“From what I gather,” Berger said, “whatever virus brought down the website also enabled her to hack into it. Which then allowed her to hack into Eva Peebles’s e-mail—don’t ask me to explain it. Lucy’s found an electronic folder containing virtually every Gotham Gotcha column ever written, including the one posted this morning and a second one posted later in the day. And she’s found the Marilyn Monroe photograph, which Eva Peebles apparently opened. In other words, it seems this woman”—she meant the dead one—“didn’t write them. They were e-mailed to her from IP addresses that Lucy says have been anonymized, but since this is yet another violent death that is possibly related to e-mails, we won’t have any trouble getting the service provider to tell us who the account belongs to.”

Scarpetta handed her a notepad and pen and said, “You want to scribe? Ambient temp is fifty-eight degrees. Body temp is eighty-nine- point-two. Doesn’t tell us a whole lot, since she’s thin, unclothed, the room’s been steadily cooling. Rigor’s not apparent yet. Not surprising, either. Cooling delays its onset, and we know she called nine-one- one at what time, exactly?”

“Eight-forty- nine, exactly.” Berger made notes. “What we don’t know is exactly when she was in the pet shop. Only that it was approximately an hour before she called the police.”

“I’d like to hear the tape,” Scarpetta said.

She placed her hands on the body’s hips to stop its slow, agitated turns. She examined it more closely, exploring it with the flashlight, noting a shiny residue in the vaginal area.

Berger said, “We know she said she believed the man she encountered was Jake Loudin. So if he’s the last person to see her alive … ?”

“Question is whether he literally was the last person. Do we know if there might be any personal connection between Jake Loudin and Terri Bridges?”

“Just a possible connection that might be nothing more than a coincidence.”

And Berger began telling her about Marino’s earlier interview, about a puppy that Terri didn’t want, a Boston terrier named Ivy. She continued to explain that it was unclear who had given the sick puppy to Terri, perhaps Oscar had. Perhaps someone else. Perhaps it originally had come from one of Jake Loudin’s shops, hard to know, maybe impossible to know.

“I don’t need to tell you that he’s very upset,” Berger said, and she meant Marino. “Always the biggest thing any cop fears. You talk to a witness, and then the person is murdered. He’s going to worry he could have done something to prevent it.”