CHESTERFIELD, Va. (AP) — Patricia Cornwell has gone back to her beginnings, the place where she got her start writing crime novels.

She’s returned to the Chesterfield County Police Department in Virginia, where media outlets report that she’s taking a weeklong course on reconstructing crime scenes from gunshot evidence.

This week’s course is worth an estimated $20,000, which Cornwell has donated to the police department, but she says she also intends to observe the course as research for her next novel.

Cornwell moved to Richmond in 1983 wanting to write crime novels, and says people in Chesterfield law enforcement were “unbelievably open” with her back then. Now, she says, she wants to show her appreciation.

Chesterfield County Police Chief Thierry Dupius thanked Cornwell, and gave her a commemorative coin.

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