Palm trees thrash in the wind beyond the conference-room windows. It will rain, Scarpetta thinks. It looks like a bad thunderstorm is headed her way, and Marino is late again and still hasn’t returned her phone calls.

“Good morning and let’s get going,” she says to her staff. “We’ve got a lot to go over, and it’s already quarter of nine.”

She hates being late. She hates it when someone else causes her to be late, and in this instance, it’s Marino. Again, it’s Marino. He is ruining her routines. He is ruining everything.

“This evening, hopefully, I’ll be on a plane, heading toBoston,” she says. “Providing my reservation isn’t magically cancelled again.”

“The airlines are so screwed up,” Joe says. “No wonder they’re all going bankrupt.”

“We’ve been asked to take a look at aHollywoodcase, a possible suicide that has some disturbing circumstances associated with it,” she begins.

“There’s one thing I’d like to bring up first,” says Vince, the firearms examiner.

“Go ahead.” Scarpetta slides eight-by-ten photographs out of an envelope and begins passing them around the table.

“Someone was test-firing in the indoor range about an hour ago.” He looks pointedly at Joe. “It wasn’t on the schedule.”

“I meant to reserve the indoor range last night but forgot,” Joe says. “No one was waiting for it.”

“You’ve got to reserve it. It’s the only way we can keep track of…”

“I was trying out a new batch of ballistic gelatin, where I used hot water instead of cold to see if it made any difference in the calibration test. A difference of one centimeter. Good news. It passed.”

“There’s probably a difference of plus or minus one centimeter every time you mix up the damn stuff,” Vince says irritably.

“We aren’t supposed to use any block that isn’t valid. So I’m constantly checking the calibration and trying to perfect it. That requires me to spend a lot of time in the firearms lab. It’s not my choice.”

Joe looks at Scarpetta.

“Ordnance gelatin is one of my assignments.”

He looks at her again.

“I hope you remembered to use stopper blocks before you started pounding the back wall with a lot of firepower,” Vince says. “I’ve asked you before.”

“You know the rules, Dr. Amos,” Scarpetta says.

In front of his colleagues, she always calls him Dr. Amos instead of Joe. She shows him more respect than he deserves.

“We have to enter everything in the log,” she adds. “Every firearm removed from the reference collection, every round, every test-fire. Our protocols must be followed.”

“Yes, ma’am.”

“There are legal implications. Most of our cases end up in court,” she adds.

“Yes, ma’am.”

“All right.” She tells them about Johnny Swift.

She tells them that in early November he had surgery on his wrists, and soon after came toHollywoodto stay with his brother. They were identical twins. The day before Thanksgiving, the brother,Laurel, went out shopping and returned to the house at approximatelyfour thirty p.m.After carrying in the groceries, he discovered Dr. Swift on the couch, dead from a shotgun wound to the chest.

“I sort of remember this case,” Vince says. “It was in the news.”

“Well, I happen to remember Dr. Swift very well,” Joe says. “He used to call Dr. Self. Once when I was on her show, he called in, gave her hell about Tourette’s syndrome, and I happen to agree with her, usually nothing more than an excuse for bad behavior. He rambled on about neurochemical dysfunction, about abnormalities of the brain. Quite the expert,” he says sarcastically.

Nobody is interested in Joe’s appearances on Dr. Self’s show. Nobody is interested in his appearances on any show.

“What about an ejected shell and the weapon?” Vince asks Scarpetta.

“According to the police report, Laurel Swift noted a shotgun on the floor some three feet behind the back of the couch. No shell casing.”

“Well, that’s a bit unusual. He shoots himself in the chest and then somehow manages to toss the shotgun over the back of the couch?” It is Joe talking again. “I’m not seeing a scene photograph with the shotgun.”

“The brother claims he saw the shotgun on the floor behind the couch. I say claims. We’ll get to that part in a minute,” Scarpetta says.

“What about gunshot residue on him?”

“I’m sorry Marino isn’t here, since he’s our investigator in this case and working closely with theHollywoodpolice,” she replies, keeping her feelings about him barricaded. “All I know is thatLaurel’s clothing wasn’t tested for GSR.”

“What about his hands?”

“Positive for GSR. But he claims he touched him, shook him, got blood on him. So theoretically, that could explain it. A few more details. His wrists were in splints when he died, his blood alcohol point-one, and according to the police report, there were numerous empty wine bottles in the kitchen.”

“We sure he was drinking alone?”

“We’re not sure of anything.”

“Sounds like holding a heavy shotgun might not have been easy for him if he’d just had surgery.”

“Possibly,” Scarpetta says. “And if you can’t use your hands, then what?”

“Your feet.”

“It can be done. I tried it with my twelve-gauge Remington. Unloaded,” she adds a little humor.

She tried it herself because Marino didn’t show up. He didn’t call. He didn’t care.

“I don’t have photographs of the demonstration,” she says, diplomatic enough not to add that the reason she doesn’t have them is because Marino didn’t show up. “Suffice it to say the blast would have kicked the gun back, or maybe his foot jerked and kicked the gun back, and the shotgun would have fallen off the back of the couch. Saying he killed himself. No abrasions on either of his big toes, by the way.”

“A contact wound?” Vince asks.

“Density of soot on his shirt, the abraded margin and diameter and shape of the wound, the absence of petal marks from the wad, which was still in the body, are consistent with a contact wound. Problem is, we have a gross inconsistency, which, in my opinion, is due to the medical examiner relying on a radiologist for a distance determination.”

“Who?”

“It’s Dr. Bronson’s case,” she says, and several of the scientists groan.

“Jesus, he’s as old as the damn Pope. When the hell’s he going to retire?”

“The Pope died,” Joe jokes.

“Thank you, CNN news flash.”

“The radiologist decided the shotgun wound is a, quote, distant wound,” Scarpetta resumes. “A distance of at least three feet. Uh-oh. Now we have a homicide, because you couldn’t possibly hold the barrel of a shotgun three feet from your own chest, now could you?”

Several clicks of the mouse, and a digital x-ray of Johnny Swift’s fatal shotgun blast is sharply displayed on the smart board. Shotgun pellets look like a storm of tiny white bubbles floating through the ghostly shapes of ribs.

“The pellets are spread out,” Scarpetta points out, “and to give the radiologist a little credit, the spread of the pellets inside the chest is consistent with a range of three or four feet, but what I think we’re dealing with here is a perfect example of the billiard-ball effect.”

She clears the x-ray off the smart board and collects several styluses, different ones for different colors.

“The leading pellets slowed when they entered the body and were then hit by the trailing pellets, causing colliding pellets to ricochet and spread out into a pattern that simulates distant-range fire,” she explains, drawing red ricocheting pellets hitting blue pellets like billiard balls. “Therefore simulating a distant gunshot wound, when in fact, it wasn’t a distant shot at all but a contact wound.”

“None of the neighbors heard a shotgun blast?”

“Apparently not.”

“Maybe a lot of people were out on the beach or out of town for the Thanksgiving holiday.”

“Maybe.”

“What kind of shotgun, and whose was it?”

“All we can tell is it’s a twelve-gauge, based on the pellets,” Scarpetta says. “Apparently, the shotgun disappeared before the police showed up.”