'Okay, now what?' Marino asked as he followed me through the center of the firearms lab, past scientists busy processing bloody clothing under biohazard hoods, and others examining a Phillips screwdriver and machete at a big U-shaped counter.

'Now I go shopping,' I said.

I did not slow down as I talked but, in fact, was getting more frantic because I knew I was getting closer to reconstructing what Carrie or her accomplice or someone had done.

'What do you mean, shopping?'

Through the wall I could hear the muffled bangs of test fires in the range.

'Why don't you check on Lucy?' I said. 'And I'll get back to both of you later.'

'I don't like it when you do this later shit,' Marino said as elevator doors parted. 'That means you're running around on your own and poking your nose in things that maybe you shouldn't. And this ain't the time for you to be out on the street with nobody around. We got not a clue where Carrie is.'

'That's right, we don't,' I said. 'But I'm hoping that's going to change.'

We got out on the first floor, and I headed with purpose to the door leading to the bay, where I unlocked my car. Marino looked so frustrated, I thought he might launch into a tantrum.

'You want to tell me where the hell you're going?' he demanded at the top of his voice.

'A sports store,' I said, cranking the engine. 'The biggest one I can find.'

That turned out to be Jumbo Sports south of the James, very close to the neighborhood where Marino lived, which was the only reason I was aware of the store, since prowling for basketballs, frisbees, free weights, and golf clubs rarely entered my mind.

I took the Powhite Parkway, and two toll booths later was exiting on Midlothian Turnpike, heading toward downtown. The sports store was -big and built of red brick, with stick figures of red-painted athletes framed in white on the outside walls. The parking lot was unexpectedly full for this time of day, and I wondered how many well-toned people spent their lunch hours here.

I had no idea where anything was and had to take a few moments to study the signs above miles of rows. Boxing gloves were on sale, and there were exercise machines capable of tortures I did not know. Racks of clothes for every sport were endless and in blazing colors, and I wondered what had happened to civilized white, which was still what I wore on the much-appreciated occasion I found time to play tennis. I deduced that knives would be with camping and hunting gear, a generous area against the back wall. There were bows and arrows, targets, tents, canoes, mess kits, and camouflage, and at this hour, I was the only woman who seemed interested. At first, no one was inclined to wait on me as I hovered patiently over a showcase of knives.

A sunburnt man was looking for a BB gun for his son's tenth birthday, while an older man in a white suit was inquiring about snakebite kits and mosquito repellent. When my patience was no more, I interrupted.

'Excuse me,' I said.

The clerk, who was college age, didn't seem to hear me at first.

'Thing is, you should check with your doctor before using a snakebite kit,' the clerk was saying to the elderly man in white.

'How the hell am I supposed to do that when I'm out in the middle of the woods somewhere and some copperhead's just bit me?'

'I meant check with him before you go out in the woods, sir.'

As I listened to their backward logic I could stand it no longer.

'Snakebite kits are not only useless, but they're harmful,' I said. 'Tourniquets and local incision, sucking out the venom and all that just make matters worse. If you get bitten,' I said to the man in white, 'what you need to do is immobilize that part of your body, and avoid damaging first aid, and get to a hospital.'

The two men were startled.

'So there's no point in taking anything along?' the man in white asked me. 'No point in buying anything, you're saying?'

'Nothing but a good pair of boots and a walking stick you can poke around with,' I replied. 'Stay out of tall grass and don't stick your hands into hollows or holes. Since venom is transported through the body by the lymphatic system, broad compression bandages - like an Ace bandage - are good, and a splint to keep the limb absolutely immobilized.'

'You some kind of doctor?' the clerk asked.

'I've dealt with snake bites before.'

I didn't add that in those instances, the victims had not lived.

'I'm just wondering if you have knife sharpeners here,' I said to the clerk.

'Kitchen sharpeners or ones for camping?'

'Let's start with camping,' I said.

He pointed to a wall where a vast variety of whetstones and other types of sharpeners hung from pegs. Some were metal, others ceramic. All of the brands were proprietary enough not to reveal the composition on the packages. I scanned some more, my eyes stopping on a small package on the bottom row. Beneath clear plastic was a simple rectangular block of grayish-silver metal. It was called a fire starter and was made of magnesium. Excitement mounted as I read the instructions. To start a fire, one simply needed to scrape a knife on the surface of the magnesium and build a pile of shavings as small as the size of a quarter. Matches weren't necessary, for the fire starter included a sparking insert for ignition.

I hurried back through the store with half a dozen of the magnesium starters in hand, and in my haste got tangled up in one section, then another. I wound through bowling balls and shoes, and baseball gloves, and ended up in swimming, where I was instantly captivated by a display of neon-colored swimming caps. One of them was hot pink. I thought of the residue found in Claire Rawley's hair. I had believed from the start that she had been wearing something on her head when she was murdered, or at least when the fire reached her.

A shower cap had been considered but briefly, for its thin, plastic material wouldn't have lasted five seconds in the heat. What had never entered my mind was a swimming cap, and as I quickly riffled through racks of them, I discovered that all were made of Lycra or latex or silicone.

The pink one was silicone, which I knew would hold up in extreme temperatures far better than the others. I purchased several of them. I drove back to my office and was lucky I didn't get a ticket because I was passing people, no matter the lane. Images seized my mind, and they were too painful and horrific to entertain. This was one time I hoped my theory was wrong. I was speeding back to the labs because I had to know.

'Oh Benton,' I muttered as if he were near me. 'Please don't let this be so.'

20

IT WAS ONE-THIRTY when I parked inside the bay again and got out of my car. I walked quickly to the elevator and keyed myself back up to the third floor. I was looking for Jerri Garmon, who had examined the pink residue in the beginning and reported to me that it was silicone.

Ducking into doorways, I located her inside a room housing the latest instrumentation used in analyzing organic substances, ranging from heroin to paint binders. She was using a syringe to inject a sample into a heated chamber of the gas chromatograph and did not notice me until I spoke.

'Jerri,' I said, and I was out of breath. 'I hate to disturb you but I've got something I think you'll want to look at.'

I held up the pink swimming cap. Her reaction was completely blank.

'Silicone,' I said.

Her eyes lit up.

'Wow! A swimming cap? Boy howdy. Who would have thought that?' she said. 'Just goes to show you, there's too much to keep up with these days.'

'Can we burn it?' I asked.

'This has got to run for a while anyway. Come on. Now you've got me curious, too.'

The actual trace evidence labs, where evidence was processed before it was routed through complicated instruments such as the SEM and mass spectrometer, was spacious but already running out of room. Scores of airtight aluminum paint cans used in the collection of fire debris and flammable residues were in pyramids on shelves, and there were big jars of granular blue Drierite, and petri dishes, beakers, charcoal tubes, and the usual brown paper bags of evidence. The test I had in mind was easy and quick.