“That’s ridiculous,” I said calmly. “You and Susan were involved in some money-making scheme, and my guess is that you are the one who initially got her involved because you knew her vulnerabilities. She probably had confided in you. You knew how to convince her to go along, and Lord knows you could use the money. Your bar tabs alone have got to blow your budget. Partying is very expensive, and I know what you get paid.”

“You don’t know anything.”

“Ben.”

I lowered my voice. “Get out of it. Stop while there’s still time to tell me who’s behind It.”

He would not look me in the eye.

“The stakes are too high when people start dying. Do you think ft you killed Susan that you’ll getaway with it?”

He said nothing.

“If someone else killed her, do you think you’re immune, that the same thing can’t happen to you?”

“You’re threatening me.”

“Nonsense.”

“You can’t prove that the cologne you smelled on Susan was mine. There’s no test for something like that.

You can’t put a smell in a test tube; you can’t save it;’ he said.

“I’m going to ask you to leave now, Ben.”

He turned and walked out of his office. When I heard the elevator doors shut, I went down the hall and peered out a window overlooking the parking lot in back. I did not venture out to my car until Stevens had driven away.

The FBI Building is a concrete fortification at 9th Street and Pennsylvania Avenue in the heart of D.C., and when I arrived the following morning, it was in the wake of at least a hundred noisy schoolchildren. They brought to mind Lucy at their age as they stomped up steps, dashed to benches, and flocked restlessly about huge shrubs and potted trees. Lucy would have loved touring the laboratories, and I suddenly missed her intensely.

The babble of shrill young voices faded as if carried away from me by the wind, my step brisk and directed, for I had been here enough times to know the way. Heading toward the center of the building, I passed the courtyard, then a restricted parking area and a guard before reaching the single glass door. Inside was a lobby of tan furniture, mirrors, and flags. A photograph of the president smiled from one wall, while posted on another was a hit parade of the ten most wanted fugitives in the land.

At the escort desk, I presented my driver’s license to a young agent whose demeanor was as grim as his gray suit.

“I’m Dr. Kay Scarpetta, Chief Medical Examiner of Virginia.”

“Who are you here to see?” I told him.