Or maybe she just wants to portray me as a super-bitch.

“Yes, I am.”

“Please tell us about that.”

“In my capacity as a special reservist for the Department of Defense, I assist the Armed Forces Medical Examiners as requested or needed by them.”

“And what exactly are the Armed Forces Medical Examiners?”

“Basically, AFMEs are forensic pathologists with federal jurisdiction, similar to the FBI having federal jurisdiction in certain types of cases.”

“So you’re the FBI of medical examiners,” she says.

“I’m saying that in some instances I have federal jurisdiction.”

“An example?”

“An example would be if there were a fatal military aircraft crash in Massachusetts or near Massachusetts, the case might come to me instead of being transported to the port mortuary at Dover Air Force Base in Dover, Delaware.”

“The case being a casualty or casualties. Case by your definition meaning a dead body or dead bodies, as opposed to actually working the crash itself. You wouldn’t examine the crashed jet or helicopter.”

Jill Donoghue is one of the few defense attorneys I know who dares to ask questions she doesn’t know the answer to because she’s that smart and sure of herself. But it’s not without risks.

“It would not be my job to examine a crashed plane or helicopter for the purpose of determining mechanical or computer failure or pilot error,” I reply. “Although I might be shown the wreckage and reports to see if the findings of the National Transportation Safety Board, for example, are consistent with what the body tells me.”

“Do dead bodies speak to you, Dr. Scarpetta?”

“They don’t literally speak to me.”

“They don’t speak the way you and I are talking.”

“Not audibly,” I answer. “No.”

Check box two. Make me eccentric. Make me crazy.

“But inaudibly they speak to you?”

“In the language of diseases and wounds and many other nuances, they tell me their story.”

A woman on the jury, African American, in a dark red suit, nods her head as if we’re in church.

“And your area of expertise is the human body. Specifically, the dead human body,” Jill Donoghue asks, and I can tell by her tone she doesn’t like what I just said.

“Examining the dead is one area of my expertise.” I will make it worse for her. “I examine every detail in order to reconstruct how someone died and how they lived, and offer everything I possibly can to those left behind who find the loss profoundly life-altering.”

The juror in dark red nods deeply, as if I’m preaching salvation, and Donoghue changes the subject. “Dr. Scarpetta, what is your rank as an Air Force Reservist?”

“I’m a colonel,” I answer, and a young male juror in a blue polo shirt scowls as if he doesn’t approve or is confused.

“But you never actively served in the military.”

“I’m not sure I understand the question.”