She lifted the “Oscar string,” as she called it, from the wall and held it out parallel to the floor, and did the same with the “seated Terri string.” She asked Marino to hold both, level and parallel to the floor.

She took more photographs.

Then Benton was behind Berger, and a uniformed officer was with him.

The officer said, “Someone need a chair escorted to a private jet headed to the bomb factory in Oak Ridge? The chair’s not going to explode or nothing, right?”

“You bring the evidence packaging I asked for?” Marino asked him.

“Just like UPS,” the officer said.

Scarpetta asked Marino to continue holding the Oscar and Terri strings while she explained to Benton what they were doing.

“And his arms are very short, about sixteen inches from his shoulder joint to the tips of his fingers, which would have given him less leverage,” she added, looking at Benton. “Your reach is a good eight inches more than that, and if you’d been standing behind Terri while she was seated, you would have towered over her by almost twenty inches, giving you tremendous leverage. As opposed to Oscar. Imagine someone his size trying to pull up and back with force while the victim is thrashing about in the chair.”

“And he’s not even level with her when he’s doing it? I don’t really see how he could,” Marino agreed. “Especially if he kept doing it to her over and over again, allowing her to regain consciousness, then strangling her into unconsciousness again, like you said. I don’t care how much he can bench-press.”

“Actually, I don’t think there’s any way he could have done it,” Berger said.

“I’m worried about him,” Scarpetta said. “Has anybody tried to call him?”

“When I talked to Morales,” Benton said, “I asked him if anybody knew where Oscar was or had heard from him. He says the police have Oscar’s cell phone.”

“He voluntarily gave that up?” Scarpetta asked.

“Along with a lot of other things, yes,” Benton said. “Which is too bad, at least about the phone. I wish he had it, because he’s not answering his apartment phone, which doesn’t surprise me. I don’t know how we’re going to reach him.”

“I think what we ought to do is split up, as I suggested earlier,” Berger said. “Benton? You and Kay meet Morales at Oscar’s apartment and take a look. Marino and I will make sure this chair gets packaged properly. We’ll make sure the swabs you just took and any other evidence goes directly to the labs. Then we’ll head across the street and see what the neighbor has to say about Jake Loudin.”

Scarpetta carried the chair out of the bathroom and set it down for the officer who was to package and escort it.