“At some point prior to six o’clock last night,” Lucy explains, “this person logged on to Logan’s free wireless Internet. The same thing passengers do thousands of times a day. But it doesn’t mean the person who sent the e-mail was physically in a terminal or on a plane.”

Whoever it is could have been in a parking garage, she says, or on a sidewalk, possibly in a water taxi or on a ferry in the harbor, anywhere the wireless signal reaches. Once this person was connected, he created a temporary e-mail account called BLiDedwood @Stealthmail, possibly using word-processing software to write the subject line in Eurostile, and cutting and pasting it into the e-mail.

“He waited twenty-nine minutes before sending it,” Lucy says. “Just a shame he has the satisfaction of knowing it was opened.”

“How would this person know I opened the e-mail?”

“Because he didn’t get a bounce-back nondelivery notification message,” she replies. “Which he would have gotten just seconds before the account self-destructed. He has no reason not to assume the e-mail was received and opened.”

Her tone is different. What she’s saying sounds like a reprimand.

“The bounce-back is instant and automatic for harassing or virus-infected communications sent to the CFC’s main address,” she reminds me. “The purpose is to give the sender the impression that the e-mail couldn’t be delivered. But in fact with rare and unfortunate exception, suspicious e-mails go directly into what I call quarantine so I can see whatever it is and assess the threat level,” she emphasizes, and I realize what she’s getting at. “I didn’t see this particular e-mail because it wasn’t quarantined.”

The rare and unfortunate exception she’s talking about is myself.

“The firewalls I’ve set up recognized the e-mail as legit because of the subject heading Attention Chief Medical Examiner Kay Scarpetta,” she says, as if it’s my fault, and it is. “Something directed to your personal attention doesn’t get spammed or temporarily outboxed in quarantine because that’s been your directive to me. Against my wishes, remember?”

She holds my gaze, and she’s right, but there’s nothing I can do about it.

“You see the consequences of my allowing you to cheat what I’ve secured?” she asks.

“I understand your frustration, Lucy. But it’s the only way a lot of people, particularly police and families, can reach me when they don’t know my direct CFC contact information,” I say what I’ve said before. “They send something to my attention and I certainly don’t want it spammed.”

“It’s just too bad that you’re the one who opened it first,” Lucy says. “Of course, typically Bryce probably would have before you had the chance.”

“I’m glad he didn’t.” My chief of staff is very sensitive and more than a little squeamish.

“Right. He didn’t because he was on his way back from a trip. He and several others had been out of pocket for a week,” Lucy says, as if the timing wasn’t an accident.

“Are you worried that whoever sent the e-mail knows what’s going on at the CFC?” I ask.