“It wasn’t a question, Dr. Scarpetta.” She’s not happy with me. “I’m stating that you were never active in the Air Force, didn’t enlist, weren’t deployed to Iraq, for example.”

“When I was actively serving time in the military, we weren’t at war with Iraq,” I reply.

“You’re saying no Air Force Reservists were deployed to Iraq?”

“I’m not saying that.”

“Good, because that wouldn’t be true, now, would it?” she says.

Check box three. Imply I have to be encouraged to tell the truth.

“It wouldn’t be correct to say no Air Force Reservists were deployed to Iraq,” I agree.

“I was using a deployment to Iraq as an example of what someone active in the military might be involved in.” She winds up for her next spitball. “As opposed to someone who signs on with a branch of service simply to get his or her medical school education paid for by the government. Which is what you did, isn’t it?”

Check box four. I’m entitled. I’m an elitist.

“After medical school I served on the staff of the Armed Forces Institute of Pathology, and my medical school tuition eventually was forgiven.”

“So when you served your time you weren’t actually deployed anywhere at all. You served as a forensic pathologist, mostly doing paperwork.”

“Forensic pathologists do a lot of paperwork.” I smile at the jurors, and several of them smile back.

“The AFME is part of the AFIP, correct?”

“It was,” I answer. “The AFIP was disestablished several years ago.”

“While it still existed and you were on its staff, were you involved in the Atomic Bomb Casualty Commission?”

“I was not.”

Jesus Christ. Why the hell isn’t Steward objecting? I resist looking back at him.

Don’t look at anything or anyone but the jury.

“Well, some of your colleagues were on the Atomic Bomb Casualty Commission, were they not?”

“I believe a few of them had been involved in that,” I reply. “A few of the senior forensic pathologists who were still at the AFIP when I was.”

“Why weren’t you involved with the Atomic Bomb Casualty Commission?” she asks.

Goddammit.

Why the hell is Steward letting her get away with this? I can’t imagine the judge wouldn’t sustain an objection that this line of questioning has nothing to do with this case or me. She’s trying to inflame the Asian jurors, to prejudice them against me.

Like implying I might have had something to do with the holocaust in front of a jury of Jews.

“That was before my time with the AFIP.” I keep my eyes on the jury.

I’m talking to them, not to Jill Donoghue.

“For a while the AFIP was studying autopsy specimens from Japanese people killed by the atomic bomb, correct?” She’s not going to relent.

“That’s correct.”