"What about the head injury?" I asked.

"Just a grazing wound that opened the flesh."

"Has Lucy been there at all? Maybe waiting outside the room? Her mother might be with her."

"She was there earlier. Alone," Dr. Worth replied. "Sometime this morning. I doubt she's still there."

"At least give me a chance to talk to Jo's parents."

He wouldn't answer me.

"Graham?"

Silence.

"For God's sake. They're comrades. They're best friends."

Silence.

"Are you still there?"

"Yes."

"Damn it, Graham, they love each other. Jo might not even know if Lucy's alive."

"Jo is very well aware your niece is fine. Jo doesn't want to see her," he said.

I got off the phone and stared at it. Somewhere in this goddamn city my sister was checked into a hotel, and she knew where Lucy was. I went through the Yellow Pages, starting with the Omni, the Jefferson, the obvious hotels. I soon found that Dorothy had checked into the Berkeley in the historic area of the city known as Shockhoe Slip.

She didn't answer the phone in her room. There were only so many places in Richmond where she could carouse on a Sunday, and I hurried out of the house and got into my car. The skyline was shrouded in clouds, and I valetparked my car in front of the Berkeley. I knew right away when I walked inside that Dorothy would not be here. The small, elegant hotel had an intimate, dark bar with highbacked leather chairs and a quiet clientele. The bartender wore a white jacket and was very attentive when I went up to him.

"I'm looking for my sister and wonder if she's been in here," I said. I described her andhe shook his head.

I walked back outside and crossed the cobblestone street to the Tobacco Company, an old tobacco warehouse that had been turned into a restaurant with an exposed glass and brass elevator constantly gliding up and down through an atrium of lush plants and exotic flowers. Just inside the front door was a piano bar with a dance floor, and I spotted Dorothy sitting at a table crowded with five men. I walked up to them, clearly on a mission.

People at nearby tables stopped talking, all eyes on me as if I were a gunslinger who had just pushed her way through a saloon's swinging doors.

"Excuse me," I politely said to the man on Dorothy's left. "Do you mind if I sit here for a moment?"

He did mind, but he surrendered his chair and wandered off to the bar. Dorothy's other companions shifted about uncomfortably.

"I've come to get you;" I said to Dorothy, who clearly had been drinking for a while.

"Well, look who's here!" she exclaimed, and she raised her stinger in a toast. "My big sister. Let me introduce you," she said to her companions.

"Be quiet and listen to me," I said in a low voice.

"My legendary big sister."

Dorothy always got mean when she drank. She didn't slur her words or bump into things, but she could sexually tease men into misery and use her tongue like a nettle. I was ashamed of her demeanor and the way she dressed, which sometimes seemed an intended parody of me.

This night she wore the handsome dark blue suit of a professional, but beneath the jacket her tight pink sweater offered her companions more than a hint of nipples. Dorothy had always been obsessed with her small breasts. To have men staring at them somehow reassured her.

"Dorothy;" I said, leaning closer to her ear, almost overwhelmed by Chanel Coco, "you need to come with me. We have to talk."

"Do you know who she is?" she went on as I cringed. "The chief medical examiner of this fine Commonwealth. Can you believe it? I have a big sister who's a coroner."Wow, that's got to be really interesting," one of the men said.

"What can I get you to drink?" said another.

"So what do you think is the truth about the Ramsey case? Think the parents did it?"

"I'd like somebody to prove those were really Amelia Earhart's bones they found:' "Where's the waitress?"

I put my hand on Dorothy's arm and we got up from the table. One thing was true about my sister: She had too much pride to cause a scene that didn't make her look clever and appealing. I escorted her out into a dispirited night of darkened windows and fog.

"I'm not going home with you," she announced, now that there was no one to hear. "And let go of my fucking arm.

She pulled in the direction of her hotel while I tugged her toward my car.

"You're coming with me and we're going to figure out what to do about Lucy."

"I saw her earlier at the hospital," she said.

I put her in the passenger's side.

"She didn't mention anything about you;" my oversensitive sister said.

I got in and locked the doors.

"Jo's parents are very sweet," she added as we drove off. "I was very taken aback that they didn't know the truth about Lucy and Jo's relationship."

"What did you do? Tell them, Dorothy?"

"Not in so many words, but I suppose I implied certain things because I just assumed they knew. You know, it seems so odd to see a skyline like this when you're used to Miami."

I wanted to slap her.

"Anyway, after talking with the Sanderses for a while, I came to realize they're the Jerry Falwell type and weren't about to condone a lesbian relationship."

"I wish you wouldn't use that word:"

"Well, that's what they are. Descended from the Amazon types on the island of Lesbos in tile Aegean Sea, off the coast of Turkey. Turkish women have so much hair. You ever noticed?"

"You ever heard of Sappho?"

"Of course I've heard of him," Dorothy said.

"She was a Lesbian because she lived on Lesbos. She was one of the greatest lyric poets in antiquity."

"Ha. Nothing poetic about some of these body-pierced, stocky hockey players I see. And of course, the Sanderses didn't come right out and say they thought Lucy and Jo were lesbians. Their reasoning was Jo had been horribly traumatized, and to see Lucy would bring it all back. It was too- soon. They were quite emphatic in a very nice way, and when Lucy showed up, they were very kind and sympathetic when they told her."

I passed through the toll plaza.

"Unfortunately, you know how Lucy is. She challenged them. She said she didn't believe them, and got pretty loud and rude. I explained to the Sanderses that she was just very upset after all she'd been through. They were very patient and said they'd pray for her, and next thing I knew a nurse told Lucy she had to leave.

"She stormed out," my sister said. She looked over at me to add, "Of course, mad at you or not, she'll come looking for you, just like she always does."

"How could you do that to her?" I asked. "How could you get between her and Jo? What kind of person are you?”

Dorothy was taken aback. I could feel her bristle.

"You've always been so jealous of me because you're not her mother," she answered.

I turned off on the Meadow Street exit instead of keeping on toward home.

"Why don't we just settle this once and for all," Dorothy and her stingers said. "You're nothing but a machine, a computer, one of those high-tech instruments you love so much. And one has to ask what's wrong with a person who chooses to spend all her time with dead people. Refrigerated, stinky, rotting dead people, most of them low-lifes to begin with."

I got on the Downtown Expressway again, heading back downtown.

"Versus me, I believe in relationships. I spend my time in creative pursuits, in reflection and relationships, and I believe our bodies are our temples and we should take care of them and be proud of them. Look at you." She paused for effect. "You smoke, you drink, you don't even belong to a gym, I bet. Don't ask me why you're not fat and flabby, unless it's cutting through all those ribs and running around crime scenes or being on your feet all day in a goddamn morgue. But let's get to what the worst thing is."