The Bone Bed

innocent or guilty, only people dead or desolate. Channing Lott is the bereft, and to ignore him would be a violation of what I’m sworn to do.
    “He’s not going to hurt me,” I say to Benton. “He’s not going to attack me inside my own building.”
    “I’m not worried about what he’s going to do,” he says. “I’m worried about what he wants.”
    “I’ll meet you and your colleagues in a few minutes. I’ll be fine.”
    We get off on my floor, and I watch Benton walk away, tall and lank in his dark suit, his hair thick and silver, his stride purposeful and confident, the way he always walks, but I feel his reluctance. He heads toward the TelePresence conference room, which is referred to as the war room, and I go the other way.
    I follow the curved corridor to my office and unlock the door, taking a moment to inspect myself in the mirror over the bathroom sink, to wash my face, brush my hair and teeth, and put on lipstick. Of all days to wear a pair of shapeless old corduroys and what looks like a fisherman’s cable-knit sweater, and plain black ankle boots.
    It’s not what I would have picked, had I known I was meeting this notoriously powerful man who many still believe orchestrated the murder of his wife, and for an instant I consider changing into investigative field clothes, cargo pants, a shirt with the CFC crest. But that’s silly, and there isn’t time.
    I text Bryce and ask him to please remind our uninvited guests it will have to be quick, that I’m late for another meeting. I don’t mind making the FBI wait, truth be told, especially making Douglas Burke wait; I wouldn’t mind making her wait for a hundred years. But I want an out if I need it. I don’t know what Channing Lott has planned or why he’s brought people with him.
    I hear Bryce in the corridor being his usual hyperfluent self, and he can’t help it. His need to talk is like his need for air. He opens my door as he’s knocking on it, and Channing Lott is there in a dove-gray suit and gray shirt with no tie. He is quite striking, with his long white hair braided in back, and he shakes my hand warmly and looks me in the eye, and for an instant I think he’s going to hug me. It takes a moment to regain my composure and recognize the man and woman accompanying him.
    “We can sit here.” I show them to the brushed-steel table. “I see Bryce made sure you have something to drink.”
    “This is Shelly Duke, my chief financial officer, and Albert Galbraith, my chief of operations,” Lott says, and I remember the two of them huddled close and looking at the harbor outside the courthouse when I was going through security yesterday afternoon.
    Attractive, well-paid executives finely dressed, in their late thirties, early forties, I would guess, neither of them as warm or friendly as their boss, whose blue eyes are intense, his face vibrant as he gives me his complete attention. When we are seated, I ask him what I might help him with.
    “First and most important, I want to thank you, Dr. Scarpetta.” Lott says what I was afraid he might. “What you were put through couldn’t have been a good time.” He means what happened in court, and I’m reminded unpleasantly of being fined by the judge and Lott’s own attorney attempting to impeach me on every front.
    “There is nothing to thank me for, Mr. Lott,” I reply, as I think of his helicopter filming me. “I’m a public servant doing my job.”
    “Without prejudice,” he says. “You did it without preconception or prejudice. You simply stated what was true, and you didn’t have to.”
    “It’s not my job to take sides or have an opinion unless it’s about why someone has died.”
    “That’s not my wife,” he says, and Peggy Stanton’s identity hasn’t yet been released. “When they played the TV footage in court, I knew it wasn’t her. I knew it instantly, and I wanted to tell you myself in the event there’s been a question.”
    I wonder if Toby leaked the identity to Jill Donoghue and if she knows her client is here.
    “As grim as the condition of the body seemed to be, I could tell without hesitation it’s not Millie.” Lott removes the cap from a bottle of water. “She couldn’t possibly look like that, and if you’ve been through her medical records or been given details of her physical description, you’ll realize what I’m saying is correct.”
    I have little doubt he knows I’ve been through those records and am aware that Mildred