The clatter of metal wheels on tile.
The walk-in freezer door opens with a reluctant suck. Scarpetta is impervious to the frigid air, the stench of frozen death as she rolls in the steel cart bearing the small black body bag. Attached to the zipper pull is a toe tag, and written on it in black ink: Unknown, with the date, 4/30/07, and the signature of the funeral home attendant who transported the body. In the morgue log Scarpetta entered Unknown as a male, five to ten years old, a homicide from Hilton Head Island, a two-hour drive from Charleston. His race is mixed: thirty-four percent sub-Saharan African and sixty-six percent European.
Entries into the log are always made by her, and she is outraged by what she discovered when she arrived hours earlier and found this morning’s case had already been entered, presumably by Lucious Meddick. Unbelievably, he took it upon himself to decide the elderly woman he transported is a natural death caused by cardiac and respiratory arrest. The presumptuous moron. Everybody dies of cardiac or respiratory arrest. Whether shot or hit by a car or a baseball bat, death occurs when the heart and lungs quit. He had no right or reason to conclude the death is natural. She hasn’t done the autopsy yet, and it isn’t his responsibility or legal jurisdiction to determine a goddamn thing. He’s not a forensic pathologist. He should never have touched the morgue log. She can’t fathom why Marino would have allowed him to enter the autopsy suite and then left him unattended.
Her breath fogs out as she removes a clipboard from a cart and fills in Unknown’s information and the time and date. Her frustration is as palpable as the cold. Despite her obsessive efforts, she doesn’t know where the little boy died, although she suspects it isn’t far from where he was found. She doesn’t know his exact age. She doesn’t know how his killer transported the body but hypothesizes it was by boat. No witnesses have come forward, and the only trace evidence she recovered is white cotton fibers assumed to be from the sheet the Beaufort County coroner wrapped him in before zipping him inside a pouch.
The sand and salt and bits of shells and plant debris in the boy’s orifices and on his skin are indigenous to the marshland where his nude decomposing body was facedown in pluff mud and saw grass. After days of using every procedure she can conjure up to make his body talk to her, he has offered but a few painful revelations. His tubular stomach and emaciation say he was starved for weeks, possibly months. Mildly deformed nails indicate new growth of different ages and suggest repeated blunt-force trauma or some other type of torture to his tiny fingers and toes. Subtle reddish patterns all over his body tattle to her that he was brutally beaten, most recently with a wide belt that had a large square buckle. Incisions, a reflecting back of skin, and microscopic analysis revealed hemorrhaging into soft tissue from the crown of his head to the soles of his little feet. He died of internal exsanguination — bled to death without externally shedding a drop — a metaphor, it seems, for his invisible and miserable life.
She has preserved sections of his organs and injuries in jars of formalin and sent off his brain and eyes for special examination. She’s taken hundreds of photographs, and notified Interpol in the event he’s been reported missing in another country. His fingerprints and footprints have been entered into the Integrated Automated Fingerprint Identification System (IAFIS) and his DNA profile into the Combined DNA Index System (CODIS) — all of his information entered into the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children database. Of course, now Lucy is searching the Deep Web. So far, there are no leads, no matches, suggesting he wasn’t abducted, wasn’t lost, didn’t run away and end up in the hands of a sadistic stranger. Most likely he was beaten to death by a parent or some other relative, guardian, or so-called caregiver who left his body in a remote area to hide his or her crime. It happens all the time.
Scarpetta can do nothing more for him medically or scientifically, but she won’t give him up. There will be no defleshing and packing his bones in a box — no pauper’s grave. Until he’s identified, he will stay with her, transferred from the cooler to a time capsule of sorts, a polyurethane insulated freezer chilled to minus-sixty-five degrees centigrade. If need be, he can stay with her for years. She shuts the freezer’s heavy steel door and walks out into the bright deodorized hallway, untying her blue surgical gown and pulling off her gloves. Her disposable shoe covers make a quick, quiet whish on the spotless tile floor.
From her room with a view, Dr. Self talks to Jackie Minor again, since Benton has yet to bother returning her call and it is now almost two p.m.
“He’s well aware we need to take care of this. Why do you think he’s here this weekend and asked you to come in? Do you get overtime, by the way?” Dr. Self doesn’t show her ire.
“I knew there was a VIP all of a sudden. That’s all any of us are usually told when it’s somebody famous. We get a lot of famous people here. How did you find out about the study?” Jackie inquires. “I’m supposed to ask because I’m supposed to keep track so we can figure out what’s the most effective form of advertising. You know, newspaper and radio ads, posting notices, word of mouth.”
“The recruitment notice in the admissions building. I saw it first thing when I checked in what now seems a very long time ago. And it occurred to me, why not? I’ve decided to leave soon, very soon. It’s a pity your weekend is ruined,” Dr. Self says.
“Truth be told, it’s a good thing. It’s hard finding volunteers who meet the criteria, especially the normals. Such a waste. At least two out of three turn out not to be normal. But think about it. If you were normal, why would you want to come here and…”
“Be part of a science project.” Dr. Self finishes Jackie’s lamebrain thought. “I don’t believe you can sign up as a normal.”
“Oh, I didn’t mean to say you’re not…”
“I’m always open to learning something new, and I have an unusual reason for being here,” Dr. Self says. “You’re aware of how confidential this is.”
“I heard you’re sort of hiding here for security reasons.”
“Did Dr. Wesley tell you that?”
“A rumor. And confidentiality is a given, according to HIPAA, which we have to abide by. It must be safe for you to leave, if you are.”
“One can only hope.”
“Are you aware of the details of the study?”
“What I vaguely recall from the recruitment notice,” Dr. Self says.
“Dr. Wesley hasn’t gone over it with you?”
“He was just notified Friday when I informed Dr. Maroni, who’s in Italy, that I wanted to volunteer for the study, but it would have to be taken care of immediately because I’ve decided to check out. I’m sure Dr. Wesley intends to brief me thoroughly. I don’t know why he hasn’t called. Perhaps he hasn’t gotten your message yet.”
“I told him, but he’s a very busy, important person. I know he has to tape the VIP’s mother today, meaning your mother. So I’m assuming he plans to do that first. Then I’m sure he’ll talk to you.”
“It must be so hard on his personal life. These studies and whatnot that keep him here on weekends. I suppose he must have a lover. A handsome, accomplished man like him certainly wouldn’t be alone.”
“He has someone down south. In fact, her niece was here about a month ago.”
“How interesting,” Dr. Self says.
“She came here for a scan. Lucy. Some secret agent type, or tries to look like one anyway. I know she’s a computer entrepreneur, is friends with Josh.”
“Involved in law enforcement,” Dr. Self ponders. “Some type of secret operative, highly technically trained. And independently wealthy, I presume. Fascinating.”
“She didn’t even speak to me other than to introduce herself as Lucy and shake my hand and say hi and chat. She hung out with Josh, then was in Dr. Wesley’s office for quite a while. With the door shut.”
“What did you think of her?”
“She’s really stuck on herself. Of course, I didn’t spend time with her. She was hanging out with Dr. Wesley. With the door shut.” She makes that point again.
Jealous. How perfect. “How nice,” Dr. Self says. “They must be very close. She sounds very unusual. Is she pretty?”
“I thought she was rather masculine, if you get my drift. Dressed all in black and kind of muscular. A firm handshake like a guy. And she looked right into my eyes with this intense gaze. Like her eyes were these green laser beams. It made me very uncomfortable. I didn’t want to be alone with her, now that I think about it. Women like that…”
“I hear you saying she was attracted to you and wanted sex with you before she flew back on, what? A private jet, let me guess,” Dr. Self says. “Where did you say she lives?”
“Charleston. Like her aunt. I think she did want sex with me. My God. How could I not have realized that at the time, when she shook my hand and looked into my eyes. And oh, yes. She asked me if I had long hours, as if maybe she wanted to know what time I got off work. She asked me where I’m from. She got personal. I just didn’t see it at the time.”
“Perhaps because you were afraid to see it, Jackie. She does sound very appealing and charismatic, the sort who almost hypnotically lures a straight woman into bed, and after an extremely erotic experience…?” A pause. “You do understand why two women having sex, even if one of them is straight or both are, isn’t at all uncommon.”
“Absolutely not.”
“Do you read Freud?”
“I’ve never felt an attraction to another woman. Not even my roommate in college. And we lived together. If there was that latent predisposition, a lot more would have happened.”
“Everything is about sex, Jackie. Sexual desire goes all the way back to infancy. What is it that both male and female infants get, that later is denied the female?”
“I don’t know.”
“The nurturing at mother’s breast.”
“I don’t want that kind of nurturing and don’t remember anything about it and only care about boobs because men like them. They’re important for that reason, and I only notice them for that reason. I think I was bottle-fed, anyway.”
“I do agree with you, though,” Dr. Self says. “Rather odd she came all the way up here for a scan. I certainly hope there’s nothing wrong with her.”
“I just know she comes in a couple times a year.”
“A couple times a year?”
“That’s what one of the techs said.”
“How tragic if there’s something wrong with her. You and I both know it isn’t routine for someone to have brain scans several times a year. If at all. What else do I need to know about my scan?”
“Has anyone bothered to ask if you have a problem going into the magnet?” Jackie asks with the seriousness of an expert.
“A problem?”
“You know. If it might cause you a problem.”
“Not unless after it’s over I can no longer tell north from south. Another very astute point you’re making, though. I do have to wonder what it does to people. I’m not sure that’s really been determined. MRI hasn’t been commonly used all that long, now has it.”
“The study uses fMRI. Functional MRI, so we can watch your brain working while you listen to the tape.”
“Yes, the tape. My mother will so enjoy making that tape. Now, what else do I have to look forward to?”
“The protocol is to start with the SCID. Let me explain, the Structured Clinical Interview for DSM-Three-R.”
“I’m quite familiar. Especially with DSM-Four. The latest revision.”
“Sometimes Dr. Wesley lets me do the SCID. We can’t scan you until we get that out of the way, and it can be a lengthy process going through all those questions.”
“I’ll discuss that when I see him today. And if it’s appropriate, inquire about Lucy. No, I suppose I shouldn’t. But I do hope nothing’s wrong with her. Especially since it seems she’s very special to him.”
“He’s booked up with other patients, but I could probably find time to SCID you.”
“Thank you, Jackie. I’ll talk to him about it the minute he calls me. And have there been averse reactions to his fascinating study? And who funded the grant? I believe you said your father?”
“We’ve had a few people who were claustrophobic. So we couldn’t scan them after all that work. Imagine,” Jackie says, “I go to all the trouble to SCID them and tape their mothers…”
“Tape them over the phone, I presume. You’ve done quite a lot in one short week.”
“Much cheaper and more efficient. No need to see these people in person. It’s just a standard format, what you need them to talk about on tape. I’m not allowed to discuss grant funding, but my father’s into philanthropy.”
“The new show I’m developing. Did I mention I’m just on the brink of thinking about production consultants? You indicated Lucy is somehow involved with law enforcement? Or a special agent? She might be another one to consider. Unless there’s something wrong with her. And she’s had her brain scanned here how many times?”
“I’m sorry to say I’ve not watched your show much. Because of my schedule, I can only watch TV at night.”
“My shows are aired repeatedly. Morning, noon, and night.”
“Scientifically exploring the criminal mind and its behavior versus interviewing people who wear guns and just go around arresting them is really the right idea. Your audience would love it,” Jackie says. “Love it a lot more than most of what’s on these talk shows. I think getting an expert to interview one of these sexually violent psychopathic killers on your show would make your ratings go up.”
“From which I am to infer that a psychopath who rapes or sexually abuses and kills might not necessarily be violent. That is an extraordinarily original concept, Jackie, which next makes me wonder if, for example, only sociopathic sexual murderers are also violent. And following that hypothesis, we next have to ask what?”
“Well…”
“Well, we have to ask where compulsive sexual homicide fits. Or is it all about vernacular? I say potato, you say spud.”
“Well…”
“How much Freud have you read, and do you pay attention to your dreams? You should write them down, keep a journal by your bed.”
“Of course, in classes, well, not the journal and dreams. I didn’t do that in classes,” Jackie says. “In real life, nobody’s into Freud anymore.”
Eight-thirty p.m., Rome time. Seagulls swoop and cry in the night. They look like large white bats.
In other cities near the coast, the gulls are a nuisance during the day but vanish after dark. Certainly this is true in America, where Captain Poma has spent considerable time. As a young boy, he frequented foreign lands with his family. He was to become a man of the world who spoke other languages fluently and had impeccable manners and an excellent education. He was to amount to something, his parents said. He watches two fat, snowy gulls on a windowsill near his table, eyeing him. Maybe it’s the beluga caviar they want.
“I ask you where she is,” he says in Italian. “And your answer is to inform me of a man I should know about? But you won’t give me details? Now I’m extremely frustrated.”
“What I said was the following,” replies Dr. Paulo Maroni, who has known the captain for years. “Dr. Self had Drew Martin on her show, as you know. Weeks later, Dr. Self began getting e-mails from someone very disturbed. I know this, because she referred him to me.”
“Paulo, please. I need details about this disturbed person.”
“I was hoping you had them.”
“I’m not the one who introduced the subject.”
“You’re the one working the case,” Dr. Maroni says. “It appears I have more information than you do. That’s depressing. So there’s nothing.”
“I wouldn’t want to admit it publicly. We’re no further along. That’s why it’s vital you tell me about this disturbed person. And I feel you are toying with me in a very strange way.”
“For more details, you must talk to her. He isn’t her patient, and she can talk about him freely. Assuming she’s cooperative.” He reaches for the silver plate of blini. “And that’s a big assumption.”
“Then help me find her,” Captain Poma says. “Because I have a feeling you know where she is. That’s why you suddenly called me and invited yourself to a very expensive dinner.”
Dr. Maroni laughs. He could afford a roomful of the very best Russian caviar. That’s not why he’s having dinner with the captain. He knows something and has complex reasons, a scheme. This is typical of him. He’s gifted in his understanding of human proclivities and motivations, possibly the most brilliant man the captain knows. But he’s an enigma, and his definition of truth is his own.
“I can’t tell you where she is,” Dr. Maroni says.
“Which doesn’t mean you don’t know. You’re playing your word games with me, Paulo. It’s not that I’m lazy. It’s not that I haven’t tried very hard to find her. Ever since I learned she was acquainted with Drew, I’ve talked to people who work for her and am always told the same story that’s been on the news. She had a mysterious family emergency. No one knows where she is.”
“Logic would tell you it’s impossible no one knows where she is.”
“Yes, logic does tell me that,” the captain says, spreading caviar on a blini and handing it to him. “I have a feeling you’ll help me find her. Because as I say, you know, which is why you called me and now we’re playing word games.”
“Her staff has forwarded your e-mails requesting a meeting or at least a telephone conversation?” Dr. Maroni asks.
“So they say.” The gulls fly away, interested in another table. “I won’t reach her through the normal channels. She has no intention of acknowledging me, because the last thing she would want is to become a factor in the investigation. People might assign responsibility to her.”
“As they probably should. She’s irresponsible,” Dr. Maroni says.
The wine steward appears to refill their glasses. The Hotel Hassler’s rooftop restaurant is one of Captain Poma’s favorites. The view is beautiful and he never tires of it, and he thinks about Kay Scarpetta and wonders if she and Benton Wesley ever ate here. Probably not. They were too busy. They strike him as too busy for what matters in life.
“You see? The more she’s avoided me, the more I think she has a reason,” the captain adds. “Maybe it’s this disturbed man she referred to you. Please tell me where to find her, because I think you know.”
Dr. Maroni says, “Did I mention we have regulations and standards in the United States, and lawsuits are the national sport?”
“Her staff’s not going to tell me if she’s a patient at your hospital.”
“I would never tell you, either.”
“Of course not.” The captain smiles. Now he knows. He has no doubt.
“I’m so glad not to be there at the moment,” Dr. Maroni then says. “We have a very difficult VIP at the Pavilion. I hope Benton Wesley can adequately handle her.”
“I must talk to her. How can I make her think I found out from a source other than you?”
“You didn’t find out anything from me.”
“I found out from somebody. She’ll demand I tell her.”
“You found out nothing from me. In fact, you’re the one who said it. And I haven’t verified it.”
“May we discuss it hypothetically?”
Dr. Maroni drinks his wine. “I prefer the Barbaresco we had last time.”
“You would. It was three hundred euros.”
“Full-bodied but very fresh.”
“The wine? Or the woman you were with last night?”
For a man his age who eats and drinks whatever he pleases, Dr. Maroni looks good and is never without a woman. They offer themselves to him as if he is the god Priapus, and he’s faithful to no one. Usually, he leaves his wife in Massachusetts when he comes to Rome. She doesn’t seem to mind. She’s well taken care of, and he isn’t demanding about his sexual desires because she no longer meets them and he no longer is in love with her. This is a destiny the captain refuses to accept. He’s romantic, and he wonders about Scarpetta again. She doesn’t need to be taken care of and wouldn’t permit it. Her presence in his thoughts is like the light of the candles on the tables and the lights of the city beyond the window. He is moved by her.
“I can contact her at the hospital. But she’ll demand to know how I found out about her being there,” the captain says.
“The VIP, you mean.” Dr. Maroni dips a mother-of-pearl spoon into the caviar, scoops out enough for two blini. He spreads the caviar over one and eats it. “You mustn’t contact anyone at the hospital.”
“What if Benton Wesley’s my source? He was just here and is involved in the investigation. And now she’s his patient. It irritates me we talked about Dr. Self the other night and he didn’t divulge she’s his patient.”
“You mean the VIP. Benton isn’t a psychiatrist, and the VIP technically isn’t his patient. Technically, the VIP is my patient.”
The captain pauses as the waiter appears with the primi piatti. Risotto with mushrooms and Parmesan. Basil-flavored minestrone with quad-rucci pasta.
“Anyway, Benton would never divulge a confidence like that. You may as well ask a stone,” Dr. Maroni says when the waiter is gone. “My guess is the VIP will be gone soon. Where she goes will be the important question for you. Where she’s been is important only because of motive.”
“Dr. Self’s show is filmed in New York.”
“VIPs can go where they please. If you find out where she is and why, you might discover where she would go next. A more likely source would be Lucy Farinelli.”
“Lucy Farinelli?” The captain is baffled.
“Dr. Scarpetta’s niece. As it happens, I’m doing her a favor, and she comes to the hospital fairly often. So she could hear rumors from the staff.”
“And what? She told Kay, who next told me?”
“Kay?” Dr. Maroni eats. “Then you are on friendly terms with her?”
“I hope so. Not so friendly with him. I don’t think he likes me.”
“Most men don’t like you, Otto. Only homosexuals. But you see my point. Hypothetically. If the information comes from an outsider — Lucy, who tells Dr. Scarpetta, who tells you”—Dr. Maroni eats the risotto with enthusiasm—“then there are no ethical or legal concerns. You can begin to follow the trail.”
“And the VIP knows Kay’s working with me on the case, since she was just here in Rome and it’s been in the news. So this VIP will believe Kay indirectly is the source, and then there’s no trouble. That’s very good. Perfect.”
“The risotto ai funghi is almost perfect. What about the minestrone? I’ve had it before,” Dr. Maroni says.
“Excellent. This VIP. Without compromising confidentiality, can you tell me why she’s a patient at McLean?”
“Her reason or mine? Personal safety is her reason. Mine is so she could take advantage of me. She has both axis one and axis two pathology. Rapid-cycling bipolar and refuses to acknowledge it, much less take a mood stabilizer. Which personality disorder would you like me to discuss? She has so many. I regret to say that people with personality disorders rarely change.”
“So something caused a breakdown. Is this the VIP’s first hospitalization for psychiatric reasons? I’ve been doing research. She’s against medication and thinks all of the problems in the world can be managed by following her advice. What she calls tools.”
“The VIP has no known history of hospitalization prior to this. Now you’re asking the important questions. Not where she is. But why. I can’t tell you where she is. I can tell you where the VIP is.”
“Something was traumatic to your VIP?”
“This VIP received an e-mail from a madman. Coincidentally, the same madman Dr. Self told me about last fall.”
“I must talk to her.”
“Talk to who?”
“All right. May we discuss Dr. Self?”
“We’ll change our conversation from the VIP to Dr. Self.”
“Tell me more about this madman.”
“As I said, someone I saw several times at my office here.”
“I won’t ask the name of this patient.”
“Good, because I don’t know it. He paid cash. And he lied.”
“You have no idea about his real name?”
“Unlike you, I don’t get to do a background check on a patient or demand proof of his true identity,” Dr. Maroni says.
“Then what was his false name?”
“I can’t tell you.”
“Why did Dr. Self contact you about this man? And when?”
“Early October. She said he was sending e-mails to her and she thought it best to refer him elsewhere. As I’ve said.”
“Then she’s at least somewhat responsible, if she acknowledged a situation was beyond her capabilities,” Captain Poma says.
“This is where, perhaps, you don’t understand her. She would never begin to think anything is beyond her capabilities. She couldn’t be bothered with him, and it appealed to her maniacal ego to refer him to a Nobel Prize — winning psychiatrist who is on the faculty of Harvard Medical School. It was gratifying to inconvenience me, as she’s done many times before. She has her reasons. If nothing else, she probably knew I would fail. He isn’t treatable.” Dr. Maroni studies his wine as if there is an answer in it.
“Tell me this,” Captain Poma says. “If he’s untreatable, then don’t you agree this also justifies what I’m thinking? He’s a very abnormal man who may be doing very abnormal things. He’s sent her e-mails. He may have sent her the e-mail she mentioned to you when she was admitted at McLean.”
“You mean the VIP. I never said Dr. Self is at McLean. But if she were, you certainly should find out exactly why. It seems that’s what matters. I’m repeating myself like a broken record.”
“He might have sent the VIP the e-mail that disturbed her enough to make her hide at your hospital. We must locate him and at least be sure he isn’t a murderer.”
“I have no idea how to do that. As I said, I couldn’t begin to tell you who he is. Only that he’s an American and served in Iraq.”
“What did he say was his purpose in coming to see you here in Rome? That’s a long way for an appointment.”
“He was suffering from PTSD. He seems to have connections in Italy. He told a very unsettling story about a young woman he spent a day with last summer. A body discovered near Bari. You remember the case.”
“The Canadian tourist?” the captain says, surprised. “Shit.”
“That’s the one. Only she was unidentified at first.”
“She was nude, badly mutilated.”
“Not like Drew Martin, from what you’ve told me. The same thing wasn’t done to the eyes.”
“She was also missing large areas of flesh.”
“Yes. At first it was assumed she was a prostitute who’d been thrown from a moving car or was hit by one, thus explaining these wounds,” Dr. Maroni says. “The autopsy showed otherwise, was done very competently, even if it was performed in very primitive conditions. You know how these things go in remote areas that have no money.”
“Especially if it’s a prostitute. She was autopsied in a cemetery. Had the Canadian tourist not been reported missing about this same time, she may have been buried in the cemetery, unidentified,” Captain Poma recalls.
“It was determined the flesh had been removed by some type of knife or saw.”
“And you aren’t going to tell me everything you know about this patient who paid cash and lied about his name?” the captain protests. “You must have notes you could share with me?”
“Impossible. What he told me is no proof.”
“What if he’s this killer, Paulo?”
“If I had more evidence, I’d tell you. I have only his twisted tales and the uneasy feeling I got when I was contacted about the murdered prostitute who turned out to be the missing Canadian.”
“You were contacted? What? For your opinion? That’s news to me.”
“It was worked by the state police. Not the Carabinieri. I give my free advice to many people. In summary, this patient never came to see me again, and I couldn’t tell you where he is,” Dr. Maroni says.
“Couldn’t or won’t.”
“I couldn’t.”
“Don’t you see how it’s possible he’s Drew Martin’s killer? He was referred to you by Dr. Self, and suddenly she hides at your hospital because of an e-mail from a madman.”
“Now you’re perseverating and back to the VIP. I’ve never said Dr. Self is a patient at the hospital. But motivation for hiding is more important than the hiding place itself.”
“If only I could dig with a shovel inside your head, Paulo. No telling what I’d find.”
“Risotto and wine.”
“If you know details that could help this investigation, I don’t agree with your secrecy,” the captain says, and then he says nothing because the waiter is heading toward them.
Dr. Maroni asks to see the menu again, even though he has tried everything on it by now because he dines here often. The captain, who doesn’t want a menu, recommends the grilled Mediterranean spiny lobster, followed by salad and Italian cheeses. The male seagull returns alone. He stares through the window, ruffling his bright white feathers. Beyond are the lights of the city. The gold dome of Saint Peter’s looks like a crown.
“Otto, if I violate confidentiality with so little evidence and am mistaken, my career is finished,” Dr. Maroni finally says. “I don’t have a legitimate reason to expose further details about him to the police. It would be most unwise of me.”
“So you introduce the subject of who may be the killer and then close the door?” Captain Poma leans into the table and says in despair.
“I didn’t open that door,” Dr. Maroni says. “All I did was point it out to you.”
Lost in her work, Scarpetta is startled when the alarm on her wristwatch goes off at quarter of three.
She finishes suturing the Y incision of the decomposing elderly woman whose autopsy was unnecessary. Atherosclerotic plaque. Cause of death, as expected, arteriosclerotic coronary vascular disease. She pulls off her gloves and drops them in a bright red biohazard trash can, then calls Rose.
“I’ll be up in a minute,” Scarpetta tells her. “If you could contact Meddicks’, let them know she’s ready for pickup.”
“I was just coming down to find you,” Rose says. “Worried you might have accidentally locked yourself in the fridge.” An old joke. “Benton’s trying to reach you. Says for you to check your e-mail when, and I quote, you are alone and composed.”
“You sound worse than you did yesterday. More congested.”
“I might have a bit of a cold.”
“I heard Marino’s motorcycle a little while ago. And someone’s been smoking down here. In the fridge. Even my surgical gown reeks of it.”
“That’s odd.”
“Where is he? Be nice if he could have found time to help me out down here.”
“In the kitchen,” Rose says.
Fresh gloves, and Scarpetta pulls the elderly woman’s body from the autopsy table into a sheet-lined sturdy vinyl bag on top of a gurney, which she rolls into the cooler. She hoses off her work station, places tubes of vitreous fluid, urine, bile, and blood, and a carton of sectioned organs into a refrigerator for later toxicological testing and histology. Bloodstained cards go under a hood to dry — samples for DNA testing that are included in each case file. After mopping the floor and cleaning surgical instruments and sinks and gathering paperwork for later dictation, she’s ready to attend to her own hygiene.
At the back of the autopsy suite are drying cabinets with HEPA and carbon filters for bloody, soiled clothing before it is packaged as evidence and sent to the labs. Next is a storage area, then a laundry room, and finally the locker room, divided by a glass-block wall. One side for men, the other for women. At this early stage of her practice in Charleston, it’s just Marino assisting her in the morgue. He has his side of the locker room and she has the other, and it always feels awkward to her when both of them are showering at the same time and she can hear him and see changes in light through the thick green translucent glass as he moves about.
She enters her side of the locker room, shuts and locks the door. She removes her disposable shoe covers, apron, cap, and face mask, and drops them in a biohazard trash can, then tosses her surgical gown in a hamper. She showers, scrubbing herself with antibacterial soap, then blow-dries her hair and changes back into her suit and pumps. Returning to the corridor, she walks the length of it to a door. On the other side is the steep flight of worn oak stairs that lead directly up to the kitchen where Marino is popping open a can of Diet Pepsi.
He looks her up and down. “Aren’t we dressed fancy,” he says. “You forget it’s Sunday and think you got court? So much for my ride to Myrtle Beach.” A long night of carousing shows on his flushed, stubbly face.
“Count it as a gift. Another day of being alive.” She hates motorcycles. “Besides, the weather is bad and supposed to get worse.”
“Eventually I’m gonna get you on the back of my Indian Chief Roadmaster and you’ll be hooked, be begging for more.”
The idea of straddling his big motorcycle, her arms around him, her body pressed against him, is a complete turnoff, and he knows it. She’s his boss, and in many ways always has been for the better part of twenty years, and that no longer seems all right with him. Certainly both of them have changed. Certainly they’ve had their good times and bad. But over recent years and especially of late, his regard for her and his job has become increasingly unrecognizable, and now this. She thinks of Dr. Self’s e-mails, wonders if he assumes she’s seen them. She thinks of whatever game Dr. Self is engaging him in — a game he won’t understand and is destined to lose.
“I could hear you come in. Obviously, you parked your motorcycle in the bay again,” she says. “If it gets hit by a hearse or a van,” she reminds him, “the liability’s yours and I won’t feel sorry for you.”
“It gets hit, there’ll be an extra dead body wheeled in, whatever dumb-shit funeral home creepy-crawler didn’t look where he was going.”
Marino’s motorcycle, with its sound barrier — breaking pipes, has become yet one more point of contention. He rides it to crime scenes, to court, to emergency rooms, to law offices, to witnesses’ homes. At the office, he refuses to leave it in the parking lot and tucks it in the bay, which is for body deliveries, not personal vehicles.
“Has Mr. Grant gotten here yet?” Scarpetta says.
“Drove up in a piece-of-shit pickup truck with his piece-of-shit fishing boat, shrimp nets, buckets, other crap in back. One big son of a bitch, pitch-black. I’ve never seen black people as black as they are around here. Not a drop of cream in the coffee. Not like our ole stomping grounds in Virginia where Thomas Jefferson slept with the help.”
She’s in no mood to engage in his provocations. “Is he in my office, because I don’t want to make him wait.”
“I don’t get why you dressed up for him like you’re meeting with a lawyer or a judge or going to church,” Marino says, and she wonders if what he really hopes is that she dressed up for him, perhaps because she read Dr. Self’s e-mails and is jealous.
“Meeting with him is as important as meeting with anyone else,” she says. “We always show respect, remember?”
Marino smells like cigarettes and booze, and when “his chemistry’s off,” as Scarpetta understates it all too often these days, his deep-seated insecurities shift his bad behavior into high gear, a problem made quite threatening by his physical formidability. In his mid-fifties, he shaves off what is left of his hair, typically wears black motorcycle clothing and big boots, and, as of the past few days, a gaudy necklace with a silver dollar dangling from it. He is fanatical about lifting weights, his chest so broad he’s known to brag that it takes two x-rays to capture his lungs on film. In a much earlier phase of his life, based on old photographs she’s seen, he was handsome in a virile, tough way, and might still be attractive were it not for his crassness, slovenliness, and hard living that at this point in his life can’t be blamed on his difficult upbringing in a rough part of New Jersey.
“I don’t know why you still entertain the fantasy that you’ll fool me,” Scarpetta says, shifting the conversation away from the ridiculous subject of how she is dressed and why. “Last night. And clearly in the morgue.”
“Fool you about what?” Another gulp from the can.
“When you splash on that much cologne to disguise cigarette smoke, all you do is give me a headache.”
“Huh?” He quietly belches.
“Let me guess, you spent the night at the Kick ’N Horse.”
“The joint’s full of cigarette smoke.” He shrugs his massive shoulders.
“And I’m sure you didn’t add to it. You were smoking in the morgue. In the fridge. Even the surgical gown I put on smelled like cigarette smoke. Were you smoking in my locker room?”
“Probably drifted in from my side. The smoke, I mean. I might have carried my cigarette in there, in my side. I can’t remember.”
“I know you don’t want lung cancer.”
He averts his eyes the way he does when a certain topic of conversation is uncomfortable, and he chooses to abort it. “Find anything new? And I don’t mean the old lady, who shouldn’t have been sent here just because the coroner didn’t want to deal with a stinky decomp. But the kid.”
“I’ve put him in the freezer. There’s nothing more we can do right now.”
“I can’t stand it when it’s kids. I figure out who did that little kid down there, I’ll kill him, tear him to pieces with my bare hands.”
“Let’s don’t threaten to kill people, please.” Rose is in the doorway, an odd expression on her face. Scarpetta isn’t sure how long she’s been standing there.
“It ain’t no threat,” Marino says.
“That’s exactly why I mentioned it.” Rose steps into the kitchen, dressed as neat as a pin — her old-fashioned expression — in a blue suit, her white hair tucked back in a French twist. She looks exhausted, and her pupils are contracted.
“You lecturing me again?” Marino says to her with a wink.
“You need a good lecture or two. Or three or four,” she says, pouring herself a cup of strong black coffee, a “bad” habit she quit about a year ago and now, apparently, has resumed. “And in case you’ve forgotten”—she eyes him above the rim of her coffee mug—“you have killed people before. So you shouldn’t make threats.” She leans against the countertop and takes a deep breath.
“I told you. It ain’t no threat.”
“You sure you’re all right?” Scarpetta asks Rose. “Maybe you’re getting more than a little cold. You shouldn’t have come in.”
“I had a little chat with Lucy,” Rose says. To Marino, “I don’t want Dr. Scarpetta alone with Mr. Grant. Not even for a second.”
“Did she mention he passed his background check?” Scarpetta says.
“You hear me, Marino? Not for one second do you leave Dr. Scarpetta alone with that man. I don’t give a hoot about his background check. He’s bigger than you are,” says the ever-protective Rose, probably upon the ever-protective Lucy’s instructions.
Rose has been Scarpetta’s secretary for almost twenty years, following her from pillar to post, in Rose’s words, and through thick and thin. At seventy-three, she’s an attractive, imposing figure, erect and keen, daily drifting in and out of the morgue armed with phone messages, reports that must be signed right this minute, any matter of business she decides can’t wait, or simply a reminder — no, an order — that Scarpetta hasn’t eaten all day and take-out food — healthy, of course — awaits her upstairs and she will go eat it now and she won’t have another cup of coffee because she drinks too much coffee.
“He’s been in what appears to be a knife fight.” Rose continues to worry.
“It’s in his background check. He was the victim,” Scarpetta says.
“He looks very violent and dangerous, and is the size of a freighter. It concerns me greatly that he wanted to come here on a Sunday afternoon, perhaps hoping he’d find you alone,” she says to Scarpetta. “How do you know he isn’t the one who killed that child?”
“Let’s just hear what he has to say.”
“In the old days, we wouldn’t do it like this. There would be a police presence,” Rose insists.
“This isn’t the old days,” Scarpetta replies, trying not to lecture. “This is a private practice, and we have more flexibility in some ways and less in others. But in fact, part of our job has always been to meet with anyone who might have useful information, police presence or not.”
“Just be careful,” Rose says to Marino. “Whoever did this to that poor little boy knows darn well his body’s here and Dr. Scarpetta’s working on it, and usually when she works on something, she figures it out. He could be stalking her, for all we know.”
Usually Rose doesn’t get this overwrought.
“You’ve been smoking,” Rose then says to Marino.
He takes another big gulp of Diet Pepsi. “Should’ve seen me last night. Had ten cigarettes in my mouth and two in my ass while I was playing the harmonica and getting it on with my new woman.”
“Another edifying evening at that biker bar with some woman whose IQ is the same as my refrigerator. Sub-Zero. Please don’t smoke. I don’t want you to die.” Rose looks troubled as she walks over to the coffeemaker and starts filling the pot with water to make a fresh pot. “Mr. Grant would like coffee,” she says. “And no, Dr. Scarpetta, you can’t have any.”