I parked behind my building at a quarter after seven and for a while sat in my car, staring at cracked blacktop, dingy stucco and the sagging chain-link fence around the parking lot.

Behind me were railroad trestles and the 1-95 overpass, then the outer limits of a downtown boarded up and battered by crime. There were no trees or plantings and very little grass. My appointment to this position certainly had never included a view, but right now I did not care. I missed my office and my staff, and all that I looked at was comforting.

Inside the morgue, I stopped by the office to check on the day's cases. A suicide needed to be viewed along with an eighty-year-old woman who had died at home from untreated carcinoma of the breast. An entire family had been killed yesterday afternoon when their car was struck by a train, and my heart was heavy as I read their names. Deciding to take care of the views while I waited for my assistant chiefs, I unlocked the walk-in refrigerator and doors leading into the autopsy suite.

The three tables were polished bright, the tile floor very clean. I scanned cubbyholes stacked with forms, carts neatly lined with instruments and test tubes, steel shelves arranged with camera equipment and film. In the locker room I checked linens and starchy lab coats as I put on plastic apron and gown, then went out in the hall to a cart of surgical masks, shoe covers, face shields.

Pulling on gloves, I continued my inspection as I went inside the refrigerator to retrieve the first case. Bodies were in black pouches on top of gurneys, the air properly chilled to thirty-four degrees and adequately deodorized considering we had a full house. I checked toe tags until I found the right one, and I wheeled the gurney out.

No one else would be in for another hour, and I cherished the silence. I did not even need to lock the autopsy suite doors because it was too early for the elevator across the hall to be busy with forensic scientists going upstairs. I couldn't find any paperwork on the suicide and checked the office again. The report of sudden death had been placed in the wrong box. The date scribbled on it was incorrect by two days, and much of the form had not been completed. The only other information it offered was the name of the decedent and that the body had been delivered at three o'clock this morning by Sauls Mortuary, which made no sense.

My office used three removal services for the pickup and delivery of dead bodies. These three local funeral homes were on call twenty-four hours a day, and any medical examiner case in central Virginia should be handled by one of them. I did not understand why the suicide had been delivered by a funeral home we had no contract with, and why the driver had not signed his name. I felt a rush of irritation. I had been gone but a few days and the system was falling apart. I went to the phone and called the night-time security guard, whose shift did not end for another half hour.

'This is Dr. Scarpetta,' I said when he answered.

'Yes, ma'am.'

'To whom am I speaking, please?'

'Evans.'

'Mr. Evans, an alleged suicide was delivered at three o'clock this morning.'

'Yes, ma'am. I let him in.'

'Who delivered him?'

He paused. 'Uh, I think it was Sauls.'

'We don't use Sauls.'

He got quiet,

'I think you'd better come over here,' I said to him.

He hesitated. 'To the morgue?'

'That's where I am.'

He stalled again. I could feel his strong resistance. Many people who worked in the building could not deal with the morgue. They did not want to come near it, and I had yet to employ a security guard who would so much as poke his head inside the refrigerator. Many guards and most cleaning-crews did not work for me long.

While I waited for this fearless guard named Evans, I unzipped the black pouch, which looked new. The victim's head was covered by a black plastic garbage bag that had been tied around the neck with a shoelace. He was clothed in blood-soaked pajamas and wore a thick gold bracelet and Rolex watch. Peeking out of the breast pocket of his pajama top was what appeared to be a pink envelope. I took a step back, getting weak in the knees.

I ran to the doors, slammed them shut and turned dead bolt locks as I fumbled inside my pocketbook for my revolver. Lipsticks and hairbrush clattered to the floor. I thought of the locker room, of places one could hide as I dialed the telephone, my hands trembling. Depending on how warmly he was dressed, he could hide inside the refrigerator, I frantically thought as I envisioned the many gurneys and black body bags on top of them. I hurried to the great steel door and snapped the padlock on the handle while I waited for Marino to return my page.

The phone rang in five minutes just as Evans began tentatively knocking on the locked autopsy suite doors.

'Hold on,' I called out to him. 'Stay right there.' I picked up the phone.

'Yo,' Marino said over the line.

'Get here right now,' I said, fighting to hold my voice steady as I tightly gripped the gun.

'What is it?' He got alarmed.

'Hurry!' I said.

I hung up and dialed 911. Then I spoke through the door to Evans.

'The police are coming,' I said loudly.

'The police?' His voice went up.

'We've got a terrible problem in here.' My heart would not slow down. 'You go on upstairs and wait in the conference room, is that clear?'

'Yes, ma'am. I'm on my way there now.'

A Formica counter ran half the length of the wall and I climbed on top of it, positioning myself in such a way that I was sitting near the telephone and could see every door. I held the Smith amp; Wesson.38 and wished I had my Browning or Marino's Benelli shotgun. I watched the black pouch on the gurney as if it might move.

The telephone rang and I jumped. I grabbed the receiver.

'Morgue.' My voice trembled.

Silence.

'Hello?' I asked more strongly.

No one spoke.

I hung up and got off the counter as anger began pumping through me and quickly turned to rage. It dispelled my fear like sun burning off mist. I unlocked the double doors leading into the corridor and stepped inside the morgue office again. Above the telephone were four strips of Scotch tape and corners of torn paper left when someone had ripped the in-house telephone list off the wall. On that list was the morgue's number and my direct line upstairs.

'Dammit!' I exclaimed under my breath. 'Dammit, dammit, dammit!'

The buzzer sounded in the bay as I wondered what else had been tampered with or taken. I thought about my office upstairs as I went out and pushed a button on the wall. The great door screeched open. Marino, in uniform, stood on its other side with two patrolmen and a detective. They ran past me to the autopsy suite, holsters unsnapped. I followed them and set my revolver on the counter because I did not think I would need it now.

'What the hell's going on?' Marino asked as he looked blankly at the body in its unzipped pouch.

The other officers looked on, not seeing anything wrong. Then they looked at me and the revolver I had just set down.

'Dr. Scarpetta? What seems to be the problem?' asked the detective, whose name I did not know.

I explained about the removal service while they listened with no expression on their faces.

'And he came in with what appears to be a note in his pocket. What police investigator would allow that? What police department is working this, for that matter? There's no mention of one,' I said, next pointing out that the head was bagged with a garbage bag tied with a shoelace.

'What does the note say?' asked the detective, who wore a belted dark coat, cowboy boots, and a gold Rolex that I was certain was counterfeit.

'I haven't touched it,' I said. 'I thought it wise to wait until you got here.'

'I think we'd better look,' he said.

With gloved hands, I slid the envelope out of the pocket, touching as little of the paper as I could. I was startled to see my name and home address neatly written on the front of it in black fountain ink. The letter also was affixed with a stamp. Carrying it to the counter, I carefully slit it open with a scalpel and unfolded a single sheet of stationery that by now was chillingly familiar. The note read:

HO! HO! HO! CAIN

'Who's CAIN?' an officer asked as I untied the shoelace and removed the trash bag from the dead man's head.

'Oh shit,' the detective said, taking a step back.

'Holy Christ,' Marino exclaimed.

Sheriff Santa had been shot between the eyes, a nine-millimeter shell stuck in his left ear. The firing pin impression was distinctly Glock. I sat down in a chair and looked around. No one seemed quite sure what to do. This had never happened before. People didn't commit homicides and then deliver their victims to the morgue.

'The night-shift security guard is upstairs,' I said, trying to catch my breath.

'He was here when this was delivered?' Marino lit a cigarette, eyes darting.

'Apparently.'

'I'm gonna go talk to him,' said Marino, who was in command, for we were in his precinct. He looked at his officers. 'You guys poke around down here and out in the bay. See what you find. Put something out over the air without tipping off the media. Gault's been here. He may still be in the area.' He glanced at his watch, then looked at me. 'What's the guy's name upstairs?'

'Evans.'

'You know him?'

'Vaguely.'

'Come on,' he said.

'Is someone going to secure this room?' I looked at the detective and two uniformed men.

'I will,' one of them said. 'But you might not want to leave your gun sitting there.'

I returned my revolver to my purse, which I carried with me. Marino stabbed the cigarette in an ash can, and we boarded the elevator across the hall. The instant the doors shut his face turned red. He lost his captain's composure.

'I'm not believing this!' He looked at me, eyes filled with fury. 'This can't happen, it just can't happen!'

Doors opened and he angrily strode down the hall on the floor where I had spent so much of my life.

'He should be in the conference room,' I said.

We passed my office and I barely glanced inside. I did not have time now to see if Gault had been in there. All he had to do was get on the elevator or climb the stairs, and he could have walked into my office. At three o'clock in the morning, who was going to check?

Inside the conference room, Evans sat stiffly in a chair about halfway between the head and foot of the table. Around the room many photographs of former chiefs gazed at me as I sat across from this security guard who had just allowed my workplace to be turned into a crime scene. Evans was an older black man who needed his job. He wore a khaki uniform with brown flaps over the pockets and carried a gun that I wondered if he knew how to use.