"Youare better off without him," she added with conviction.

"Lucy . . "

"He wasnat there for you the way he should have been. He never would have been there because thatas the way he was. And every time things didnat go right, you changed."

I stood in front of the window and looked out at dormant clematis and roses frozen to trellises.

"Lacy, you need to learn a little gentleness and tact. You canat just say exactly what you think."

"Thatas a funny thing to hear coming from you. Youave always told me how much you hate dishonesty and games."

"People have feelings."

"Youare right. Including me," she said.

"Have I somehow hurt your feelings?"

"How do you think I felt?"

"Iam not sure I understand."

"Because you didnat think about me at all. Thatas why you donat understand."

"I think about you all the time."

"Thatas like saying youare rich and yet you never give me a dime. What difference does it make to me what youave got hidden away?"

I did not know what to say.

"You donat call me anymore. You havenat come to see me once since he got killed."

The hurt in her voice had been saved for a long time. "I wrote you and you didnat write back. Then you called me yesterday and asked me to come visit because you needed something."

"I didnat mean it like that."

"Itas the same thing Mom does."

I shut my eyes and lead my forehead against the cold gla.s.s. "You expect too much from me, Lucy. Iam not perfect."

"I donat expect you to be perfect. But I thought you were different."

"I donat know how to defend myself when you make a remark like that."

"You canat defend yourself!"

I watched a gray squirrel hop along the top of the fence bordering the yard. Birds were pecking seeds off the gra.s.s.

"Aunt Kay?"

I turned to her and never had I seen her eyes look so dejected.

"Why are men always mode important than me?"

"Theyare not, Lucy," I whispered. "I swear."

My niece wanted tuna salad and cap latte for lunch, and while I sat in front of the fire editing a journal article, she rummaged through my closet and dresser drawers. I tried not to think about another human being touching my clothes, folding something in a way I wouldnat or returning a jacket to the wrong hanger. Lucy had a gift for making me feel like the Tinman rusting in the forest. Was I becoming the rigid, serious adult I would have disliked when I was her age?

"What do you think?" she asked when she emerged from my bedroom at half past one. She was wearing one of my tennis warm-up suits.

"I think you spent a long time to come up with only that. And yes, it fits you fine."

"I found a few other things that are okay, but most of your stuff is-too dressy. All these lawyerly suits in midnight blue and black, gray silk with delicate pinstripes, khaki and cashmere, and white blouses. You must have twenty white blouses and just as many ties. You shouldnat wear brown, by the way. And I didnat see much in red, and youad look good in red, with your blue eyes and grayish blond hair."

"Ash blond," I said.

"Ashes are gray or white. Just look in the fire. We donat wear the same size shoe, not that Iam into ColeHaan or Ferragamo. I did find a black leather jacket thatas really cool. Were you a biker in another life?"

"Itas lambskin and youare welcome to borrow it."

"What about your Fendi perfume and pearls? Do you own a pair of jeans?"

"Help yourself." I started to laugh. "And yes, I have a pair of jeans somewhere. Maybe in the garage."

"I want to take you shopping, Aunt Kay."

"Iad have to be crazy."

"Please?"

"Maybe," I said.

"If itas all right, I want to go to your club to work out for a while. Iam stiff from the plane."

"If youad like to play tennis while youare here, Iall see if Ted has any time to hit with you. My racquets are in the closet to the left. I just switched to a new Wilson. You can hit the ball a hundred miles an hour. Youall love it."

"No, thanks. Iad rather use the StairMaster and weights or go running. Why donat you take a lesson from Ted while I work out, and we can go together?"

Dutifully, I reached for the phone and dialed Westwoodas pro shop. Ted was booked solid until ten oaclock. I gave Lucy directions and my car keys, and after she left, I read in front of the fire and fell asleep.

When I opened my eyes, I heard coals shift and wind gently touching the pewter wind chimes beyond the sliding gla.s.s doors. Snow was drifting down in large, slow flakes, the sky the color of a dusty blackboard. Lights in my yard had come on, the house so silent I was conscious of the clock ticking on the wall. It was shortly after four and Lucy had not returned from the club. I dialed the number for my car phone and no one answered. She had never driven in snow before, I thought anxiously: And I needed to go to the store to pick up fish for dinner. I could call the club and have her paged. I told myself that was ridiculous. Lucy had been gone barely two hours. She was not a child anymore. When it got to be four-thirty, I tried my car phone again. At five I called the club and they could not find her. I began to panic.

"Are you sure sheas not on the StairMaster or maybe in the womenas locker room taking a shower? Or maybe she stopped by the mixed grill?" I again asked the young woman in the pro shop.

"Weave paged her four times, Dr. Scarpetta. And Iave gone around looking. Iall check again. If I locate her, Iall have her call you immediately."

"Do you know if she ever showed up at all? She should have gotten there around two."

"Gosh. I just came on at four. I donat know."

I continued calling my car phone.

"The Richmond Cellular customer you have dialed does not answer a"

I tried Marino and he wasnat home or at headquarters. At six oaclock I stood in the kitchen staring out the window. Snow streaked down in the chalky glow of streetlights. My heart beat hard as I paced from room to room and continued calling my car phone. At half past six I had decided to file a missing person report with the police when the telephone rang. Running back to my study, I was reaching for the receiver when I noticed the familiar number eerily materializing on the Caller ID screen. The calls had stopped after the night of Waddellas execution I had not thought about them since. Bewildered, I froze, waiting for the expected hang up to. follow my recorded message. I was shocked when I recognized the voice that began to speak.

"I hate to do this to you, Doca" s.n.a.t.c.hing up the receiver, I cleared my throat and said in disbelief, "Marino?"

"Yeah,- he said. "I got bad news."

4.

Where are you?" I demanded, my eyes riveted to the number on the screen.

"East End, and itas coming down like a b.i.t.c.h," Marino said. "We got a DOA. White female. At a glance appears to be your typical CO suicide, car inside the garage, hose hooked up to the exhaust pipe. But the circ.u.mstances are a little weird. I think you better come."

"Where are you placing this call from?" I asked so adamantly that he hesitated. I could feel his surprise.

"The decedentas house. Just got here. Thatas the other thing. It wasnat secured. The back was unlocked."

I heard the garage door. "Oh, thank G.o.d. Marino, hold on," I said, flooded with relief.

Paper bags crackled as the kitchen door shut.

Placing my hand over the receiver, I called out, "Lucy, is that you?"

"No, Frosty the Snowman. You ought to see it coming down out there! Itas awesome!"

Reaching for pen and paper, I said to Marino, "The decedentas name and address?"

"Jennifer Deighton. Two-one-seven Ewing." I did not recognize the name. Ewing was off Williamsburg Road, not too far from the airport in a neighborhood unfamiliar to me.

Lucy walked into my study as I was hanging up the phone. Her face was rosy from the cold, eyes spark ling.

"Where in G.o.das name have you been?" I snapped.

Her smile faded. "Errands."

"Well, weall discuss this later. Iave got to go to a scene."

She shrugged and returned my irritation. "So what else is new?"

"Iam sorry. Itas not as if I have control over people dying." Grabbing coat and gloves, I hurried out to the garage. I started the engine, buckled up, adjusted the heat, and studied my directions before remembering the automatic door opener attached to the visor. Itas amazing how quickly an enclosed s.p.a.ce will fill with fumes.

"Good G.o.d," I said severely to no one but my own distracted self as I quickly opened the garage door.

Poisoning by motor vehicle exhaust is an easy way to die. Young couples necking in the backseat, engine running and heater on, drift off in each otheras arms and never wake up. Suicidal individuals turn cars into small gas chambers and leave their problems for others to solve. I had neglected to ask Marino if Jennifer Deighton lived alone.

The snow was already several inches deep, the night lit up by it. There was no traffic in my neighborhood and very little when I got on the downtown expressway. Christmas music played nonstop on the radio as my thoughts flew in a riot of bewilderment and alighted, one by one, on fear. Jennifer Deighton had been calling my number and hanging up, or someone using her telephone had. Now she was dead. The overpa.s.s curved above the east end of downtown, where railroad tracks crisscrossed the earth like sutured wounds, and concrete parking decks were higher than many of the buildings. Main Street station hulked out of the milky sky, tile roof frosted white, the clock in its tower a bleary Cyclops eye.

On Williamsburg Road I drove very slowly past a deserted shopping center, and just before the city turned into Henrico County, I found Ewing Avenue. Houses were small, with pickup trucks and old model American cars parked out front. At the 217 address, police cars were in the drive and on both sides of the street. Pulling in behind Marinoas Ford, I got out with my medical bag and walked to the end of the unpaved driveway where the single-car garage was lit up like a Christmas creche. The door was rolled up, police officers gathered inside around a beat-up beige Chevrolet. I found Marino squatting by the back door on the driveras side, studying a section of green garden hose leading from the exhaust pipe through a partially opened window. The interior of the car was filthy with soot, the smell of fumes lingering on the cold, damp air.

"The ignitionas still switched on," Marino said to me. "The car ran out of gas."

The dead woman appeared to be in her fifties or early sixties. She was slumped over on her right side behind the steering wheel, the exposed flesh of her neck and hands bright pink. Dried b.l.o.o.d.y fluid stained the tan upholstery beneath her head. From where I stood, I could not see her face. Opening my medical bag, I got out a chemical thermometer to take the temperature inside the garage, and put on a pair of surgical gloves. I asked a young officer if he could open the caras front doors.

"We were just about to dust," he said.

"Iall wait."

"Johnson, how about dusting the door handles so the doc here can get in the car."

He fixed dark Latin eyes on me. "By the way, Iam Tom Lucero. What we got here is a situation that doesnat completely add up. To begin with, it bothers me thereas blood on the front seat."

"There are several possible explanations for that," I said. "One is postmortem purging."

He narrowed his eyes a little.

"When pressure in the lungs forces b.l.o.o.d.y fluid from the nose and mouth," I explained.

"Oh. Generally, that doesnat happen until the personas started to decompose, right?"

"Generally."

"Based on what we know, this ladyas been dead maybe twenty-four hours and itas cold as a morgue fridge in here."

"True," I said. "But if she had her heater running, that in addition to the hot exhaust pouring in would have heated up the inside of the car, and it would have stayed quite warm until the car ran out of gas."

Marino peered through a window opaque with soot and said, "Looks like the heateras pushed all the way to hot."

"Another possibility," I continued, "is that when she became unconscious, she slumped over, striking her face on the steering wheel, the dash, the seat. Her nose could have bled. She could have bitten her tongue or split her lip. I wonat know until I examine her."

"Okay, but how about the way sheas dressed?"

Lucero said. "Strike you as unusual that shead walk out in the cold, come inside a cold garage, hook up the hose, and get into a cold car with nothing but a gown on?"

The pale blue gown was ankle-length, with long sleeves, and made of what looked like a flimsy synthetic material. There is no dress code for people who commit suicide. It would have been logical for Jennifer Deighton to put on coat and shoes before venturing outside on a frigid winter night. But if she had planned to take her life, she would have known she would not feel the cold long.

The ID officer had finished dusting the car doors. I retrieved the chemical thermometer. It was twenty-nine degrees inside the garage.

"When did you get here?" I asked Lucero.

"Maybe an hour and a half ago. Obviously, it was warmer in here before we opened the door, but not much. The garage isnat heated. Plus, the car hood was cold. Iam guessing the car ran out of gas and the battery went dead a number of hours before we were called."