Suddenly Carrie was everywhere. She was the thin woman in sunglasses and baseball cap walking along my street, or the driver pulling up close behind me at the toll plaza, or the homeless woman in a shapeless coat who stared at me as I crossed Broad Street. She was anyone white with punk hair and body piercing, or anyone androgynous or oddly dressed, and all the while I kept telling myself I had not seen Carrie in more than five years. I had no idea what she looked like now and quite possibly would not recognize her until it was too late.

The bay door was open when I parked behind my office, and Bliley's Funeral Home was loading a body into the back of a shiny black hearse, as the rhythm continued of bringing and taking away.

'Pretty weather,' I said to the attendant in his neat dark suit.

'Fine, how are you?' came the reply of someone who no longer listened.

Another well-dressed man climbed out to help, and stretcher legs clacked and the tailgate slammed shut. I waited for them to drive off, and I rolled down the big door after them.

My first stop was Fielding's office. It was not quite quarter after eight.

'How are we doing?' I asked as I knocked on his door. 'Come in,' he said.

He was scanning books on his shelves, his lab coat straining around his powerful shoulders. Life was difficult for my deputy chief, who rarely could find clothes that fit, since he basically had no waist or hips. I remembered our first company picnic at my house, when he had lounged in the sun with nothing but cut-offs on. I had been amazed and slightly embarrassed that I could scarcely take my eyes off him, not because I had any thoughts of bed, but rather his raw physical beauty had briefly held me hostage. I could not comprehend how anyone could find time to look like that.

'I guess you've seen the paper,' he said.

'The letter,' I said as my mood sunk.

'Yes.'

He slid out an outdated PDR and set it on the floor.

'Front page with a photo of you and an old mug shot of her. I'm sorry you have to put up with shit like this,' he said, hunting for other books. 'The phones up front are going crazy.'

'What have we got this morning?' I changed the subject.

'Last night's car wreck from Midlothian Turnpike, passenger and driver killed. They're views, and DeMaio's already started on them. Other than that, nothing else.'

'That's enough,' I said. 'I've got court.'

'Thought you were on vacation.'

'So did I.'

'Seriously. Didn't get it continued. What? You were gonna have to come back from Hilton Head?'

'Judge Bowls.'

'Huh,' Fielding said with disgust. 'He's done this to you how many times now? I think he waits to find out your void dates so he can decide on a court date that will totally screw you. Then what? You bust your butt to get back here and half the time he continues the case.'

'I'm on the pager,' I said.

'And you can guess what I'll be doing.'

He pointed at the paperwork cascading from piles on his desk.

'I'm so behind I need a rearview mirror,' he quipped.

'There's no point in nagging you,' I said.

The John Marshall Courts Building was but a ten-minute walk from our new location, and I thought the exercise would do me good. The morning was bright, the air cool and clean as I followed the sidewalk along Leigh Street and turned south on Ninth, passing police headquarters, my pocketbook over my shoulder and an accordion file tucked under an arm.

This morning's case was the mundane result of one drug dealer killing another, and I was surprised to see at least a dozen reporters on the third floor, outside the courtroom door. At first I thought Rose had made a mistake on my schedule, for it never occurred to me that the media might have been there for me.

But the minute I was spotted, they hurried my way with television cameras shouldered, microphones pointed, and flashguns going off. At first I was startled, then I was angry.

'Dr Scarpetta, what is your response to Carrie Grethen's letter?' asked a reporter from Channel 6.

'No comment,' I said as I frantically cast about for the commonwealth's attorney who had summoned me here to testify in his case.

'What about the conspiracy allegation?'

'Between you and your FBI lover?'

'That would be Benton Wesley?'

'What is your niece's reaction?'

I shoved past a cameraman, my nerves hopping like faulty wiring as my heart flew. I shut myself inside the small windowless witness room and sat in a wooden chair. I felt trapped and foolish, and wondered how I could have been so thick as not to consider that something like this might happen after what Carrie had done. I opened the accordion file and began going through various reports and diagrams, envisioning gunshot entrances and exits and which had been fatal. I stayed in my airless space for almost half an hour until the Commonwealth's attorney found me. We spoke for several minutes before I took the stand.

What ensued brought to fruition what had happened in the hallway moments before, and I found myself disassociating from the core of myself to survive what was nothing more than a ruthless attack.

'Dr Scarpetta,' said defense attorney Will Lampkin, who had been trying to get the best of me for years, 'how many times have you testified in this court?'

'I object,' said the C.A.

'Overruled,' said Judge Bowls, my fan.

'I've never counted,' I replied.

'But surely you can give us an estimate. More than a dozen? More than a hundred? A million?'

'More than a hundred,' I said as I felt his lust for blood.

'And you have always told the truth to the juries and the judges?'

Lampkin paced slowly, a pious expression on his florid face, hands clamped behind his back.

'I have always told the truth,' I answered.

'And you don't consider it somewhat dishonest, Dr Scarpetta, to sleep with the FBI?'

'I object!' The C.A. was on his feet.

'Objection sustained,' said the judge as he stared down at Lampkin, egging him on, really. 'What is your point, Mr Lampkin?'

'My point, Your Honor, is conflict of interest. It is widely known that Dr Scarpetta has an intimate relationship with at least one law enforcement individual she has worked cases with, and she has also influenced law enforcement - both the FBI and ATF - when it comes to her niece's career.'

'I object!'

'Overruled. Please get to the point, Mr Lampkin,' said the judge as he reached for his water and goaded some more.

'Thank you, Your Honor,' Lampkin said with excruciating deference. 'What I'm trying to illustrate is an old pattern here.'

The four whites and eight blacks sat politely in the jury box, staring back and forth from Lampkin to me as if they were watching a tennis match. Some of them were scowling. One was picking at a fingernail while another seemed asleep.

'Dr Scarpetta, isn't it true that you tend to manipulate situations to suit you?'

'I object! He's badgering the witness!'

'Overruled,' the judge said. 'Dr Scarpetta, please answer the question.'

'No, I absolutely do not tend to do that,' I said with feeling as I looked at the jurors.

Lampkin plucked a sheet of paper off the table where his felonious nineteen-year-old client sat.

'According to this morning's newspaper,' Lampkin hurried ahead, 'you've been manipulating law enforcement for years…'

'Your Honor! I object! This is outrageous!'

'Overruled,' the judge coolly stated.

'It says right here in black and white that you have conspired with the FBI to send an innocent woman to the electric chair!'

Lampkin approached the jurors and waved the photocopied article in their faces.

'Your Honor, for God's sake!' exclaimed the C.A., sweating through his suit jacket.

'Mr Lampkin, please get on with your cross-examination,' Judge Bowls said to the overweight, thick-necked Lampkin.