The Capitol resides on Shockhoe Hill and is surrounded by an ornamental iron fence erected in the early nineteenth century to keep out trespassing cattle. The white brick building Jefferson designed is typical of his architecture, a pure symmetry of cornices and unfluted columns with Ionic capitals inspired by a Roman temple. Benches line the granite steps leading up through the grounds, and as freezing rain fell relentlessly I thought of my annual spring resolution to take a lunch hour away from my desk, and sit here in the sun. Rut I had yet to do it. Countless days of my life had been lost to artificial light and windowless, confined spaces that deed any architectural rubric.

Inside tree Capitol, I found a ladies’ room and attempted to bolster my Confidence by making repairs.

Despite my efforts with lipstick and brush, the mirror had nothing reassuring to say. Bedraggled and unsettled, I took the elevator to the top of the Rotunda, where previous governors gaze sternly from oil portraits three floors above Houdon’s marble statue -of George Washington. Midway along the south wall, journalists milled about with notepads, cameras, and microphones. I# did not-occur to me that I was their quarry until, as I approached, video cameras were mounted on shoulders, microphones were drawn like swords, and shutters began clicking with the rapidity of automatic weapons.

“Why won’t you disclose your finances?”

“Dr: Scarpetta : . .”

“Did you give money to Susan Story?”

“What kind of handgun do you own?”

“Doctor”

“Is it true that personnel records have disappeared from your office?”

They chummed the water with their accusations and questions as I fixed my attention straight ahead, my thoughts paralyzed. Microphones jabbed at my chin, bodies brushed against me, and lights flashed in my eyes. It seemed to take forever to reach the heavy mahogany door and escape into the genteel stillness behind it.

“Good morning,” said the receptionist from her fine wood fortress beneath a portrait of John Tyler.

Across the room, at a desk before a window, a plainclothes, Executive Protection Unit officer glanced at me, his face inscrutable.

“How did the press know about this?”

I asked the receptionist.

“Pardon?”

She was an older woman, dressed in tweed.

“How did they know I was meeting with the governor this morning?”

“I’m sorry. I wouldn’t know.”

I settled on a pale blue love seat. Walls were papered in the same pale blue; the furniture was antique, with chair seats covered in needlepoint depicting the state seal. Ten minutes slowly passed. A door opened and a young man I recognized as Norring’s press secretary stepped inside and smiled at me.

“Dr. Scarpetta, the governor will see you now.”

He was slight of build, blond, and dressed in a navy suit and yellow suspenders.

“I apologize for making you wait. Unbelievable weather we’re having. And I understand it’s supposed to drop into the teens tonight. The streets will be glass in the morning.”