Five Scarpetta Novels (12 page)

She pressed her lips tight.

“Please tell me if I am misunderstanding something.”

“There was a girl he brought by some months back. I guess it was in the summer and apparently she's some sort of scientist.” She paused. “Seems he was doing a story or something, they met that way. We had a bit of a disagreement over her.”

“Why?”

“She was attractive and one of these academic types. Maybe she's a professor. I can't recall but she's from overseas somewhere.”

I waited, but she had nothing more to say.

“What was your disagreement?” I asked.

“I knew the minute I met her that she was not of good character, and she was not permitted in my home,” Mrs. Eddings replied.

“Does she live in this area?” I asked.

“One would expect so, but I wouldn't know where she is.”

“But he might have still been seeing her.”

“I have no idea who Ted was seeing,” she said, and I believed she was lying.

“Mrs. Eddings,” I said, “by all appearances, your son was not home much.”

She just looked at me.

“Did he have a housekeeper? For example, someone who took care of his plants?”

“I sent my housekeeper by when needed,” she said. “Corian. Sometimes she brings him food. Ted can never bother with cooking.”

“When was the last time she went by?”

“I don't know,” she said, and I could tell she was
getting weary of questions. “Some time before Christmas, I suspect, because she's had the flu.”

“Did Corian ever mention to you what is in his house?”

“I guess you mean his guns,” she said. “Just another something he started to collect a year or so back. That's all he wanted for his birthday—a gift certificate for one of those gun stores around here. As if a woman would dare walk into such a place.”

It was pointless to probe further, for she had the single desire for her son to be alive. Beyond that, any activity or inquiry was simply an invasion she was determined to sidestep. At close to ten, I headed home, and almost slipped twice on vacant streets where it was too dark to see. The night was bitterly cold and filled with sharp wet sounds as ice coated trees and glazed the ground.

I felt discouraged because it did not seem anyone knew Eddings beyond what he had been like on the surface or in the past. I had learned he had collected coins and butterflies and had always been charming. He was an ambitious reporter with a limited attention span, and I thought how odd it was that I should be walking through his old neighborhood in such weather to talk about this man. I wondered what he would think could I tell him, and I felt very sad.

I did not want to chat with anyone when I walked into my house, but went straight to my room. I was warming my hands with hot water and washing my face when Lucy appeared in the doorway. I knew instantly that she was in one of her moods.

“Did you get enough to eat?” I looked at her in the mirror over the sink.

“I never get enough to eat,” she irritably replied. “Someone named Danny from your Norfolk office called. He said the answering service was contacted about our cars.”

For a moment my mind went blank. Then I remembered. “I gave the towing service the office number.” I dried my face with a towel. “So I guess the answering service reached Danny at home.”

“Whatever. He wants you to call.” She stared at me in the mirror as if I had done something wrong.

“What is it?” I stared back.

“I've just got to get out of here.”

“I'll try to get the cars here tomorrow,” I said, stung.

I walked out of the bathroom, and she followed.

“I need to get back to UVA.”

“Of course you do, Lucy,” I said.

“You don't understand. I've got so much to do.”

“I didn't realize your independent study or whatever it is had already started.” I walked into the gathering room and headed for the bar.

“It doesn't matter if it's started. I've got a lot to set up. And I don't understand how you're going to get the cars here. Maybe Marino can take me to get mine.”

“Marino is very busy and my plan is simple,” I said. “Danny will drive my car to Richmond and he has a reliable friend who will drive your Suburban. Then Danny and his friend will take the bus back to Norfolk.”

“What time?”

“That's the only snag. I can't permit Danny to do any of this until after hours, because he can't deliver my personal car on state time.” I was opening a bottle of Chardonnay.

“Shit,” Lucy impatiently said. “So I won't have transportation tomorrow, either?”

“I'm afraid neither of us will,” I said.

“And what are you going to do, then?”

I handed her a glass of wine. “I'll be going into my office and probably spending a lot of time on the phone.
Anything you might be able to do at the field office here?”

She shrugged. “I know a couple people who went through the Academy with me.”

At the very least she could find another agent to take her to the gym so she could work off her ugly mood, I started to say, but held my tongue.

“I don't want wine.” She set the glass down on the bar. “I think I'll just drink beer for a while.”

“Why are you so angry?”

“I'm not angry.” She got a Beck's Light out of the small refrigerator and popped off the cap.

“Do you want to sit down?”

“No,” she said. “By the way, I've got the Book, so don't get alarmed when you don't find it in your briefcase.”

“What do you mean, you have it?” I looked uneasily at her.

“I was reading it while you were out talking to Mrs. Eddings.” She took a swallow of beer. “I thought it would be a good idea to go over it again in case there's something we didn't notice.”

“I think you've looked at it quite enough,” I flatly said. “In fact, I think all of us have.”

“There's a lot of Old Testament–type stuff in there. I mean, it's not like it's satanic, really.”

I watched her in silence as I wondered what was really going on in that incredibly complicated brain.

“I actually find it rather interesting, and believe it has power only if you allow it to have power. I don't allow it, so it doesn't bother me,” she was saying.

I set down my glass. “Well, something certainly is.”

“Only thing bothering me is I'm stranded and tired. So I guess I'll just go to bed,” she said. “I hope you sleep well.”

But I did not. Instead, I sat before the fire worrying about
her, for I probably knew my niece better than anyone did. Perhaps she and Janet had simply had a fight and repairs would be made in the morning, or maybe she really did have too much to do, and not being able to return to Charlottesville was more of a problem than I knew.

I turned the fire off and checked the burglar alarm one more time to make certain it was armed, then I walked back to my bedroom and shut the door. Still, I could not sleep, so I sat up in lamplight listening to the weather as I studied the journal that had been printed by Eddings' fax machine. There were eighteen numbers dialed over the past two weeks, and all of them were curious and suggestive that he certainly had been home at least some of the time and doing something in his office.

What also struck me right away was that if he had worked at home, I would have expected numerous transmissions to the AP office downtown. But this was not the case. Since mid-December, he had faxed his office only twice, at least from the machine we had found at his house. This was simple enough to determine because he had entered a speed dial label for the wire service's fax number, so “AP DESK” appeared in the journal's identification column, along with less obvious labels like “NVSE,” “DRMS,” “CPT” and “LM.” Three of those numbers had Tidewater, Central and Northern Virginia area codes and exchanges, while the area code for DRMS was Memphis, Tennessee.

I tried to sleep but information drifted past my eyes and questions spoke because I could not shut them off. I wondered who Eddings had been contacting in these different places, or if it mattered. But what I could not get away from was where he had died. I could still see his body suspended in that murky river, tethered by a useless hose caught on a rusting screw. I could feel his stiffness as I
held him in my arms and swam him up with me. I had known before I had ever reached the surface that he had been dead many hours.

At three
A
.
M
. I sat up in bed and stared at the darkness. The house was quiet except for its usual shifting sounds, and I simply could not turn off my conscious mind. Reluctantly, I put my feet on the floor, my heart beating hard, as if it were startled that I should stir at such an hour. In my office I shut the door and wrote the following brief letter:

 

TO WHOM IT MAY CONCERN:

I realize this is a fax number, otherwise I would call in person. I need to know your identification, if possible, as your number has shown up on the printout of a recently deceased individual's fax machine. Please contact me at your earliest convenience. If you need verification of the authenticity of this communication, contact Captain Pete Marino of the Richmond Police Department.

I gave telephone numbers and signed my title and my name, and I faxed the letter to every speed dial listing in Eddings' journal, except, of course, the Associated Press. For a while I sat at my desk, staring rather glazed, as if my fax machine were going to solve this case immediately. But it remained silent as I read and waited. At the reasonable hour of six
A
.
M
., I called Marino.

“I take it there was no riot,” I said after the phone banged and dropped and his voice mumbled over the line. “Good, you're awake,” I added.

“What time is it?” He sounded as if he were in a stupor.

“It's time for you to rise and shine.”

“We locked up maybe five people. The rest got quiet
after that and went back inside. What are you doing awake?”

“I'm always awake. And by the way, I could use a ride to work today and I need groceries.”

“Well, put on some coffee,” he said. “I guess I'm coming over.”

W
HEN HE ARRIVED
, Lucy was still in bed and I was making coffee. I let him in, dismayed again when I looked out at my street. Overnight, Richmond had turned to glass, and I had heard on the news that falling branches and trees had knocked down power lines in several sections of the city.

“Did you have any trouble?” I asked, shutting the front door.

“Depends on what kind you mean.” Marino set down groceries, took off his coat and handed it to me.

“Driving.”

“I got chains. But I was out till after midnight and I'm tired as hell.”

“Come on. Let's get you some coffee.”

“None of that unleaded shit.”

“Guatemalan, and I promise it's leaded.”

“Where's the kid?”

“Asleep.”

“Yo. Must be nice.” He yawned again.

I began making fresh fruit salad in my kitchen with its many windows. Through them the river was pewter and
slow. Rocks were glazed, the woods a fantasy just beginning to sparkle in the wan morning light. Marino poured his own coffee, adding plenty of sugar and cream.

“You want some?” he asked.

“Black, please.”

“I think by now you don't have to tell me.”

“I never make assumptions,” I said, getting plates out of a cabinet. “Especially about men, who seem to have a Mendelian trait which precludes them from remembering details important to women.”

“Yeah, well, I could give you a list of things Doris never remembered, starting with using my tools and not putting them back,” he said of his ex-wife.

I worked at the counter while he looked around as if he wanted to smoke. I wasn't going to let him.

“I guess Tony never fixed coffee for you,” he said.

“Tony never did much of anything for me except try to get me pregnant.”

“He didn't do a very good job unless you didn't want kids.”

“Not with him I didn't.”

“What about now?”

“I still don't want them with him. Here.” I handed Marino a plate. “Let's sit.”

“Wait a minute. This is it?”

“What else do you want?”

“Shit, Doc. This ain't food. And what the hell are these little green slices with black things.”

“The kiwi fruit I told you to get. I'm sure you must have had it before,” I patiently said. “I've got bagels in the freezer.”

“Yeah, that'd be good. With cream cheese. You got any poppyseed?”

“If you have a drug test today you'll come up positive for morphine.”

“And don't give me any of that nonfat stuff. It's like eating paste.”

“No, it's not,” I said. “Paste is better.”

I left off the butter, determined to make him live for a while. By now Marino and I were more than partners or even friends. We were dependent on each other in a way neither could explain.

“So tell me what all you did,” he said as we sat at my breakfast table by a wide pane of glass. “I know you been up all night doing something.” He took a large bite of bagel and reached for his juice.

I told him about my visit with Mrs. Eddings, and about the note I had written and sent to numbers belonging to places I did not know.

“It's weird he was faxing things everywhere but his office.”

“He sent two faxes to his office,” I reminded him.

“I need to talk to those people.”

“Good luck. Remember, they're reporters.”

“That's what I'm afraid of. To those drones, Eddings is just another story. Only thing they care about is what they're going to do with the info. The worse his death is, the better they like it.”

“Well, I don't know. But I suspect whoever he associated with in that office is going to be extremely careful about what is said. I'm not sure I blame them. A death investigation is frightening to people who did not ask to be invited.”

“What's the status of his tox?” Marino asked.

“Hopefully today,” I said.

“Good. You get your verification it's cyanide, then maybe we can work this thing the way it ought to be
worked. As it is, I'm trying to explain superstitions to the commander of A Squad and wondering what the hell I'm going to do about the Keystone Kops in Chesapeake. And I'm telling Wesley it's a homicide and he's asking for proof because he's on the spot, too.”

The mention of his name was disturbing, and I looked out the window at unnavigable water moving thickly between big, dark rocks. The sun was lighting up gray clouds in the eastern part of the sky, and I heard the shower running in the back part of the house where Lucy was staying.

“Sounds like Sleeping Beauty's awake,” Marino said. “She need a ride?”

“I think she's involved with the field office today. We should get going,” I added, for staff meeting at my office was always at eight-thirty.

He helped gather dishes and we put them in the sink. Minutes later, I had on my coat, my medical bag and briefcase in hand, when my niece appeared in the foyer, hair wet, her robe pulled tight.

“I had a dream,” she said in a depressed voice. “Someone shot us in our sleep. Nine-millimeter to the back of the head. They made it look like a robbery.”

“Oh really?” Marino asked, pulling on rabbit fur–lined gloves. “And where was yours truly? 'Cause that ain't going to happen if I'm in the house.”

“You weren't here.”

He gave her an odd look as he realized she was serious. “What the hell'd you eat last night?”

“It was like a movie. It must have gone on for hours.” She looked at me, and her eyes were puffy and exhausted.

“Would you like to come to the office with me?” I asked.

“No, no. I'll be fine. The last thing I feel like being around right now is a bunch of dead bodies.”

“You're going to get together with some of the agents you know in town?” I uneasily said.

“I don't know. We were going to work with closed-cycle oxygen respiration, but I just don't think I feel up to putting on a wet suit and getting in some indoor pool that stinks like chlorine. I think I'll just wait around for my car, then leave.”

Marino and I didn't talk much as we drove downtown, his mighty tires gouging glazed streets with clanking teeth. I knew he was worried about Lucy. As much as he abused her, if anyone else tried to do the same Marino would destroy that person with his big bare hands. He had known her since she was ten. It was Marino who had taught her to drive a five-speed pickup truck and shoot a gun.

“Doc, I got to ask you something,” he finally spoke as the rhythm of chains slowed at the toll booth. “Do you think Lucy's doing okay?”

“Everyone has nightmares,” I said.

“Hey, Bonita,” he called to the toll taker as he handed his pass card out the window, “when you going to do something about this weather?”

“Don't you be blaming this on me, Cap'n.” She returned his card, and the gate lifted. “You told me you're in charge.”

Her mirthful voice followed us as we drove on, and I thought how sad it was that we lived in a day when even toll booth attendants had to wear plastic gloves for fear they may come in contact with someone else's flesh. I wondered if we would reach a point when all of us lived in bubbles so we did not die of diseases like the Ebola virus and AIDS.

“I just think she's acting a little weird,” Marino went on as his window rolled up. After a pause, he asked, “Where's Janet?”

“With her family in Aspen, I think.”

He stared straight ahead and drove.

“After what happened at Dr. Mant's house, I don't blame Lucy for being a little rattled,” I added.

“Hell, she's usually the one who looks for trouble,” he said. “She doesn't get rattled. That's why the Bureau lets her hang out with HRT. You ain't allowed to get rattled when you're dealing with white supremacists and terrorists. You don't call in sick because you've had a friggin' bad dream.”

Off the expressway, he took the Seventh Street exit into the old cobblestone lanes of Shockoe Slip, then turned north onto Fourteenth, where I went to work every day when I was in town. Virginia's Office of the Chief Medical Examiner, or OCME, was a squat stucco building with tiny dark windows that reminded me of unattractive, suspicious eyes. They overlooked slums to the east and the banking district to the west, and suspended overhead were highways and railroad tracks cutting through the sky.

Marino pulled into the back parking lot, where there was an impressive number of cars, considering the condition of the roads. I got out in front of the shut bay door and used a key to enter another door to one side. Following the ramp intended for stretchers, I entered the morgue, and could hear the noise of people working down the hall. The autopsy suite was past the walk-in refrigerator, and doors were open wide. I walked in while Fielding, my deputy chief, removed various tubes and a catheter from the body of a young woman on the second table.

“You ice-skate in?” he asked and he did not seem surprised to see me.

“Close to it. I may have to borrow the wagon today. At the moment I'm without a car.”

He leaned closer to his patient, frowning a bit as he studied the tattoo of a rattlesnake coiled around the dead
woman's sagging left breast, its gaping mouth disturbingly aimed at her nipple.

“You tell me why the hell somebody gets something like this,” Fielding said.

“I'd say the tattoo artist got the best end of that deal,” I said. “Check the inside of her lower lip. She's probably got a tattoo there.”

He pulled down her lower lip, and inside it in big crooked letters was
Fuck You.

Fielding looked at me in astonishment. “How'd you know that?”

“The tattoos are homemade, she looks like a biker-type and my guess is she's no stranger to jail.”

“Right on all counts.” He grabbed a clean towel and wiped his face.

My body-building associate always looked as if he were about to split his scrubs, and he perspired while the rest of us were never quite warm. But he was a competent forensic pathologist. He was pleasant and caring, and I believed he was loyal.

“Possible overdose,” he explained as he sketched the tattoo on a chart. “I guess her New Year was a little too happy.”

“Jack,” I said to him, “how many dealings have you had with the Chesapeake police?”

He continued to draw. “Very little.”

“None recently?” I asked.

“I really don't think so. Why?” He glanced up at me.

“I had a rather odd encounter with one of their detectives.”

“In connection with Eddings?” He began to rinse the body, and long dark hair flowed over bright steel.

“Right.”

“You know, it's weird but Eddings had just called me.
It couldn't have been more than a day before he died,” Fielding said as he moved the hose.

“What did he want?” I asked.

“I was down here doing a case, so I never talked to him. Now I wish I had.” He climbed up a stepladder and began taking photographs with a Polaroid camera. “You in town long?”

“I don't know,” I said.

“Well, if you need me to help out in Tidewater some, I will.” The flash went off and he waited for the print. “I don't know if I told you, but Ginny's pregnant again and would probably love to get out of the house. And she likes the ocean. Tell me the name of the detective you're worried about, and I'll take care of him.”

“I wish somebody would,” I said.

The camera flashed again, and I thought about Mant's cottage and could not imagine putting Fielding and his wife in there or even nearby.

“It makes sense for you to stay here anyway,” he added. “And hopefully Dr. Mant isn't going to stay in England forever.”

“Thank you,” I said to him with feeling. “Maybe if you could just commute several times a week.”

“No problem. Could you hand me the Nikon?”

“Which one?”

“Uh, the N-50 with the single-reflex lens. I think it's in the cabinet over there.” He pointed.

“We'll work out a schedule,” I said as I got the camera for him. “But you and Ginny don't need to be in Dr. Mant's house, and you're going to have to trust me on that.”

“You have a problem?” He ripped out another print and handed it down.

“Marino, Lucy and I started our New Year with slashed tires.”

He lowered the camera and looked at me, shocked. “Shit. You think it was random?”

“No, I do not,” I said.