Several clicks of the mouse, and Lucy opens a file. Then in no time she has my chief of staff Bryce Clark on live video, the app her own enhanced rendition of Skype or FaceTime. She goes straight to the point, asking him if he knows much about my childhood in South Florida. Might he have been discussing it with anyone? Especially recently?

“Well we all know they were as poor as church mice,” he replies. “But I can’t say exactly what she might have mentioned when we’ve just been sitting around shooting the breeze. Is she with you?”

“Yes,” I speak for myself.

“Not that it’s very often we have nothing better to do than sit around the office shooting the breeze, right, Doctor Scarpetta?” He waves, his attractive boyish face staring blearily from the computer display. “Full disclosure?” He holds up a brown bottle of Angry Orchard hard cider with its whimsical scowling-apple-tree label. “My second one but I’m not drinking on the job since I’m home? Even if I’m talking to you?” He’s saying this to me, I think, and I’m not sure if it’s a question or a comment, if he’s being funny or not, and that’s not unusual with him.

“The friends you were telling me about earlier.” Lucy rests her chin on her hand, addressing him on the computer display as if he’s sitting across the desk from her. “Do you talk to them about work?”

“Never inappropriately,” he says, and I can tell from the background that he’s sitting in his living room and has paused the TV.

“What about her?” Lucy says to him as she looks at me.

“Are you suggesting I’m disloyal?” Bryce protests. “Are you saying I’m talking about Doctor Scarpetta behind her back?”

“I’m not saying anything. I’m asking questions. Are you sure there’s no possibility one of these friends you had dinner with last night might have posted something about your tattoo online? Not that I’ve seen anything anywhere yet …”

“You won’t because there’s nothing,” he retorts. “Why would it be on the Internet?”

“That’s exactly what we’re trying to figure out. How someone might have known about it,” Lucy says.

“Perhaps someone who had no idea it could cause a problem?” I offer him a chance to save face.

“Hell no. Anyone who matters knows that stuff like that can get me into trouble because of who I work for,” he says as if suddenly I’m not present anymore. “That anything can be used against anyone in court.”

He rambles on for a long moment, suggesting in his convoluted way that it’s routine for him to be called to testify in trials and have his credibility attacked. It’s not. He’s never summoned for anything except jury duty, and he’s always excluded.