"Who are you talking about?” Berger was reading what was on a MacBook screen, a form with the heading:

Forensic Anthropology Center

University of Tennessee, Knoxville

Body Donation Questionnaire

            “Hap Judd,” Lucy said. “He’s gotten linked by his IP address to this website because he just used a fake name to order . . . Hold on, let’s see what the sleaze is up to. Let’s follow the trail.” Opening Web pages. “To this screen here. FORDISC Software Sales. An interactive computer program that runs under Windows. Classifying and identifying skeletal remains. The guy’s really morbid. It’s not normal. I’m telling you, we’re onto something with him.”

            “Let’s be honest. You’re onto something because you’re looking for something,” Berger said, as if to imply that Lucy wasn’t honest.  “You’re trying to find evidence of what you perceive is the crime.”

            “I’m finding evidence because he’s leaving it,” Lucy said. They had been arguing about Hap Judd for weeks. “I don’t know why you’re so reticent. Do you think I’m making this stuff up?”

            “I want to talk to him about Hannah Starr, and you want to crucify him.”

            “You need to scare the hell out of him if you want him to talk.  Especially without a damn lawyer present. And I’ve managed to make that happen, to get you what you want.”

            “If we ever get out of here and he shows up.” Berger moved away from the computer screen and decided, “Maybe he’s playing an anthropologist, an archaeologist, an explorer in his next film. Some Raiders of the Lost Ark or another one of those mummy movies with tombs and ancient curses.”

            “Right,” Lucy said. “Method acting, total immersion in his next twisted character, writing another one of his piss-poor screenplays.  That will be his alibi when we go after him about Park General and his unusual interests.”

            “We won’t be going after him. I will. You’re not going to do anything but show him what you’ve found in your computer searches. Marino and I will do the talking.”

            Lucy would check with Pete Marino later, when there was no threat that Berger could overhear their conversation. He didn’t have any respect for Hap Judd and sure as hell wasn’t afraid of him.  Marino had no qualms about investigating someone famous or locking him up. Berger seemed intimidated by Judd, and Lucy didn’t understand it. She had never known Berger to be intimidated by anyone.

            “Come here.” Lucy pulled her close, sat her on her lap. “What’s going on with you?” Nuzzling her back, sliding her hands inside the jacket of the warm-up suit. “What’s got you so spooked? It’s going to be a late night. We should take a nap.”

            Grace Darien had long, dark hair and the same turned-up nose and full lips as her murdered daughter. Wearing a red wool coat buttoned up to her chin, she looked small and pitiful as she stood before a window overlooking the black iron fence and dead vine–covered brick of Bellevue. The sky was the color of lead.

            “Mrs. Darien? I’m Dr. Scarpetta.” She walked into the family room and closed the door.

            “It’s possible this is a mistake.” Mrs. Darien moved away from the window, her hands shaking badly. “I keep thinking this can’t be right. It can’t be. It’s somebody else. How do you know for sure?” She sat down at the small wooden table near the watercooler, her face stunned and expressionless, a gleam of terror in her eyes.

             “We’ve made a preliminary identification of your daughter based on personal effects recovered by the police.” Scarpetta pulled out a chair and sat across from her. “Your former husband also looked at a photograph.”

            “The one taken here.”

            “Yes. Please let me tell you how sorry I am.”

            “Did he get around to mentioning he only sees her once or twice a year?”

            “We will compare dental records and will do DNA if need be,” Scarpetta said.

            “I can write down her dentist’s information. She still uses my dentist.” Grace Darien dug into her handbag, and a lipstick and a compact clattered to the table. “The detective I talked to finally when I got home and got the message. I can’t remember the name, a woman. Then another detective called. A man. Mario, Marinaro.” Her voice trembled and she blinked back tears, pulling out a small notepad, a pen.

            “Pete Marino?”

            She scribbled something and tore out the page, her hands fumbling, almost palsied. “I don’t know our dentist’s number off the top of my head. Here’s his name and address.” Sliding the piece of paper to Scarpetta. “Marino. I believe so.”

            “He’s a detective with NYPD and assigned to Assistant District Attorney Jaime Berger’s office. Her office will be in charge of the criminal investigation.” Scarpetta tucked the note into the file folder Rene had left for her.

            “He said they were going into Toni’s apartment to get her hairbrush, her toothbrush. They probably already have, I don’t know, I haven’t heard anything else,” Mrs. Darien continued, her voice quavering and catching. “The police talked to Larry first because I wasn’t home. I was taking the cat to the vet. I had to put my cat to sleep, can you imagine the timing. That’s what I was doing when they were trying to find me. The detective from the DA’s office said you could get her DNA from things in her apartment. I don’t under stand how you can be sure it’s her when you haven’t done those tests yet.”

            Scarpetta had no doubt about Toni Darien’s identity. Her driver’s license and apartment keys were in a pocket of the fleece that came in with the body. Postmortem  x- rays showed healed fractures of the  collarbone and right arm, and the old injuries were consistent with ones sustained five years ago when Toni was riding her bicycle and was struck by a car, according to information from NYPD.

            “I told her about jogging in the city,” Mrs. Darien was saying. “I can’t tell you how many times, but she never did it after dark. I don’t know why she would in the rain. She hates running in the rain, especially when it’s cold. I think there’s been a mistake.”

            Scarpetta moved a box of tissues closer to her and said,  “I’d like to ask you a few questions, to go over a few things before we see her. Would that be all right?” After the viewing, Grace Darien would be in no condition to talk. “When’s the last time you had contact with your daughter?”

            “Tuesday morning. I can’t tell you the exact time but probably around ten. I called her and we chatted.”

            “Two mornings ago, December sixteenth.”

            “Yes.” She wiped her eyes.

            “Nothing since then? No other phone calls, voicemails, e-mails?”

            “We didn’t talk or e-mail every day, but she sent a text message. I can show it to you.” She reached for her pocketbook. “I should have told the detective that, I guess. What did you say his name is?”

            “Marino.”

            “He wanted to know about her e-mail, because he said they’re going to need to look at it. I told him the address, but of course I don’t know her password.” She rummaged for her phone, her glasses.   “I called Toni Tuesday morning, asking if she wanted turkey or ham.  For Christmas. She didn’t want either. She said she might bring fish, and I said I’d get whatever she wanted. It was just a normal conversation, mostly about things like that, since her two brothers are coming home. All of us together on Long Island.” She had her phone out and her glasses on, was scrolling through something with shaky hands. “That’s where I live. In Islip. I’m a nurse at Mercy Hospital.” She gave Scarpetta the phone. “That’s what she sent last night.” She pulled more tissues from the box.

            Scarpetta read the text message:

            From: Toni

            Still trying to get days off but Xmas so crazy. I have to get

            coverage and no one wants to especially because of the

            hours. XXOO

            CB# 917-555-1487

            Received: Wed Dec. 17. 8:07 p.m.

             Scarpetta said, “And this nine-one-seven number is your daughter’s?”

            “Her cell.”

            “Can you tell me what she’s referring to in this message?” She would make sure Marino knew about it.

            “She works nights and weekends and has been trying to get someone to cover for her so she can take some time off during the holiday,” Mrs. Darien said. “Her brothers are coming.”

            “Your former husband said she worked as a waitress in Hell’s Kitchen.”

            “He would say that, as if she slings hash or flips burgers. She works in the lounge at High Roller Lanes, a very nice place, very high- class, not your typical bowling alley. She wants to have her own restaurant in some big hotel someday in Las Vegas or Paris or

Monte Carlo.”

            “Was she working last night?”

             “Not usually on Wednesdays. Mondays through Wednesdays she’s usually off, and then she works very long hours Thursdays through Sundays.”

            “Do her brothers know what’s happened?” Scarpetta asked. “I wouldn’t want them hearing about it on the news.”

            “Larry’s probably told them. I would have waited. It might not be true.”

             “We’ll want to be mindful of anybody who perhaps shouldn’t find out from the news.” Scarpetta was as gentle as she could be. “What about a boyfriend? A significant other?”

            “Well, I’ve wondered. I visited Toni at her apartment in September and there were all these stuffed animals on her bed, and a lot of perfumes and such, and she was evasive about where they’d come from. And at Thanksgiving she was text-messaging all the time, happy one minute, in a bad mood the next. You know how people act when they’re infatuated. I do know she meets a lot of people at work, a lot of very attractive and exciting men.”

            “Possible she might have confided in your former husband? Told him about a boyfriend, for example?”

            “They weren’t close. What you don’t understand is why he’s doing this, what Larry is really up to. It’s all to get back at me and make everybody think he’s the dutiful father instead of a drunk, a compulsive gambler who abandoned his family. Toni would never want to be cremated, and if the worst has happened, I’ll use the funeral home that took care of my mother, Levine and Sons.”

            “I’m afraid until you and Mr. Darien settle your dispute about the disposition of Toni’s remains, the OCME can’t release her,” Scarpetta said.

            “You can’t listen to him. He left Toni when she was a baby. Why should anybody listen to him?”

            “The law requires that disputes such as yours must be resolved, if need be by the courts, before we can release the body,” Scarpetta said. “I’m sorry. I know the last thing you need right now is frustration and more upset.”

            “What right does he have suddenly showing up after twenty-something years, making demands, wanting her personal things.  Fighting with me about that in the lobby and telling that girl he wanted Toni’s belongings, whatever she had on when she came in, and it might not even be her. Saying such horrid, heartless things! He was drunk and looked at a picture. And you trust that? Oh, God. What am I going to see? Just tell me so I know what to expect.”

            “Your daughter’s cause of death is blunt-force trauma that fractured her skull and injured her brain,” Scarpetta said.

            “Someone hit her on the head.” Her voice shook and she broke down and cried.

            “She suffered a severe blow to the head. Yes.”

            “How many? Just one?”

            “Mrs. Darien, I need to caution you from the start that anything I tell you is in confidence and it’s my duty to exercise caution and good judgment in what you and I discuss right now,” Scarpetta said. “It’s critical nothing is released that might actually aid your daughter’s assailant in getting away with this very terrible crime.  I hope you understand. Once the police investigation is complete, you can make an appointment with me and we’ll have as detailed a discussion as you’d like.”

            “Toni was out jogging last night in the rain on the north side of Central Park? In the first place, what was she doing over there? Has anybody bothered asking that question?”

            “All of us are asking a lot of questions, and unfortunately have very few answers so far,” Scarpetta replied. “But as I understand it, your daughter has an apartment on the Upper East Side, on Second Avenue. That’s about twenty blocks from where she was found, which isn’t very far for an avid runner.”

            “But it was in Central Park after dark. It was near Harlem after dark. She would never go running in an area like that after dark. And she hated the rain. She hated being cold. Did someone come up behind her? Did she struggle with him? Oh, dear God.”

             “I’ll remind you what I said about details, about the caution we need to exercise right now,” Scarpetta replied. “I can tell you that I found no obvious signs of a struggle. It appears Toni was struck on the head, causing a large contusion, a lot of hemorrhage into her brain, which indicates a survival time that was long enough for significant tissue response.”

            “But she wouldn’t have been conscious.”

            “Her findings indicate some survival time, but no, she wouldn’t have been conscious. She may have had no awareness at all of what happened, of the attack. We won’t know until certain test results come back.” Scarpetta opened the file and removed the health history form, placing it in front of Mrs. Darien. “Your former husband filled this out.  I’d appreciate it if you’d look.”

            The paperwork shook in Mrs. Darien’s hands as she scanned it. “Name, address, place of birth, parents’ names. Please let me know if we need to correct anything,” Scarpetta said. “Did she have high blood pressure, diabetes, hypoglycemia, mental health issues—was she pregnant, for example.”

            “He checked no to everything. What the hell does he know?”

            “No depression, moodiness, a change of behavior that might have struck you as unusual.” Scarpetta was thinking about the BioGraph watch. “Did she have problems sleeping? Anything at all going on with her that was different from the past? You said she might have been out of sorts of late.”

            “Maybe a boyfriend problem or something at work, the economy being what it is. Some of the girls she works with have been laid off,” Mrs. Darien said. “She gets in moods like everybody else. Especially this time of year. She doesn’t like winter weather.”

            “Any medications you might be aware of?”

            “Just over-the-counter, as far as I know. Vitamins. She takes very good care of herself.”

            “I’m interested in who her internist might be, her doctor or doctors. Mr. Darien didn’t fill in that part.”

            “He wouldn’t know. He’s never gotten the bills. Toni’s been living on her own since college, and I can’t be sure who her doctor is.  She never gets sick, has more energy than anyone I know. Always on the go.”

            “Are you aware of any jewelry she might have routinely worn?  Perhaps rings, a bracelet, a necklace she rarely took off?” Scarpetta said.

            “I don’t know.”

“What about a watch?”

“I don’t think so.”

            “What looks like a black plastic sports watch, digital? A large black watch? Does that sound familiar?”

            Mrs. Darien shook her head.

             “I’ve seen similar watches when people are involved in studies.  In your profession, I’m sure you have, too. Watches that are cardiac monitors or worn by people who have sleep disorders, for example,” Scarpetta said.

            A look of hope in Mrs. Darien’s eyes.

            “What about when you saw Toni at Thanksgiving,” Scarpetta said. “Might she have been wearing a watch like the one I just described?”

            “No.” Mrs. Darien shook her head. “That’s what I mean. It might not be her.  I’ve never seen her wearing anything like that.”

            Scarpetta asked her if she would like to see the body now, and they got up from the table and walked into an adjoining room, small and bare, just a few photographs of New York City skylines on pale-green walls. The viewing window was approximately waist-high, about the height of a casket on a bier, and on the other side was a steel screen—actually, the doors of the lift that had carried Toni’s body up from the morgue.

            “Before I open the screen, I want to explain what you’re going to see,” Scarpetta said. “Would you like to sit on the sofa?”

            “No. No, thank you.  I’ll stand. I’m ready.” Her eyes were wide and panicked, and she was breathing fast.

            “I’m going to push a button.” Scarpetta indicated a panel of three buttons on the wall, two black, one red, old elevator buttons.  “And when the screen opens, the body will be right here.”

            “Yes. I understand. I’m ready.” She could barely talk, she was so frightened, shaking as if freezing cold, breathing hard as if she’d just exerted herself.

            “The body is on a gurney inside the elevator, on the other side of the window. Her head will be here, to the left. The rest of her is covered.”

            Scarpetta pushed the top black button, and the steel doors parted with a loud clank. Through scratched Plexiglas Toni Darien was shrouded in blue, her face wan, her eyes shut, her lips colorless and dry, her long, dark hair still damp from rinsing. Her mother pressed her hands against the window. Bracing herself, she began to scream.