“A motive, for God's sake. Marino, what would it be?”

He looked up. “I don't know why.”

Just then, the door to my study opened and both of us turned as Lucy walked out. She came into the living room and sat on the side of the hearth opposite Marino, who had his back to the fire, elbows on his knees.

“What can you tell me about AFIS?” she asked me as if Marino were not in the room.

“What is it you wish to know?” I said.

“The language. And is it run on a mainframe.”

“I don't know the technical details. Why?”

“I can find out if files have been altered.”

I felt Marino's eyes on me.

“You can't break into the State Police computer, Lucy.”

“I probably could, but I'm not necessarily advocating that. There may be some other way to gain access.”

Marino turned to her. “You're saying you could tell if Waddell's records was changed in AFIS?”

“Yes. I'm saying I could tell if his records were changed.”

Marino's jaw muscles flexed. “Seems to me if someone was slick enough to do it, they'd be slick enough to make sure some computer nerd didn't catch on.”

“I'm not a computer nerd. I'm not a nerd of any description.”

They fell silent, parked on either end of the hearth like mismatched bookends.

“You can't go into AFIS,” I said to Lucy.

She looked impassively at me.

“Not alone,” I added. “Not unless there is a safe way to grant you access. And even if there is, I think I'd rather you stay out of it.”

“I don't think you'd really rather that. If something was tampered with, you know I'd find out, Aunt Kay.”

“The kid's got a god complex.”

Marino got up from the hearth.

Lucy said to him, “Could you hit the twelve on the clock over there on the wall? If you drew your gun right this minute and took aim?”

“I ain't interested in shooting up your aunt's house in order to prove something to you.”

“Could you hit the twelve from where you're standing?”

“You're damn right.”

“You're positive.”

“Yeah, I'm positive.”

“The lieutenant's got a god complex,” Lucy said to me.

Marino turned to the fire, but not before I caught a flicker of a smile.

“All Neils Vander has is a workstation and printer,” Lucy said. “He's connected to the State Police computer by modem. Has that always been the case?”

“No,” I replied. “Before he moved into the new building, there was much more equipment involved.”

“Describe it.”

“Well, there were several different components. But the actual computer was much like the one Margaret has in her office.”

Realizing Lucy had not been inside Margaret's office, I added, “A mini.”

Firelight cast moving shadows on her face. “I'll bet JON is a mainframe that isn't a mainframe. I'll bet it's a series of minis strung together all of it connected by UNIX or some other multiuser, multitasking environment. If you got me access to the system, I could probably do it from your terminal here in the house, Aunt Kay.”

“I don't want anything traced back to me,” I said with feeling.

“Nothing would be traced back to you. I would dial into your computer downtown, then go through a series of gateways, set up a really complicated link. By the time all was said and done, I'd be very hard to track.”

Marino headed to the bathroom.

“He acts like he lives here,” Lucy said.

“Not quite,” I replied.

Several minutes later, I walked Marino out. The crusty snow of the lawn seemed to radiate light, and the air was sharp in my lungs like the first hit of a menthol cigarette.

“I'd love it if you would join Lucy and me for Christmas dinner,” I said from the doorway.

He hesitated, looking at his car parked on the street. “That's mighty nice of you, but I can't make it, Doc.”

“I wish you did not dislike Lucy so much,' I said, hurt.

“I'm tired of her treating me like a dumb shit who was born in a barn.”

“Sometimes you act like a dumb shit who was born in a barn. And you haven't tried very hard to earn her respect.”

“She's a spoiled Miami brat.”

“When she was ten, she was a Miami brat,” I said. “But she's never been spoiled. In fact, quite the opposite is true. I want you two to get along. I want that for my Christmas present.”

“Who said I was giving you a Christmas present?”

“Of course you are. You're going to give me what I've just requested. And I know exactly how to make it happen.”

“How?” he asked suspiciously.

“Lucy wants to learn to shoot and you just told her you could shoot the twelve off a dock. You could give her a lesson or two.”

“Forget it” he said.

6

The next three days were typical for the holiday season. No one was in or returning telephone calls. Parking lots had spaces to spare, lunch hours were long, and office errands involved clandestine stops at stores, the bank, and the post office. For all practical purposes, the Commonwealth had shutdown before the official holiday began. But Neils Vander was not typical by any standard. He was oblivious to time and place when he called me Christmas Eve morning.

“I'm getting started on an image enhancement over here that I think you might be interested in,” he said. “The Jennifer Deighton case.”

“I'm on my way,” I said.

Heading down the hallway, I almost ran into Ben Stevens as he emerged from the men's room.

“I have a meeting with Vander” I said.”

I shouldn't be long, and I've got my paper.”

“I was just coming to see you,” he said.

Reluctantly, I paused to hear what he had on his mind. I wondered if he detected that it was a struggle for me to act relaxed around him. Lucy continued to monitor our computer from my terminal at home to see if anyone attempted to access my directory again. So far, no one had.

“I had a talk with Susan this morning,” Stevens said.

“How is she?”

“She's not coming back to work, Dr. Scarpetta.”

I was not surprised, but I was stung that she could not tell me this herself. By now I had tried at least half a dozen times to get hold of her, and either no one answered or, her husband did and offered some excuse for why Susan couldn't come to the phone.

“That's it?” I asked him. “She's simply not coming back? Did she give a reason?”

“I think she's having a tougher time with the pregnancy than she thought. I guess the job's just too much right now.”

“She'll need to send a letter of resignation,” I said, unable to keep the anger from my voice. “And I'll leave it to you to work out the details with Personnel. We'll need to begin looking for a replacement immediately.”

“There's a hiring freeze,” he reminded me as I walked off.

Outside, snow plowed along roadsides had frozen into mounds of filthy ice impossible to park on or walk across, and the sun burned wanly through portentous clouds. A streetcar carried a small brass band past, andI climbed granite steps gritty with salt as “Joy to the World” moved on. A Forensics police officer let me inside the Seaboard Building, and upstairs I found Vander inside a room bright with color monitors and ultraviolet lights. Seated at the image enhancer's workstation, he was staring intensely at something on the screen as he manipulated a mouse.

“It's not blank,” he announced without so much as a “how are you.”

“Someone wrote something on a piece of paper that was on top of this one, or close to on top of this one. If you look hard, you can barely make out impressions.”

Then I began to understand. Centered on the light table to his left was a clean sheet of white paper, and I leaned closer to take a look. The impressions were so faint that I wasn't sure if I was imagining them.

“The sheet of paper found under the crystal on Jennifer Deighton's bed?”

I asked, getting excited.