Five Scarpetta Novels (21 page)

I was passing my building on Franklin when my pager vibrated against my side. I slipped it off and turned on its light so I could see. I had neither radio nor phone yet, and made a quick decision to turn into the OCME back parking lot. Letting myself in through a side door, I entered our security code, walked into the morgue and took the elevator upstairs. Traces of the day's false alarm had vanished, but Rose's death certificates suspended in air were an eerie display. Sitting behind my desk, I returned Marino's page.

“Where the hell are you?” he said right off.

“The office,” I said, staring up at the clock.

“Well, I think that's the last place you ought to be right now. And I bet you're alone. You eaten yet?”

“What do you mean, this is the last place I should be right now?”

“Let's meet and I'll explain.”

We agreed to go to the Linden Row Inn, which was downtown and private. I took my time because Marino lived on the other side of the river, but he was quick. When I arrived, he was sitting at a table before the fire in the parlor. Off duty, he was drinking a beer. The bartender was a quaint older man in a black bow tie, and he was carrying in a big bucket of ice while Pachelbel played.

“What is it?” I said to Marino as I sat. “What's happened now?”

He was dressed in a black golf shirt, and his belly strained against the knitted fabric and flowed roundly over the waistband of his jeans. The ashtray was already littered with cigarette butts, and I suspected the beer he was drinking wasn't his first or last.

“Would you like to hear the story of your false alarm this afternoon, or has someone gotten to you first?” He lifted the mug to his lips.

“No one has gotten to me about much of anything. Although I've heard a rumor about some radioactivity scare,” I said as the bartender appeared with fruit and cheese. “Pellegrino with lemon, please,” I ordered.

“Apparently, it's more than a rumor,” Marino said.

“What?” I gave him a frown. “And why would you know more about what's going on inside my building than I do?”

“Because this radioactive situation has to do with evidence in a city homicide case.” He took another swallow of beer. “Danny Webster's homicide, to be exact.”

He allowed me a moment to grasp what he had just said, but my limits were unwilling to stretch.

“Are you implying that Danny's body was radioactive?” I asked as if he were crazy.

“No. But the debris we vacuumed from the inside of your car apparently is. And I'm telling you, the guys that did the processing are scared shitless, and I'm not happy about it either because I poked around inside your ride, too. That's one thing I got a big damn problem with like some people do with spiders and snakes. It's like these guys who got exposed to Agent Orange in Nam, and now they're dying of cancer.”

The expression on my face now was incredulous. “You're talking about the front seat passenger's side of my black Mercedes?”

“Yeah, and if I were you, I wouldn't drive it anymore. How do you know that shit won't get to you over a long time?”

“I won't be driving that car anymore,” I said. “Don't worry. But who told you the vacuumings were radioactive?”

“The lady who runs that SEM thing.”

“The scanning electron microscope.”

“Yeah. It picked up uranium, which set the Geiger counter off. Which I'm told has never happened before.”

“I'm sure it hasn't.”

“So next we have a panic on the part of security, which are right down the hall, as you know,” he went on. “And this one guard makes the executive decision to evacuate the building. Only problem is, he forgets that when he breaks the glass on the little red box and yanks the handle, he's also going to set off the deluge system.”

“To my knowledge,” I said, “it's never been used. I could see how someone might forget. In fact, he might not even have known about it.” I thought of the director of general services, and I knew what his attitude would be. “Good God. All this happened because of my car. In a sense, because of me.”

“No, Doc.” Marino met my eyes and his face was hard. “It all happened because some asshole killed Danny. How many times I got to tell you that?”

“I think I'd like a glass of wine.”

“Quit blaming yourself. I know what you're doing. I know how you get.”

I searched for the bartender, and the fire was beginning to feel too hot. Four people had sat nearby and they were talking loudly about the “enchanted garden” in the Inn's courtyard where Edgar Allan Poe used to play when he was a boy in Richmond.

“He wrote about it in one of his poems,” a woman was saying.

“They say the crab cakes are good here.”

“I don't like it when you get like this,” Marino went on, leaning closer to me and pointing a finger. “Next thing I know you're doing things on your own and me? I don't sleep.”

The bartender saw me and made a quick detour in our direction. I changed my mind about Chardonnay and ordered Scotch as I took off my jacket and draped it over a chair. I was perspiring and uncomfortable in my skin.

“Give me one of your Marlboros,” I said to Marino.

His lips parted as he stared at me, shocked.

“Please.” I held out my hand.

“Oh no you don't.” He was adamant.

“I'll make a deal with you. I'll smoke one and you'll smoke one and then both of us will quit.”

He hesitated. “You ain't serious.”

“The hell I'm not.”

“I don't see anything in it for me.”

“Except being alive. If it's not too late.”

“Thank you. But no deal.” Picking up his pack, he knocked out a cigarette for each of us, his lighter in hand.

“How long has it been?”

“I don't know. Maybe three years.” The cigarette tasted bland, but holding it with my lips felt wonderful, as if lips had been created for such a fit.

The first hit cut my lungs like a blade, and I was instantly lightheaded. I felt as I had when I smoked my first Camel at the age of sixteen. Then nicotine enveloped my brain, just as it had back then, and the world spun more slowly and my thoughts coalesced.

“God, I have missed this,” I mourned as I tapped an ash.

“So don't nag me anymore.”

“Someone needs to.”

“Hey, it's not like it's marijuana or something.”

“I haven't smoked that. But if it wasn't illegal, maybe today I would.”

“Shit. Now you're beginning to scare me.”

I inhaled one last time and put the cigarette out while Marino watched me with a weird expression on his face. He always slightly panicked if I acted in a way he did not know.

“Listen.” I got down to business. “I think Danny was followed last night, that his death isn't a random crime motivated by robbery, gay bashing or drugs. I think his killer waited for him, maybe as long as an hour, then confronted him as he returned to my car in the dark shadows near the magnolia tree on Twenty-eighth Street. You know that dog, the one who lives right there? He barked the entire time Danny was inside the Hill Cafe, according to Daigo.”

Marino regarded me in silence for a moment. “See, that's what I was just saying. You went there tonight.”

“Yes, I did.”

His jaw muscles bunched as he looked away. “That's exactly what I mean.”

“Daigo remembers the dog barking nonstop.”

He said nothing.

“I was there earlier and the dog doesn't bark unless you get close to his property. Then he goes berserk. Do you understand what I'm saying?”

His eyes came back to me. “Who's going to hang out there for an hour when a dog's acting like that? Come on, Doc.”

“Not your average killer,” I answered as my drink appeared. “That's my point.”

I waited until the bartender served us, and after he was
gone from our table I said, “I think Danny may have been a professional hit.”

“Okay.” He drained his beer. “Why? What the hell did that kid know? Unless he was into drugs or some type of organized crime.”

“What he was into was Tidewater,” I said. “He lived there. He worked in my office there. He was at least peripherally involved in the Eddings case, and we know whoever killed Eddings was very sophisticated. That, too, was premeditated and carefully planned.”

Marino was thoughtfully rubbing his face. “So you're convinced there's a connection.”

“I think nobody wanted us to know there was. I think whoever is behind this assumed he would look like a carjacking gone bad or some other street crime.”

“Yeah, and that's what everybody still thinks.”

“Not everybody.” I held his eyes. “Absolutely, not everybody.”

“And you're convinced Danny was the intended victim, saying this was a professional hit.”

“It could have been me. It could have been him to scare me,” I said. “We may never know.”

“You got tox yet on Eddings?” He motioned for another round.

“You know what today was like. Hopefully, I'll know something tomorrow. Tell me what's going on with Chesapeake.”

He shrugged. “Don't got a clue.”

“How can you not have a clue?” I impatiently said. “They must have three hundred officers. Isn't anybody working on Ted Eddings' death?”

“Doesn't matter if they have three thousand officers. All you need is one division screwed up, and in this instance it's homicide. So that's a barricade we can't get around
because Detective Roche is still on the case.”

“I don't understand it,” I said.

“Yeah, well, he's still on your case, too.”

I didn't listen for he wasn't worth my time.

“I'd watch my back, if I were you.” He met my eyes. “I wouldn't take it lightly.” He paused. “You know how cops talk, so I hear things. And there's a rumor being spread out there that you hit on Roche, and his chief's going to try to get the governor to fire you.”

“People can gossip about whatever they'd like,” I impatiently said.

“Well, part of the problem is they look at him and how young he is, and some people don't have a hard time imagining that you might be attracted.” He hesitated, and I could tell he despised Roche and wanted to maim him. “I hate to tell you,” Marino said, “but you'd be a whole lot better off if he wasn't good-looking.”

“Harassment is not about how people look, Marino. But he has no case, and I'm not worried about it.”

“Point is, he wants to hurt you, Doc, and he's already trying hard. One way or another he's going to screw you, if he can.”

“He can wait in line with all the other people who want to.”

“The person who called the tow lot in Virginia Beach and said they was you, was a man.” He stared at me. “Just so you know.”

“Danny wouldn't have done that,” was all I could say.

“I wouldn't think so. But maybe Roche would,” Marino replied.

“What are you doing tomorrow?”

He sighed. “I don't have time to tell you.”

“We may need to make a trip to Charlottesville.”

“What for?” He frowned. “Don't tell me Lucy's still acting screwy.”

“That's not why we need to go. But maybe we'll see her, too,” I said.

T
HE NEXT MORNING
, I made evidence rounds, and my first stop was the Scanning Electron Microscopy lab where I found forensic scientist Betsy Eckles sputter-coating a square of tire rubber. She was sitting with her back to me, and I watched her mount the sample on a platform, which would next go into a vacuum chamber of glass so it could be coated by atomic particles of gold. I noted the cut in the center of the rubber, and thought it looked familiar, but couldn't be sure.

“Good morning,” I said.

She turned around from her intimidating console of pressure gauges, dials and digital microscopes that built images in pixels instead of lines on video screens. Graying and trim in a long lab coat, she seemed more harried than usual this Thursday.

“Oh, good morning, Dr. Scarpetta,” she said as she placed the sample of punctured rubber into the chamber.

“Slashed tires?” I asked.

“Firearms asked me to coat the sample. They said it had to be done right now. Don't ask me why.”

She was not happy about it in the least, for this was an
unusual response to what was generally not considered a serious crime. I did not understand why it would be a priority today when labs were backed up to the moon, but this was not why I was here.

“I came to talk to you about the uranium,” I said.

“That's the first time I've ever found anything like that.” She was opening a plastic envelope. “We're talking twenty-two years.”

“We need to know which isotope of uranium we're dealing with,” I said.

“I agree, and since this has never come up before, I'm not sure where to do that. But I can't do it here.”

Using double sticky tape, she began mounting what looked like particles of dirt on a stub that would go into a storage vial. She got vacuumings every day and was never caught up.

“Where is the radioactive sample now?” I asked.

“Right where I left it. I haven't opened that chamber back up and don't think I want to.”

“May I see what we've got?”

“Absolutely.”

She moved to another digitalized scope, turned on the monitor, and it filled with a black universe scattered with stars of different sizes and shapes. Some were a very bright white while others were dim, and all were invisible to the unaided eye.

“I'm zooming it up to three thousand,” she said as she turned dials. “You want it higher?”

“I think this will do the trick,” I replied.

We stared at what could have been a scene from inside an observatory. Metal spheres looked like three-dimensional planets surrounded by smaller moons and stars.

“That's what came out of your car,” she let me know. “The bright particles are uranium. Duller ones are iron
oxide, like you find in soil. Plus there's aluminum, which is used in just about everything these days. And silicon, or sand.”

“Very typical for what someone might have on the bottom of his shoes,” I said. “Except for the uranium.”

“And there's something else I'll point out,” she went on. “The uranium has two shapes. The lobed or spherical, which resulted from some process in which the uranium was molten. But here.” She pointed. “We have irregular shapes with sharp edges, meaning these came from a process involving a machine.”

“CP&L would use uranium for their nuclear power plants.” I referred to Commonwealth Power & Light, which supplied electricity for all of Virginia and some areas of North Carolina.

“Yes, they would.”

“Any other business around here that might?” I asked.

She thought for a minute. “There are no mines around here or processing plants. Well, there's the reactor at UVA, but I think that's mainly for teaching.”

I continued to stare at the small storm of radioactive material that had been tracked into my car by whoever had killed Danny. I thought of the Black Talon bullet with its savage claws, and the weird phone call I had gotten in Sandbridge which was followed by someone climbing over my wall. I believed Eddings was somehow the common link, and that was because of his interest in the New Zionists.

“Look,” I said to Eckles, “just because a Geiger counter's gone off doesn't mean the radioactivity is harmful. And, in fact, uranium isn't harmful.”

“The problem is we don't have a precedent for something like this,” she said.

I patiently explained, “It's very simple. This material is
evidence in a homicide investigation. I am the medical examiner in that case, and it is Captain Marino's jurisdiction. What you need to do is receipt this vacuuming to Marino and me. We will drive it to UVA and have the nuclear physicist there determine which isotope it is.”

Of course, this could not be accomplished without a telephone conference that included the director of the Bureau of Forensic Science, along with the health commissioner, who was my direct boss. They worried about a possible conflict of interest because the uranium had been found in my car, and of course, Danny had worked for me. When I pointed out that I was not a suspect in the case, they were appeased, and in the end, relieved to have the radioactive sample taken off their hands.

I returned to the SEM lab and Eckles opened that frightful chamber while I slipped on cotton gloves. Carefully, I removed the sticky tape from its stub and tucked it inside a plastic bag, which I sealed and labeled. Before I left her floor, I stopped by Firearms, where Frost was seated before a comparison microscope, examining an old military bayonet on top of a stage. I asked him about the punctured rubber he was having sputter-coated with gold, because I had a feeling.

“We've got a possible suspect in your tire-slashing case,” he said, adjusting the focus as he moved the blade.

“This bayonet?” I knew the answer before I asked.

“That's right. It was just turned in this morning.”

“By whom?” I said as my suspicions grew.

He looked at a folded paper bag on a nearby table. I saw the case number and date, and the last name “Roche.”

“Chesapeake,” Frost replied.

“Do you know anything about where it came from?” I felt enraged.

“The trunk of a car. That's all I was told. Apparently,
there's a hellfire rush on it for some reason.”

I went upstairs to Toxicology because it was a last round I certainly needed to make. But my mood was bad, and I was not cheered when I finally found someone home who could confirm what my nose had told me in the Norfolk morgue. Dr. Rathbone was a big, older man whose hair was still very black. I found him at his desk signing lab reports.

“I just called you.” He looked up at me. “How was your New Year?”

“It was new and different. How about you?”

“I got a son in Utah, so we were there. I swear I'd move if I could find a job, but I reckon Mormons don't have much use for my trade.”

“I think your trade is good anywhere,” I said. “And I assume you've got results on the Eddings case,” I added as I thought of the bayonet.

“The concentration of cyanide in his blood sample is point five milligrams per liter, which is lethal, as you know.” He continued signing his name.

“What about the hookah's intake valve and tubes and so on?”

“Inconclusive.”

I was not surprised, nor did it really matter since there was now no doubt that Eddings had been poisoned with cyanide gas, his manner of death unequivocally a homicide. I knew the prosecutor in Chesapeake and stopped by my office long enough to give her a call so she could encourage the police to do the right thing.

“You shouldn't have to ring me up for that,” she said.

“You're right, I shouldn't.”

“Don't give it another thought.” She sounded angry. “What a bunch of idiots. Has the FBI gotten into this one at all?”

“Chesapeake doesn't need their help.”

“Oh good. I guess they work homicidal cyanide gas poisonings in diving deaths all the time. I'll get back to you.”

Hanging up, I collected coat and bag and walked out into what was becoming a beautiful day. Marino's car was parked on the side of Franklin Street, and he was sitting inside with the engine running and his window down. As I headed toward him he opened his door and released the trunk.

“Where is it?” he said.

I held up a manila envelope, and he looked shocked.

“That's all you've got it in?” he exclaimed, eyes wide. “I thought you'd at least put it in one of those metal paint cans.”

“Don't be ridiculous,” I said. “You could hold uranium in your bare hand and it wouldn't hurt you.”

I shut the envelope inside the trunk.

“Then how come the Geiger counter went off?” he continued arguing as I climbed in. “It went off because the friggin' shit is radioactive, right?”

“Without a doubt, uranium is radioactive, but by itself, not very, because it is decaying at such a slow rate. Plus, the sample in your trunk is extremely small.”

“Look, a little radioactive is like a little pregnant or a little dead, in my opinion. And if you ain't worried about it how come you sold your Benz?”

“That's not why I sold it.”

“I don't want to be rayed, if it's all the same to you,” he irritably said.

“You're not going to be rayed.”

But he railed on, “I can't believe you'd expose me and my car to uranium.”

“Marino,” I tried again, “a lot of my patients come into the morgue with very grim diseases like tuberculosis,
hepatitis, meningitis, AIDS. And you've been present for their autopsies, and you've always been safe with me.”

He drove fast along the interstate, cutting in and out of traffic.

“I should think that you would know by now that I would never deliberately place you in harm's way,” I added.

“Deliberately is right. Maybe you're into something you don't know about,” he said. “When was the last time you had a radioactive case?”

“In the first place,” I explained, “the case itself is not radioactive, only some microscopic debris associated with it is. And secondly, I do know about radioactivity. I know about X-rays, MRIs and isotopes like cobalt, iodine and technetium that are used to treat cancer. Physicians learn about a lot of things, including radiation sickness. Would you please slow down and choose a lane?”

I stared at him with growing alarm as he eased up on the accelerator. Sweat was beaded on top of his head and rolling down his temples, his face dark red. With jaw muscles clenched, he gripped the steering wheel hard, his breathing labored.

“Pull over,” I demanded.

He did not respond.

“Marino, pull over. Now,” I repeated in a tone he knew not to resist.

The shoulder was wide and paved on this stretch of 64, and without a word I got out and walked around to his side of the car. I motioned with my thumb for him to get out, and he did. The back of his uniform was soaking wet and I could see the outline of his undershirt through it.

“I think I must be getting the flu,” he said.

I adjusted the seat and mirrors.

“I don't know what's wrong with me.” He mopped his face with a handkerchief.

“You're having a panic attack,” I said. “Take deep breaths and try to calm down. Bend over and touch your toes. Go limp, relax.”

“Anybody sees you driving a city car, my ass is on report,” he said, pulling the shoulder harness across his chest.

“Right now the city should be grateful that you're not driving anything,” I said. “You shouldn't be operating any machinery at this moment. In fact, you should probably be sitting in a psychiatrist's office.” I looked over at him and sensed his shame.

“I don't know what's wrong,” he mumbled, staring out his window.

“Are you still upset about Doris?”

“I don't know if I ever told you about one of the last big fights she and I had before she left.” He mopped his face again. “It was about these damn dishes she got at a yard sale. I mean, she'd been thinking about getting new dishes for a long time, right? And I come home from work one night and here's this big set of blaze orange dishes spread out on the dining-room table.” He looked at me. “You ever heard of Fiesta Ware?”

“Vaguely.”

“Well, there was something in the glaze of this particular line that I come to find out will set a Geiger counter off.”

“It doesn't take much radioactivity to set a Geiger counter off.” I made that point again.

“Well, there'd been stories written about the stuff, which had been taken off the market,” he went on. “Doris wouldn't listen. She thought I was overreacting.”

“And you probably were.”

“Look, people are phobic of all kinds of things. Me, it's radiation. You know how much I hate even being in the
X-ray room with you, and when I turn on the microwave, I leave the kitchen. So I packed up all the dishes and dumped them without telling her where.”