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I think enough of her not to talk about her with some shitbag stranger!”
    The call ends with a dial tone.
    In Sam Lanier’s mind, he couldn’t have gotten a stronger validation of Dr. Kay Scarpetta’s character. She’s welcome down here.

S CARPETTA WAITS IN LINE at the Marriott’s front desk, her head throbbing, her central nervous system shorted out by wine so terrible it ought to have a skull and crossbones on the label.
    Her malady, her malaise, is far more serious than she ever let on to Nic, and with each passing minute, her physical condition and mood worsen. She refuses to diagnose her illness as a hangover (after all, she barely had two glasses of that goddamn wine), and she refuses to forgive herself for even considering an alcoholic beverage sold in a cardboard box.
    Painful experience has proven for years that when she suffers such merry misadventures, the more coffee she drinks, the more awful she’s going to feel, but this never stops her from ordering a large pot in her room and flying by the seat of her pants instead of trusting her instruments, as Lucy likes to say when her aunt ignores what she knows and does what she feels and crash-lands.
    When she finally reaches the front desk, she asks for her bill and is handed an envelope.
    â€œThis just came in for you, ma’am,” the harried receptionist says as he tears off the printout of her room charges and hands it to her.
    Inside the envelope is a fax. Scarpetta walks behind the bellman pushingher cart. It is loaded with bags and three very large hard cases containing carousels of slides that she has not bothered to convert to PowerPoint presentations because she can’t stand them. Showing a picture of a man who has blown off the top of his head with a shotgun or a child scalded to death does not require a computer and special effects. Slide presentations and handouts serve her purposes just as well now as they did when she started her career.
    The fax is from her secretary, Rose, who must have called about the same time Scarpetta was miserably making her way from the elevator to the lobby. All Rose says is that Dr. Sam Lanier, the coroner of East Baton Rouge Parish, very much needs to speak to her. Rose includes his home, office and cell telephone numbers. Immediately, Scarpetta thinks of Nic Robillard, of their conversation not even an hour ago.
    She waits until she is inside her taxi before calling Dr. Lanier’s office number. He answers himself.
    â€œHow did you know who my secretary is and where to reach her?” she asks right off.
    â€œYour former office in Richmond was kind enough to give me your number in Florida. Rose is quite charming, by the way.”
    â€œI see,” she replies as the taxi drives away from the hotel. “I’m in a taxi on the way to the airport. Can we make this quick?”
    Her abruptness is more about her annoyance with her former office than with him. Giving out her unlisted phone number is blatant harassment—not that it hasn’t happened before. Some people who still work at the Chief Medical Examiner’s Office remain loyal to their boss. Others are traitors and bend in the direction that power pulls.
    â€œQuick it will be,” Dr. Lanier says. “I’m wondering if you would review a case for me, Dr. Scarpetta—an eight-year-old case that was never successfully resolved. A woman died under suspicious circumstances, apparently from a drug overdose. You ever heard of Charlotte Dard?”
    â€œNo.”
    â€œI’ve just gotten information—don’t know if it’s good or not—but I don’t want to discuss it while you’re on a cell phone.”
    â€œThis is a Baton Rouge case?” Scarpetta digs in her handbag for a notepad and pen.
    â€œAnother story for another day. But yes, it’s a Baton Rouge case.”
    â€œYour case?”
    â€œIt was. I’d like to send you the reports, slides and all the