'A fully developed fire in the master bath,' I said.

'And then on into other oxygen-enriched rooms where the fuel loads were enough to burn the place to the ground,' she replied. 'So it's not the spread of the fire that bothers me. It's how it got started. Like I said, a throw rug, curtains, weren't enough, unless something else was there.'

'Maybe something was,' I said, getting up to pour coffee. 'How do you take yours?' I asked.

'Cream and sugar.'

Her eyes followed me.

'None of that artificial stuff, please.'

I drank mine black, and set mugs on the desk as McGovern's gaze wandered around my new office. Certainly, it was brighter and more modern than what I had occupied in the old building on Fourteenth and Franklin, but I really had no more room to evolve. Worst of all, I had been honored with a CEO corner space with windows, and anybody who understood physicians knew that what we needed were walls for bookcases, and not bulletproof glass overlooking a parking lot and the Petersburg Turnpike. My hundreds of medical, legal, and forensic science reviews, journals and formidable volumes were crammed together and, in some cases, double-shelved. It was not uncommon for Rose, my secretary, to hear me swearing when I could not find a reference book I needed right that minute.

'Teun,' I said, sipping my coffee, 'I'd like to take this opportunity to thank you for taking care of Lucy.'

'Lucy takes care of herself,' she said.

'That has not always been true.'

I smiled in an effort to be more gracious, to hide the hurt and jealousy that were a splinter in my heart.

'But you're right,' I said. 'I think she does a pretty admirable job of it now. I'm sure Philadelphia will be good for her.'

McGovern was reading every signal I was sending, and I could tell she was aware of more than I wanted her to be.

'Kay, hers will not be an easy road,' she then stated. 'No matter what I do.'

She swirled the coffee in her mug, as if about to taste the first sip of fine wine.

'I'm her supervisor, not her mother,' McGovern said.

This irked me considerably, and it showed when I abruptly picked up the phone and instructed Rose to hold all calls. I got up and shut my door.

'I would hope she's not transferring to your field office because she needs a mother,' I replied coolly as I returned to my desk, which served as a barrier between us. 'Above all else, Lucy is a consummate professional.'

McGovern held up her hand to stop me.

'Whoa,' she protested. 'Of course she is. I'm just not promising anything. She's a big girl, but she's also got a lot of big obstacles. Her FBI background will be held against her by some, who will assume right off the bat that she has an attitude and has never really worked cases.'

'That stereotype shouldn't last long,' I said, and I was finding it very difficult to objectively discuss my niece with her.

'Oh, about as long as it takes for them to see her land a helicopter or program a robot to remove a bomb from a scene,' she quipped. 'Or zip through Q-dot calculations in her head while the rest of us can't even figure them out on a calculator.'

Q-dot was slang for the mathematical equations, or scientific evaluations, used to estimate the physics and chemistry of a fire as it related to what the investigator observed at the scene or was told by witnesses. I wasn't sure Lucy would make many friends by being able to work such esoteric formulas in her head.

'Teun,' I said, softening my tone. 'Lucy's different, and that isn't always good. In fact, in many ways it is just as much a handicap to be a genius as it is to be retarded.'

'Absolutely. I am more aware of this than you might imagine.'

'As long as you understand,' I said as if I were reluctantly handing her the baton in the relay race of Lucy's difficult development.

'And as long as you understand that she has and will continue to be treated like everybody else. Which includes the other agents' reactions to her baggage, which includes rumors about why she left the FBI and about her alleged personal life,' she stated frankly.

I looked at her long and hard, wondering just how much she really knew about Lucy. Unless McGovern had been briefed by someone at the Bureau, there was no reason I could think of why she should know about my niece's affair with Carrie Grethen and the implications of what that might mean when the case went to court, assuming Carrie was caught. Just the reminder cast a shadow over what had already been a dark day, and my uncomfortable silence invited McGovern to fill it.

'I have a son,' she said quietly, staring into her coffee. 'I know what it's like to have children grow up and suddenly vanish. Go their own way, too busy to visit or get on the phone.'

'Lucy grew up a long time ago,' I said quickly, for I did not want her to commiserate with me. 'She also never lived with me, not permanently, I mean. In a way, she's always been gone.'

But McGovern just smiled as she got out of her chair.

'I've got troops to check on,' she said. 'I guess I'd better be on my way.'

AT FOUR O'CLOCK that afternoon, my staff was still busy in the autopsy room, and I walked in looking for Chuck. He and two of my residents were working on the burned woman's body, defleshing her as best they could with plastic spatulas, because anything harder might scratch the bones.

Chuck was sweating beneath his surgical cap and mask as he scraped tissue from the skull, his brown eyes rather glazed behind his face shield. He was tall and wiry with short, sandy blond hair that tended to stick out in every direction no matter how much gel he used. He was attractive in an adolescent way and, after a year on the job, still terrified of me.

'Chuck?' I said again, inspecting one of the more ghoulish tasks in forensic medicine.

'Yes, ma'am.'

He stopped scraping and looked up furtively at me. The stench was getting worse by the minute as unrefrigerated flesh continued to decompose, and I was not looking forward to what I needed to do next.

'Let me just check this one more time,' I said to Ruffin, who was so tall he tended to stoop, his neck jutting out like a turtle when he looked at whoever he was talking to. 'Our old battered pots and pans didn't make it in the move.'

'I think somehow they got tossed out,' he said.

'And probably should have,' I told him. 'Which means you and I have an errand to run.'

'Now?'

'Now.'

He wasted no time heading into the men's locker room to get out of his dirty, stinking scrubs and shower just long enough to get the shampoo out of his hair. He was still perspiring, his face pink from scrubbing, when we met in the corridor and I handed him a set of keys. The dark red office Tahoe was parked inside the bay, and I climbed up into the passenger's seat, letting Ruffin drive.

'We're going to Cole's Restaurant Supply,' I told him as the big engine came to life. 'About two blocks west of Parham, on Broad. Just get us on 64 and take the West Broad exit. I'll show you from there.'

He pushed a remote control on the visor and the bay door rolled up heavily, letting in sunlight that I had not noticed all day. Rush hour traffic had just begun and would be awful in another half hour. Ruffin drove like an old woman, dark glasses on and hunched forward as he kept his speed about five miles an hour less than the limit.

'You can go a little faster,' I told him calmly. 'It closes at five, so we sort of need to hurry along.'

He stepped on the gas, lurching us forward, and fumbled in the ashtray for toll tokens.

'You mind if I ask you something, Dr Scarpetta?' he said.

'Please. Go right ahead.'

'It's kind of bizarre.'

He glanced in the rearview mirror again.