Unnatural Exposure

Chapter Seven

Two days later, on Thursday, November 6, I started out early on the ninety-minute drive from Richmond to the FBI Academy at Quantico, Virginia. Marino and I took separate cars, since we never knew when something might happen to send us off somewhere. For me, it could be a plane crash or derailed train, while he had to deal with city government and layers of brass. I wasn't surprised when my car phone rang as we neared Fredericksburg. The sun was in and out of clouds, and it felt cold enough to snow.

'Scarpetta,' I said, on speakerphone.

Marino's voice erupted inside my car. 'City council's freaking,' he said. 'You got McKuen whose little kid's been hit by a car, now more crap about our case, on TV, in the papers, hear it on the radio.'

More leaks had occurred over the past two days. Police had a suspect in serial murders that included five cases in Dublin. An arrest was imminent.

'You believe this shit?' Marino exclaimed. 'We're talking about, what? Someone in his mid-twenties, and somehow he was in Dublin over the past few years? Bottom line is council's suddenly decided to have some public forum about this situation, probably because they think it's about to be resolved. Got to get that credit, right, make the citizens think maybe they did something for once.' He was careful what he said, but seething. 'So I gotta turn my ass right back around and be at city hall by ten. Plus, the chief wants to see me.'

I watched his taillights up ahead as he approached an exit. I-95 was busy this morning with trucks, and people who commuted every day to D.C. No matter how early I started, whenever I headed north, it seemed traffic was terrible.

'Actually, it's a good thing you're going to be there. Cover my back, too,' I said to him.

'I'll get up with you later, let you know what went on.'

'Yo. When you see Ring, do that to his neck,' he said.

I arrived at the Academy, and the guard in his booth waved me through because by now he knew my car and its license plate. The parking lot was so full, I ended up almost in the woods. Firearms training was already in progress on ranges across the road, and Drug Enforcement Agents were out in camouflage, gripping assault rifles, their faces mean. The grass was heavy with dew and soaked my shoes as I took a shortcut to the main entrance of the tan brick building called Jefferson.

Inside the lobby, luggage was parked near couches and the walls, for there were always National Academy, or N.A., police going somewhere, it seemed. The video display over the front desk reminded everyone to have a nice day and properly display his badge. Mine was still in my purse, and I got it out, looping the long chain around my neck. Inserting a magnetized card into a slot, I unlocked a glass door etched with the Department of Justice seal and followed a long glass-enclosed corridor.

I was deep in thought and scarcely cognizant of new agents in dark blue and khaki, and N.A. students in green. They nodded and smiled as they passed, and I was

friendly, too, but I did not focus. I was thinking of the torso, of her infirmities and age, of her pitiful pouch in the freezer, where she would stay for several years or until we knew her name. I thought of Keith Pleasants, of deadoc, of saws and sharp blades.

I smelled Hoppes solvent as I turned into the gun-cleaning room with its rows of

black counters and compressors blasting air through the innards of guns. I could never smell these smells or hear these sounds without thinking of Wesley, and of Mark. My heart was squeezed by feelings too strong for me when a familiar voice called out my name.

'Looks like we're heading the same way,' said Investigator Ring.

Impeccably dressed in navy blue, he was waiting for the elevator that would take us sixty feet below ground, where Hoover had built his bomb shelter. I switched my heavy briefcase to my other hand, and tucked the box of slides more snugly under an arm.

'Good morning,' I blandly said.

'Here, let me help with some of that.'

He held out a hand as elevator doors parted, and I noticed his nails were buffed.

'I'm fine,' I said, because I didn't need his help.

We boarded, both of us staring straight ahead as we began the ride down to a windowless level of the building directly beneath the indoor firing range. Ring had sat in on consultations before, and he took copious notes, none of which had ended up in the news thus far. He was too clever for that. Certainly, if information divulged during an FBI consultation was leaked, it would be easy enough to trace. There were only a few of us who could be the source.

'I was rather dismayed by the information the press somehow got access to,' I said as we got out.

'I know what you mean,' Ring said with a sincere face.

He held open the door leading into a labyrinth of hallways that comprised what once had begun as Behavioral Science, then changed to Investigative Support, and now was CASKU. Names changed, but the cases did not. Men and women often came to work in the dark and left after it was dark again, spending days and years studying the minutiae of monsters, their every tooth mark and track in mud, the way they think and smell and hate.

'The more information that gets out the worse it is,' Ring went on as we approached another door, leading into a conference room where I spent at least several days a month. 'It's one thing to give details that might help the public help us…'

He talked on, but I wasn't listening. Inside, Wesley was already sitting at the head of a polished table, his reading glasses on. He was going through large photographs stamped on the back with the name of the Sussex County Sheriff's Department. Detective Grigg was several chairs away, a lot of paperwork in front of him as he studied a sketch of some sort. Across from him was Frankel from the Violent

Criminal Apprehension Program, or VICAP, and at the other end of the table, my niece. She was tapping on a laptop computer, and glanced up at me but did not say hello.

I took my usual chair to the right of Wesley, opened my briefcase and began arranging files. Ring sat on the other side of me and continued our conversation.

'We got to accept as a fact that this guy is following everything in the news,' he said.

'That's part of the fun for him.'

He had everyone's attention, all eyes on him, the room silent except for his own sound. He was reasonable and quiet, as if his only mission was to convey the truth without drawing undue attention to himself. Ring was a superb con man, and what he said

next in front of my colleagues incensed me beyond belief.

'For example, and I have to be honest about this,' he said to me, 'I just don't think it was a good idea to give out the race, age and all about the victim. Now maybe I'm wrong.' He looked around the room. 'But it seems like the less said, the better right now.'

'I had no choice,' I said, and I could not keep the edge out of my voice. 'Since someone had already leaked misinformation.'

'But that's always going to happen, and I don't think it should force us to give out details before we're ready,' he said in his same earnest tone.

'It is not going to help us if the public is focused on a missing prepubescent Asian female.' I stared at him, eye to eye, while everyone else looked on.

'I agree.' Frankel, from VICAP, spoke. 'We'd be getting missing person files from all over the country. An error like that has to be straightened out.'

'An error like that never should have happened to begin with,' Wesley said, peering around the room over the top of his glasses, the way he did when he was in a humorless mood. 'With us this morning is Detective Grigg of Sussex, and Special Agent Farinelli.' He looked at Lucy. 'She's the technical analyst for HRT, manages the Criminal Artificial Intelligence Network all of us know as CAIN, and is here to help us with a computer situation.'

My niece did not look up as she hit more keys, her face intense. Ring had her in his sights, staring as if he wanted to eat her flesh.

'What computer situation?' he asked, as his eyes continued to devour her.

'We'll get to that,' Wesley said, and briskly moved on. 'Let me summarize, then we'll move on to specifics. The victimology in this most recent landfill case is so different from the previous four - or nine, if we include Ireland - as for me to conclude that we are dealing with a different killer. Dr Scarpetta is going to review her medical findings which I think will make it abundantly clear that this M.O. is profoundly atypical.'

He went on, and we spent until midday going over my reports, diagrams and photographs. I was asked many questions, mostly by Grigg, who wanted very much to understand every facet and nuance of the serial dismemberments so he could better discern that the one in his jurisdiction was unlike the rest.

'What's the difference between someone cutting through joints and cutting through the bones?' he asked me.

'Cutting through joints is more difficult,' I said. 'It requires knowledge of anatomy, perhaps some previous experience.'

'Like if someone was a butcher or maybe worked in a meat-packing plant.'

'Yes,' I replied.

'Well, I guess that sure would fit with a meat saw,' he added.

'Yes. Which is very different from an autopsy saw.'

'Exactly how?' It was Ring who spoke.

'A meat saw is a hand saw designed to cut meat, gristle, bone,' I went on, looking around at everyone. 'Usually about fourteen inches long with a very thin blade, ten chisel-type teeth per inch. It's push action, requiring some degree of strength on the part of the user. The autopsy saw, in contrast, won't cut through tissue, which must first be reflected back with something like a knife.'

'Which was what was used in this case,' Wesley said to me.

'There are cuts to bone that fit the class characteristics of a knife. An autopsy saw,' I went on to explain, 'was designed to work only on hard surfaces by using a reciprocating action that is basically push-pull, going in only a little bit at a time. I know everyone here is familiar with it, but I've got photos.'

Opening an envelope, I pulled out eight-by-tens of the saw marks the killer had left on the bone ends I had carried to Memphis. I slid one to each person.

'As you can see,' I went on, 'the saw pattern here is multidirectional with a high polish.'

'Now let me get this straight,' said Grigg. 'This is the exact same saw you use in the morgue.'

'No. Not exactly the same,' I said. 'I generally use a larger sectioning blade than was used here.'

'But this is from a medical sort of saw.' He held up the photograph.

' Correct.'

'Where would your average person get something like that?'

'Doctor's office, hospital, morgue, medical supply company,' I replied. 'Any number of places. The sale of them is not restricted.'

'So he could have ordered it without being in the medical profession.'

'Easily,' I said.

Ring said, 'Or he could have stolen it. He could have decided to do something different this time to throw us off.'

Lucy was looking at him, and I had seen the expression in her eyes before. She thought Ring was a fool.

'If we're dealing with the same killer,' she said, 'then why is he suddenly sending files through the Internet when he's never done that before, either?'

'Good point.' Frankel nodded.

'What files?' Ring said to her.

'We're getting to that.' Wesley restored order. 'We've got an M.O. that's different. We've got a tool that's different.'

'We suspect she has a head injury,' I said, sliding autopsy diagrams and the e-mail photos around the table, 'because of blood in her airway. This may or may not be different from the other cases, since we don't know their causes of death. However, radiologic and anthropologic findings indicate that this victim is profoundly older than the others. We also recovered fibers indicating she was covered in something consistent with a drop cloth when she was dismembered, again, inconsistent with the other cases.'

I explained in more detail about the fibers and paint, all the while vividly aware of

Ring watching my niece and taking notes.

'So she was probably cut up in someone's workshop or garage,' Grigg said.

'I don't know,' I answered. 'And as you've seen from the photos sent to me through e- mail, we can only know that she's in a room with putty-colored walls, and a table.'

'Let me again point out that Keith Pleasants has an area behind his house that he uses for a workshop,' Ring reminded us. 'It has a big workbench in it and the walls are unpainted wood.' He looked at me. 'Which could pass for putty-colored.'

'Seems like it would be awfully hard to get rid of all the blood,' Grigg dubiously mused.

'A drop cloth with a rubber backing might explain the absence of blood,' Ring said.

'That's the whole point. So nothing leaks through.' Everyone looked at me to see what I would say.

'It would have been very unusual not to get things bloody in a case like this,' I replied.

'Especially since she still had a blood pressure when she was decapitated. If nothing else, I would expect blood in wood grain, in cracks of the table.'

'We could try some chemical testing for that.' Ring was a forensic scientist now. 'Like luminol. Any blood at all, it's going to react to it and glow in the dark.'

'The problem with luminol is it's destructive,' I replied. 'And we're going to want to do DNA, to see if we can get a match. So we certainly don't want to ruin what little blood we might find.'

'It's not like we got probable cause to go in Pleasants' workshop and start any kind of testing anyway.' Grigg's stare across the table at Ring was confrontational.

'I think we do.' He stared back at him.

'Not unless they changed the rules on me.' Grigg spoke slowly.

Wesley was watching all this, evaluating everyone and every word the way he always did. He had his opinion, and more than likely it was right. But he remained silent as the arguing went on.

'I thought…' Lucy tried to speak.

'A very viable possibility is that this is a copycat,' Ring said.

'Oh, I think it is,' said Grigg. 'I just don't buy your theory about Pleasants.'

'Let me finish.' Lucy's penetrating gaze scanned the faces of the men. 'I thought I would give you a briefing on how the two files were sent via America Online to Dr Scarpetta's e-mail address.'

It always sounded odd when she called me by my professional name.

'I know I'm curious.' Ring had his chin propped on a hand now, studying her.

'First, you would need a scanner,' she went on. 'That's not hard. Something with color capabilities and decent resolution, as low as seventy-two dots per inch. But this looks like higher resolution to me, maybe three hundred dpi. We could be talking about something as simple as a hand-held scanner for three hundred and ninety-nine dollars, to a thirty-five-millimeter slide scanner that can run into the thousands…'

'And what kind of computer would you hook this up to,' Ring said.

'I was getting to that.' Lucy was tired of being interrupted by him. 'System requirements: Minimum of eight megs RAM, a color monitor, software like FotoTouch or ScanMan, a modem. Could be a Macintosh, a Performa 6116CD or even something older. The point is, scanning files into your computer and sending them through the Internet is very accessible to your average person, which is why telecommunications crimes are keeping us so busy these days.'

'Like that big child pornography, pedophile case you all just cracked,' Grigg said.

'Yes, photos sent as files through the World Wide Web, where children can talk to strangers again,' she said. 'What's interesting in the situation at hand, is scanning black and white is no big deal. But when you move into color, that's getting sophisticated. Also the edges and borders in the photos sent to Dr Scarpetta are relatively sharp, not much background noise.'

'Sounds to me this is someone who knew what he was doing,' Grigg said.

'Yes,' she agreed. 'But not necessarily a computer analyst or graphic artist. Not at all.'

'These days, if you've got access to the equipment and a few instruction books, anyone can do it,' said Frankel, who also worked in computers.

'All right, the photos were scanned into the system,' I said to Lucy. 'Then what? What is the path that led them to me?'

'First you upload the file, which in this case is a graphic or GIF file,' she replied.

'Generally, to send this successfully, you have to determine the number of data bits, stop bits, the parity setting, whatever the appropriate configuration is. That's where it's not user-friendly. But AOL does all that for you. So in this case, sending the files was simple. You upload and off they go.' She looked at me.

'And this was done over the telephone, basically,' Wesley said.

'Right.'

'What about tracing that?'

'Squad Nineteen's already on it.' Lucy referred to the FBI unit that investigated illegal uses of the Internet.

'I'm not sure what the crime would be in this case,' Wesley pointed out. 'Obscenity, if the photos are fakes, and unfortunately, that isn't illegal.'

'The photographs aren't fake,' I said.

'Hard to prove.' He held my gaze.

'What if they're not fake?' Ring asked.

'Then they're evidence,' Wesley said, adding after a pause, 'A violation of Title

Eighteen, Section Eight-seventy-six. Mailing threatening communications.'

'Threats towards who?' Ring asked.

Wesley's eyes were still on me. 'Clearly, towards the recipient.'

'There's been no blatant threat,' I reminded him. 'All we want is enough for a warrant.'

'We got to find the person first,' Ring said, stretching and yawning in his chair like a cat.

'We're watching for him to log on again,' Lucy replied. 'It's being monitored around the clock.' She continued hitting keys on her laptop, checking the constant flow of messages. 'But if you imagine a global telephone system with some forty million users, and no directory, no operators, no directory assistance, that's what you've got with the Internet. There's no list of membership, nor does AOL have one, unless you voluntarily choose to fill out a profile. In this case, all we have is the bogus name deadoc.'

'How did he know where to send Dr Scarpetta's mail?' Grigg looked at me. I explained, and then asked Lucy, 'This is all done by charge card?'

She nodded. 'That much we've traced. An American Express Card in the name of Ken

L. Perley. A retired high-school teacher. Norfolk. Seventy, lives alone.'

'Do we have any idea how someone might have gotten access to his card?' Wesley asked.

'It doesn't appear Perley uses his credit cards much. Last time was in a Norfolk restaurant, a Red Lobster. This was on October second, when he and his son went out to dinner. The bill was twenty-seven dollars and thirty cents, including the tip, which he put on AmEx. Neither he nor the son remembers anything unusual that night. But when it was time to pay the bill, the credit card was left on the table in plain view for quite a long interval because the restaurant was very busy. At some point while the card was out, Perley went to the men's room, and the son stepped outside to smoke.'

'Christ. That was intelligent. Did someone from the wait staff notice anyone coming over to the table?' Wesley said to Lucy.

'Like I said, it was busy. We're running down every charge made that night to get a list of customers. Problem's going to be the people who paid cash.'

'And I suppose it's too soon for the AOL charges to have come up on Perley's

American Express,' he said.

'Right. According to AOL, the account was just opened recently. A week after the dinner at the Red Lobster, to be exact. Perley's being very cooperative with us,' Lucy added. 'And AOL is leaving the account open without charge in the event the perpetrator wants to send something else.'

Wesley nodded. 'Though we can't assume it, we should consider that the killer, at least in the Atlantic landfill case, may have been in Norfolk as recently as a month ago.'

'This case is definitely sounding local.' I made that point again.

'Possible any of the bodies could have been refrigerated?' Ring asked.

'Not this one,' Wesley was quick to answer. 'Absolutely not. This guy couldn't stand looking at his victim. He had to cover her up, cut through the cloth, and my guess is, didn't go very far away to dispose of her.'

'Shades of "The Tell-Tale Heart,"' Ring said.

Lucy was reading something on her laptop screen, quietly hitting keys, her face tense.

'We just got something from Squad Nineteen,' she said, continuing to scroll down.

'Deadoc logged on fifty-six minutes ago.' She looked up at us. 'He sent e-mail to the president.'

The electronic mail was sent directly to the White House, which was no great feat since the address was public and readily available to any user of the Internet. Once again, the message was oddly in lowercase and used spaces for punctuation, and it read: apologize if not I will start on france.

'There are a number of implications,' Wesley was saying to me as gunshots from the range upstairs thudded like a distant, muffled war going on. 'And all of them make me nervous about you.'

He stopped at the water fountain.

'I don't think this has anything to do with me,' I said. 'This has to do with the president of the United States.'

'That's symbolic, if you want to know my guess. Not literal.' We started walking. 'I think this killer is disgruntled, angry, feels a certain person in power or perhaps people in power are responsible for his problems in life.'

'Like the Unabomber,' I said as we took the elevator up.

'Very similar. Perhaps even inspired by him,' he said, glancing at his watch. 'Can I

buy you a beer before you leave?'

'Not unless someone else is driving.' I smiled. 'But you can talk me into coffee.' We walked through the gun-cleaning room, where dozens of FBI and DEA agents were breaking down their weapons, wiping them and blasting parts with air. They glanced at us with curious eyes, and I wondered if they had heard the rumors. My relationship with Wesley had been an item of gossip for quite a long time at the

Academy, and it bothered me more than I let on. Most people, it seemed, maintained their belief that his wife had left because of me when, in fact, she had left because of another man.

Upstairs, the line was long in the PX, a mannikin modeling the latest sweatshirt and range pants, and Thanksgiving pumpkins and turkeys in the windows. Beyond, in the Boardroom, the TV was loud, and some people were already into popcorn and beer. We sat as far away from everyone as we could, both of us sipping coffee.

'What's your slant on the France connection?' I asked.

'Obviously, this individual is intelligent and follows the news. Our relations with France were very strained during their nuclear weapons testing. You may recall the violence, vandalism, boycotting of French wine and other products. There was a lot of protesting outside French embassies, the U.S. very much involved.'

'But that was a couple years ago.'

'Doesn't matter. Wounds heal slowly.' He stared out the window at darkness gathering.

'And more to the point, France would not appreciate our exporting a serial killer to them. I can only suppose that is what deadoc is implying. Cops from France and other nations have been worrying for years that our problem would eventually become theirs. As if violence is a disease that can spread.'

'Which it is.'

He nodded, reaching for his coffee again.

'Maybe that would make more sense if we believed the same person killed ten people here and in Ireland,' I said.

'Kay, we can't rule out anything.' He sounded tired as he said that again.

I shook my head. 'He's taking credit for someone else's murders and now threatening us. He probably has no idea how different his M.O. is from what we've seen in the past. Of course, we can't rule out anything, Benton. But I know what my findings tell me, and I believe identifying this recent victim is going to be the key.'

'You always believe that.' He smiled, playing with his coffee stirrer.

'I know who I work for. Right this minute, I work for that poor woman whose torso is in my freezer.'

It was now completely dark out, the Boardroom filling fast with healthy, clean-living men and women in color-coded fatigues. The noise was making it difficult to talk, and I needed to see Lucy before I left.

'You don't like Ring.' Wesley reached around to the back of his chair and collected his suit jacket. 'He's bright and seems sincerely motivated.'

'You definitely profiled the last part wrong,' I said as I got up. 'But you are right about what you said first. I don't like him.'

'I thought that was rather obvious by your demeanor.' We moved around people who were looking for chairs and setting down pitchers of beer.

'I think he's dangerous.'

'He's vain and wants to make a name for himself,' Wesley said.

'And you don't think that's dangerous?' I looked over at him.

'It describes almost everyone I've ever worked with.'

'Except for me, I hope.'

'You, Dr Scarpetta, are an exception to just about everything I can think of.'

We were walking through a long corridor, heading to the lobby, and I did not want to leave him right now. I felt lonely and wasn't sure why.

'I would love for us to have dinner,' I said, 'but Lucy's got something to show me.'

'What makes you think I don't already have plans?' He held the door for me. The thought bothered me, even though I knew he was teasing.

'Let's wait until I can get away from here,' he said, and we were walking toward the parking lot now. 'Maybe over the weekend, when we can relax a little more. I'll cook this time. Where are you parked?'

'Over here.' I pointed the key's remote control.

Doors unlocked and the interior light went on. Typically, we did not touch. We never had when someone might see.

'Sometimes I hate this,' I said as I got into my car. 'It's fine to talk about body parts, rape and murder all day long, but not to hug each other, hold hands. God forbid anybody should see that.' I started the engine. 'Tell me how normal that is? It's not like we're still having an affair or committing a crime.' I yanked my seatbelt across my chest. 'Is there some don't-ask-don't-tell FBI rule no one's let me in on?'

'Yes.'

He kissed me on the lips as a group of agents walked by.

'So don't tell anyone,' he said.

Moments later, I parked in front of the Engineering Research Facility, or ERF, a huge, space age-looking building where the FBI conducted its classified technical research and development. If Lucy knew all of what went on in the labs here, she did not tell, and there were few areas of the building where I was allowed, even when escorted by her. She was waiting by the front door as I pointed the remote control at my car,

which was not responding.

'It won't work here,' she said.

I looked up at the eerie rooftop of antennae and satellite dishes, sighing as I manually locked doors with the key.

'You'd think I'd remember after all these times,' I muttered.

'Your investigator friend, Ring, tried to walk me over here after the consultation,' she said, scanning her thumb in a biometric lock by the door.

'He's not my friend,' I told her.

The lobby was high-ceilinged and arranged with glass cases displaying clunky, inefficient radio and electronic equipment used by law enforcement before ERF was built.

'He asked me out again,' she said.

Corridors were monochromatic and seemed endless, and I was forever impressed with the silence and sense that no one was here. Scientists and engineers worked behind shut doors in spaces big enough to accommodate automobiles, helicopters and small planes. Hundreds of Bureau personnel were employed at ERF, yet they had virtually no contact with any of us across the street. We did not know their names.

'I'm sure there are a million people who would like to ask you out,' I said as we boarded an elevator, and Lucy scanned her thumb again.

'Usually, not after they've been around me very long,' she said.

'I don't know, I haven't gotten rid of you yet.'

But she was very serious. 'Once I start talking shop, the guys turn off. But he likes a challenge, if you know the type.'

'I know it all too well.'

'He wants something from me, Aunt Kay.'

'Would you like to hazard a guess? And where are you taking me, by the way?'

'I don't know. But I just have this feeling.' She opened a door to the virtual environment lab, adding, 'I have a rather interesting idea.'

Lucy's ideas were always more than interesting. Usually they were frightening. I followed her into a room of virtual system processors and graphic computers stacked on top of each other, and countertops scattered with tools, computer boards, chips and peripherals like DataGloves and helmet-mounted displays. Electrical cords were bundled in thick hanks and tied back from the blank expanse of linoleum flooring where Lucy routinely lost herself in cyberspace.

She picked up a remote control and two video displays blinked on, and I recognized the photographs deadoc had sent to me. They were big and in color on the screens, and I began to get nervous.

'What are you doing?' I asked my niece.

'The basic question has always been, does an immersion into an environment actually improve the operator's performance,' she said, typing computer commands. 'You never got a chance to be immersed in this environment. The crime scene.'

Both of us stared at the bloody stumps and lined-up body parts on the monitors, and a chill crept through me.

'But suppose you could have that chance now?' Lucy went on. 'What if you could be inside deadoc's room?'

I started to interrupt, but she would not let me.

'What else might you see? What else might you do?' she said, and when she got like this, she was almost manic. 'What else might you learn about the victim and him?'

'I don't know if I can use something like this,' I protested.

'Sure you can. Now what I haven't had time to do is add the synthetic sound. Well, except for the typical canned auditory cues. So a squelch is something opening, a click's a switch being turned on or off, a ding usually means you've just bumped into something.'

'Lucy,' I said as she took my left arm, 'what the hell are you talking about?' She carefully pulled a DataGlove over my left hand, making sure it was snug.

'We use gestures for human communication. And we can use gestures, or positions as we call them, to communicate with the computer, too,' she explained.

The glove was black lycra with fiber-optic sensors mounted on the back of it. These were attached to a cable that led to the high-performance host computer that Lucy had been typing on. Next she picked up a helmet-mounted display that was connected to another cable, and fear fluttered through my breast as she headed my way.

'One VPL Eyephone HRX,' she cheerfully said. 'Same thing they're using at NASA's Ames Research Center, which is where I discovered it.' She was adjusting cables and straps. 'Three hundred and fifty thousand color elements. Superior resolution and wide field of vision.'

She placed the helmet on top of my head, and it felt heavy and covered my eyes.

'What you're looking into are liquid crystal displays, or LCDs, your basic video displays. Glass plates, electrodes and molecules doing all kinds of cool things. How does it feel?'

'Like I'm going to fall down and suffocate.'

I was beginning to panic the way I had when I' d first learned how to scuba dive.

'You're not going to do either.' She was very patient, her hand steadying me. 'Relax. It's normal to be phobic at first. I'll tell you what to do. Now you stand still and take deep breaths. I'm going to put you in.'

She made adjustments, tightening the display around my head, then returned to the host computer. I was blind and off balance, a tiny TV in front of each eye.

'Okay, here we go,' she said. 'Don't know if it will do any good, but can't hurt to try.' Keys clicked, and I was thrown inside that room. She began instructing me about

what to do with my hand to fly forward or faster, or in reverse, and how to release and grab. I moved my index finger, made clicking motions, brought my thumb near my palm and moved my arm across my chest as I broke out in a sweat. I spent a good five minutes on the ceiling and walking into walls. At one point, I was on top of the table where the torso lay on its bloody blue cover, stepping on evidence and the dead.

'I think I might throw up,' I said.

'Just hold still for a minute,' Lucy said. 'Catch your breath.'

I gestured as I started to say something more, and was instantly on the virtual floor, as if I had fallen from the air.

'That's why I told you to hold still,' she said as she watched what I was doing on the monitors. 'Now move your hand in and point with your first two fingers toward where you hear my voice coming from. Better?'

'Better,' I said.

I was standing on the floor in the room, as if the photograph had come to life, three- dimensional and large. I looked around and did not actually see anything I hadn't before when Vander had done the image enhancement. It was what this made me feel, and what I felt changed what I saw.

Walls were the color of putty, with faint discolorations that until now I had attributed to water damage, which might be expected in a basement or garage. But they seemed different now, more uniformly distributed, some so faint I could barely see them. Paper had once covered the putty paint on these walls. It had been removed but not replaced, as had the cornice box or drapery rod. Above a window covered with shut Venetian blinds were small holes where brackets once had been.

'This isn't where it happened,' I said as my heart beat harder. Lucy was silent.

'She was brought in here after the fact to be photographed. This is not where the killing and dismemberment took place.'

'What are you seeing?' she asked.

I moved my hand and walked closer to the virtual table. I pointed at the virtual walls, to show Lucy what I saw. 'Where did he plug in the autopsy saw?' I said.

I could find but one electrical outlet, and it was at the base of a wall.

'And the drop cloth is from here, too?' I went on. 'It doesn't fit with everything else. No paint, no tools.' I kept looking around. 'And look at the floor. The wood's lighter at the border as if there once was a rug. Who puts rugs in workshops? Who has wallpaper and drapes? Where are the outlets for power tools?'

'What do you feel?' she asked.

'I feel this is a room in someone's house where the furniture has been removed. Except there is some sort of table, which has been covered with something. Maybe a shower curtain. I don't know. The room feels domestic.'

I reached out my hand and tried to touch the edge of the table cover, as if I could lift it and reveal what was underneath, and as I looked around, details became so clear to me, I wondered how I could have missed them before. Wiring was exposed in the ceiling directly above the table, as if a chandelier or other type of light fixture had once hung there.

'What about my color perception right now?' I asked.

'Should be the same.'

'Then there's something else. These walls.' I touched them. 'The color lightens in this direction. There's an opening. Maybe a doorway, with light coming through it.'

'There's no doorway in the photo.' Lucy reminded me. 'You can only see what's there.' It was odd, but for a moment I thought I could smell her blood, the pungency of old flesh that has been dead for days. I remembered the doughy texture of her skin, and the peculiar eruptions that made me wonder if she had shingles.

'She wasn't random,' I said.

'And the others were.'

'The other cases are nothing like this one. I'm getting double imagery. Can you adjust that?'

'Vertical retinal image disparity.' Then I felt her hand on my arm.

'Usually goes away after fifteen or twenty minutes,' she said. 'It's time to take a break.'

'I don't feel too good.'

'Image rotation misalignment. Visual fatigue, simulation sickness, cybersick, whatever you want to call it,' she said. 'Causing image blurring, tears, even queasiness.'

I couldn't wait to remove the helmet and I was on the table again, facedown in blood before I could get the LCDs away from my eyes.

My hands were shaking as Lucy helped me take off the glove. I sat down on the floor.

'Are you all right?' she asked, kindly.

'That was awful,' I said.

'Then it was good.' She returned the helmet and glove to a counter. 'You were immersed in the environment. That's what should happen.'

She handed me several tissues, and I wiped my face.

'What about the other photograph? Do you want to do that one, too?' she asked. 'The one with the hands and feet?'

'I've been in that room quite enough,' I said.