“They went to different coroners?”

“Three coroners,” Cooper says. “The Lambton girl and the Davis boy both went to Central District in Richmond, but they were examined by different staff pathologists. The Pennsylvania victims went to Dauphin County.”

“So they got bounced all over?” Emma catches Bell’s eye. “No wonder the marks were missed.”

Cooper seems to be keeping himself on a tight leash. “Miss Lewis, you don’t think it’s… unlikely that three different coroners missed needle marks on the bodies?”

“No, listen. The county coroner probably saw the throat wounds and figured, hell, he’s already taken their blood. But remember the photos? The victims had ligature contusions—here, here.” She indicates the insides of her own arms, at the elbow joints. “They had severe abrasions, bruising, rope fibers still in the wounds.”

“You think the abrasions hid a puncture mark?”

Emma nods. “And after Davis, when you knew the killer was etherizing them, the ME may not have thought to look closely. He knew they weren’t being sedated by injection. But what if the killer isn’t injecting anything—what if he’s withdrawing?”

“It’s an interesting theory,” Cooper says, “but there’s one problem—the bodies aren’t here. They’re in the county morgues. Two of them have been released back to the families.”

“Then let us talk to the pathologists at the Washington lab. Someone there can follow up with the county ME’s offices.”

“We can’t exhume bodies that have just—”

“I’m not talking about exhuming anything right now. If we find needle marks on two, we worry about the others later.” Emma thrusts the pages she’s just completed at Bell, skewers Cooper with her glare. “Look, are you sending me in to see Gutmunsson for nothing, or do you actually want to move on the information I get? Because you’re right. He’s figured a few things out. But if you’re not going to act on it…”

Cooper stares out the right-hand window for a moment, then swivels to the front and puts the car in gear. “Fine. It can’t hurt to talk to the lab. We’ll go back to the state building.”

Emma releases a breath. “Great. Okay, let me finish these last pages, then I’ll tell you what else Gutmunsson let slip.”

She hunkers back down over her notes as Cooper pulls the car around.

Bell checks his watch. “It’s going on four thirty. Will the offices still be open?”

Cooper nods. “Oh, they’ll be open.”

“Gonna be hell with the traffic.”

For a while there’s only the rushing of the wind outside the car as Cooper concentrates on the route. Emma doesn’t look at the view, Bell notes. She is deep in the weeds of her exchange with Simon Gutmunsson, the way it felt and what was said. She moves her hand across the paper as fast as she’s humanly able.

The Anacostia is a glittering blue-gray blur in Bell’s peripheral vision. He sees the concrete and raw steel buttresses of the river overpass and thinks Emma looks as if she’s had her foundations swept out from under her. He takes the pages as she shoves them his way, watches her for popping rivets. “Can I read through this? Are you comfortable with that?”