"We sent Bobby's body up here for the autopsy, and that goddamn Patras-excuse my French-that goddamn Patras called me back and said it all looked like a suicide."

She paused, and Virgil said, "Except…"

"Except for two things. Maybe three." She scratched her eyebrow. "First: there was a bruise in the middle of Bobby's back. A round bruise, almost like he'd been hit by a baseball. Maybe a little bigger than that. A softball. Hadn't had time to develop much before the blood stopped, but it was there. Almost had to be incurred while he was in the cell. We took him in at four o'clock in the afternoon. Ike says if the impact that caused the bruise had happened before that, it would have been much more developed. The thing is, we couldn't find anything in the cell that would make a bruise like that. You could almost say it looked like he had a knee in his back."

"Okay. That's one thing," Virgil said.

"Two. He hanged himself with a strip of cloth he'd ripped off the end of a blanket. An acrylon blanket. Looped it around his neck."

"His penis out of his pants?"

"No. Wasn't sexual. Anyway, it looked all the world like he'd hanged himself, and Ike agrees. But Bobby had a broken fingernail, like he'd clawed at the cloth."

"Changed his mind," Virgil said. She shook her head, and he added, "Except…"

"Except that when they looked at the fibers under his nails, they were wool. Not acrylon. In fact, they were green wool. Our uniform pants are green wool. Ike says Bobby was scratching at green wool. And he says the way the blood from his nails mixed with the wool, there's no doubt. He was alive when he was scratching at it."

"What's the third thing?"

"It's not evidence, but… Bobby's parents say he'd never commit suicide. Never would. They're so sure, I give it some weight," she said.