“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.”

Ev Christian is awake and sitting on a mattress that is black with what she by now believes is old blood.

Scattered about the filthy floor inside the small, filthy room with its caving ceiling and water-stained wallpaper are magazines. She sees poorly without her glasses and can barely make out the pornographic covers. She barely makes out soda-pop bottles and fast-food wrappers scattered about. Between the mattress and the splintery wall is a small pink Keds tennis shoe, a girl’s size. Ev has picked it up countless times and held it, wondering what it means and who it once belonged to, worried the girl is dead. Sometimes Ev tucks the shoe behind her when he comes in, fearful he will take it from her. It is all she has.

She never sleeps longer than an hour or two at a stretch and has no idea how much time has passed. There is no such thing as time. Gray light fills the broken window on the other side of the room, and she can’t see the sun. She smells rain.

She doesn’t know what he has done with Kristin and the boys. She doesn’t know what he has done to them. She dimly remembers the first hours, those awful, unreal hours when he brought her food and water and stared at her from the darkness, and he was as dark as the darkness, dark like a dark spirit, hovering in the doorway.

“How does it feel?” He said to her in a soft, cold voice. “How does it feel to know you’re going to die?”

It is always dark inside the room. It is so much darker when he is in it.

“I’m not afraid. You can’t touch my soul.”

“Say you’re sorry.”

“It’s not too late to repent. God will forgive even the most vile sin if you humble yourself and repent.”

“God is a woman. I am her Hand. Say you’re sorry.”

“Blasphemy. Shame on you. I’ve done nothing to be sorry about.”

“I’ll teach you shame. You’ll say you’re sorry just like she did.”

“Kristin?”

Then he was gone, and Ev heard voices from another part of the house. She couldn’t make out what they were saying, but he was talking to Kristin, must have been. He was talking to a woman. Ev really couldn’t hear it, but she heard them talking. She could not make out what they said, and she remembers feet scuffing and voices on the other side of the wall, and then she heard Kristin, knew it was her. When Ev thinks about it now, she wonders if she dreamed it.

Kristin! Kristin! I’m right here! I’m right here! Don’t you dare hurt her!

She hears her own voice in her head, but it might have been a dream.

Kristin? Kristin? Answer me! Don’t you dare hurt her!

Then she heard talking again, so maybe it was all right. But Ev’s not sure. She might have dreamed it. She might have dreamed she heard his boots moving down the hallway and the front door shutting. All this might have taken place in minutes, maybe hours. Maybe she heard a car engine. Maybe it was a dream, a delusion. Ev sat in the dark, her heart flying as she listened for Kristin and the boys and heard nothing. She called out until her throat was on fire and she could barely see or breathe.

Daylight came and went, and his dark shape would appear with paper cups of water and something to eat, and his shape would stand and watch her, and she could not see his face. She has never seen his face, not even the first time, when he came into the house. He wears a black hood with holes cut in it for his eyes, a hood like a black pillowcase, long and loose around his shoulders. His hooded shape likes to poke her with the barrel of the shotgun as if she is an animal in the zoo, as if he is curious about what she will do if he pokes her. He pokes her in her private places and watches what she will do.