Blow Fly
Chapter One
DR. KAY SCARPETTA moves the tiny glass vial close to candle-light,
illuminating a maggot drifting in a poisonous bath of ethanol.
At a glance, she knows the exact stage of metamorphosis before the
creamy carcass, no larger than a grain of rice, was preserved in a specimen
vessel fitted with a black screw cap. Had the larva lived, it would have
matured into a bluebottle Calliphora vicina, a blow fly. It might have laid
its eggs in a dead human body's mouth or eyes, or in a living person's malodorous
wounds.
"Thank you very much," Scarpetta says, looking around the table at
the fourteen cops and crime-scene technicians of the National Forensic
Academy's class of 2003. Her eyes linger on Nic Robillard's innocent face.
"I don't know who collected this from a location best not to contemplate
at the dinner table, and preserved it with me in mind ... but ..."
Blank looks and shrugs.
"I have to say that this is the first time I've been given a maggot
as a gift."
No one claims responsibility but if there is a fact Scarpetta has never
doubted, it is a cops ability to bluff and, ... read full excerpt from: Blow Fly: A Scarpetta Novel ebook
