“But she wouldn’t have been conscious.”

“Her findings indicate some survival time, but no, she wouldn’t have been conscious. She may have had no awareness at all of what happened, of the attack. We won’t know until certain test results come back.” Scarpetta opened the file and removed the health history form, placing it in front of Mrs. Darien. “Your former husband filled this out. I’d appreciate it if you’d look.”

The paperwork shook in Mrs. Darien’s hands as she scanned it.

“Name, address, place of birth, parents’ names. Please let me know if we need to correct anything,” Scarpetta said. “Did she have high blood pressure, diabetes, hypoglycemia, mental health issues-was she pregnant, for example.”

“He checked no to everything. What the hell does he know?”

“No depression, moodiness, a change of behavior that might have struck you as unusual.” Scarpetta was thinking about the BioGraph watch. “Did she have problems sleeping? Anything at all going on with her that was different from the past? You said she might have been out of sorts of late.”

“Maybe a boyfriend problem or something at work, the economy being what it is. Some of the girls she works with have been laid off,” Mrs. Darien said. “She gets in moods like everybody else. Especially this time of year. She doesn’t like winter weather.”

“Any medications you might be aware of?”

“Just over-the-counter, as far as I know. Vitamins. She takes very good care of herself.”

“I’m interested in who her internist might be, her doctor or doctors. Mr. Darien didn’t fill in that part.”

“He wouldn’t know. He’s never gotten the bills. Toni’s been living on her own since college, and I can’t be sure who her doctor is. She never gets sick, has more energy than anyone I know. Always on the go.”

“Are you aware of any jewelry she might have routinely worn? Perhaps rings, a bracelet, a necklace she rarely took off?” Scarpetta said.

“I don’t know.”

“What about a watch?”

“I don’t think so.”

“What looks like a black plastic sports watch, digital? A large black watch? Does that sound familiar?”

Mrs. Darien shook her head.

“I’ve seen similar watches when people are involved in studies. In your profession, I’m sure you have, too. Watches that are cardiac monitors or worn by people who have sleep disorders, for example,” Scarpetta said.

A look of hope in Mrs. Darien’s eyes.

“What about when you saw Toni at Thanksgiving,” Scarpetta said. “Might she have been wearing a watch like the one I just described?”

“No.” Mrs. Darien shook her head. “That’s what I mean. It might not be her. I’ve never seen her wearing anything like that.”

Scarpetta asked her if she would like to see the body now, and they got up from the table and walked into an adjoining room, small and bare, just a few photographs of New York City skylines on pale-green walls. The viewing window was approximately waist-high, about the height of a casket on a bier, and on the other side was a steel screen-actually, the doors of the lift that had carried Toni’s body up from the morgue.

“Before I open the screen, I want to explain what you’re going to see,” Scarpetta said. “Would you like to sit on the sofa?”

“No. No, thank you. I’ll stand. I’m ready.” Her eyes were wide and panicked, and she was breathing fast.

“I’m going to push a button.” Scarpetta indicated a panel of three buttons on the wall, two black, one red, old elevator buttons. “And when the screen opens, the body will be right here.”

“Yes. I understand. I’m ready.” She could barely talk, she was so frightened, shaking as if freezing cold, breathing hard as if she’d just exerted herself.

“The body is on a gurney inside the elevator, on the other side of the window. Her head will be here, to the left. The rest of her is covered.”

Scarpetta pushed the top black button, and the steel doors parted with a loud clank. Through scratched Plexiglas Toni Darien was shrouded in blue, her face wan, her eyes shut, her lips colorless and dry, her long, dark hair still damp from rinsing. Her mother pressed her hands against the window. Bracing herself, she began to scream.

Pete Marino was unsettled as he looked around the studio apartment, trying to read its personality and mood, trying to intuit what it had to tell him.

Scenes were like dead people. They had a lot to say if you understood their silent language, and what bothered him right away was that Toni Darien’s laptop and cell phone were gone, their chargers still plugged into the wall. What continued to nag at him was that there was nothing else that seemed to be missing or disturbed, the police by now of the opinion that her apartment had nothing to do with her murder. Yet he sensed someone had been in here. He didn’t know why he sensed it, one of those feelings he got at the back of his neck, as if something was watching him or trying to get his attention and he couldn’t see what it was.

Marino stepped back out into the hallway, where a uniformed NYPD cop was babysitting the apartment, no one allowed to go in unless Jaime Berger said so. She wanted the apartment sealed until she was satisfied she needed nothing more from it, had been adamant on the phone with Marino but also talking out of both sides of her mouth. Don’t get too hung up on her apartment, and treat it like the crime scene. Well, which was it? Marino had been around the block too many times to pay much attention to anyone, including his boss. He did his own thing. As far as he was concerned, Toni Darien’s apartment was a scene, and he was going to turn it inside out.

“Tell you what,” Marino said to the cop outside the door, his last name Mellnik. “Maybe give Bonnell a call. I need to talk to her about the missing laptop, the cell phone, make sure she didn’t take them.”

Bonnell was the NYPD case investigator who’d already been through the apartment earlier today with the Crime Scene Unit.

“What, you don’t got a phone?” Mellnik was leaning against the wall in the dimly lit hallway, a folding chair nearby at the top of the stairs.

When Marino left, Mellnik would move the chair back inside the apartment and sit until he needed a bathroom break or his replacement showed up for midnight shift. A fucking lousy job. Somebody had to do it.

“You’re so busy?” Marino said to him.

“Just because I’m hanging around with my thumb up my ass doesn’t mean I’m not busy. I’m busy thinking.” Tapping his gelled black hair, a short guy built like a bullet. “I’ll track her down, but like I was telling you? When I got here, the guy I relieved talked my ear off about it, about what the crime scene guys were saying. Like where’s her phone? Where’s her laptop? But they don’t think someone came in here and took them. No evidence of that. I think it’s pretty fucking obvious what happened to her. Why do people still jog in the park at night, especially females? Go figure.”

“And the door was locked when Bonnell and the crime scene guys got here?”

“I told you, the super unlocked it, a guy named Joe, lives on the first floor, other end.” Pointing. “You can see for yourself. There’s no sign somebody jimmied the lock, broke in. The door was locked, the shades down in the windows, everything undisturbed, normal. That’s what I was told by the guy here before me, and he witnessed what Crime Scene did, the whole thing.”

Marino was studying the doorknob, the deadbolt, touching them with his gloved hands. He got a flashlight out of his pocket, looking carefully, not seeing any obvious signs of forced entry. Mellnik was right. Nothing appeared damaged or recently scratched.

Marino said, “Find Bonnell for me, get the dispatcher too so I can get it from her direct. Because I’m going to be asked about it fifty times when the boss is back in town, if not sooner. Most people who take their laptops off-site also take the charger. That’s bothering me.”