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staying?”
         “Not far from here.”

    Chapter 6

         The state Medical Examiner’s Office is located where most are, on the fringe of a nicer part of town, usually at the outer limits of a medical school. The red-brick-and-concrete complex backs up to the Massachusetts Turnpike, and on the other side of it is the Suffolk County House of Corrections. There is no view and the noise of traffic never stops.
         Benton parks at the back door and notes only two other cars in the lot. The dark-blue Crown Victoria belongs to Detective Thrush. The Honda SUV probably belongs to a forensic pathologist who doesn’t get paid enough and probably wasn’t happy when Thrush persuaded him to come in at this hour. Benton rings the bell and scans the empty back parking lot, never assuming he is safe or alone, and then the door opens and Thrush is motioning him inside.
         “Jeez, I hate this place at night,” Thrush says.
         “There’s not much to like about it any time of day,” Benton remarks.
         “I’m glad you came. Can’t believe you’re out in that,” he says, looking out at the black Porsche as he shuts the door behind them. “In this weather? You crazy?”
         “All-wheel drive. It wasn’t snowing when I went to work this morning.”
         “These other psychologists I’ve worked with, they never come out, snow, rain or shine,” Thrush says. “Not the profilers, either. Most FBI I’ve met have never seen a dead body.”
         “Except for the ones at headquarters.”
         “No shit. We got plenty of them at state police headquarters, too. Here.”
         He hands Benton an envelope as they follow a corridor.
         “Got everything on a disk for you. All the scene and autopsy pictures, whatever’s written up so far. It’s all there. It’s supposed to snow like a bitch.”
         Benton thinks of Scarpetta again. Tomorrow is Valentine’s Day, and they’re supposed to spend the evening together, have a romantic dinner on the harbor. She’s supposed to stay through Presidents’ Day weekend. They haven’t seen each other in almost a month. She may not be able to get here.
         “I heard light snow showers are predicted,” Benton says.
         “A storm’s moving in from the Cape. Hope you got something to drive other than that million-dollar sports car.”
         Thrush is a big man who has spent his life in Massachusetts and talks like it. There isn’t a single R in his vocabulary. In his fifties, he has military-short gray hair and is dressed in a rumpled brown suit, has probably worked nonstop all day. He and Benton follow the well-lit corridor. It is spotless and scented with air deodorizer and lined with storage and evidence rooms, all of them requiring electronic passes. There is even a crash cart—Benton can’t imagine why—and a scanning electron microscope, the facility the most spacious and best equipped of any morgue he has ever seen. Staffing is another story.
         The office has suffered crippling personnel problems for years because of low salaries that fail to attract competent forensic pathologists and other staff. Added to this are alleged mistakes and misdeeds resulting in scathing controversies and public-relations problems that make life and death difficult for everyone involved. The office isn’t open to the media or to outsiders, and hostility and distrust are pervasive. Benton would rather come here late at night. To visit during business hours is to feel unwelcome and resented.
         He and Thrush pause outside the closed door of an autopsy room that is used in high-profile cases or those that are considered a biohazard or bizarre. His cell phone vibrates. He looks at the display. No ID is usually her.
         “Hi,” Scarpetta says. “I hope your night’s been better than mine.”
         “I’m at the morgue.” Then, to Thrush, “One minute.”
         “That can’t be