“I called the ambulance. I’m Dr. Isles.”

“Her physician?”

Before Maura could answer, one of the EMTs said: “She’s the medical examiner. This is the patient who woke up in the morgue.”

The doctor stared at Maura. “You’re kidding.”

“I found her moving in the cold room,” said Maura.

The doctor gave a disbelieving laugh. “Who pronounced her dead?”

“Weymouth Fire and Rescue brought her in.”

He looked at the patient. “Well, she’s definitely alive now.”

“Dr. Cutler, room two’s now empty,” a nurse called out. “We can move her in there.”

Maura followed as they wheeled the stretcher down the hallway and into a treatment room. The woman’s struggles had weakened, her strength giving way to the effects of Haldol and Valium. The nurses drew blood, reconnected EKG wires. The cardiac rhythm ticked across the monitor.

“Okay, Dr. Isles,” said the ER physician as he shone a penlight into the woman’s eyes. “Tell me more.”

Maura opened the envelope containing the photocopied paperwork that had accompanied the body. “Let me just tell you what’s in the transfer papers,” she said. “At eight A.M., Weymouth Fire and Rescue responded to a call from the Sunrise Yacht Club, where boaters found the subject floating in Hingham Bay. When she was pulled from the water, she had no pulse or respirations. And no ID. A state police investigator was called to the scene, and he thought it was most likely accidental. She was transferred to our office at noon.”

“And no one at the ME’s noticed that she was alive?”

“She arrived while we were swamped with other cases. There was that accident on I-95. And we were still backlogged from last night.”

“It’s now nearly nine. And no one checked this woman?”

“The dead don’t have emergencies.”