After a long pause, she went on. "I suppose what I'm trying to say is that I've never been very good at saying no to Debbie. It's difficult to be sensible when you want the best for your children. Especially when you remember your desires when you were their age, your insecurities about the way you dressed, your physical appearance. When you knew your parents couldn't afford a dermatologist, an orthodontist, a plastic surgeon. We have tried to exercise moderation."

She crossed her arms at her waist "Sometimes I'm not so sure we made the right choices. Her Jeep, for example. I was opposed to her having a car, but I didn't have the energy to argue.

Typically, she was practical, wanting something safe that would get her around in any kind of weather."

Hesitantly, I inquired, "When you mention a plastic surgeon are you referring to something specific concerning your daughter?"

"Large breasts are incomparable with gymnastics, Dr. Scarpetta," she said, not turning around. "By the time Debbie was sixteen she was over endowed. Not only was this rather embarrassing to her, but it interfered with her sport. The problem was taken care of last year."

"Then this photograph is recent," I said, for the Deborah I was looking at was an elegant sculpture of perfectly formed muscle, breasts and buttocks firm and small.

"It was taken last April in California."

When a person is missing and possibly dead, it is not uncommon for people like me to be interested in anatomical detail - whether it be a hysterectomy, a root canal, or scars from plastic surgery - that might assist in the identification of the body. They were the descriptions I reviewed in NCIC missing person forms. They were the mundane and very human features that I depended on, because jewelry and other personal effects, I had learned over the years, can't always be trusted.