He was studying me with uncertainty, lies he had been led to believe about me wavering in his eyes.

“You didn’t talk to Investigator Ring about me?” he said.

I checked my fury. “No.”

“He came to my house this morning while my mama was still in bed.” His voice shook. “Started interrogating me like I was a murderer or something. Said you had findings pointing right to me, so I better confess.”

“Findings? What findings?” I said as my disgust grew.

“Fibers that according to you looked like they came from what I had on the day we met. You said my size fit what you think the size is of the person who cut up that body. He said you could tell by the pressure applied with the saw that whoever did it was about my strength. He said you were demanding all kinds of things from me so you could do all these tests. DNA. That you thought I was weird when I drove you up to the site . . .”

I interrupted him. “My God, Keith. I have never heard so much bullshit in my life. If I said even one of those things, I would be fired for incompetence.”

“That’s the other thing,” Pleasants jumped in again, fire in his eyes. “He’s been talking with everyone I work with! They’re all wondering if I’m some kind of axe murderer. I can tell by the way they look at me.”

He dissolved in tears as doors opened and several state troopers walked in. They paid us no mind as they were buzzed inside, on their way down to the morgue, where Fielding was working on a pedestrian death. Pleasants was too upset for me to discuss this with him any further, and I was so incensed with Ring that I did not know what else to say.

“Do you have a lawyer?” I asked him.

He shook his head.

“I think you’d better get one.”

“I don’t know any.”

“I can give you some names,” I said as Wingo opened the door and was startled by the sight of Pleasants crying on the couch.

“Uh, Dr. Scarpetta?” Wingo said. “Dr. Fielding wants to know if he can go ahead and receipt the personal effects to the funeral home.”

I stepped closer to Wingo, because I did not want Pleasants further upset by the business of this place.

“The troopers are on their way down,” I said in a low voice. “If they don’t want the personal effects, then yes. Receipt them to the funeral home.”

He was staring hard at Pleasants, as if he knew him from somewhere.

“Listen,” I said to Wingo. “Get him the names and numbers of Jameson and Higgins.”

They were two very fine lawyers in town whom I considered friends.

“Then please see Mr. Pleasants out.”

Wingo was still staring, as if transfixed by him.

“Wingo?” I gave him a questioning look, because he did not seem to have heard me.