At quarter past seven, I parked behind a long line of cars in front of a white-painted brick house with a slate roof. White lights were caught like tiny stars in boxwoods and spruces, and a fragrant fresh wreath hung on the red front door. Nancy Carter embraced my arrival with a gorgeous smile and arms extended to take my coat. She talked nonstop above the indecipherable language of crowds as light winked off the sequins of her long red gown. The judge’s wife was a woman in her fifties refined by money into a work of well-bred art. In her youth, I suspected, she had not been pretty.

“Bruce is somewhere…”

She glanced about. “The bar’s over there.”

She directed me to the living room, where the bright holiday attire of guests blended wonderfully with a large vibrant Persian rug that I suspected cost more than the house I had just visited on the other side of the river. I spotted the judge talking to a man I did not know. I scanned faces, recognizing several physicians and attorneys, a lobbyist, and the governor’s chief of staff. Somehow I ended up with a Scotch and soda, and a man I had never seen before was touching my arm.

“Dr. Scarpetta? Frank Donahue,” he introduced himself loudly. “A Merry Christmas to you.”

“And to you,” I said.

The warden, who allegedly had been ill the day Marino and I had toured the penitentiary, was small, with coarse features and thick graying hair. He was dressed like a parody of an English toastmaster in bright red tails, a ruffled white dress shirt, and a red bow tie twinkling with tiny electric lights. A glass of straight whiskey tilted perilously one hand as he offered me the other.

He leaned close to my ear. “I was disappointed I was unable to show you around the day you came to the pen.”

“One of your officers took good care of us. Thank you.”

“I guess that would have been Roberts.”

“I think that was his name.”

“Well, it’s unfortunate that you had to go to the trouble.”

His eyes roamed the room and he winked at someone behind me. “A lot of horse crap was what it was. You know, Waddell’d had a couple of nosebleeds in the past, and high blood pressure. Was always complaining about something. Headaches. Insomnia.”

I bent my head, straining to hear.

“These guys on death row are consummate con artists. And to be honest, Waddell was one of me worst” “I wouldn’t know,” I said, looking up at him.

“That’s the trouble, nobody knows. No matter what you say, nobody knows except those of us who are around these guys every day.”

“I’m sure.”