I spoke to her husband only briefly on my way out. He was tall and well built, with curly brown hair and distant eyes. Though he was polite, I could tell he was not pleased to discover me in his house. As I drove across the river, I was shaken by the image that this struggling young couple must have of me. I was the boss dressed in a designer suit arriving in her Mercedes to deliver token gifts on Christmas Eve. The alienation of Susan's loyalty touched my deepest insecurities. I was no longer sure of my relationships or how I was perceived. I feared I had faked some test after Mark was killed, as if my reaction to that loss held the answer to a question in the lives of those around me. After all, I was supposed to handle death better than anyone. Dr. Kay Scarpetta, the expert. Instead, I had withdrawn, and I knew others felt the coolness around my edges no matter how friendly or thoughtful I tried to be. My staff no longer confided in me. Now it appeared security in my office had been violated, and Susan had quit.

Taking the Cary Street exit; I turned left into my neighborhood and headed for the home of Bruce Carter, a district court judge. He lived on Sulgrave, several blocks from me, and suddenly I was a child in Miami again, staring at what had seemed mansions to me then. I remembered going door-to-door with a wagon full of citrus fruit, knowing that the elegant hands doling out change belonged to unreachable people who felt pity. I remembered returning home with a pocket full of pennies and smelling the sickness in the bedroom where my father lay dying.

Windsor Farms was quietly rich, with Georgian and Tudor houses neatly arranged along streets with English names, and estates shadowed by trees and surrounded by serpentine brick walls. Private security jealously guarded the privileged, for whom burglar alarms were as common as sprinklers. Unspoken covenants were more intimidating than those in print. You did not offend your neighbors by putting up clotheslines or dropping by unannounced. You did not have to drive a Jaguar, but if your means of transportation was a rusting pickup truck or a morgue wagon, you kept it out of sight inside the garage.

At quarter past seven, I parked behind a long line of cars in front of a white-painted brick house with a slate roof. White lights were caught like tiny stars in boxwoods and spruces, and a fragrant fresh wreath hung on the red front door. Nancy Carter embraced my arrival with a gorgeous smile and arms extended to take my coat. She talked nonstop above the indecipherable language of crowds as light winked off the sequins of her long red gown. The judge's wife was a woman in her fifties refined by money into a work of well-bred art. In her youth, I suspected, she had not been pretty.

“Bruce is somewhere…”

She glanced about. “The bar's over there.”

She directed me to the living room, where the bright holiday attire of guests blended wonderfully with a large vibrant Persian rug that I suspected cost more than the house I had just visited on the other side of the river. I spotted the judge talking to a man I did not know. I scanned faces, recognizing several physicians and attorneys, a lobbyist, and the governor's chief of staff. Somehow I ended up with a Scotch and soda, and a man I had never seen before was touching my arm.

“Dr. Scarpetta? Frank Donahue,” he introduced himself loudly. “A Merry Christmas to you.”

“And to you,” I said.

The warden, who allegedly had been ill the day Marino and I had toured the penitentiary, was small, with coarse features and thick graying hair. He was dressed like a parody of an English toastmaster in bright red tails, a ruffled white dress shirt, and a red bow tie twinkling with tiny electric lights. A glass of straight whiskey tilted perilously one hand as he offered me the other.

He leaned close to my ear. “I was disappointed I was unable to show you around the day you came to the pen.”

“One of your officers took good care of us. Thank you.”

“I guess that would have been Roberts.”

“I think that was his name.”

“Well, it's unfortunate that you had to go to the trouble.”

His eyes roamed the room and he winked at someone behind me. “A lot of horse crap was what it was. You know, Waddell'd had a couple of nosebleeds in the past, and high blood pressure. Was always complaining about something. Headaches. Insomnia.”

I bent my head, straining to hear.

“These guys on death row are consummate con artists. And to be honest, Waddell was one of me worst” “I wouldn't know,” I said, looking up at him.

“That's the trouble, nobody knows. No matter what you say, nobody knows except those of us who are around these guys every day.”

“I'm sure.”

“Waddell's so-called reformation, him turning into such a sweetheart. Sometime let me tell you about that, Dr. Scarpetta, about the way he used to brag to other inmates about what he did to that poor Naismith girl. Thought he was a real cock of the walk because he did a celebrity.”

The room was airless and too warm. I could feel his eyes crawl over my body.

“Of course, I don't guess much surprises you, either,” he said.

“No, Mr. Donahue. There isn’t much that surprises me.”

“To be honest, I don't know how you look at what you do every day. Especially this time of year, people killing each other and themselves, like that poor lady who committed suicide in her garage the other night after opening her Christmas presents early.”

His remark caught me like an elbow in the ribs. There had been a brief story in the morning paper about Jennifer's Deighton's death, and a police source had been quoted as saying that it appeared she had opened her Christmas presents early. This might imply she had committed suicide, but there had been no statement to that effect.

“Which lady are you referring to?”

I asked.

“Don't recall the name.”

Donahue sipped his drink, his face flushed, eyes bright and constantly moving. “Sad, real sad. Well, you'll have to visit us at our new digs in Greensville one of these days.”

He smiled broadly, then left me for a bosomy matron in black. He kissed her on the mouth and both of them started laughing.

I went home at the earliest opportunity, to find a fire blazing and my niece stretched out on the couch, reading. I noted several new presents under the tree.

“How was it?” she asked with a yawn.

“You were wise to stay home,” I said. “Has Marino called?”

“Nope.”

I tried him again, and after four rings he answered irritably.

“I hope I didn't get you too late,” I apologized.

“I hope not, either. What's wrong now?”

“A lot of things are wrong. I met your friend Mr. Donahue at a party this evening.”

“What a thrill.”

“I wasn't impressed, and maybe I'm just paranoid, but I thought it odd he brought up Jennifer Deighton's death.”

Silence.

“The other little twist,” I went on, “is it appears Jennifer Deighton faxed a note to Nicholas Grueman less than two days before her murder. In it she sounded upset, and I got the impression he wanted to meet with her. She suggested he come to Richmond.”

Still Marino said nothing.

“Are you there?” I asked.

“I'm thinking”

“Glad to hear it. But maybe we should think together. Sure I can't change your mind about dinner tomorrow?”

He took a deep breath. “I'd like to, Doc. But I… “ A female voice in the background said, “Which drawer's it in?”

Marino evidently placed his hand over the receiver and mumbled something. When he got back to me he cleared his throat.

“I'm sorry,” I said. “I didn't know you had company.”

“Yeah.”

He paused.

“I would be delighted if you and your friend would come to dinner tomorrow,” I offered.

“The Sheraton's got this buffet. We was going to go to that.”

“Well, there's something for you under the tree. If you change your mind, give me a call in the morning.”