I never forget the Bureau is sly like a fox in its insistence on using primitive paper and pen to record what agents supposedly witness. They take notes. That way it’s easier to misrepresent what a suspect or a witness did or said.

“It’s not enough for you to respect what I feel,” I reply, and it’s difficult to watch what’s happening inside the master bedroom. “You have no probable cause, no justification whatsoever to go through confidential medical examiner records or communications associated with them, some of which includes classified materials relating to our troops, our men and women in the military. You have no right to the e-mails and other communications of my staff or me.”

“I understand your position,” Erin says.

“You’ll understand it better if you place any of my cases in jeopardy,” I reply not so politely. “And it’s not a threat. It’s a promise.”

“I’ll make a note you said that.”

THANK GOD Lucy isn’t here to see the two female agents inside her walk-in closet, their gloved hands going through the pockets of everything she’s ever worn, her jeans, her flight suits, her dress clothes.

They’re looking at her shoes, her boots, and riffling through briefcases and built-in drawers while on the other side of the room a male agent roots through Janet’s closet and another removes artwork from the walls, spectacular canvases and photographs of African wildlife. He props them up, pounds on paneling with the flat of his palm, looking for secret compartments I can only guess, and I feel a knot in my stomach the size of a softball.

“This can be made so much easier if we have honest communication,” Erin is saying as I move to a window and open the shade. “So much can be prevented if we get the truth about what happened.”

“About what happened?” I don’t turn around.

“In Florida,” she says. “We need the truth.”

“You’re implying that those of us involved are lying, as if it’s your default position that everybody lies.” I look out the window at the late morning because I’m not going to look at her. “And you might be right. In your world everybody probably does lie, including the organization you work for. In your world the end justifies the means. You can do whatever you want and truth is incidental. Assuming you even recognize it.”

“When you were injured in June …?”

“You mean when I was attacked.” I scan the spacious backyard that drops off precipitously into a steep hillside thick with trees.

“When you were shot. I stipulate that there’s ample evidence you were shot.”

“You stipulate? Sounds like you’re making a court case …”

“Let me ask you,” she interrupts. “Have you ever owned a spear gun?”

“You can ask me that when Jill Donoghue gets here.”