“When it was sent, she was in the magnet. When I showed it to her later, it was the first time she’d seen it. Her main concern was we hacked—her word—into her e-mail and that we’d violated her legal rights, and we’d violated HIPAA because Lucy was the hacker—Dr. Self’s accusation—and that means outsiders knew Dr. Self was a patient at McLean. How did Lucy get blamed, by the way? I wonder.”

“Curious she would, without hesitation, be blamed. I agree.”

“Have you seen what Dr. Self posted on her website? Supposedly a confessional by Lucy, talking freely about her brain tumor. It’s everywhere.”

“Lucy did that?” Dr. Maroni is surprised. This he didn’t know.

“She most assuredly didn’t. I can only assume Dr. Self somehow discovered that Lucy comes to McLean for regular scans, and as part of her insatiable appetite to harass, she contrived this confessional on her website.”

“How is Lucy?”

“How do you think?”

“What else did Dr. Self say about this second image? The woman in the copper tub. We have no idea who she is?”

“So someone must have planted in Dr. Self’s mind that Lucy got into her e-mail. Very strange.”

“The woman in the copper tub,” Dr. Maroni says again. “What did Dr. Self say when you confronted her on the steps in the dark? That must have been something.” He waits. Relights his pipe.

“I never said she was on the steps.”

Dr. Maroni smiles and puffs smoke as the tobacco in the pipe’s bowl glows. “Again, when you showed this to her, what did she say?”

“She asked if the image is real. I said we can’t know without seeing the files on the computer of the person who sent it. But it looks genuine. I don’t see the telltale signs of something that’s been tampered with. A missing shadow. An error in perspective. Lighting or weather that doesn’t make sense.”

“No, it doesn’t look tampered with,” Dr. Maroni says, studying it on his screen as the rain falls beyond his shutters and canal water splashes against stucco. “As much as I know about such a thing.”

“She insisted it could be a sick ruse. A sick joke. I said Drew Martin’s photo is real, and it was more than a sick joke. She’s dead. I voiced my concern that the woman in this second photo is also dead. It seems someone is talking to Dr. Self indiscriminately, and not just about this case. I wonder who.”

“And she said?”

“And she said it wasn’t her fault,” Benton says.

“And now that Lucy has gotten us this information, she might know…” Dr. Maroni starts to say, but Benton gets there first.