I discovered that the woman wearing the bright red lipstick was the foreman. She cleared her throat and informed me that I did not have to testify, and that anything I said could be used against me.

“I understand,” I said, and I was sworn in.

Patterson hovered about my chair and offered the minimum of information about who I was, and elaborated on the power of my position and the ease with which this power could be abused.

“And who would there be to witness it?” he asked. “On many occasions there was no one to observe Dr. Scarpetta at work except for the person who was by her side virtually every day. Susan Story. You can’t hear testimony from her because she and her unborn child are dead, ladies and gentlemen. But there are others you will hear from today. And they will paint for you a chilling portrait of a cold, ambitious woman, an empire builder who was making grievous mistakes on the job. First, she paid for Susan Story’s silence. Then she killed for it.”

“And when you hear tales of the perfect crime, who better able to carry it off than someone who is an expert in solving crimes? An expert would know that if you plan to shoot someone inside a vehicle, it would behoove you to choose a low-caliber weapon so you don’t run the risk of bullets ricocheting. An expert would leave no telling evidence at the scene, not even spent shells. An expert would not use her own revolver - the gun or guns that friends and colleagues know she possesses. She would use something that could not be traced back to “Why, she might even borrow a revolver from the lab, because, ladies and gentlemen, every year the courts routinely confiscate hundreds of firearms used in the commission of crimes, and some of these weapons are donated to the state firearms lab. For all we know, the twenty-two revolver that was put against the back of Susan Story’s skull is, as we speak, hanging on a pegboard in the firearms lab or downstairs in the range the examiners use for test fires and where Dr. Scarpetta routinely practices shooting. And by the way, she is good enough to qualify for any police department in America. And she has killed before, though to give her credit, in the instance I’m referring to her actions were ruled to be self-defense.”