“Can someone please get that?” Scarpetta said at the top of her voice.

On the prison-ward floor of the modern Bellevue Hospital Center, the thin wire of Benton’s headset connected him to his wife some hundred and fifty miles away.

He explained that late last night a man was admitted to the forensic psychiatric unit, making the point, “Berger wants you to examine his injuries.”

“What’s he been charged with?” Scarpetta asked.

In the background, he could hear the indistinguishable voices, the noise of the morgue—or what he wryly called her “deconstruction site.”

“Nothing yet,” he said. “There was a murder last night. An unusual one.”

He tapped the down arrow on his keyboard, scrolling through what was on his computer screen.

“You mean there’s no court order for the examination?” Scarpetta’s voice moved at the speed of sound.

“Not yet. But he needs to be looked at now.”

“He should have been looked at already. The minute he was admitted. If there was any trace evidence, by now it’s likely been contaminated or lost.”

Benton kept tapping the down arrow, re-reading what was on the screen, wondering how he was going to approach her about it. He could tell by her tone she didn’t know, and he hoped like hell she didn’t hear it from someone else first. Lucy Farinelli, her niece, had damn well better abide by his wish to let him handle it. Not that he was doing a good job so far.

Jaime Berger had seemed all business when she’d called him a few minutes earlier, and from that he’d inferred she wasn’t aware of the trashy gossip on the Internet. Why he didn’t say something to her while he’d had the chance, he wasn’t sure. But he hadn’t, and he should have. He should have been honest with Berger long before now. He should have explained everything to her almost half a year ago.

“His injuries are superficial,” Benton said to Scarpetta. “He’s in isolation, won’t talk, won’t cooperate unless you come. Berger doesn’t want anyone coercing him into anything and decided the exam could wait until you got here. Since that’s what he wants …”

“Since when is it about what the inmate wants?”

“PR, political reasons, and he’s not an inmate, not that anybody on the ward’s considered an inmate once they’ve been admitted. They’re patients.” His nervous ramblings didn’t sound like him as he heard himself talk. “As I’ve said, he’s not been charged with any crime. There’s no warrant. There’s nothing. He’s basically a civil admission. We can’t make him stay the minimum seventy-two hours because he didn’t sign a consent form, and as I said, he’s not been charged with a crime, at least not yet. Maybe that will change after you’ve seen him. But at this moment, he can leave whenever he wants.”

“You’re expecting me to find something that will give the police probable cause to charge him with murder? And what do you mean he didn’t sign … ? Back up. This patient signed himself into a prison ward with the proviso he can walk out the door whenever he pleases?”