Still, Marino did not answer, and I realized he was asleep. A tear slid down my cheek as I pulled the covers to his chin and went back upstairs.

12

I parked behind my building at a quarter after seven and for a while sat in my car, staring at cracked blacktop, dingy stucco and the sagging chain-link fence around the parking lot.

Behind me were railroad trestles and the 1-95 overpass, then the outer limits of a downtown boarded up and battered by crime. There were no trees or plantings and very little grass. My appointment to this position certainly had never included a view, but right now I did not care. I missed my office and my staff, and all that I looked at was comforting.

Inside the morgue, I stopped by the office to check on the day's cases. A suicide needed to be viewed along with an eighty-year-old woman who had died at home from untreated carcinoma of the breast. An entire family had been killed yesterday afternoon when their car was struck by a train, and my heart was heavy as I read their names. Deciding to take care of the views while I waited for my assistant chiefs, I unlocked the walk-in refrigerator and doors leading into the autopsy suite.

The three tables were polished bright, the tile floor very clean. I scanned cubbyholes stacked with forms, carts neatly lined with instruments and test tubes, steel shelves arranged with camera equipment and film. In the locker room I checked linens and starchy lab coats as I put on plastic apron and gown, then went out in the hall to a cart of surgical masks, shoe covers, face shields.

Pulling on gloves, I continued my inspection as I went inside the refrigerator to retrieve the first case. Bodies were in black pouches on top of gurneys, the air properly chilled to thirty-four degrees and adequately deodorized considering we had a full house. I checked toe tags until I found the right one, and I wheeled the gurney out.

No one else would be in for another hour, and I cherished the silence. I did not even need to lock the autopsy suite doors because it was too early for the elevator across the hall to be busy with forensic scientists going upstairs. I couldn't find any paperwork on the suicide and checked the office again. The report of sudden death had been placed in the wrong box. The date scribbled on it was incorrect by two days, and much of the form had not been completed. The only other information it offered was the name of the decedent and that the body had been delivered at three o'clock this morning by Sauls Mortuary, which made no sense.

My office used three removal services for the pickup and delivery of dead bodies. These three local funeral homes were on call twenty-four hours a day, and any medical examiner case in central Virginia should be handled by one of them. I did not understand why the suicide had been delivered by a funeral home we had no contract with, and why the driver had not signed his name. I felt a rush of irritation. I had been gone but a few days and the system was falling apart. I went to the phone and called the night-time security guard, whose shift did not end for another half hour.

'This is Dr. Scarpetta,' I said when he answered.

'Yes, ma'am.'

'To whom am I speaking, please?'

'Evans.'

'Mr. Evans, an alleged suicide was delivered at three o'clock this morning.'

'Yes, ma'am. I let him in.'

'Who delivered him?'

He paused. 'Uh, I think it was Sauls.'

'We don't use Sauls.'

He got quiet,

'I think you'd better come over here,' I said to him.

He hesitated. 'To the morgue?'

'That's where I am.'

He stalled again.