When we walked into Poe's, the manager was ringing up the check of the last customer for the night. We waited what seemed a long time, only to be told that dinner had been slow and no one resembling Danny had come in. Returning to our cars, we continued east on Broad to the Hill Cafe at 28th Street, and my pulse picked up when I realized the restaurant was but one street down from where my Mercedes had been found.

Known for its Bloody Marys and chili, the cafe was on the corner. and over the years had been a favorite hangout for cops. So I had been here many times, usually with Marino. It was a true neighborhood bar, and at this hour, tables were still full, smoke thick in the air, the television loudly playing old Howie Long clips on ESPN. Daigo was drying glasses behind the bar when she saw Marino and gave him a toothy grin.

"Now what you doing in here so late?" she said as if it had never happened before. "Where were you earlier when things were popping?"

"So tell me," Marino said to her, "in the joint that makes the best steak sandwich in town, how's business been tonight?" He moved closer so others could not hear what he had to say.

Daigo was a wiry black woman, and she was eyeing me as if she had seen me somewhere before. "They were crawling in from everywhere earlier," she said. "I thought I was going to drop. Can I get something for you and your friend, Captain?"

"Maybe," he said. "You know the doc here, don't ya?"

She frowned and then recognition gleamed in her eyes.

"I knew I seen you in here before. With him. You two married yet?" She laughed as if this were the funniest thing she had ever said.

"Listen, Daigo," Marino went on,.1 we're wondering if a kid might have come in here today. White male, slender, long dark hair, real nice looking. Would have been wearing a leather jacket, jeans, a sweater, tennis shoes, and a bright red knee brace. About twenty-five years old and driving a new black Mercedes-Benz with a lot of antennas on it."

Her eyes narrowed and her face got grim as Marino continued to talk, the dish towel limp in her hand. I suspected the police had asked her questions in the past about other unpleasant matters, and I could tell by the set of her mouth that she had no use for lazy, bad people who felt nothing when they ruined decent lives.

"Oh, I know exactly who you mean," she said.

Her words had the effect of a fired gun. She had our complete attention, both of us startled.

"He came in, I guess it was around five, cause it was still early," she said. "You know, there were some in here drinking beer just like always. But not too many in for dinner yet. He sat right over there."

She pointed at an empty table beneath a hanging spider plant all the way in back, where there was a painting of a rooster on the white brick wall. As I stared at the table where Danny had eaten last while in this city because of me, I saw him in my mind. He was alive and helpful with his clean features and shiny long hair, then bloody and muddy on a dark hillside strewn with garbage. My chest hurt, and for a moment, I had to look away. I had to do something else with my eyes.

When I was more composed, I turned to Daigo and said, "He worked for me at the medical examiner's office. His name was Danny Webster."

She looked at me a long time, my meaning very clear.

"Uh-oh," she said in a low voice. "That's him. Oh sweet Jesus, I can't believe it. It's been all over the news, people in here talking about it all night 'cause it's just down the street."

"Yes," I said.

She looked at Marino as if pleading with him. "He was just a boy. Come in here not minding no one, and all he did was eat his sailor sandwich and then someone kills him!

I tell you"-she angrily wiped down the counter-there's too much meanness. Too damn much! I'm sick of it. You understand me? People just kill like it's nothing."

Several diners nearby overheard our conversation, but they continued their own without stares or asides. Marino was in uniform. He clearly was the brass, and that tended to inspire people to mind their own affairs. We waited until Daigo had sufficiently vented her spleen, and we found a table in the quietest corner of the bar. Then she nodded for a waitress to stop by.

"What you want, sugar?" Daigo asked me.

I did not think I could ever eat again, and ordered herbal tea, but she would not hear of that.

"I tell you what, you bring the Chief here a bowl of my bread pudding with Jack Daniel's sauce, don't worry, the wiskey's cooked off," she said, and she was the doctor now. "And a cup of strong coffee. Captain?" She looked at Marino. "You want your usual, honey? Uh-huh," she said before he could respond. "That will be one steak sandwich medium rare, grilled onions, extra fries. And he likes A. I., ketchup, mustard, mayo. No dessert. We want to keep this man alive."

"You mind?" Marino got out his cigarettes, as if he needed one more thing that might kill him this day.

Daigo lit up a cigarette, too, and told us more about what she remembered, which was everything because the Hill Cafe was the sort of bar where people noticed strangers.

Danny, she said, had stayed less than an hour. He had come and gone alone, and it had not appeared that he was expecting anyone to join him. He had seemed mindful of the time because he frequently checked his watch, and he had ordered a sailor sandwich with fries and a Pepsi. Danny Webster's last meal had cost him five dollars and twenty. cents. His waitress was named Cissy, and he had tipped her a dollar.

"And you didn't see anybody in the area that made your antenna go up? Not at any point today?" Marino asked.

Daigo shook her head. "No sir. Now that doesn't mean there wasn't some son of a bitch hanging out somewhere on the street… "Cause they're out there. You don't have to go far to find 'em. But if there was somebody, I didn't see him. Nobody who came in here complained about anybody out there like that, either."

"Well, we need to check with your customers, as many as we can," Marino said. "Maybe a car was noticed around the time Danny went out."

"We got charge receipts." She plucked at her hair and by now it was looking wild. "Most people who been in here we know anyhow."

We were about to leave, but there was one more detail I needed to know. "Daigo," I asked, "did he take anything with him to go?"

She looked perplexed and got up from the table. "Let me ask."

Marino crushed out another cigarette, and his face was deep red.

"Are you all right?" I said.

He mopped his face with a napkin. "It's hot as shit in here."

"He took his fries," Daigo announced when she got back. "Cissy says he ate his sandwich and slaw but she wrapped almost all of his fries. Plus when he got to the register, he bought a jumbo pack of gum."

"What kind'?" I asked.

"She's pretty sure it was Dentyne. As Marino and I stepped outside, he loosened the neck of his white uniform shirt and yanked off his tie. "Damn, some days I wish I'd never left A Squad," he said, for when he had commanded detectives it had been in street clothes. "I don't care who's watching," he muttered. "I'm about to die."

"Please tell me if you're serious," I said.

"Don't worry, I'm not ready for one of your tables yet.

I just ate too much."

"Yes, you did," I said. "And you smoked too much, too. And that's what prepares people for my tables, goddamn it. Don't you even think about dying, I'm tired of people dying."

We had reached my station wagon and he was staring at me, searching for anything I might not want him to see.

"Are you okay?"

"What do you think? Danny worked for me." My hand shook as I fumbled with the key. "He seemed nice and decent. It seemed he always tried to do what was right. He was driving my car here from Virginia Beach because I asked him to and now he's missing the back of his head.

How the hell do you think I feel?"

"I think you feel like this is somehow your fault."

"And maybe it is."

We stood in the dark, looking at each other.

"No, it's not," he said. "It's the fault of the asshole who pulled the trigger. You had nothing in the world to do with that. But if it was me, I'd feel the same way."

"My God," I suddenly said.

"What?" He was alarmed, and he looked around as if I had spotted something.

"His doggie bag. What happened to it? It wasn't inside my Mercedes. There was nothing in there that I could see.

Not even a gum wrapper," I said.

"Damn, you're right. And I didn't see nothing on the where your ride was parked. Nothing with the body street or anywhere at the scene, either."

the place no one had looked, and it was right There was o where we were, on this street by the restaurant. So Marino and I got out flashlights again and prowled. We looked along Broad Street, but it was on 28th near the curb where we found the small white bag as a large dog began barking from a yard. The bag's location suggested that Danny had parked my car as close to the cafe as possible in an area where buildings and trees cast dense shadows and lights were few.

"You got a couple pencils or pens inside your purse?"

Marino squatted by what we suspected might be the remains of Danny's dinner.

I found one pen and a long-handled comb, which I gave to him. Using these simple instruments, he opened the bag without touching it as he probed. Inside were cold French fries wrapped in foil and a jumbo pack of Dentyne gum.

The sight of them was jolting and told a terrible story.

Danny had been confronted as he had walked out of the cafe to my car. Perhaps someone emerged from shadows and pulled a gun as Danny was unlocking the door. We did not know, but it seemed likely he was forced to drive a street away, where he was walked to a remote wooded hillside to die.

"I wish that damn dog would shut up," Marino said as he stood. "Don't go anywhere. I'll be right back."

He crossed the street to his car and opened the trunk.

When he returned, he was carrying the usual large brown paper bag police used for evidence. While I held it open, he maneuvered the comb and pencils to drop Danny's leftovers inside.

"I know I should take this into the property room, but they don't like food in there. Besides. there's no fridge."

Paper crackled as he folded shut the top of the evidence bag.

Our feet made scuffing noises on pavement as we walked.

"Hell, it's colder than any refrigerator out here," he went on. "if we get any prints they'll probably be his. But I'll get the labs to check anyway."

He locked the bag inside his trunk, where I knew he had stored evidence many times before. Marino's reluctance to follow departmental rules went beyond his dress.

I looked around the dark street lined with cars. "Whatever happened started right here," I said.

Marino was silent as he looked around, too. Then he asked, "You think it was your Benz? You think that was the motive?"

"I don't know," I replied.

"Well, it could be robbery. The car made him look rich even if he wasn't."

I was overwhelmed by guilt again.

"But I still think he might have met someone he wanted to pick up."

"Maybe it would be easier if he had been up to no good I said. "Maybe it would be easier for all of us because then we could blame him for being killed."

Marino was silent as he looked at me. "Go home and get some sleep. You want me to follow you?"

"Thank you. I'll be fine."

But I wasn't, really. The drive was longer and darker than I remembered, and I felt unusually unskilled at everything I tried to do. Even rolling down the window at the toll booth and finding the right change was hard. Then the token I tossed missed the bin, and when someone behind me honked, I jumped. I was so out of sorts I could think of nothing that might calm me down, not even whiskey. I returned to my neighborhood at nearly one A.m., and the guard who let me through was grim, and I expected he had heard the news, too, and knew where I had been. When I pulled up to my house, I was stunned to see Lucy's Suburb an parked in the drive.

She was up and seemed recovered, stretched out on the couch in the gathering room. The fire was on, and she had a blanket over her legs, and on TV, Robin Williams was hilarious at the Met.

"What happened?" I sat in a chair nearby. "How did your car get here'?"

She had glasses on and was reading some sort of manual that had been published by the FBI. "Your answering service called," she said. "This guy who was driving my car arrived at your office downtown and your assistant never showed up. What's his name, Danny? So the guy in my car calls, and next thing the phone's ringing here. I had him drive to the guard booth, and that's where I met him."

"But what happened'?" I asked again. "I don't even know the name of this person. He was supposed to be an acquaintance of Danny's. Danny was driving my car. They were supposed to park both vehicles behind my office." I stopped and simply stared. "Lucy, do you have any idea what's going on? Do you know why I'm home so late?"

She picked up the remote control and turned the television off. "All I know is you got called out on a case. That's what you said to me right before you left."

So I told her. I told her who Danny was and that he was dead, and I explained about my car. I gave her every detail.

"Lucy, do you have any idea who this person was who dropped off your car?" I then said.

"I don't know." She was sitting up now. "Some Hispanic guy named Rick. He had an earring, short hair and looked maybe twenty-two, twenty-three. He was very polite, nice."

"Where is he now?" I said. "You didn't just take your car from him."

"Oh no. I drove him to the bus station, which George gave me directions to."

"George?"

"The guard on duty at the time. At the guard gate. I guess this would have been close to nine."

"Then Rick's gone back to Norfolk."

"I don't know what he's done," she said. "He told me as we were driving that he was certain Danny would show up. He probably has no idea."

"God. Let's hope he doesn't unless he heard it on the news. Let's hope he wasn't there," I said.

The thought of Lucy alone with this stranger in her car filled me with terror, and in my mind I saw Danny's head.

I felt shattered bone beneath gloves slippery with his blood.

"Rick's considered a suspect?" She was surprised.

"At the moment, just about anybody is."

I picked up the phone at the bar. Marino had just gotten home, too, and before I could say anything, he butted in.

"We found the cartridge case."

"Great," I said, relieved. "Where?"

"If you're on the road looking down toward the tunnel, it was in a bunch of undergrowth about ten feet to the right of the path where the blood starts."

"A right port ejector," I said.

"Had to be, unless both Danny and his killer were going downhill backwards. And this asshole meant business. He was shooting a forty-five. The ammo's Winchester."

"Overkill," I said.

"You got that right. Someone wanted to make sure he was dead."

"Marino," I said, "Lucy met Danny's friend tonight."

"You mean the guy driving her car?"

"Yes," and I explained what I knew.

"Maybe this thing's making a little more sense," he said. "The two of them got separated on the road, but in Danny's mind it didn't matter because he'd given his pal directions and a phone number."

"Can someone try to find out who Rick is before he disappears? Maybe intercept him when he gets off the bus?" I asked.

"I'll call Norfolk P.D. I got to anyway because somebody's got to go over to Danny's house and notify his family before they hear about this from the media."

"His family lives in Chesapeake," I told him the bad news, and I knew I would need to talk to them, too.

"Shit," Marino said.

"Don't talk to Detective Roche about any of this, and I don't want him anywhere near Danny's family."

"Don't worry. And you'd better get hold of Dr. Mant."

I tried the number for his mother's flat in London, but there was no answer, and I left an urgent message. There were so many calls to make, and I was drained. I sat next to Lucy on the couch.

"How are you doing?" I said.

"Well, I looked at the catechism but I don't think I'm ready to be confirmed."

"I hope someday you will be."

"I have a headache that won't go away."

"You deserve one."

"You're absolutely right." She rubbed her temples.

"Why do you do it after all you've been through?

could not help but ask.

"I don't always know why. Maybe because I have to be such a tight-ass all the time. Same thing with a lot of the agents. We run and lift and do everything right. Then we blow it off on Friday night."

"Well, at least you were in a safe place to do that this time."

"Don't you ever lose control?" She met my eyes. "Because I've never seen it."

"I've never wanted you to see it," I said. "That's all you ever saw with your mother, and you've needed someone to feel safe with."

"But you didn't answer my question." She held my gaze.

"What? Have I ever been drunk?"

She nodded.

"It isn't something to be proud of, and I'm going to bed." I got up.

"More than once?" Her voice followed me as I walked off.

I stopped in the doorway and faced her. "Lucy, throughout my long, hard life there isn't much I haven't done. And I have never judged you for anything you've done. I've only worried when I thought your behavior placed you in harm's way." I spoke in understatements yet again.

"Are you worried about me now?"

I smiled a little. "I will worry about you for the rest of my life."

I went to my room and shut the door. I placed my Browning by my bed and took a Benadryl because otherwise I would not sleep the few hours that were left. When I awakened at dawn, I was sitting up with the lamp on, the latest Journal of the American Bar Association still in my lap. I got up and walked out into the hall where I was surprised to find Lucy's door open. her bed unmade. She was not in the gathering room on the couch, and I hurried into the dining room at the front of the house. I stared out windows at an empty expanse of frosted brick pavers and grass, and it was obvious the Suburban had been gone for some time.

"Lucy," I muttered as if she could hear me. "Damn you, Lucy," I said.

I WAS TEN MINUTES LATE FOR STAFF MEETING, WHICH WAS unusual, but no one commented or seemed to care. The murder of Danny Webster was heavy in the air as if tragedy might suddenly rain down on us all. My staff was slowmoving and stunned, no one thinking very clearly. After all these years, Rose had brought me coffee and had forgotten I drink it black.

The conference room, which had been recently refurbished, seemed very cozy with its deep blue carpet, long new table and dark paneling. But anatomical models on tables and the human skeleton beneath his plastic shroud were reminders of the hard realities discussed in here. Of course, there were no windows, and art consisted of portraits of previous chiefs, all of them men who stared sternly down at us from the walls.

Seated on either side of me this morning were my chief and assistant chief administrators, and the chief toxicologist from the Division of Forensic Science upstairs. Fielding, to my left, was eating plain yogurt with a plastic spoon, while next to him sat the assistant chief and the new fellow, who was a woman.

"I know you've heard the terrible news about Danny Webster," I somberly proceeded from the head of the table.

where I always sat. "Needless to say, it is impossible to describe how a senseless death like this affects each one of us.

"Dr. Scarpetta," said the assistant chief, "is there anything new?"

"At the moment we know the following," I said, and I repeated all that I knew. "It appeared at the scene last night that he had at least one gunshot wound to the back of the head," I concluded.

"What about cartridge cases?" Fielding asked.

"Police recovered one in woods not too far from the street."

"So he was shot there at Sugar Bottom versus in or near the car."

"It does not appear he was shot inside or near the car," I said.

"Inside whose car?" asked the fellow, who had gone to medical school late in life and was far too serious.

"Inside my car. The Mercedes."

The fellow seemed very confused until I explained the scenario again. Then she made a rather salient comment.

"Is there any possibility you were the intended victim?"

"Jesus." Fielding irritably set down the yogurt cup.

"You shouldn't even say something like that."

"Reality isn't always pleasant," said the fellow, who was very smart and just as tedious. "I'm simply suggesting that if Dr. Scarpetta's car was parked outside a restaurant she has gone to numerous times before, maybe someone was waiting for her and got surprised. Or maybe someone was following and didn't know it wasn't her inside, since it was dark by the time Danny was on the road heading here."

"Let's move on to this morning's other cases," I said, as I took a sip of Rose's saccharine coffee whitened with nondairy creamer.

Fielding moved the call sheet in front of him and in his usual impatient northern tone went down the list. In addition to Danny, there were three autopsies. One was a fire death, another a prisoner with a history of heart disease, and a seventy-year-old woman with a defibrillator and pacemaker.

"She has a history of depression, mostly over her heart problems," Fielding was saying, "and this morning at about three o'clock her husband heard her get out of bed.

Apparently she went into the den and shot herself in the chest."

Possible views were of other poor souls who during the night had died from myocardial infarcts and wrecks in cars.

I turned down an elderly woman who clearly was a victim of cancer, and an indi-ent man who had succumbed to his t, coronary disease. Finally, we pushed back chairs and I went downstairs. My staff was respectful of my space and did not question what I was going through. No one spoke on the elevator as I stared straight ahead at shut doors, and in the locker room we put on gowns and washed our hands in silence. I was pulling on shoe covers and gloves when Fielding got close to me and spoke in my ear, "Why don't you let me take care of him?" His eyes were earnest on mine.

"I'll handle it," I said. "But thank you."

"Dr. Scarpetta, don't put yourself through it, you know'?

I wasn't here the week he came in. I never met him."

"It's okay, Jack." I walked away.

This was not the first time I had autopsied people I knew, and most police and even the other doctors did not always understand. They argued that the findings were more objective if someone else did the case, and this simply wasn't true as long as there were witnesses. Certainly, I had not known Danny intimately or for long, but he had worked for me, and in a way had died for me. I would give him the best that I had.

He was on a gurney parked next to table one, where I usually did my cases, and the sight of him this morning was worse and hit me with staggering force. He was cold and in full rigor, as if what had been human in him had given up during the night, after I had left him. Dried blood smeared his face, and his lips were parted as if he had tried to speak when life had fled from him. His eyes stared the slitted dull stare of the dead, and I saw his red brace and remembered him mopping the floor. I remembered his t, cheerfulness, and the sad look on his face when he talked about Ted Eddings and other young people suddenly gone.

"Jack." I motioned for Fielding.

He almost trotted to my side. "Yes, ma'am," he said.

"I'm going to take you up on your offer." I began labeling test tubes on a surgical cart. "I could use your help i f you're sure you're up to it."

"What do you want me to do?"

"We'll do him together."

"Not a problem. You want me to scribe?"

"Let's photograph him as he is but cover the table with a sheet first," I said.

Danny's case number was ME-3096, which meant he was the thirtieth case of the new year in the central district of Virginia. After hours of refrigeration he was not cooperative, and when we lifted him onto the table, arms and legs loudly banged against stainless steel as if protesting what we were about to do. We removed dirty, bloody clothing. Arms resisted coming out of sleeves, and tight-fitting jeans were Stubborn. I dipped my hands in pockets, and came up with twenty-seven cents in change, a Chap Stick and a ring of keys.

"That's weird," I said as we folded garments and placed them on top of the gurney covered by a disposable sheet.

"What happened to my car key?"

"Was it one of those remote-control ones?"

"Right." Velcro ripped as I removed the knee brace.

"And obviously, it wasn't anywhere at the scene."

"We didn't find it. And since it wasn't in the ignition, I assumed Danny would have had it." I was pulling off thick athletic socks.

"Well, I guess the killer Could have taken it, or it could have gotten lost."

I thought of the helicopter making a bigger mess, and I had heard that Marino had been on the news. He was shaking his fist and yelling for all the world to see, and I was there, too.

"Okay, he's got tattoos." Fielding picked up the clipboard.

Danny had a pair of dice inked into the top of his feet.

"Snake eyes," Fielding said. "Ouch, that must have hurt."

I found a faint scar from an appendectomy, and another old one on Danny's left knee that may have come from an accident when he was a child. On his right knee, scars from recent arthroscopic surgery were purple, the muscles in that leg showing minimal atrophy. I collected samples of his fingernails and hair, and at a glance saw nothing indicative of a struggle. I saw no reason to assume he had resisted whomever he had encountered outside the Hill Cafe when he had dropped his bag of leftovers.

"Let's turn him," I said.

Fielding held the legs while I gripped my hands under the arms. We got him on his belly and I used a lens and a strong light to examine the back of his head. Long dark hair was tangled with clotted blood and debris, and I palpated the scalp some more.

"I need to shave this here so I can be sure. But it looks like we've got a contact gunshot wound behind his right ear. Where are his films?"

"They should be ready." Fielding looked around.

"We need to reconstruct this."

"Shit." He helped me hold together what was a profound stellate wound that looked more like an exit, because it was so huge.

"It's definitely an entrance," I said as I used a scalpel blade to carefully shave that area of the scalp. "See, we've got a faint muzzle mark up here. Very faint. Right there."

I traced it with a gloved bloody finger. "This is very destructive. Almost like a rifle."

"Forty-five?"

"A half-inch hole," I said almost to myself as I used a ruler. "Yes, that's definitely consistent with a forty-five."

I was removing the skull cap in pieces to look at the brain when the autopsy technician appeared and slapped films up on a nearby light box. The bright white shape of the bullet was lodged in the frontal sinus, three inches from the top of the head.

"My God," I muttered as I stared at it.

"What the hell is that?" Fielding asked as both of us left the table to get closer.

The deformed bullet was big with sharp petals folded back like a claw.

"Hydra-Shok doesn't do that," my deputy chief said.

. "No, it does not. This is some kind of special highperformance ammo."

"Maybe Starfire or Golden Sabre?"

"Like that, yes," I answered, and I had never seen this ammunition in the morgue. "But I'm thinking Black Talon because the cartridge case recovered isn't PMC or Remington. It's Winchester. And Winchester made Black Talon until it was taken off the market."

"Winchester makes Silvertip. "This is definitely not Silvertip," I replied. "You ever seen a Black Talon?"

"Only in magazines."

"Black-coated, brass-jacketed with a notched hollow point that blossoms like this. See the points." I showed him on the film. "Unbelievably destructive. It goes through you like a buzz saw. Great for law enforcement but a nightmare if in the wrong hands."

"Jesus," Fielding said, amazed. "It looks like a damn octopus."

I pulled off latex gloves and replaced them with ones made of a tightly woven cloth, for ammunition like Black Talon was dangerous in the ER and the morgue. It was a bigger threat than a needle stick, and I did not know if Danny had hepatitis or AIDS. I did not want to cut myself on the jagged metal that had killed him so his assailant could end up taking two lives instead of one.

Fielding put on a pair of blue Nitrile gloves, which were sturdier than latex, but not good enough.

You can wear those for scribing," I said. "But that's

"That bad?"

"Yes," I said, plugging in the autopsy saw. "You wear those and handle this and you're going to get cut."

"This doesn't seem like a carjacking. This seems like someone who was very serious."

"Believe me," I raised my voice above the loud whine of the saw, "it doesn't get any more serious than this."

The story told by what lay beneath the scalp only got worse. The bullet had shattered the temporal, occipital, parietal and frontal bones of the skull. In fact, had it not lost its energy fragmenting the thick petrous ridge, the twisted claw would have exited, and we would have lost what was a very important piece of evidence. As for the brain, what the Black Talon had done to it was awful. The explosion of gas and shredding caused by copper and lead had plowed a terrible path through the miraculous matter that had made Danny who he was. I rinsed the bullet, then cleaned it thoroughly in a weak solution of Clorox, because body fluids can be infectious and are notorious for oxidizing metal evidence.

At almost noon, I double-bagged it in plastic envelopes and carried it upstairs to the firearms lab, where weapons of every sort were tagged and deposited on countertops, or wrapped in brown paper bags. There were knives to be examined for tool marks, submachine guns and even a sword. Henry Frost, who was new to Richmond but well known in his field, was staring into a computer screen.

"Has Marino been up here?" I asked him as I walked in.

Frost looked up, hazel eyes focusing, as if he had just arrived from some distant place where I had never been.

"About two hours ago." He tapped several keys.

"Then he gave you the cartridge case." I moved beside his chair.

"I'm working on it now," he said. -The word is, this case is a number-one priority."

Frost, I guessed, was about my age and had been divorced at least twice. He was attractive and athletic, with well-proportioned features and short black hair. According to the typical legends people always claimed about their peers, he ran marathons, was an expert in whitewater rafting, and could shoot a fly off an elephant at a hundred paces. What I did know from personal observation was that he loved his trade better than any woman, and there was nothing he would rather talk about than guns.

"You've entered the forty-five?" I asked him.

"We don't know for a fact it's connected to the crime, do we?" He glanced at me.

"No," I said. "We don't know for a fact." I spotted a chair with wheels close by and pulled it over. "The cartridge case was found about ten feet from where we believe he was shot. In the woods. It's clean. It looks new. And I've got this." I dipped into a pocket of my lab coat and withdrew the envelope containing the Black Talon bullet.

"Wow," he said.

"Consistent with a Winchester forty-five?"

"Man alive. There is always a first time." He opened the envelope and was suddenly excited. "I'll measure lands and grooves and tell you in a minute whether it's a forty-five."

He moved before the comparison microscope and used the Air Gap method to fix the bullet to the stage with wax so he didn't leave any marks on metal that weren't already there.

"Okay," he talked without looking up, "the rifling is to the left, and we've got six lands and grooves." He began measuring with micrometer jaws. "Land impressions are point oh-seven-four. Groove impressions are point one-five-three. I'm going to enter that into the GRC,- he said, referring to the FBI's computerized General Rifling Characteristics. "Now let's determine the caliber," he spoke abstractedly as he typed.

While the computer raced through its databases, Frost checked the bullet with a vernier measuring device. Not surprisingly, what he found was that the caliber of the Black Talon was.45, and then the GRC came back with a list of twelve brands of firearms that could have fired it. All, except Sig Sauer and several Colts, were military pistols.

"What about the cartridge case?" I said. "Do we know anything about it?"

"I've got it on live video but I haven't run it yet."

He returned to the chair where I had found him when I had first come in and began typing on a workstation connected by modem to an FBI firearms evidence imaging system called DRUGFIRE. The application was part of the massive Crime Analysis Information Network known as CAIN, which Lucy had developed, and the point was to link firearms-related crimes. Succinctly put, I wanted to know if the gun that had killed Danny might have killed or maimed before, especially since the type of ammunition hinted that the assailant was no novice.

The workstation was simple, with its 486 turbo PC connected to a video camera and comparison microscope that made it possible to capture images in real time and in color on a twenty-inch screen. Frost went into another menu and the video display was suddenly filled with a checkerboard of silvery disks representing other.45 cartridge cases, each with unique impressions. The breech face of the Winchester.45 connected to my case was on the top left-hand side, and I could see every mark made by breech block, firing pin, ejector or any of her metal part of the gun that had fired the round into Danny's head.

"Yours has a big drag to the left." Frost showed me what looked like a tail coming out of the circular dent left by the firing pin. "And there's this other mark here, also to the left." He touched the screen with his finger.

"Ejector?" I said.

"Nope, I'd say that's from the firing pin bouncing back."

"Unusual?"

"Well, I'd just say it's unique to this weapon," he replied as he stared. "So we can run this if you want."

Let's.

He pulled up another screen and entered the information he had, such as the hemispherical shape the firing pin had impressed in the soft metal of the printer, and the direction of twist and parallel striation of the microscopic characteristics of the breech face. We did not enter anything about the bullet I had recovered from Danny's brain, for we could not prove that the Black Talon and the cartridge case were related, no matter how much we might suspect it. The examination of those two items of evidence was really unrelated, for lands and grooves and firing pin impressions are as different as fingerprints and footwear. All one can hope is that the stories the witnesses tell are the same.

Amazingly, in this case they were. When Frost executed his search, we had to wait only a minute or two before DRUGFIRE let us know that it had several candidates that might match the small, nickel-plated cylinder found ten feet from Danny's blood.

"Let's see what we've got here." Frost talked to himself as he positioned the top of the list on his screen. "This is your front runner." He dragged his finger across the glass.

"No contest. This one's way ahead of the pack."

"A Sig forty-five P220," I said, looking at him in astonishment. "The cartridge case is matching with a weapon versus another cartridge case?"

"Yes. Damn if it isn't. Jesus Christ."

"Let me make sure I understand this." I could not believe what I was seeing. "You wouldn't have the characteristics of a firearm entered into DRUGFIRE unless that firearm had been turned in to a lab. By the police, for some reason."

"That's how it's done," Frost agreed as he began to print screens. "This Sig forty-five that's in the computer is coming u p as the same one that fired the cartridge found near Danny Webster's body. That much we know right this second. What I've got to do is pull the actual cartridge case from the test fire done when we originally got the gun."

He stood.

I did not move as I continued staring at the list in DRUGFIRE with its symbols and abbreviations that told us about this pistol. It left recoil and drag marks, or its fingerprints, on the cartridge cases of every round it spent. I thought of Ted Eddings' stiff body in the cold waters of the Elizabeth River. I thought of Danny dead near a tunnel that no longer led anywhere.

"Then this gun somehow got back out on the street," I said.

Frost pursed his lips as he opened file drawers. "It would appear that way. But I really don't know the details of why it was entered into the system to begin with." Still rooting around, he added, "I believe the police department that originally turned the weapon in to us was Henrico County.

Let's see, where's CVA5471? We are seriously running out of room in this place."

"This was submitted last fall." I noted the date on the Computer screen. "September twenty-ninth."

"Right. That should be the date the form was completed."

"Do you know why the police turned the gun in?"

"You'd have to call them," Frost said.

"Let's get Marino on it now."

"Good idea."

I called Marino's pager as Frost pulled a file folder. Inside was the usual clear plastic envelope that we used to store the thousands of cartridge cases and shotgun shells that came through Virginia's labs every year.

"Here we go," he said.

"You have any Sig P220s in here?" I got up, too.

"One. It should be on the rack with the other forty-five auto loads."

While He mounted his test-fire cartridge case on the microscope's stage, I walked into a room that was either a nightmare or toy store, depending on Your point of view.

Walls were boards crowded with pistols, revolvers, and Tec- I Is and Tec-9s. It was depressing to think how many deaths were represented by the weapons in this one cramped room, at)(] how many of the cases had been mine.

The Sig Sauer P220 was black, and looked so much like the nine-milfirneter carried by Richmond police that at a glance I could not have told them apart. Of course, on close inspection, the.45 was somewhat bigger, and I suspected its muzzle mark might be different, too.

"Where's the ink pad?" I asked Frost as he leaned over the microscope, lining up both cartridge cases so he could physically compare them side by side.

"In my top desk drawer-," he said as the telephone rang -"Towards the back."

I got out the small tin of fingerprint ink and unfolded a snowy clean cotton twill cloth, which I placed on a thin, soft plastic pad. Frost picked up the phone.

"Hey, Bud. We got a hit on DRUGFIRE," he said, and I knew he was talking to Marino. "Can you run something down?"

He proceeded to tell Marino what he knew. Then Frost said to me as he hung up, "He's going to check with Henrico even as we speak."

"Good," I abstractedly said as I pressed the pistol's barrel into the ink, and then onto the cloth.

"These are definitely distinctive," I said right off as I studied several blackened muzzle marks that clearly showed the combat pistol's front sight blade, recoil guide and shape of the slide.

"You think we could identify that specific type of pistol?" he asked, and he was peering into the microscope again.

"On a contact wound, theoretically, we could," I said.

"The obvious problem is that a foriv-five loaded with highperformance ammunition is so incredibly destructive, you aren't likely to find a good pattern, not on the head."

This had been true in Danny's case, even after I had conjured up my plastic surgery skills to reconstruct the entrance wound as best I could. But as I compared the cloth to diagrams and photographs I had made downstairs in the morgue, I found nothing inconsistent with a Sig P220 beino the murder weapon. In fact, I thought I might have matched a sight mark protruding from the margin of the entrance.

"This is our confirmation," Frost said, adjusting the focus as he continued staring into the comparison microscope.

We both turned at the sound of' someone running down the hall.

"You want to see?" he asked.

"Yes, I do," I said as vet another person ran past, keys jingling madly from a bell.

"What the hell?" Frost -of up, frownin- toward the door.

Voices had gotten louder outside in the hall, and now people were hurrying by, but going the other way. Frost and I stepped outside the lab at the same moment several security guards rushed past, heading for their station. Scientists in lab coats stood in doorways casting about. Everyone was asking everyone else what was going on, when suddenly the fire alarm hammered overhead and red lights in the ceiling flashed.

"What the hell is this, a fire drill?" Frost yelled.

"There isn't one scheduled." I held my hands over my ears as people ran.

"Does that mean there's a fire?" He looked stunned.

I glanced up at sprinkler heads in the ceilings, Fiji(] said, "We've got to get out of here."

I ran downstairs and had just pushed through doors into the hall on my floor when a violent white storm of' cool halon gas blasted from the ceiling. It sounded as if I were surrounded by huge cymbals being beaten madly with a million sticks as I dashed in and Out of rooms. Fieldin- was gone, and every other office I checked had been evacuated so fast that drawers were left open, and slide displays and microscopes were on. Cool clouds rolled over me, and I had the surreal sensation I was flying through a hurricane in the middle of an air raid. I dashed into the library, the restrooms, and when satisfied that everyone was safely out, I ran down the hall and pushed my way out of the front doors. For a moment, I stood to catch my breath and let my heart slow down.

The procedure for alarms and drills was as rigidly structured as most routines in the state. I knew I would find my staff gathered on the second floor of the Monroe Tower parking deck across Franklin Street. By now, all Consolidated Lab employees should be in their designated spots, except for section chiefs and agency heads, and of those, it seemed, I was the last to leave, except for the director of general services, who was in charge of my building. He was briskly crossing the street in front of me, a hard hat tucked under his arm. When I called out to him, he turned around and squinted as if he did not know me at all.

"What in God's name is going on?" I asked as I caught up with him and we crossed to the sidewalk.

"What's going on is you better not have requested anything extra in your budget this year." He was an old man who was always well dressed and unpleasant. Today he was in a rage.

I stared at the building and saw no smoke as fire trucks screamed and blared several streets away.

"Some jackass tripped the damn deluge system, which doesn't stop until all the chemicals are dumped." He glared at me as if I were to blame. "I had the damn thing set on a delay to prevent this very thing."

"Which wasn't going to hell) if there was a chemical fire or explosion in a lab," I couldn't resist pointing out, because most of his decisions were about as bad. "You don't want a thirty-second delay when something like that happens."

"Well, something like that didn't happen. Do you have any idea how much this is going to cost?"

I thought of the paperwork on my desk and other important items flung far and wide and possibly damaged.

"Why would anyone trip the system?" I asked.

"Look, at the moment I'm about as informed as you are."

"But thousands of gallons of chemicals have been dumped over all of' my offices, and the morgue and the anatomical division." We climbed stairs, my frustration becoming harder to contain.

"You won't know it was even there." He rudely waved off the remark. "it disappears like a vapor."

"It's sprayed all over bodies we are autopsying, including several homicides. Let's hope a defense attorney never brings that up in court."

"What you'd better hope is that somehow we can pay for this. To refill those halon tanks, we're talking several hundred thousand dollars. That's what ought to make you stay awake at night."

The second level of the parking deck was crowded with hundreds of state employees on an unexpected break. Ordinarily, drills and false alarms were an invitation to play, and people were in good moods as long as the weather was nice. But no one was relaxed this day. It was cold and gray, and people were talking in excited voices. The director abruptly walked off to speak to one of his henchmen, and I began to look around. I had just spotted my staff' when I felt a hand on my arm.

"Geez, what's the matter?" Marino asked when I jumped. "You (lot POST-traumatic stress syndrome?"

"I'm sure I do," I said. "Were you in the building?"

"Nope, but not far away. I heard about your full fire alarm on the radio and thought I'd check it out."

He hitched up his police belt with all its heavy gear, his eyes roaming the crowd. "You mind telling me what the hell's going on'? You finally get a case of spontaneous combustion?"

"I don't know exactly what's going on. But what I've been told is that someone apparently tripped a false alarm that set off the deluge system throughout the entire building. Why are You here?"

"I see Fielding way over there." Marino nodded. "And Rose. They're all together. You look cold as shit."

"You were just in the area?" I asked, because when he was evasive, I knew something was up.

"I could hear the damn alarm all the way on Broad Street," he said.

As if on cue, the awful clanging across the street suddenly stopped. I stepped closer to the parking deck wall and looked over the top of it as I worried more about what I would find when all of us were allowed to return to the building. Fire trucks rumbled loudly in parking lots, and firefighters in protective gear were entering through several different doors.

"When I saw what was going on," he added, "I figured you'd be up here. So I thought I'd check on you."

"You figured right," I said, and my fingernails had turned blue. "You know anything about this Henrico case, the forty five cartridge case that seems to have been fired by the same Sig P220 that killed Danny?" I asked as I continued to lean against the cold concrete wall and stare out at the city.

"What makes you think I'd find anything out that fast'?"

"Because everybody's scared of you."

"Yeah, well they sure as hell should be."

Marino moved closer to me. He leaned against the wall, only facing the other way, for he did not like having his back to people, and this had nothing to do with manners.

He adjusted his belt again and crossed his arms at his chest, He avoided my eyes, and I could tell he was angry.

"On December eleventh," he said, "Henrico had a traffic stop at 64 and Mechanicsville Turnpike. As the Henrico officer approached the car, the subject got out and ran, and the officer pursued on foot. This was at night." He got out his cigarettes. "The foot pursuit crossed the county line into the city, eventually ending in Whitcomb Court." He fired his lighter. "No one's real sure what happened, but at some point during all this, the officer lost his gun."

It took a moment for me to remember that several years ago the Henrico County Police Department had switched from nine-millimeters to Sig Sauer P220.45 caliber pistols.

"And that's the pistol in question?" I uneasily asked.

"Yup." He inhaled smoke. "You see, Henrico's got this policy. Every Sig gets entered into DRUGFIRE in the event this very thing happens."

"I didn't know that."

"Right. Cops lose their guns and have them stolen like anybody else. So it's not a bad thing to track them after they're gone, in case they're used in the commission of crimes."

"Then the gun that killed Danny is the one this Henrico officer lost," I wanted to make sure.

"It would appear that way." -It was lost in the projects about a month ago," I went on. "And now it's been used for murder. It was used on Danny."

Marino turned toward me, flicking an ash. "At least it wasn't you in the car outside the Hill Cafe."

There was nothing I could say.

"That area of town ain't exactly far from Whitcomb Court and other bad neighborhoods," he said. "So we could be talking about a carjacking, after all."

"No." I still would not accept that. "My car wasn't taken."

"Something could have happened to make the squirrel change his mind," he said.

I did not respond.

"It could have been anything. A neighbor turns a light on. A siren sounds somewhere. Someone's burglar alarm accidentally goes off. Maybe he got spooked after shooting Danny and didn't finish what he started."

"He didn't have to shoot him." I watched traffic slowly rolling past on the street below. "He could have just stolen my Mercedes outside the cafe. Why drive him off and walk him down the hill into the woods?" My voice got harder.

"Why do all of that for a car you don't end up taking?"

"Things happen," he said again. "I don't know."

"What about the tow lot in Virginia Beach," I said.

"Has anybody checked with them?"

"Danny picked up your ride around three-thirty, which is the time they told you it would be ready."

"What do you mean, the time they told me'?"

"The time they told you when you called."

I looked at him and said, "I never called."

He flicked an ash. "They said you did."

"No." I shook my head. "Danny called. That was his job. He dealt with them and my office's answering service."

"Well, someone who claimed to be Dr. Scarpetta called.

Maybe Lucy'?"

"I seriously doubt she would say she was me. Was this person who called a woman'?"

He hesitated. "Good question. But you probably should ask Lucy, just to make sure she didn't call."

Firefighters were emerging from the building, and I knew that soon we would be allowed to return to our offices. We Would spend the rest of the day checking everything, speculating and complaining as we hoped that no more cases came in.

"The arm-no's the thing that's really eating at me," Marino then said.

"Frost should be back in his lab within the hour," I said, but Marino did not seem to care.

"I'll call him. I'm not going up there in all this mess."

I could tell he did not want to leave me and his mind was on more than this case, "Something's troubling you," I said.

"Yeah, Doc. Something always is."

"What this time?"

He got out his pack of Marlboros again, and I thought of my mother, whose constant companion now was an oxygen tank, because she once had been as bad as him.

"Don't look at me like that," he warned as he fished for his lighter again.

"I don't want you to kill yourself. And today you seem to be really trying."

"We're all going to die."

"Attention," blared a fire truck's P.A. system. "This is the Richmond Fire Department. The emergency has ended.

You may reenter the building," sounded the mechanical broadcast with its jarring repetitive beeps and monotonous tones. "Attention… "The emergency has ended. You may reenter the building.

"Mc." Marino went on, unmindful of the commotion, "I want to croak while I'm drinking beet-, eating nachos with chili and sour cream, sniokino, downing shots of lack Black and watching the game."

"You may as well have sex while you're at it." I did not smile, for I found nothing amusim' about his health risks.

"Doris cured me of sex." Marino was serious, too, as He referred to the woman he'd been married to most of his life.

"When did you hear from her last" I asked, as I realized she was probably the explanation for his mood.

The buildings and homes were thick with shadows, and anyone could wait in them and not be seen.

I looked across at my new car, and the small yard beyond it where the dog lay in wait. He was silent just now, and I walked north on the sidewalk for several yards to see what he might do. But he did not seem interested until I neared his yard. Then I heard the low, evil growling that raised the hair on the back of my neck. By the time I was unlocking my car door, he was on his hind legs, barking and shaking the fence.

"You're just guarding your turf, aren't you, boy?" I said. "I wish you could tell me what you saw last night."

I looked at the small house as an upstairs window suddenly slid up.

"Bozo, shut up!" yelled a fat man with tousled hair.

"Shut up, you stupid mutt!" The window slammed shut.

"All right, Bozo," I said to the dog who was not really called Outlaw, unfortunately for him. "I'm leaving you alone now." I looked around one last time and got into my car.

The drive from Daigo's restaurant to the restored area on Franklin where police had found my former car took less than three minutes if one were driving the posted speed. I turned around at the hill leading to Sugar Bottom, for to drive down there, especially in a Mercedes, was out of the question. That thought led to another.

I wondered why the assailant would have chosen to remain on foot in a restored area with a Neighborhood Watch program as widely publicized as the one here. Church Hill published its own newsletter, and residents looked out their windows and did not hesitate to call the cops, especially after shots had been tired. It seemed it might have been safer to have casually returned to my car and driven a safe distance away.

Yet the killer did not do this, and I wondered if he knew this area's landmarks but not the culture because he really was not from here. I wondered if he had not taken my car because his own was parked nearby and mine was of no interest. He didn't need it for money or to get away. That theory made sense if Danny had been followed instead of happened upon. While he was eating dinner, his assailant could have parked, then returned to the cafe on foot and waited in the dark near the Mercedes while the dog barked.

I was passing my building on Franklin when my pager vibrated against my side. I slipped it off and turned on its light so I could see. I had neither radio nor phone yet, and made a quick decision to turn into the OCME back parking lot. Letting myself in through a side door, I entered our security code, walked into the morgue and took the elevator upstairs. Traces of the day's false alarm had vanished, but Rose's death certificates suspended in air were an eerie display. Sitting behind my desk, I returned Marino's page.

"Where the hell are you?" he said right off.

"The office," I said, staring up at the clock.

"Well, I think that's the last place you ought to be right now. And I bet you're alone. You eaten yet?"

"What do you mean, this is the last place I should be right now?"

"Let's meet and I'll explain."

We agreed to go to the Linden Row Inn, which was downtown and private. I took my time because Marino lived on the other side of the river, but he was quick. When I arrived, he was sitting at a table before the fire in the parlor. Off duty, he was drinking a beer. The bartender was a quaint older man in a black bow tie, and he was carrying in a big bucket of ice while Pachelbel played.

"What is it?" I said to Marino as I sat. "What's happened now?"

He was dressed in a black golf shirt, and his belly strained against the knitted fabric and flowed roundly over the waistband of his jeans. The ashtray was already littered with cigarette butts, and I suspected the beer he was drinking wasn't his first or last.

"Would you like to hear the story of your false alarm this afternoon, or has someone gotten to you first?" He lifted the mug to his lips.

"No one has gotten to me about much of anything. Although I've heard a rumor about some radioactivity scare," I said as the bartender appeared with fruit and cheese. "Pellegrino with lemon, please," I ordered.

"Apparently, it's more than a rumor," Marino said.

"What?" I gave him a frown. "And why would you know more about what's going on inside my building than I do?"

"Because this radioactive situation has to do with evidence in a city homicide case." He took another swallow of beer. "Danny Webster's homicide, to be exact."

He allowed me a moment to grasp what he had just said, but my limits were unwilling to stretch.

"Are you implying that Danny's body was radioactive?" I asked as if he were crazy.

"No. But the debris we vacuumed from the inside of your car apparently is. And I'm telling you, the guys that did the processing are scared shitless, and I'm not happy about it either because I poked around inside your ride, too.

That's one thing I got a big damn problem with like some people do with spiders and snakes. It's like these guys who got exposed to Agent Orange in Nam, and now they're dying of cancer."

The expression on my face now was incredulous.

"You're talking about the front seat passenger's side of my black Mercedes?"

Yeah, and if I were you, I wouldn't drive it anymore.

How do you know that shit won't get to you over a long time?"

"I won't be driving that car anymore," I said. "Don't worry. But who told you the vacuumings were radioactive?"

"The lady who runs that SEM thing."

"The scanning electron microscope."

"Yeah. It picked up uranium, which set the Geiger counter off. Which I'm told has never happened before."

"I'm sure it hasn't."

"So next we have a panic on the part of security, which are right down the hall, as you know," he went on. "And this one guard makes the executive decision to evacuate the building. Only problem is, he forgets that when he breaks the glass on the little red box and yanks the handle, he's also going to set off the deluge system."

"To my knowledge," I said, "it's never been used. I could see how someone might forget. In fact, he mignight, that his death isn't a random crime motivated by robbery, gay bashing or drugs. I think his killer waited for him, maybe as long as an hour, then confronted him as he returned to my car in the dark shadows near the magnolia tree on Twenty-eighth Street. You know that dog, the one who lives right there? He barked the entire time Danny was inside the Hill Cafe, according to Daigo."

Marino regarded me in silence for a moment. "See, that's what I was just saying. You went there tonight."

"Yes, I did."

His jaw muscles bunched as he looked away. "That's exactly what I mean."

"Daigo remembers the dog barking nonstop."

He said nothing.

"I was there earlier and the dog doesn't bark unless you get close to his property. Then he goes berserk. Do you understand what I'm saying?"

His eyes came back to me. "Who's going to hang out there for an hour when a dog's acting like that? Come on, Doc."

"Not your average killer," I answered as my drink appeared. "That's my point."

I waited until the bartender served us, and after he was gone from our table I said, "I think Danny may have been a professional hit."

"Okay." He drained his beer. "Why? What the hell did that kid know? Unless he was into drugs or some type of organized crime."

"What he was into was Tidewater," I said. "He lived there. He worked in my office there. He was at least peripherally involved in the Eddings case, and we know whoever killed Eddings was very sophisticated. That, too, was premeditated and carefully planned."

Marino was thoughtfully rubbing his face. "So you're convinced there's a connection."

"I think nobody wanted us to know there was. I think whoever is behind this assumed he would look like a carjacking gone bad or some other street crime."

"Yeah, and that's what everybody still thinks."

"Not everybody." I held his eyes. "Absolutely, not everybody."

"And you're convinced Danny was the intended victim, saying this was a professional hit."

"it could have been me. It could have been him to scare me," I said. "We may never know."

"You got tox yet on Eddings?" He motioned for another round.

"You know what today was like. Hopefully, I'll know something tomorrow. Tell me what's going on with Chesapeake."

He shrugged. "Don't got a clue."

"How can you not have a clue?" I impatiently said.

"They must have three hundred officers. Isn't anybody working on Ted Eddings' death?"

"Doesn't matter if they have three thousand officers. All you need is one division screwed up, and in this instance it's homicide. So that's a barricade we can't get around because Detective Roche is still on the case."

"I don't understand it," I said.

"Yeah, well, he's still on your case, too."

I didn't listen for he wasn't worth my time.

"I'd watch my back, if I were you." He met my eyes.

"I wouldn't take it lightly." He paused. "You know how cops talk, so I hear things. And there's a rumor being spread out there that you hit on Roche, and his chief's going to try to get the governor to fire you."

"People can gossip about whatever they'd like," I impatiently said.

"Well, part of the problem is they look at him and how young he is, and some people don't have a hard time imagining that you might be attracted." He hesitated, and I could tell he despised Roche and wanted to maim him. "I hate to tell you," Marino said, "but you'd be a whole lot better off if he wasn't good-looking."

"Harassment is not about how people look, Marino. But he has no case, and I'm not worried about it."

"Point is, he wants to hurt you, Doc, and he's already trying hard. One way or another he's going to screw you, if he can."

"He can wait in line with all the other people who want to."

"The person who called the tow lot in Virginia Beach and said they was you, was a man." He stared at me. "Just so you know."

"Danny wouldn't have done that," was all I could say.

"I wouldn't think so. But maybe Roche would," Marino replied.

"What are you doing tomorrow?"

He sighed. "I don't have time to tell you."

"We may need to make a trip to Charlottesville."

"What for?" He frowned. "Don't tell me Lucy's still acting screwy."

"That's not why we need to go. But maybe we'll see her, too," I said.

THE NEXT MORNING, I MADE EVIDENCE ROUNDS. AND my first stop was the Scanning Electron Microscopy lab where I found forensic scientist Betsy Eckles sputter coating a square of tire rubber. She was sitting with her back to me, and I watched her mount the sample on a plat form, which would next go into a vacuum chamber of glass so it could be coated by atomic particles of gold. I noted the cut in the center of the rubber, and thought it looked familiar, but couldn't be sure.

"Good morning," I said.

She turned around from her intimidating console of pressure gauges, dials and digital microscopes that built images in pixels instead of lines on video screens. Graying and trim in a long lab coat, she seemed more harried than usual this Thursday.

"Oh, good morning, Dr. Scarpetta," she said as she placed the sample of punctured rubber into the chamber.

"Slashed tires?" I asked.

"Firearms asked me to coat the sample. They said it had to be done right now. Don't ask me why."

She was not happy about it in the least, for this was an unusual response to what was generally not considered a serious crime. I did not understand why it would be a priority today when labs were backed up to the moon, but this was not why I was here.

"I came to talk to you about the uranium," I said.

" That's the first time I've ever found anything like that."

She was opening a plastic envelope. "We're talking twenty-two years."

"We need to know which isotope of uranium we're dealing with," I said.

I agree, and since this has never come up before, I'm not sure where to do that. But I can't do it here."

Using double sticky tape, she began mounting what looked like particles of dirt on a stub that would go into a storage vial. She got vacuumings every day and Was never caught up.

"Where is the radioactive sample now?" I asked.

"Right where I left it. I haven't opened that chamber back up and don't think I want to."

"May I see what we've got?"

"Absolutely."

She moved to another digitalized scope, turned on the monitor, and it filled with a black universe scattered with stars of different sizes and shapes. Some were a very bright white while others were dim, and all were invisible to the unaided eye.

"I'm zooming it up to three thousand," she said as she turned dials. "You want it higher?"

"I think this will do the trick," I replied.

We stared at what could have been a scene from inside an observatory. Metal spheres looked like threedimensional planets surrounded by smaller moons and stars.

"That's what came out of your car," she let me know.

"The bright particles are uranium. Duller ones are iron oxide, like you find in soil. Plus there's aluminum, which is used in just about everything these days. And silicon, or sand.

"Very typical for what someone might have on the bottom of his shoes," I said. "Except for the uranium."

"And there's something else I'll point out," she went on. "The uranium has two shapes. The lobed or spherical, which resulted from some process in which the uranium was molten. But here." She pointed. "We have irregular shapes with sharp edges, meaning these came from a process involving a machine." -CP amp;L would use uranium for their nuclear power plants." I referred to Commonwealth Power amp; Light, which supplied electricity for all of Virginia and some areas of North Carolina.

"Yes, they would."

"Any other business around here that might?" I asked.

She thought for a minute. "There are no mines around here or processing plants. Well, there's the reactor at UVA, but I think that's mainly for teaching."

I continued to stare at the small storm of radioactive material that had been tracked into my car by whoever had killed Danny. I thought of the Black Talon bullet with its savage claws, and the weird phone call I had gotten in Sandbridge which was followed by someone climbing over my wall. I believed Eddings was somehow the common link, and that was because of his interest in the New Zionists.

"Look," I said to Eckles, "just because a Geiger counter's gone off doesn't mean the radioactivity is harmful. And, in fact, uranium isn't harmful."

"The problem is we don't have a precedent for something like this," she said.

I patiently explained, "It's very simple. This material is evidence in a homicide investigation. I am the medical examiner in that case, and it is Captain Marino's jurisdiction.

What you need to do is receipt this vacuuming to Marino and me. We will drive it to UVA and have the nuclear physicist there determine which isotope it is."

Of course, this could not be accomplished without a telephone conference that included the director of the Bureau of Forensic Science, along with the health commissioner, who was my direct boss. They worried about a possible conflict of interest because the uranium had been found in my car, and of course, Danny had worked for me. When I pointed out that I was not a suspect in the case, they were appeased, and in the end, relieved to have the radioactive sample taken off their hands.

I returned to the SEM lab and Eckles opened that frightful chamber while I slipped on cotton gloves. Carefully, I removed the sticky tape from its stub and tucked it inside a plastic bag, which I sealed and labeled. Before I left her floor, I stopped by Firearms, where Frost was seated before a comparison microscope, examining an old military bayonet on top of a stage. I asked him about the punctured rubber he was having sputter-coated with gold, because I had a feeling.

"We've got a possible suspect in your tire-slashing case," he said, adjusting the focus as he moved the blade.

"This bayonet?" I knew the answer before I asked.

"That's right. It was just turned in this morning."

"By whom?" I said as my suspicions grew.

He looked at a folded paper bag on a nearby table. I saw the case number and date, and the last name "Roche."

. "Chesapeake," Frost replied.

"Do you know anything about where it came from?" I felt enraged.

"The trunk of a car. That's all I was told. Apparently, there's a hellfire rush on it for some reason."

I went upstairs to Toxicology because it was a last round I certainly needed to make. But my mood was bad, and I was not cheered when I finally found someone home who could confirm what my nose had told me in the Norfolk morgue. Dr. Rathbone was a big, older man whose hair was still very black. I found him at his desk signing lab reports.

"I just called you." He looked up at me. "How was your New Year?"

"it was new and different. How about you?"

"I got a son in Utah, so we were there. I swear I'd move if I could find a job, but I reckon Mormons don't have much use for my trade."

"I think your trade is good anywhere," I said. "And I assume you've got results on the Eddings case," I added as I thought of the bayonet.

"The concentration of cyanide in his blood sample is point five milligrams per liter, which is lethal, as you know." He continued signing his name.

"What about the hookah's intake valve and tubes and so on?"

"Inconclusive."

I was not surprised, nor did it really matter since there was now no doubt that Eddings had been poisoned with cyanide gas, his manner of death unequivocally a homicide.

I knew the prosecutor in Chesapeake and stopped by my office long enough to give her a call so she could encourage the police to do the right thing.

"You shouldn't have to ring me up for that," she said.

"You're right, I shouldn't."

"Don't give it another thought." She sounded angry.

"What a bunch of idiots. Has the FBI gotten into this one at all?"

"Chesapeake doesn't need their help."

"Oh good. I guess they work homicidal cyanide gas poisonings in diving deaths all the time. I'll get back to you."

Hanging up, I collected coat and bag and walked out into what was becoming a beautiful day. Marino's car was parked on the side of Franklin Street, and he was sitting inside with the engine running and his window down. As I headed toward him he opened his door and released the trunk.

"Where is it?" he said.

I held up a manila envelope, and he looked shocked.

"That's all you've got it in?" he exclaimed, eyes wide.

"I thought you'd at least put it in one of those metal paint cans."

"Don't be ridiculous," I said. "You could hold uranium in your bare hand and it wouldn't hurt you."

I shut the envelope inside the trunk.

"Then how come the Geiger counter went off?" he continued arguing as I climbed in. "It went off because the friggin' shit is radioactive, right?"

"Without a doubt, uranium is radioactive, but by itself, not very, because it is decaying at such a slow rate. Plus, the sample in your trunk is extremely small."

"Look, a little radioactive is like a little pregnant or a little dead, in my opinion. And if you ain't worried about it how come you sold your Benz?"

"That's not why I sold it."

"I don't want to be rayed, if it's all the same to you," he irritably said.

"You're not going to be rayed."

But he railed on, "I can't believe you'd expose me and my car to uranium."

"Marino," I tried again, "a lot of my patients come into the morgue with very grim diseases like tuberculosis, hepatitis, meningitis, AIDS. And you've been present for their autopsies, and you've always been safe with me."

He drove fast along the interstate, cutting in and out of traffic.

"I should think that you would know by now that I would never deliberately place you in harm's way," I added.

"Deliberately is right. Maybe you're into something you don't know about," he said. "When was the last time you had a radioactive case?"

"in the first place," I explained, "the case itself is not radioactive, only some microscopic debris associated with it is. And secondly, I do know about radioactivity. I know about X-rays, MRIs and isotopes like cobalt, iodine and technetium that are used to treat cancer. Physicians learn about a lot of things, including radiation sickness. Would you please slow down and choose a lane?"

I stared at him with growing alarm as he eased up on the accelerator. Sweat was beaded on top of his head and rolling down his temples, his face dark red. With jaw muscles clenched, he gripped the steering wheel hard, his breathing labored.

"Pull over," I demanded.

He did not respond.

"Marino, pull over. Now," I repeated in a tone he knew not to resist.

The shoulder was wide and paved on this stretch of 64, and without a word I got out and walked around to his side of the car. I motioned with my thumb for him to get out, and he did. The back of his uniform was soaking wet and I could see the outline of his undershirt through it.

"I think I must be getting the flu," he said.

I adjusted the seat and mirrors.

., I don't know what's wrong with me." He mopped his face with a handkerchief.

"You're having a panic attack," I said. "Take deep breaths and try to calm down. Bend over and touch your toes. Go limp, relax."

"Anybody sees you driving a city car, my ass is on report," he said, pulling the shoulder harness across his chest.

"Right now the city should be grateful that you're not driving anything," I said. "You shouldn't be operating any machinery at this moment. In fact, you should probably be sitting in a psychiatrist's office." I looked over at him and sensed his shame.

"I don't know what's wrong," he mumbled, staring out his window.

"Are you still upset about Doris?"

"I don't know if I ever told you about one of the last big fights she and I had before she left." He mopped his face again. "It was about these damn dishes she got at a yard sale. I mean, she'd been thinking about getting new dishes for a long firne, right? And I come home from work one night and here's this big set of blaze orange dishes spread out on the dining-room table." He looked at me.

"You ever heard of Fiesta Ware?"

"Vaguely."

"Well, there was something in the glaze of this particular line that I come to find out will set a Geiger counter off."

" It doesn't take much radioactivity to set a Geiger counter off." I made that point again.

"Well, there'd been stories written about the stuff, which had been taken off the market," he went on. "Doris wouldn't listen. She thought I was overreacting."

"And you probably were."

"Look, people are phobic of all kinds of things. Me, it's radiation. You know how much I hate even being in the X-ray room with you, and when I turn on the microwave, I leave the kitchen. So I packed up all the dishes and dumped them without telling her where."

He got quiet and wiped his face again. He cleared his throat several times.

Then he said, "A month later she left."

"Listen," I softened my voice, "I wouldn't want to eat off those dishes, either. Even though I know better. I understand fear, and fear isn't always rationales'

"Yeah, Doc, well maybe in my case it is." He opened his window a crack. "I'm afraid of dying. Every morning I get up and think about it, if you want to know. Every day I think I'm going to stroke out or be told I got cancer. I dread going to bed because I'm afraid I'll die in my sleep."

He paused, and it was with great difficulty that he added, "That's the real reason Molly stopped seeing me, if you want to know."

"That wasn't a very kind reason." What he just said hurt me.

"Well-he got more uncomfortable-she's a lot younger than me. And part of the way I feel these days is I don't want to do anything that might exert myself."

"Then you're afraid of having sex."

"Shit," he said, "why don't you just wave it like a flag."

"Marino, I'm a doctor. All I want to do is help, if I can."

"Molly said I made her feel rejected," he went on.

"And you probably did. How long have you had this problem?"

"I don't know, Thanksgiving."

"Did something happen?"

He hesitated again. "Well, you know I've been off my medicine."

"Which medication? Your adrenergic blocker or the finasteride? And no, I didn't know."

"Both."

"Now why would you do anything that foolish?"

"Because when I'm on it nothing works right," he blurted out. "I quit taking it when I started dating Molly.

Then I started again around Thanksgiving after I had a checkup and my blood pressure was really up there and my prostate was getting bad again. It scared me."

"No woman is worth dying for," I said. "And what this is all about is depression, which you're a perfect candidate for, by the way."

"Yeah, it's depressing when you can't do it. You don't understand."

"Of course, I understand. It's depressing when your body fails you, when you get older and have other stressors in your life like change. And you've had a lot of change in the past few years."

"No, what's depressing,' I he said, and his voice was getting louder, "is when you can't get it up. And then sometimes you get it up and it won't go down. And you can't pee when you feel like you got to go, and other times you go when you don't feel like it. And then there's the whole problem of not being in the mood when you got a girlfriend almost young enough to be your daughter." He was glaring at me, veins standing out in his neck. "Yeah, I'm depressed. You're fucking right I am!"

"Please don't be angry with me."

He looked away, breathing hard. -1 want you to make appointments with your cardiologist and your urologist," I said.

"Uh-uh. No way." He shook his head. "This damn new health-care plan I'm on has me assigned to a woman urologist. I can't go in there and tell a woman all this shit."

"Why not? You just told me."

He fell silent, staring out the window. He looked in the side mirror and said, "By the way, some drone in a gold Lexus has been behind us since Richmond."

I looked in the rearview mirror. The car was a newer model and the person driving was talking on the phone.

"Do you think we're being followed?" I asked.

"Hell if I know, but I wouldn't want to pay his damn phone bill."

We were close to Charlottesville, and the gentle landscape we had left had rounded into western hills that were winter-gray between evergreens. The air was colder and there was more snow, although the interstate was dry. I asked Marino if we could turn the scanner off because I was tired of hearing police chatter, and I took 29 North toward the University of Virginia.

For a while, the scenery was sheer rocky faces interspersed with trees spreading from woods to roadsides. Then we reached the outer limits of the campus, and blocks were crowded with places for pizzas and subs, convenience stores and filling stations. The university was still on Christmas break, but my niece was not the only person in the world to ignore that fact. At Scott Stadium, I turned on Maury Avenue, where students perched on benches and rode by on bikes, wearing backpacks or holding satchels that seemed full of work. There were plenty of cars.

"You ever been to a game here?" Marino had perked up.

"I can't say that I have."

"Now that ought to be against the law. You have a niece going here and you never once saw the Hoos? What'd you do when you came to town? I mean, what did you and Lucy do?"

In fact, we had done very little. Our time together generally was spent taking long walks on the campus or talking inside her room on the Lawn. Of course we had many dinners at restaurants like The Ivy and Boar's Head, and I had met her professors and even gone to class. But I did not see friends, what few of them she had. They, like the places where she met them, were not something shared with me.

I realized Marino was still talking.

"I'll never forget when I saw him play," he was saying.

"I'm sorry," I said.

"Can you imagine being seven feet tall? You know he lives in Richmond now."

"Let's see." I studied buildings we were passing. "We want the School of Engineering, which starts right here. But we need Mechanical, Aerospace and Nuclear Engineering."

I slowed down as a brick building with white trim came in sight, and then I saw the sign. Parking was not hard to find, but Dr. Alfred Matthews was. He had promised to meet me in his office at eleven-thirty but apparently had forgotten.

"Then where the hell is he?" asked Marino, who was still worried about what was in his trunk.

"The reactor facility." I got back in the car.

"Oh great."

It was really called the High Energy Physics Lab and was on top of a mountain that was also shared by an observatory. The university's nuclear reactor was a large silo made of brick. It was surrounded by woods that were fenced in, and Marino was acting phobic again.

"Come on. You'll find this interesting." I opened my door.

"I got no interest in this at all."

"Okay. Then you stay here and I'll go in."

"You won't get an argument out of me," he replied.

I retrieved the sample from the trunk, and at the facility's IL

main entrance, I rang a bell and someone released a lock.

Inside was a small lobby where I told a young man behind glass that I was looking for Dr. Matthews. A list was checked and I was informed that the head of the physics department, whom I knew only in a limited way, was this moment by the reactor's pool. The young man then picked up an in-house phone while sliding out a visitor's pass and a detector for radiation. I clipped them to my jacket, and he left his station to escort me through a heavy steel door beneath a red light sign that indicated the reactor was on.

The room was windowless with high tile walls, and every object I saw was marked with a bright yellow radioactive tag. At one end of the lighted pool, Cerenkov radiation caused the water to glow a fantastic blue as unstable atoms spontaneously disintegrated in the fuel assembly twenty feet down. Dr. Matthews was conferring with a student who, I gathered as I heard them talk, was using cobalt instead of an autoclave to sterilize micropipettes used for in vitro fertilization.

"I thought you were coming tomorrow," the nuclear physicist said to me, a distressed expression on his face.

"No, it was today. But thank you for seeing me at all. I have the sample with me." I held up the envelope.

"Okay, George," he said to the young man. "Will you be all right?"

"Yes, sir. Thanks."

"Come on," Matthews said to me. "We'll take it down there now and get started. Do you know how much you've got here?"

"I don't know exactly."

"If we've got enough, we can do it while you wait."

Beyond a heavy door, we turned left and paused at a tall box that monitored the radiation of our hands and feet. We passed with bright green colors and went on to stairs that led to the neutron radiography lab, which was in a basement of machine shops and forklifts, and big black barrels containing low-level nuclear waste waiting to be shipped.

There was emergency equipment at almost every turn, and a control room locked inside a cage. Most remote to all of this was the low background counting room. Built of thick windowless concrete, it was stocked with fifty-gallon canisters of liquid nitrogen, and germanium detectors and amplifiers and bricks made of lead.

The process for identifying my sample was surprisingly simple. Matthews, wearing no special protection other than lab coat and -loves, placed the piece of sticky tape into a tube, which he then set inside a two-foot-long aluminum container containing the germanium crystal. Finally, he stacked lead bricks on every side to shield the sample from background radiation.

Activating the process required a simple computer command, and a counter on the canister began measuring radioactivity so it could tell us which isotope we had. This was all rather strange to see, for I was accustomed to arcane instruments like scanning electron microscopes and gas chromatographs. This detector, on the other hand, was a rather formless house of lead cooled by liquid nitrogen and did not seem capable of intelligent thought.

"Now, if you'll just sign this evidence receipt," I said, "I'll be on my way."

"It could take an hour or two. It's hard to say," he answered.

He signed the form and I gave him a copy.

"I'll stop by after I check on Lucy."

"Come on, I'll escort you up to make sure you don't set anything off. How is she?" he asked as we passed detectors without a complaint. "Did she ever go on to MIT?"

"She did do an internship there last fall," I said. "In robotics. You know, she's back here. For at least a month."

"I didn't know. That's wonderful. Studying what?"

"Virtual reality, I think she said."

Matthews looked perplexed for a moment. "Didn't she take that when she was here?"

"I expect this is more advanced."

"I expect it would have to be." He smiled. "I wish I had at least one of her in every class."

Lucy had probably been the only non-physics major at UVA to take a course in nuclear design for fun. I walked outside, and Marino was leaning against the car, smoking "So what now?" He said, and he still looked glum.

." thought I'd surprise my niece and take her to lunch.

You're more than welcome to join us."

"I'm going to drop by the Exxon station down the street and use the pay phone," he said. "I got some calls to make."

HE DROVE ME TO THE ROTUNDA, BRILLIANT WHITE IN sunlight and my favorite building Thomas Jefferson had designed. I followed old brick colonnaded walkways beneath ancient trees, where Federal pavilions formed two rows of privileged housing known as the Lawn.

Living here was an award for academic achievement, yet it might have been considered a dubious honor by some.

Showers and toilets were located in another building in back, the sparsely furnished rooms not necessarily intended for comfort. Yet I had never heard Lucy complain, for she had truly loved her life at UVA.

She was staying on the West Lawn in Pavilion III, with its Corinthian capitals of Carrara marble that had been carved in Italy. Wooden shutters outside room I I were drawn, the morning paper still on the mat, and I wondered, perplexed, if she had not gotten up yet. I rapped on the door several times and heard someone stirring.

"Who is it?" my niece's voice called out.

"It's me," I said.

There was a pause, then a surprised, "Aunt Kay?"

"Are you going to open the door?" My good mood was fading fast for she did not sound pleased.

"Uh, hold on a minute. I'm coming."

The door unlocked and opened.

"Hi," she said as she let me in.

"I hope I didn't wake you up." I handed her the newspaper.

"Oh, T. C. gets that," she said, referring to the friend who really belonged to this room. "She forgot to cancel it before she left for Germany. I never get around to reading it."

I entered an apartment not so different from where I had visited my niece last year. The space was small with bed and sink, and crowded bookcases. Heart of pine floors were bare, with no art on whitewashed walls except a single poster of Anthony Hopkins. Lucy's technical preoccupations had taken over tables, desk and even several chairs. Other equipment, like the fax machine and what looked like a small robot, was out cold on the floor.

Additional telephone lines had been installed, and these were connected to modems winking with green lights. But I did not get the impression that my niece was living here alone, for on the sink were two toothbrushes, and solution for contact lenses that she did not wear. Both sides of the twin bed were unmade, and on top of it was a briefcase I did not recognize, either.

"Here." She lifted a printer off a chair and put me close to the fire. "Sorry everything's such a mess." She wore a bright orange UVA sweatshirt and jeans, and her hair was wet. "I can heat up some water," she said, and she was very distracted.

"If you're offering tea, I accept," I said.

I watched her closely as she filled a pot with water and plugged it in. Nearby, on a dresser top were FBI credentials, a pistol and car keys. I spotted file folders and pieces of paper scribbled with notes, and I spotted unfamiliar clothing hanging inside the closet. -Tell me about T. C.,- I said.

Lucy opened a tea bag. "A German major. She's spending the next six weeks in Munich. So she said I could stay here."

"That was very nice of her. Would you like me to help you pack up her things or at least make room for your%?"

"You don't need to do any work at all right now."

I glanced toward the window, hearing someone.

"You still take your tea black?" Lucy said.

The fire crackled, smoking wood shifted, and I wasn't surprised when the door opened and another woman walked in. But I was not expecting Janet, and she was not expecting me.

"Dr. Scarpetta," he said in surprise as she glanced at Lucy. "How great of you to drop by."

She was carrying shower items, a baseball cap pulled over wet hair that was almost to her shoulders. Dressed in sweats and tennis shoes, she was lovely and healthy, and like Lucy, seemed even younger because she was on a university campus again.

"Please join us," Lucy said to her as she handed me a mug of tea.

"We were out running.- Janet smiled. "Sorry about the hair. So what brings you here?" she asked as she sat on the floor.

"I need some help with a case," was all I said. "Are you taking this virtual reality course too?" I studied both of their faces.

"Right," Janet said. "Lucy and I are here together. As you may or may not know, I was transferred to the Washington Field Office late last year."

"Lucy mentioned it."

"I've been assigned to white-collar crime," she went on.

"Especially anything that might be related to a violation of the 10C."

"Which is?" I asked.

It was Lucy who replied as she sat next to me, "Interception of Communication statute. We've got the only group in the country with experts who can handle these cases."

"Then the Bureau has sent both of you here for training because of this group." I tried to understand. "But I guess I don't see what virtual reality might have to do with hackers breaking into major databases," I added.

Janet was silent as she took off her cap and combed her hair, staring into the fire. I could tell she was very uncomfortable, and I wondered how much of it had to do with what had happened in Aspen over the holidays. My niece moved to the hearth and sat facing me.

"We're not here for a class, Aunt Kay," she said with quiet seriousness. "That's how it's supposed to look to everybody else. Now, I'm going to tell you this when I shouldn't, but it's too late for any more lies."

"You don't have to tell me," I said. "I understand."

"No." Her eyes were intense. "I want you to understand what's going on. And to give you a quick, dirty summary, last fall Commonwealth Power and Light began experiencing problems when what appeared to be a hacker started getting inside their computer system. The attempts were frequent-sometimes four or five times a day. But there was no success in identifying this individual until he left tracks in an audit log after accessing and printing customer billing information. We were called, and remotely we managed to trace the perpetrator to UVA."

"Then you haven't caught whoever it is," I said.

"No." It was Janet who spoke. "We interviewed the graduate student whose I.D. it was, but he definitely isn't the hacker. We have reasons to be very sure of that."

"Point is," said Lucy, "several other I.D.s have been stolen from students here since, and the perpetrator was also trying to access CP amp;L along with the university computer and one in Pittsburgh."

"Was?" I asked.

"Actually, he's been pretty quiet lately, which makes it harder for us," Janet said. "Mostly, we've been chasing him through the university computer."

"Right," Lucy said. "We haven't tracked him in CP amp;L's computer for almost a week. I figure because of the holidays."

"Why might someone be doing this?" I asked. "Do you have a theory?"

"A power trip, no pun intended," Janet simply said ' "Maybe so he can turn lights on and off throughout Virginia and the Carolinas. Who knows?"

"But what we believe is that whoever's doing it is on campus, and is getting in via the Internet and another link called Telnet," Lucy said, adding confidently, "We'll get him."

"You mind if I ask why all the secrecy?" I said to my niece. "Could you not just tell me you were on a case you couldn't discuss?"

She hesitated before responding, "You're on the faculty here, Aunt Kay."

This was true, and I had not even thought of that. Though I was only a visiting professor in pathology and legal medicine, I decided Lucy's point was well taken, and I supposed I did not blame her for keeping this from me for yet another reason. She wanted her independence, especially in this place where for the duration of her undergraduate studies it had been well known that she was related to me.

I looked at her. "Is this why you left Richmond so abruptly the other night?"

"I got paged."

"By me," Janet said. "I was flying in from Aspen, got delayed, et cetera. Lucy picked me up at the airport and we came back here."

"And were there any other attempted break-ins over the holidays?"

"Some. The system is constantly being monitored," Lucy said. "We're not alone in this by any means. We've just been assigned an undercover post here so we can do some hands-on detective work."

"Why don't you walk me to the Rotunda." I got up, and so did they. "Marino should be back with the car." I hugged Janet and her hair smelled like lemon. "You take care and come see me more often," I said to her. "I consider you family. Lord knows it's about time I had some help in taking care of this one." I smiled as I put my arm around Lucy.

Outside in the sun, the afternoon was warm enough for only sweaters, and I wished I could stay longer. Lucy did not linger during our brief walk, and I could tell she was anxious about anyone seeing us together.

"It's just like the old days," I said lightly to hide my hurt.

"How's that?" she asked.

"Your ambivalence about being seen with me."

"That's not true. I used to be proud of it."

"And now you're not," I said with irony.

"Maybe I'd like you to feel proud to be seen with me,"

she said. "Instead of it always the other way. That's what I meant."

"I am proud of you and always have been, even when you were such a mess that sometimes I wanted to lock you in the basement."

"I believe that's called child abuse."

"No, the jury would vote for aunt abuse in your case.

Trust me," I said. "And I'm glad you and Janet seem to be getting along. I'm glad she's back from Aspen and the two of you are together."

My niece stopped and looked at me, squinting in the sun.

"Thanks for what you said to her. Right now, especially, that meant a lot."

"I spoke the truth, that's all," I said. "Maybe someday her family will speak it, too."

We were in sight of Marino's car, and he was sitting in it, as usual, and puffing away.

Lucy walked up to his door. "Hey Pete," she said, "you need to wash your ride."

"No, I don't," he grumbled as he immediately tossed the cigarette and got out.

He looked around, and the sight of him hitching up his pants and inspecting his car because he could not help himself was too much. Lucy and I both laughed, and then he tried not to smile. In truth, he secretly enjoyed it when we teased. We bantered a little bit more, and then Lucy left as a late-model gold Lexus with tinted glass drove past. It was the same one we had seen earlier on the road, the driver obliterated by glare.

"This is beginning to get on my nerves." Marino's eyes followed the car.

"Maybe you should run the plate number," I stated the obvious.

"Oh, I already done that." He started the car and began backing out. -DMV's down."

DMV was the Department of Motor Vehicles computer, and it was down a lot, it seemed. We headed back up to the reactor facility, and when we got there, Marino again refused to go inside. So I left him in the parking lot, and this time the young man in the control room behind glass told me I could enter unescorted.

"He's down in the basement," he said with eyes on his computer screen.

I found Matthews in the low background counting room again, sitting before a computer screen displaying a spectrum in black and white.

"Oh, hello," he said, when he realized I was beside him.

"Looks like you've had some luck," I said. "Although I'm not sure what I'm seeing. And I might be too early."

"No, no, you're not too early. These vertical lines here indicate the energies of the significant gamma rays detected. One line equals one energy. But most of the lines we're seeing here are for background radiation." He showed me on the screen. "You know, even the lead bricks don't get rid of all of that."

I sat next to him.

"I guess what I'm trying to show you, Dr. Scarpetta, is that the sample you brought in isn't giving off high-energy gamma rays when it decays. If you look here on this energy spectrum-he was staring at the screen-it looks like this characteristic gamma ray on the spectrum is for uranium two-thirty-five." He tapped a spike on the glass.

"Okay," I said. "And what does that mean?"

"That's the good stuff." He looked over at me.

"Such as is used in nuclear reactors," I said.

"Exactly. That's what we use to make fuel pellets or rods. But as you probably know, only point three percent of uranium is two-thirty-five. The rest is depleted."

"Right. The rest is uranium two-thirty-eight," I said.

"And that's what we've got here."

"If it isn't giving off high-energy gamma rays," I said.

How can you tell that from this energy spectrum?"

"Because what the germanium crystal is detecting is uranium two-thirty-five. And since the percentage of it is so low, this indicates that the sample we're dealing with must be depleted uranium."

"It couldn't be spent fuel from a reactor," I thought out loud.

"No, it couldn't," he said. "There's no fission material mixed in with your sample. No strontium, cesium, iodine, barium. You would have already seen those with SEM."

"No isotopes like that came up," I agreed. "Only uranium and other nonessential elements that you might expect with soil tracked in on the bottom of someone's shoes."

I looked at peaks and valleys of what could have been a scary cardiogram while Matthews made notes.

"Would you like printouts of all of this?" he asked.

"Please. What is depleted uranium used for?"

"Generally, it's worthless." He hit several keys.

"if it didn't come from a nuclear power plant, then from where?"

"Most likely a facility that does isotopic separation."

"Such as Oak Ridge, Tennessee," I suggested.

"Well, they don't do that anymore. But they certainly did for decades, and they must have warehouses of uranium metal. Now there also are plants in Portsmouth, Ohio, and Paducah, Kentucky."

"Dr. Matthews," I said. "It appears someone had depleted uranium metal on the bottom of his shoes and tracked it into a car. Can you give me any logical explanation as to how or why?"

"No." His expression was blank. "I don't think I can."

I thought of the jagged and spherical shapes the scanning electron microscope had revealed to me, and tried again.

"Why would someone melt uranium two-thirty-eight? Why would they shape it with a machine?"

Still, he did not seem to have a clue.

"is depleted uranium used for anything at all?" I then asked.

"In general, big industry doesn't use uranium metal," he answered. "Not even in nuclear power plants, because in those the fuel rods or pellets are uranium oxide, a ceramic."

"Then maybe I should ask what depleted uranium metal could, in theory, be used for," I restated.

"At one time there was some talk by the Defense Department about using it for armor plating on tanks. And it's been suggested that it could be used to make bullets or other types of projectiles. Let's see. I guess the only other thing we know that it's good for is shielding radioactive material."

"What sort of radioactive material?" I said as my adrenal glands woke up. "Spent fuel assemblies, for example?"

"That would be the idea if we knew how to get rid of nuclear waste in this country," he wryly said. "You see, if we could remove it to be buried a thousand feet beneath Yucca Mountain, Nevada, for example, then U-238 could be used to line the casks needed for transport."

"In other words," I said, "if the spent assemblies are to be removed from a nuclear power plant, they will have to be put in something, and depleted uranium is a better shield than lead."

He said this was precisely what he meant, and receipted my sample back to me, because it was evidence and one day could end up in court. So I could not leave it here, even though I knew how Marino would feel when I returned it to his trunk. I found him walking around, his sunglasses on.

"What now?" he said.

"Please pop the trunk."

He reached inside the car and pulled a release as he said. "I'm telling you right now, that it ain't going in no evidence locker in my precinct or at HQ. No one's going to cooperate, even if I wanted them to."

"it has to be stored," I simply said. "There's a twelvepack of beer in here."

"So I didn't want to have to bother stopping for it later."

"One of these days, you're going to get in trouble." I shut the trunk of his city-owned police car.

"Well, how about you store the uranium at your office," he said.

"Fine." I got in. "I can do that."

"So, how was it?" he asked, starting the engine.

I gave him a summary, leaving out as much scientific detail as I could.

"You're telling me that someone tracked nuclear waste into your Benz?" he asked, baffled.

"That's the way it appears. I need to stop by and talk to Lucy again."

"Why? What's she got to do with it?"

"I don't know that she does," I said as he drove down he mountain. "I have a rather wild idea."

I hate it when you get those."

Janet looked worried when I was back at their door, this time with Marino.

"Is everything all right?" she asked, letting us in.

"I think I need your help," I said. "Strike that. What I mean is that both of us do."

Lucy was sitting on the bed, a notebook open in her lap.

She looked at Marino. "Fire away. But we charge for consultations."

He sat by the fire, while I took a chair close to him.

"This person who has been getting into CP amp;L's computer," I said. "Do we know what else he has gotten into besides customer billing?" -f can't say we know everything," Lucy replied. "But the billing is a certainty, and customer info is in general."

"Meaning what?" Marino asked.

"Meaning that the information about customers includes billing addresses, phone numbers, special services, energyuse averaging, and some customers are part of a stocksharing program-". "Let's talk about stock sharing," I stopped her. "I'm involved in that program. Part of my check every month buys stock in CP amp;L, and therefore the company has some financial information on me, including my bank account and social security number." I paused, thinking. "Could that sort of thing be important to this hacker?"

"Theoretically, it could," Lucy said. "Because you've got to remember that a huge database like CP amp;L's isn't going to reside in any one place. They've got other systems with gateways leading to them, which might explain the hacker's interest in the mainframe in Pittsburgh."

"Maybe it explains something to you," said Marino, who always got impatient with Lucy's computer talk. "But it don't explain shit to me."

"If you think of the gateways as major corridors on a map-like 1-95, for example," she patiently said, "then if you go from one to the other, theoretically you could start cruising the global web. You could pretty much get into anything you want."

"Like what?" he asked. "Give me an example that I can relate to."

She rested the notebook in her lap and shrugged. "If I broke into the Pittsburgh computer, my next stop would be at AT amp;T."

"That computer's a gateway into the telephone system?" I asked.

"It's one of them. And that's one of the suspicions Jan and I have been working on-that this hacker's trying to figure out ways to steal electricity and phone time."

"Of course, at the moment this is just a theory," Janet said. "So far, nothing has come up that might tell us what the hacker's motive is. But from the FBI's perspective, the break-ins are against the law. That's what counts."

"Do you know which CP amp;L customer records were accessed?" I asked.

"We know that this person has access to all customers," Lucy replied. "And we're talking millions. But as for individual records that we know were looked at in more detail, those were few. And we have them."

"I'm wondering if I could see them," I said.

Lucy and Janet paused.

"What for?" Marino asked as he continued to stare at me. "What are you getting at, Doc?"

"I'm getting at that uranium fuels nuclear power plants, and CP amp;L has two nuclear power plants in Virginia and one in Delaware. Their mainframe is being broken into. Ted Eddings called my office with radioactivity questions. In his home PC he had all sorts of files on North Korea and suspicions that they were attempting to manufacture weapons-grade plutonium in a nuclear reactor."

"And the minute we start looking into anything in Sandbridge we get a prowler," Lucy added. "Then someone slashes our tires and Detective Roche threatens you. Now Danny Webster comes to Richmond and ends up dead and it appears that whoever killed him tracked uranium into your car." She looked at me. "Tell me what you need to see."

I did not require a complete customer list, for that would be virtually all of Virginia, including my office and me.

But I was interested in any detailed billing records that were at'Lussed, and what I was shown was curious but short. Out of five names, I recognized all but one.

"Does anybody know who Joshua Hayes is? He has a post office box in Suffolk," I said.

"All we know so far," said Janet, "is that he's a farmer."

"All right," I moved on. "We've got Brett West, who is an executive at CP amp;L. I can't remember his title." I looked at the printout.

"Executive Vice President in charge of Operations," Jan et said.

"He lives in one of those brick mansions near you, Doc," Marino said. "In Windsor Farms."

"He used to. If you study his billing address," Janet pointed out, "you'll see it changed as of last October. It appears he moved to Williamsburg."

There were two other CP amp;L executives whose records had been perused by whoever was illegally prowling the Internet. One was the CEO, the other the president. But it was the identity of the fifth electronic victim that truly frightened me.

"Captain Green." I stared at Marino, stunned.

His face was vague. "I got no idea who you're talking about."

"He was present at the Inactive Ship Yard when I got Eddings' body out of the water," I said. "He's with Navy Investigative Services."

"I hear you." Marino's face darkened, and Lucy and Janet's IOC case dramatically shifted before their eyes.

"Maybe it's not surprising this person breaking in would be curious about the highest-ranking officials of the corporation he's violating, but I don't see how NIS fits in," Janet said.

"I'm not sure I want to know how it might," I said.

"But if what Lucy has to say about gateways is relevant, then maybe the final stop for this hacker is certain people's telephone records."

"Why?" Marino asked.

"To see who they were calling." I paused. "The son of information a reporter might be interested in, for example."

Getting up from the chair, I began to pace about as fear tingled along my nerves. I thought of Eddings poisoned in his boat, of Black Talons and uranium, and I remembered that Joel Hand's farm was in Tidewater somewhere.

"This person named Dwain Shapiro who owned the bible you found in Eddings' house," I said to Marino. "He allegedly died in a carjacking. Do we have any further information on that?"

"Right now we don't."

"Danny's death could have been signed out as the same sort of thing," I said.

"Or yours could have. Especially because of the type of car. If this were a hit, maybe the assailant didn't know that Dr. Scarpetta isn't a man," Janet said. "Maybe the gunman was cocky and only knew what you would be driving."

I stopped by the hearth as she went on.

"Or maybe the killer didn't figure out Danny wasn't you until it was too late. Then Danny had to be dealt with."

"Why me?" I said. "What would be the motive?"

It was Lucy who replied, "Obviously, they think you know something."

"They?"

"Maybe the New Zionists. The same reason they killed Ted Eddings," she said. "They thought he knew something or was going to expose something."

I looked at my niece and Janet as my anxieties got more inflamed.

"For God's sake," I said to them with feeling, "don't do anything more on this until you talk to Benton or someone, Damn! I don't want them thinking you know something, too."

But I knew Lucy, at least, would not listen. She would be on her keyboard with renewed vigor the moment I shut the door.

"Janet?" I held the gaze of my only hope for their playing it safe. "Your hacker is very possibly connected to people being murdered."

"Dr. Scarpetta," she said, "I understand."

Marino and I left UVA, and the gold Lexus we had already seen twice this day was behind us all the way back to Richmond. Marino drove with his eyes constantly on his mirrors. He was sweating and mad because the DMV computer wasn't up yet, and the plate number he had called in was taking forever to come back. The person behind us in the car was young and white. He wore dark glasses and a cap.

"He doesn't care if you know who he is," I said. "If he cared, he wouldn't be so obvious, Marino. This is just one more intimidation attempt."

"Yeah, well, let's see who intimidates who," he said, slowing down.

He stared in the rearview mirror again, slowing more, and the car got closer. Suddenly, he hit his brakes hard. I didn't know who was more shocked, our tailgater or me, as the Lexus's brakes screeched, horns blaring all around, and the car clipped the rear end of Marino's Ford.

"Uh-oh," he said. "Looks like someone's just rearended a policeman."

He got out and subtly unsnapped his holster while I looked on in disbelief. I slipped out my pistol and dropped it in a pocket of my coat as I decided I should get out, too, since I had no idea what was about to happen. Marino was by the Lexus's driver's door, watching the traffic at his back as he talked into his portable radio.

"Keep your hands where I can see them at all times," he ordered the driver again in a loud, authoritative voice.

"Now I want you to give me your driver's license. Slow."

I was on the other side of the car, near the passenger's door, and I knew who the offender was before Marino saw the license, and the photograph on it.

"Well, well, Detective Roche," Marino raised his voice above the rush of traffic. "Fancy we should run into you.

Or vice versa." His tone turned hard. "Get out of the car.

Now. You got any firearms on you?"

"It's between the seats. In plain view," he said, coldly.

Then Roche slowly got out of the car. He was tall and slender in fatigue pants, a denim jacket, boots and a large black dive watch. Marino turned him around and ordered him again to keep his hands in plain view. I stood where I was while Roche's sunglasses fixed on me, his mouth smug.

"So tell me, Detective Cock-Roche," Marino said, who you snatching for today? Might it be Captain Green you've been talking to on your portable phone? You been telling him everywhere we've been going today and what we're doing, and how much you've been scaring our asses as we spot you in our mirrors? Or are you obvious just because you're a dumb shit?"

Roche said nothing, his face hard.

"is that what you did to Danny, too? You called the tow lot and said you were the doc and wanted to know what time to pick up your car. Then you passed the info down the line, only it just so happened it wasn't the doc driving that night. And now a kid's missing half his head because some soldier of fortune didn't know the doc ain't a man or maybe mistook Danny for a medical examiner."

"You can't prove anything," Roche said with the same mocking smile.

"We'll see how much I can prove when I get hold of your cellular phone bills." Marino moved closer so Roche could feel his big presence, his belly almost touching him.

"And when I find something, you're going to have a lot more to worry about than a driving penalty. At the very least I'm going to nail your pretty ass for being an accomplice to murder prior to the fact. That ought to get you about fifty years.

"In the meantime"-Marino jabbed a thick finger at his face-"I'd better never see you even within a mile of me again. And I wouldn't recommend you getting anywhere close to the doc, either. You've never seen her when she gets irritated."

Marino lifted his radio and got back on the air to check the status of getting an officer to the scene, and even as his request was broadcast again, a cruiser appeared on 64. It pulled in behind us on the shoulder, and a uniformed female sergeant from Richmond P.D. got out. She walked our way with purpose, her hand discreetly near her gun.

"Captain, good afternoon." She adjusted the volume on the radio on her belt. "What seems to be the problem?"

"Well, Sergeant Schroeder, it seems this person's been tailgating me for the better part of the day," Marino said.

"And unfortunately, when I was forced to apply my brakes due to a white dog running in front of my vehicle, he struck me from the rear.

"Was this the same white dog?" the sergeant asked without a trace of a smile.

"Looked like the same one we've had problems with."

They went on with what must have been the oldest police joke, for when it came to single-car accidents, it seemed a ubiquitous white canine was always to blame. It darted in front of vehicles and then was gone until it darted in front of the next bad driver and again got blamed.

"He has at least one firearm inside his vehicle," Marino added in his most serious police tone. "I want him thoroughly searched before we get him inside."

"All right, sir, you need to spread your arms and legs."

"I'm a cop," Roche snapped.

"Yes, sir, so you should know exactly what I'm doing," Sergeant Schroeder matter-of-factly stated.

She patted him down, and discovered an ankle holster on his inner left leg.

"Now ain't that sweet," Marino said.

"Sir," the sergeant said a little more loudly as another unmarked unit pulled up, "I'm going to have to ask you to remove the pistol from your ankle holster and place it inside your vehicle."

A deputy chief got out, resplendent in patent leather, navy and brass, and not exactly thrilled to be on the scene.

But it was procedure to call him whenever a captain was involved in any police matter, no matter how small. He silently looked on as Roche removed a Colt.380 from the black nylon holster. He locked it inside the Lexus and was red with rage as he was placed in the back of the patrol car, where he was interviewed while I waited inside the damaged Ford.

"Now what happens?" I asked Marino when he returned.

"He'll be charged with following too close and be released on a Virginia Uniform Summons." He buckled up and seemed pleased.

"That's it" -Yup. Except court. The good news is, I ruined his day.

The better news is now we got something to investigate that may eventually send his ass to Mecklenburg where, as sweet-looking as he is, he'll have lots of friends."

"Did you know it was him before he hit us?" I asked.

"Nope. I had no idea." We pulled back out into traffic.

"And what did he say when he was questioned?"

"What you'd expect. I stopped suddenly."

"Well, you did."

"And by law it's all right to do that."

"What about following us? Did he have an explanation?"

"He's been out all day running errands and sightseeing.

He doesn't know what we're talking about."

"I see. If you're going to run errands, you need to bring along at least two guns."

"You want to tell me how the hell he can afford a car like that?" Marino glanced over at me. "He probably doesn't make half what I do, and that Lexus he's got probably cost close to fifty grand."

"The Colt he was carrying isn't cheap, either," I said.

"He's getting money from somewhere."

"Snitches always do."

"That's all you think he is?"

"Yeah, for the most part. I think he's been doing shit work, probably for Green."

The radio suddenly interrupted us with the loud blare of an alert tone, and then we were given answers that were even worse than any we might have feared.

"All units be advised that we have just received a teletype from state police that gives the following information, a dispatcher repeated. "The nuclear power plant at Old Point has been taken over by terrorists. Shots have been fired and there are fatalities."

I was shocked speechless as the message went on and on.

"The chief of police has ordered that the department move to emergency plan A. Until further notice all day shift units will remain on their posts. Updates will follow. All division commanders will report to the command post at the police academy immediately."

"Hell no," Marino said as he slammed the accelerator to the floor. "We're going to your office."