In the green field of the night-vision monocular, Scarpetta and Benton walked out of the park, onto the sidewalk. She had her hands in her pockets, wasn’t carrying anything, meaning she and Benton would be making at least one stop, most likely his office. He noticed they weren’t talking much, and then, as if they read Marino’s thoughts, they held hands and Benton leaned down and kissed her.

When they reached the street, so close that he didn’t need light intensification to make out their faces, they were looking at each other as if they’d meant the kiss and that there would be more to come, Marino thought. They reached First Avenue and faded out of sight.

Marino was about to abandon his safe haven of triple-stacked hydraulic lifts when he noticed another figure appear in the park, walking briskly. Then he saw yet another figure enter the park from the direction of the DNA building. In the bright green field of the night-vision monocular, Investigator Mike Morales and Dr. Lenora Lester sat next to each other on a bench.

They said things Marino couldn’t hear, and she gave him a large envelope. Probably information about Terri Bridges’s autopsy. But it was a peculiar handoff, as if they were spies. He entertained the notion that the two of them were having an affair, and his stomach flopped as he imagined her grim, pinched face, imagined her birdlike body naked on a wad of sheets.

That couldn’t be it.

It was far more likely that Dr. Lester had called Morales as fast as she could so she could take credit for whatever Scarpetta had discovered in the morgue. And he would want the information before anybody else got it, including Marino and, most of all, Berger. That must mean Scarpetta had found out something important. Marino watched until Dr. Lester and Morales got up from the bench. He disappeared around a corner of the DNA building, and she headed in Marino’s direction, toward East 27th, walking her fast walk, her eyes on the BlackBerry in her bare hands.

She hurried through the cold wind toward First Avenue, where she would probably catch a cab, then take the ferry back home to New Jersey. It appeared she was text-messaging someone.

Museum Mile used to be Shrew’s favorite walk. She’d set out from her apartment with a bottle of water and a granola bar, and choose the Madison Avenue route so she could window-shop as anticipation built and accelerated her feet.

The highlight was the Guggenheim, where she was thrilled by Clyfford Still, John Chamberlain, Robert Rauschenberg, and of course Picasso. The last exhibition she’d seen there was Jackson Pollock Paintings on Paper, and that had been two years ago this spring.

What had happened?