I looked at her long and hard, wondering just how much she really knew about Lucy. Unless McGovern had been briefed by someone at the Bureau, there was no reason I could think of why she should know about my niece’s affair with Carrie Grethen and the implications of what that might mean when the case went to court, assuming Carrie was caught. Just the reminder cast a shadow over what had already been a dark day, and my uncomfortable silence invited McGovern to fill it.

“I have a son,” she quietly said, staring into her coffee. “I know what it’s like to have children grow up and suddenly vanish. Go their own way, too busy to visit or get on the phone.”

“Lucy grew up a long time ago,” I quickly said, for I did not want her to commiserate with me. “She also never lived with me, not permanently, I mean. In a way, she’s always been gone.”

But McGovern just smiled as she got out of her chair.

“I’ve got troops to check on,” she said. “I guess I’d better be on my way.”

6

AT FOUR O’CLOCK that afternoon, my staff was still busy in the autopsy room, and I walked in looking for Chuck. He and two of my residents were working on the burned woman’s body, defleshing her as best they could with plastic spatulas, because anything harder might scratch the bones.

Chuck was sweating beneath his surgical cap and mask as he scraped tissue from the skull, his brown eyes rather glazed behind his face shield. He was tall and wiry with short, sandy blond hair that tended to stick out in every direction no matter how much gel he used. He was attractive in an adolescent way and, after a year on the job, still terrified of me.

“Chuck?” I said again, inspecting one of the more ghoulish tasks in forensic medicine.

“Yes, ma’am.”

He stopped scraping and looked up furtively at me. The stench was getting worse by the minute as unrefrigerated flesh continued to decompose, and I was not looking forward to what I needed to do next.

“Let me just check this one more time,” I said to Ruffin, who was so tall he tended to stoop, his neck jutting out like a turtle when he looked at whomever he was talking to. “Our old battered pots and pans didn’t make it in the move.”

“I think somehow they got tossed out,” he said.

“And probably should have,” I told him. “Which means you and I have an errand to run.”

“Now?”

“Now.”