The state Medical Examiner’s Office is located where most are, on the fringe of a nicer part of town, usually at the outer limits of a medical school. The red-brick-and-concrete complex backs up to the Massachusetts Turnpike, and on the other side of it is the Suffolk County House of Corrections. There is no view and the noise of traffic never stops.

Bentonparks at the back door and notes only two other cars in the lot. The dark-blue CrownVictoriabelongs to Detective Thrush. The Honda SUV probably belongs to a forensic pathologist who doesn’t get paid enough and probably wasn’t happy when Thrush persuaded him to come in at this hour.Bentonrings the bell and scans the empty back parking lot, never assuming he is safe or alone, and then the door opens and Thrush is motioning him inside.

“Jeez, I hate this place at night,” Thrush says.

“There’s not much to like about it any time of day,”Bentonremarks.

“I’m glad you came. Can’t believe you’re out in that,” he says, looking out at the black Porsche as he shuts the door behind them. “In this weather? You crazy?”

“All-wheel drive. It wasn’t snowing when I went to work this morning.”

“These other psychologists I’ve worked with, they never come out, snow, rain or shine,” Thrush says. “Not the profilers, either. Most FBI I’ve met have never seen a dead body.”

“Except for the ones at headquarters.”

“No shit. We got plenty of them at state police headquarters, too. Here.”

He handsBentonan envelope as they follow a corridor.

“Got everything on a disk for you. All the scene and autopsy pictures, whatever’s written up so far. It’s all there. It’s supposed to snow like a bitch.”

Bentonthinks of Scarpetta again. Tomorrow is Valentine’s Day, and they’re supposed to spend the evening together, have a romantic dinner on the harbor. She’s supposed to stay through Presidents’ Day weekend. They haven’t seen each other in almost a month. She may not be able to get here.

“I heard light snow showers are predicted,”Bentonsays.

“A storm’s moving in from theCape. Hope you got something to drive other than that million-dollar sports car.”

Thrush is a big man who has spent his life inMassachusettsand talks like it. There isn’t a single R in his vocabulary. In his fifties, he has military-short gray hair and is dressed in a rumpled brown suit, has probably worked nonstop all day. He and Benton follow the well-lit corridor. It is spotless and scented with air deodorizer and lined with storage and evidence rooms, all of them requiring electronic passes. There is even a crash cart-Bentoncan’t imagine why-and a scanning electron microscope, the facility the most spacious and best equipped of any morgue he has ever seen. Staffing is another story.

The office has suffered crippling personnel problems for years because of low salaries that fail to attract competent forensic pathologists and other staff. Added to this are alleged mistakes and misdeeds resulting in scathing controversies and public-relations problems that make life and death difficult for everyone involved. The office isn’t open to the media or to outsiders, and hostility and distrust are pervasive.Bentonwould rather come here late at night. To visit during business hours is to feel unwelcome and resented.

He and Thrush pause outside the closed door of an autopsy room that is used in high-profile cases or those that are considered a biohazard or bizarre. His cell phone vibrates. He looks at the display. No ID is usually her.

“Hi,” Scarpetta says. “I hope your night’s been better than mine.”

“I’m at the morgue.” Then, to Thrush, “One minute.”

“That can’t be good,” Scarpetta says.

“I’ll fill you in later. Got a question. You ever heard of something that happened at a Christmas shop in Las Olas maybe two and a half years ago?”

“By something I assume you mean a homicide.”

“Right.”

“Not offhand. Maybe Lucy can try to track it down. I hear it’s snowing up there.”

“I’ll get you here if I have to hire Santa’s reindeer.”

“I love you.”

“Me, too,” he says.

He ends the call and asks Thrush, “Who are we dealing with?”

“Well, Dr. Lonsdale was nice enough to help me out. You’ll like him. But he didn’t do the autopsy. She did.”

She is the chief. She got where she is because she’s a she.

“You ask me,” Thrush says, “women got no business doing this anyway. What kind of woman would want to do this?”

“There are good ones,”Bentonsays. “Very good ones. Not all of them get where they are because of their gender. More likely, in spite of it.”

Thrush is unfamiliar with Scarpetta.Bentonnever mentions her, not even to people he knows rather well.

“Women shouldn’t see shit like this,” Thrush says.

The night air is penetrating and milky-white up and downCommercial Street. Snow swarms in lamplight and lights the night until the world glows and seems surreal as the two of them walk in the middle of the deserted silent street east along the water to the cottage Lucy began renting several days ago after Marino got the strange phone call from the man named Hog.

She builds a fire, and she and Stevie sit in front of it on quilts and roll a joint with very good stuff fromBritish Columbia, and they share it. They smoke and talk and laugh, and then Stevie wants more.

“Just one more,” she begs as Lucy undresses her.

“That’s different,” Lucy says, staring at Stevie’s slender nude body, at the red handprints on it, maybe tattoos.

There are four of them. Two on her breasts as if someone is grabbing them, two on her upper inner thighs as if someone is forcing her legs apart. There are none on her back, none where Stevie couldn’t reach and apply them herself, assuming they are fake. Lucy stares. She touches one of the handprints, places her hand over one of them, fondling Stevie’s breast.

“Just checking to see if it’s the right fit,” Lucy says. “Fake?”

“Why don’t you take off your clothes.”

Lucy does what she wants, but she won’t take off her clothes. For hours, she does what she wants in the firelight, on the quilts, and Stevie lets her, is more alive than anyone Lucy has ever touched, smooth with soft contours, lean in a way Lucy isn’t anymore, and when Stevie tries to undress her, almost fights her, Lucy won’t allow it, then Stevie gets tired and gives up and Lucy helps her to bed. After she is asleep, Lucy lies awake listening to the eerie whining of the wind, trying to figure out exactly what it sounds like, deciding it doesn’t sound like silk stockings after all, but like something distressed and in pain.