{"id":3178,"date":"2026-01-03T23:11:04","date_gmt":"2026-01-03T23:11:04","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/epub-book.com\/download\/scarpetta-13-cornwell-patricia\/"},"modified":"2026-01-03T23:11:04","modified_gmt":"2026-01-03T23:11:04","slug":"scarpetta-13-cornwell-patricia","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/epub-book.com\/download\/scarpetta-13-cornwell-patricia\/","title":{"rendered":"Scarpetta 13 – Cornwell, Patricia"},"content":{"rendered":"
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Book Preview<\/h3>\n
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Trace<\/span><\/span><\/span><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

Kay Scarpetta Novel (13)<\/span><\/span><\/span><\/span><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

by Patricia Cornwell<\/span><\/span><\/span><\/span><\/span><\/span><\/span><\/span><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

<\/span><\/span><\/span><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

Chapter 1<\/span><\/span><\/span><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

<\/span><\/span><\/span><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 <\/span><\/span><\/span><\/span><\/span>Yellow bulldozers <\/span><\/span>hack earth and stone in an old city block that has seen more death than most modern wars, and Kay Scarpetta slows her rental SUV almost to a stop. Shaken by the destruction ahead, she stares at the mustard-colored machines savaging her past.<\/span><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 <\/span>“Someone should have told me,” she says.<\/span><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 <\/span>Her intention this gray December morning was innocent enough. All she wanted was to indulge in a little nostalgia and drive past her old building, not having a clue that it was being torn down. Someone could have told her. The polite and kind thing would have been to mention it, at least say, Oh, by the way, that building where you used to work when you were young and full of hopes and dreams and believed in love, well, that old building you still miss and feel deeply about is being torn down.<\/span><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 <\/span>A bulldozer lurches, its blade raised for the attack, and the noisy mechanical violence seems a warning, a dangerous alert. I should have listened, she thinks as she looks at the cracked and gouged concrete. The front of her old building is missing half of its face. When she was asked to come back to Richmond she should have paid attention to her feelings.<\/span><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 <\/span>“I’ve got a case I’m hoping you might help me with,” explained Dr. Joel Marcus, the current chief medical examiner of Virginia, the man who took her place. It was just yesterday afternoon when he called her on the phone and she ignored her feelings.<\/span><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 <\/span>“Of course, Dr. Marcus,” she said to him over the phone as she moved around in the kitchen of her South Florida home. “What can I do for you?”<\/span><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 <\/span>“A fourteen-year-old girl was found dead in bed. This was two weeks ago, about noon. She’d been sick with the flu.”<\/span><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 <\/span>Scarpetta should have asked Dr. Marcus why he was calling her. Why her? But she wasn’t paying attention to her feelings. “She was home from school?” she said.<\/span><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 <\/span>“Yes.”<\/span><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 <\/span>“Alone?” She stirred a concoction of bourbon, honey, and olive oil, the phone tucked under her chin.<\/span><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 <\/span>“Yes.”<\/span><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 <\/span>“Who found her and what’s the cause of death?” She poured the marinade over a lean sirloin steak inside a plastic freezer bag.<\/span><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 <\/span>“Her mother found her. There’s no obvious cause of death,” he said. “Nothing suspicious except that her findings, or lack of them, indicate she shouldn’t be dead.”<\/span><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 <\/span>Scarpetta tucked the plastic bag of meat and marinade inside the refrigerator and opened the drawer of potatoes, then shut it, changing her mind. She’d make whole-grain bread instead of potatoes. She couldn’t stand still, much less sit, and she was unnerved and trying very hard not to sound unnerved. Why was he calling her? She should have asked him.<\/span><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 <\/span>“Who lived in the house with her?” Scarpetta asked.<\/span><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 <\/span>“I’d rather go over the details with you in person,” Dr. Marcus replied. “This is a very sensitive situation.”<\/span><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 <\/span>At first Scarpetta almost said that she was leaving for a two-week trip to Aspen, but those words never came out and they are no longer true. She isn’t going to Aspen. She’d been planning on going, for months she had, but she wasn’t going and she isn’t going. She couldn’t bring herself to lie about it, and instead used the professional excuse that she couldn’t come to Richmond because she is in the midst of reviewing a difficult case, a very difficult death by hanging that the family refuses to accept as a suicide.<\/span><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 <\/span>“What’s the problem with the hanging?” asked Dr. Marcus, and the more he talked, the less she heard him. “Racial?”<\/span><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 <\/span>“He climbed a tree, put a rope around his neck, and handcuffed himself behind his back so he couldn’t change his mind,” she replied, opening a cabinet door in her bright, cheerful kitchen. “When he stepped off the branch and dropped, his C-2 fractured and the rope pushed up his scalp in back, distorting his face, so it looked like he was frowning, as if he were in pain. Try explaining that and the handcuffs to his family in Mississippi, deep down there in Mississippi, where camouflage is normal and gay men are not.”<\/span><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 <\/span>“I’ve never been to Mississippi,” Dr. Marcus said blandly, and maybe what he really meant was he didn’t care about the hanging or any tragedy that had no direct impact on his life, but that wasn’t what she heard, because she wasn’t listening.<\/span><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 <\/span>“I’d like to help you,” she told him as she opened a new bottle of unfiltered olive oil, even though it wasn’t necessary to open it right that minute. “But it’s probably not a good idea for me to get involved in any case of yours.”<\/span><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 <\/span>She was angry but denied it as she moved about her large, well-equipped kitchen of stainless-steel appliances and polished granite countertops and big bright views of the Intracoastal Waterway. She was angry about Aspen but denied it. She was just angry, and she didn’t want to bluntly remind Dr. Marcus that she was fired from the same job he now enjoys, which is why she left Virginia with no plans for ever coming back. But a long silence from him forced her to go on and say that she didn’t leave Richmond under amicable conditions and certainly he must know it.<\/span><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 <\/span>“Kay, that was a long time ago,” he replied, and she was professional and respectful enough to call him Dr. Marcus, and here he was calling her Kay. She was startled by how offended she was by his calling her Kay, but she told herself he was friendly and personal while she was touchy and overly sensitive, and maybe she was jealous of him and wished him failure, accusing herself of the worst pettiness of all. It was understandable that he would call her Kay instead of Dr. Scarpetta, she told herself, refusing to pay attention to her feelings.<\/span><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 <\/span>“We have a different governor,” he went on. “It’s likely she doesn’t even know who you are.”<\/span><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 <\/span>Now he was implying that Scarpetta is so unimportant and unsuccessful that the governor has never heard of her. Dr. Marcus was insulting her. Nonsense, she countered herself.<\/span><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 <\/span>“Our new governor is rather much consumed with the Commonwealth’s enormous budget deficit and all the potential terrorist targets we’ve got here in Virginia …”<\/span><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 <\/span>Scarpetta scolded herself for her negative reaction to the man who succeeded her. All he wanted was help with a difficult case, and why shouldn’t he track her down? It’s not unusual for CEOs fired from major corporations to be called upon later for advice and consultation. And she’s not going to Aspen, she reminded herself.<\/span><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 <\/span>“. . . nuclear power plants, numerous military bases, the FBI Academy, a not-so-secret CIA training camp, the Federal Reserve. You won’t have any problem with the governor, Kay. She’s too ambitious, actually, too focused on her Washington aspirations, the truth be told, to care about what’s going on in my office.” Dr. Marcus went on in his smooth southern accent, trying to disabuse Scarpetta of the idea that her riding back into town after being ridden out of it five years earlier would cause controversy or even be noticed. She wasn’t really convinced, but she was thinking about Aspen. She was thinking about Benton, about his being in Aspen without her. She has time on her hands, she was thinking, so she could take on another case because she suddenly has more time.<\/span><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 <\/span>Scarpetta drives slowly around the block where she was headquartered in an early stage of her life that now seems as finished as something can be. Puffs of dust drift up as machines assault the carcass of her old building like giant yellow insects. Metal blades and buckets clank and thud against concrete and dirt. Trucks and earth-moving machines roll and jerk. Tires crush and steel belts rip.<\/span><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 <\/span>“Well,” Scarpetta says, “I’m glad I’m seeing this. But someone should have told me.”<\/span><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 <\/span>Pete Marino, her passenger, silently stares at the razing of the squat, dingy building at the outer limits of the banking district.<\/span><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 <\/span>“I’m glad you’re seeing it, too, Captain,” she adds, although he isn’t a captain anymore, but when she calls him Captain, which isn’t often, she is being gentle with him.<\/span><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 <\/span>“Just what the doctor ordered,” he mutters in a sarcastic tone that is his most common tone, like middle C on a piano. “And you’re right. Someone should have told you, that someone being the prick-less wonder who took your place. He begs you to fly here when you haven’t set foot in Richmond for five years and can’t bother to tell you the old joint’s being torn down.”<\/span><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 <\/span>“I’m sure it didn’t cross his mind,” she says.<\/span><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 <\/span>“The little prick,” Marino replies. “I hate him already.”<\/span><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 <\/span>This morning Marino is a deliberate, menacing mixture of messages in black cargo pants, black police boots, a black vinyl jacket, and an LAPD baseball cap. Obvious to Scarpetta is his determination to look like a tough big-city outsider because he still resents the people in this stubborn small city who mistreated him or dissed him or bossed him around when he was a detective here. Rarely does it occur to him that when he was written up, suspended, transferred, or demoted, usually he deserved it, that when people are rude to him, usually he provokes them.<\/span><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 <\/span>Slouched in the seat with sunglasses on, Marino looks a bit silly to Scarpetta, who knows, for example, that he hates all things celebrity, that he especially hates the entertainment industry and the people, including cops, who are desperate to be part of it. The cap was a wise-guy gift from her niece, Lucy, who recently opened an office in Los Angeles, or Lost Angeles, as Marino calls it. So here is Marino, returning to his own lost city, Richmond, and he has choreographed his guest appearance by looking exactly like what he’s not.<\/span><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 <\/span>“Huh,” he muses in a lower pitch of voice. “Well, so much for Aspen. I guess Benton’s pretty pissed.”<\/span><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 <\/span>“Actually, he’s working a case,” she says. “So a few days’ delay is probably a good thing.”<\/span><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 <\/span>“A few days my ass. Nothing ever takes a few days. Bet you never get to Aspen. What case is he working?”<\/span><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 <\/span>“He didn’t say and I didn’t ask,” she replies, and that’s all she intends to say because she doesn’t want to talk about Benton.<\/span><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 <\/span>Marino looks out the window and is silent for a moment, and she can almost hear him thinking about her relationship with Benton Wesley, and she knows Marino wonders about them, probably constantly and in ways that are unseemly. Somehow he knows that she has been distant from Benton, physically distant, since they got back together, and it angers and humiliates her that Marino would detect such a thing. If anyone would figure it out, he would.<\/span><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 <\/span>“Well, that’s a damn shame about Aspen,” Marino says. “If it was me, it would really piss me off.”<\/span><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 <\/span>“Take a good look,” she says, referring to the building being knocked down right before their eyes. “Look now while we’re here,” she says, because she does not want to talk about Aspen or Benton or why she isn’t there with him or what it might be like or what it might not be like. When Benton was gone all those years, a part of her left. When he came back, not all of her did, and she doesn’t know why.<\/span><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 <\/span>“Well, I guess it’s about time they tore the place down,” Marino says, looking out his window. “I guess because of Amtrak. Seems I heard something about it, about needing another parking deck down here because of them opening Main Street Station. I forget who told me. It was a while ago.”<\/span><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 <\/span>“It would have been nice if you had told me,” she says.<\/span><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 <\/span>“It was a while ago. I don’t even remember who I heard it from.”<\/span><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 <\/span>“Information like that is a good thing for me to know.”<\/span><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 <\/span>He looks at her. “I don’t blame you for being in a mood. I warned you about coming here. Now look what we find right off. We haven’t even been here an hour, and look at this. Our old joint’s being smashed up with a wrecking ball. It’s a bad sign, you ask me. You’re going maybe two miles an hour. Maybe you ought to speed up.”<\/span><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 <\/span>“I’m not in a mood,” she replies. “But I like to be told things.” She drives slowly, staring at her old building.<\/span><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 <\/span>“I’m telling you, it’s a bad sign,” he says, staring at her, then out his window.<\/span><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 <\/span>Scarpetta doesn’t speed up as she watches the destruction, and the truth sinks in slowly, as slowly as her progress around the block. The former Office of the Chief Medical Examiner and Division of Forensic Science Laboratories is well on its way to becoming a parking deck for the restored Main Street railway station, which never saw a train during the decade she and Marino worked and lived here. The hulking Gothic station is built of stone the hue of old blood and was dormant for long years until, with but a few agonal twitches, it was transformed into shops, which soon failed, and then state offices, which soon closed. Its tall clock tower was a constant on the horizon, watching over sweeping bends of I-95 and train overpasses, a ghostly white face with filigree hands frozen in time.<\/span><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 <\/span>Richmond has moved on without her. Main Street Station has been resurrected and is a hub for Amtrak. The clock works. The time is sixteen minutes past eight. The clock never worked all those years it followed Scarpetta in her mirrors as she drove back and forth to take care of the dead. Life in Virginia has moved on and no one bothered to tell her.<\/span><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 <\/span>“I don’t know what I expected,” she says, glancing out her side window. “Maybe they would gut it, use it for storage, archives, state surplus. Not tear it down.”<\/span><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 <\/span>“Truth is, they ought to tear it down,” Marino decides.<\/span><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 <\/span>“I don’t know why, but I never thought they would.”<\/span><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 <\/span>“It ain’t exactly one of the architectural wonders of the world,” he says, suddenly sounding hostile toward the old building. “A 1970s piece of concrete shit. Think of all the murdered people who been through that joint. People with AIDS, street people with gangrene. Raped, strangled, and stabbed women and kids. Wackos who jumped off buildings and in front of trains. There ain’t a single kind of case that joint ain’t seen. Not to mention all those pink rubbery bodies in the floor vats of the Anatomical Division. Now that creeped me out worse than anything. ‘Member how they’d lift ’em out of those vats with chains and hooks in their ears? All naked and pink as the Three Little Pigs, their legs hitched up.” He lifts his knees to demonstrate, black-cargo-pants-covered knees rising toward the visor.<\/span><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 <\/span>“Not so long ago, you couldn’t lift your legs like that,” she says. “You could hardly even bend your legs not even three months ago.”<\/span><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 <\/span>“Huh.”<\/span><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 <\/span>“I’m serious. I’ve been meaning to say something about how fit you’re getting.”<\/span><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 <\/span>“Even a dog can lift its leg, Doc,” he jokes, his mood obviously improved by the compliment, and she feels bad that she hasn’t complimented him before now. “Assuming the dog in question’s male.”<\/span><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 <\/span>“I’m serious. I’m impressed.” She has worried for years that his atrocious health habits were going to drop him dead, and when he finally makes an effort, she doesn’t praise him for months. It requires her old building to be torn down for her to say something nice to him. “I’m sorry I haven’t mentioned it,” she adds. “But I hope you’re not just eating protein and fat.”<\/span><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 <\/span>“I’m a Florida boy now,” he says cheerfully. “On the South Beach Diet but I sure as hell don’t hang out in South Beach. Nothing but fags down there.”<\/span><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 <\/span>“That’s an awful thing to say,” she replies, and she hates it when he talks like that, which is why he does it.<\/span><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 <\/span>“Remember the oven down there?” Marino continues his reminiscing. “You always knew when they was burning up bodies down there, because smoke would be coming out the chimney.” He points to a black crematorium smokestack on top of the battered old building. “When I used to see ol’ smoky going, I didn’t particularly want to be driving around down here breathing the air.”<\/span><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 <\/span>Scarpetta glides past the rear of the building, and it is still intact and looks exactly the way it did last time she saw it. The parking lot is empty except for a big yellow tractor that is parked almost exactly where she used to park when she was chief, just to the right of the massive closed bay door. For an instant, she hears the screeching and complaining of that door cranking up or down when the big green and red buttons inside were pressed. She hears voices, hearses and ambulances rumbling, doors opening and slamming shut, and the clack and clatter of stretcher legs and wheels as shrouded bodies were rolled up and down the ramp, the dead in and out, day and night, night and day, coming and going.<\/span><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 <\/span>“Take a good look,” she says to Marino.<\/span><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 <\/span>“I did the first time you went around the block,” he replies. “You plan on us driving around in circles all day?”<\/span><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 <\/span>“We’ll circle it twice. Take a good look.”<\/span><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 <\/span>Turning left on Main Street, she drives a little faster around the demolition site, thinking that pretty soon it will look like an amputee’s raw stump. When the back parking lot comes into view again, she notices a man in olive-green pants and a black jacket standing close to the big yellow tractor, doing something to the engine. She can tell he is having a problem with his tractor, and she wishes he wouldn’t stand in front of the huge back tire, doing whatever he’s doing to the engine.<\/span><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 <\/span>“I think you might want to leave the cap in the car,” she says to Marino.<\/span><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 <\/span>“Huh?” Marino asks, and his big weathered face looks at her.<\/span><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 <\/span>“You heard me. A little friendly advice for your own good,” she says as the tractor and the man recede behind her and are gone.<\/span><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 <\/span>“You always say something’s friendly and for my own good,” he answers. “And it never is.” He takes off the LAPD cap and looks at it thoughtfully, his bald head glistening with sweat. The scant quota of gray hair nature is kind enough to allot him is gone by his design.<\/span><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 <\/span>“You never did tell me why you started shaving your head,” she says.<\/span><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 <\/span>“You never asked.”<\/span><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 <\/span>“I’m asking.” She turns north, heading away from the building toward Broad Street and going the speed limit now.<\/span><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 <\/span>“It’s the in thing,” he replies. “Point is, if you ain’t got hair, may as well get
\n<\/span>rid of it.”<\/span><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 <\/span>“I suppose that makes sense,” she says. “As much sense as anything.”<\/span><\/span><\/span><\/span><\/span><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

<\/span><\/span><\/span><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

Chapter 2<\/span><\/span><\/span><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

<\/span><\/span><\/span><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 <\/span><\/span><\/span><\/span><\/span>Edgar Allan Pogue <\/span><\/span>stares at his bare toes as he relaxes in the lawn chair. He smiles and contemplates the reactions of people should they find out he now has a home in Hollywood. A second home, he reminds himself. He, Edgar Allan Pogue, has a second home where he can come for sun and fun and privacy.<\/span><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 <\/span>No one is going to ask which Hollywood. At the mention of Hollywood, what immediately comes to mind is the big white Hollywood sign on the hill, mansions protected by walls, convertible sports cars, and the blessed beautiful ones, the gods. It would never enter anyone’s mind that Edgar Allan Pogue’s Hollywood is in Broward County, about an hour’s drive north of Miami, and does not attract the rich and famous. He will tell his doctor, he thinks with a trace of pain. That’s right, his doctor will be the first to know, and next time he won’t run out of the flu shot, Pogue thinks with a trace of fear. No doctor would ever deprive his Hollywood patient of a flu shot, no matter the shortage, Pogue decides with a trace of rage.<\/span><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 <\/span>“See, Mother Dear, we’re here. We really are here. It’s not a dream,” Pogue says in the slurred voice of someone who has an object in his mouth that interferes with the movement of his lips and tongue.<\/span><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 <\/span>His even, bleached teeth clamp down harder on a wooden pencil.<\/span><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 <\/span>“And you thought the day would never come,” he talks around the pencil as a bead of saliva drips from his lower lip and slides down his chin.<\/span><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 <\/span>You won’t amount to anything, Edgar Allan. Failure, failure, failure. He talks around the pencil, mimicking his mother’s mean-spirited, slurred, drunken voice. You’re a thin soup, Edgar Allan, that’s what you are. Loser, loser, loser.<\/span><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 <\/span>His lawn chair is exactly in the middle of the airless, stinking living room, and his one-bedroom apartment is not quite exactly in the middle of the second level of units that face Garfield Street, named after the U.S. president and running east-west between Hollywood Boulevard and Sheridan. The pale yellow stucco two-level complex is called Garfield Court for reasons unknown, beyond the obvious one of false advertising. There is no courtyard, not even a blade of grass, just a parking lot and three spindly palm trees with ragged fronds that remind Pogue of the tattered wings of the butterflies he pinned to cardboard as a boy.<\/span><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 <\/span>Not enough sap in the tree. That’s your problem.<\/span><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 <\/span>“Stop it, Mother. Stop it right now. It’s unkind to talk like that.”<\/span><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 <\/span>When he rented his second home two weeks ago, Pogue didn’t argue about the price, although nine hundred and fifty dollars a month is outrageous compared to what that amount of money would get him in Richmond, assuming he paid rent in Richmond. But proper accommodations aren’t easy to find around here, and he didn’t know where to start when he finally arrived in Broward County after a sixteen-hour drive, and in an exhausted but exhilarated mood began cruising, getting himself oriented, looking for a place and unwilling to rest in a motel room, not even for one night. His old white Buick was packed with his belongings, and he didn’t want to take the chance that some juvenile delinquent might smash out the car windows and steal his VCR and TV, not to mention his clothing, toiletries, laptop computer and wig, the lawn chair, a lamp, linens, books, paper, pencils, and bottles of red, white, and blue touch-up paint for his cherished tee ball bat, and a few other vitally important personal possessions, including several old friends.<\/span><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 <\/span>“It was terrifying, Mother,” he retells the tale in an effort to distract her from her drunken nagging. “Mitigating circumstances dictated that I leave our lovely little southern city immediately, although not permanently, certainly not. Now that I have a second home, of course I’ll be back and forth between Hollywood and Richmond. You and I have always dreamed about Hollywood, and like settlers on a wagon train, we set out to find our fortunes, didn’t we?”<\/span><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 <\/span>His ploy works. He has redirected her attention along a scenic route that avoids thin soup and not enough sap.<\/span><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 <\/span>“Only I didn’t feel too fortunate at first when I somehow got off North Twenty-fourth Street and ended up in a godforsaken slum called Liberia where there was an ice cream truck.”<\/span><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 <\/span>He talks around the pencil as if it is a bit in his mouth. The pencil substitutes for a smoke, not that tobacco is a health concern or a bad habit, but rather an expense. Pogue indulges in cigars. He indulges in very little else, but he has to have his Indios and Cubitas and A Fuentes, and most of all, Cohibas, the magic contraband of Cuba. He is smitten with Cohibas and he knows how to get them, and it makes all the difference when Cuban smoke touches his stricken lungs. Impurities are what kill the lungs, but the pure tobacco of Cuba is healing.<\/span><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 <\/span>“Can you possibly believe it? An ice cream truck with its sweet, innocent jingle playing and these little Negro children coming forward with coins to buy treats, and here we are in the middle of a ghetto, a war zone, and the sun has gone down. I’ll just bet there are lots of gunshots fired at night in Liberia. Of course I got out of there and miraculously ended up in a better part of town. I got you to Hollywood safe and sound, didn’t I, Mother?”<\/span><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 <\/span>Somehow he found himself on Garfield Street, driving slowly past tiny one-story stucco houses with wrought-iron railings, jalousie windows, carports, and patches of lawn that couldn’t possibly accommodate a swimming pool, sweet little abodes probably built in the fifties and sixties that spoke to him because they have survived decades of horrendous hurricanes and jolting demographic changes and relentless increases in property taxes that drive out old-timers and replace them with new-timers who probably don’t speak English or try. And yet, the neighborhood has survived. And then, just as he was thinking all this, the apartment complex filled his front windshield like a vision.<\/span><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 <\/span>The building has a sign posted out front that reads garfield <\/span>COURT and lists the telephone number, and Pogue responded to the vision by pulling into the parking lot and writing down the number, then he went to a gas station and used the pay phone. Yes, there was one vacancy, and within the hour he had his first and hopefully only encounter with Benjamin P. Shupe, the landlord.<\/span><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 <\/span>Can’t do it, can’t do it. Shupe wouldn’t stop saying that as he sat across the desk from Pogue downstairs in the office, which was warm and stuffy and poisoned by the offensive scent of Shupe’s overpowering cologne. If you want air conditioning, you gotta buy your own window unit. That’s up to you. But this is the primo time of year, what they call the season. Who needs air conditioning?<\/span><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 <\/span>Benjamin P. Shupe brandished white dentures that reminded Pogue of bathroom tiles. The gold-encrusted slum sovereign tap-tap-tapped the desktop with a fat index finger and flashed a diamond cluster ring. And you’re lucky. Everybody wants to be here this time a year. I got ten people waiting in line to take this apartment. Shupe the slum king gestured in a way that was to his gold Rolex watch’s best advantage, unaware that Pogue’s dark tinted glasses were nonprescription and his shaggy long black curly hair was a wig. Two days from now, it will be twenty people. In fact, I really shouldn’t let you have this apartment at this price.<\/span><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 <\/span>Pogue paid cash. No deposits or other sorts of security were required, no questions or proof of identification were requested or desired. In three weeks, he has to pay cash again for the month of January should he decide to maintain his second home during Hollywood’s primo season. But it is a bit early for him to know what he’ll do come the New Year.<\/span><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 <\/span>“Work to do, work to do,” he mumbles, thumbing through the magazine for funeral directors that falls open to a collection of urns and keepsakes, and he rests the magazine on his thighs and studies colorful pictures he knows by heart. His favorite urn is still the pewter box shaped like a stack of fine books with a pewter quill on top, and he fantasizes that the books are old volumes by Edgar Allan Poe, for whom he was named, and he wonders how many hundreds of dollars that elegant pewter box would cost were he of a mind to call the toll-free number.<\/span><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 <\/span>“I should just call it and place the order,” he says playfully. “I should just do it, shouldn’t I, Mother?” He teases her as if he has a phone and can call right this minute. “Oh, you’d like it, would you?” He touches the picture of the urn. “You’d like Edgar Allan’s urn, would you? Well, tell you what, not until there’s something to celebrate, and right now my work isn’t going as planned, Mother. Oh yes, you heard me. A little setback, I’m afraid.”<\/span><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 <\/span>Thin soup, that’s what you are.<\/span><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 <\/span>“No, Mother Dear. It’s not about thin soup.” He shakes his head, flipping through the magazine. “Now let’s not start that again. We’re in Hollywood. Isn’t it pleasant?”<\/span><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 <\/span>He thinks of the salmon-colored stucco mansion on the water not too far north of here and is overwhelmed by a confusion of emotions. He found the mansion as planned. He was inside the mansion as planned. And everything went wrong and now there is nothing to celebrate.<\/span><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 <\/span>“Faulty thinking, faulty thinking.” He flicks his forehead with two fingers, the way his mother used to flick him. “It wasn’t supposed to happen like that. What to do, what to do. The little fish that got away.” He swims his fingers through the air. “Leaving the big fish.” He swims both arms through the air. “The little fish went somewhere, I don’t know where, but I don’t care, no I do not. Because the Big Fish is still there, and I ran off the little fish and the Big Fish can’t be happy about that. Can not. Soon there will be something to celebrate.”<\/span><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 <\/span>Got away? How stupid was that? You didn’t catch the little fish and think you’ll catch the big one? You’re such thin soup. How can you be my son?<\/span><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 <\/span>“Don’t talk that way, Mother. It’s so impolite,” he says with his head bent over the magazine for funeral directors.<\/span><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 <\/span>She gives him a stare that could nail a sign to a tree, and his father had a label for her infamous stare. The hairy eyeball, that was what he called it. Edgar Allan Pogue has never figured out why a stare as scary as his mother’s is called a hairy eyeball. Eyeballs do not have hair. He has never seen or heard of one that does, and he would know. There isn’t much he doesn’t know. He drops the magazine to the floor and gets up from the yellow and white lawn chair and fetches his tee ball bat from the corner where he keeps it propped. Closed Venetian blinds blot out sunlight from the living room’s one window, casting him into a comfortable gloom barely pushed back by a lonely lamp on the floor.<\/span><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 <\/span>“Let’s see. What should we do today?” he continues, mumbling around the pencil, talking out loud to a cookie tin beneath the lawn chair and gripping the bat, checking its red, white, and blue stars and stripes that he has touched up, let’s see, exactly one hundred and eleven times. He lovingly polishes the bat with a white handkerchief, and rubs his hands with the handkerchief, rubs and rubs them. “We should do something special today. I believe an outing is in order.”<\/span><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 <\/span>Drifting to a wall, he removes the pencil from his mouth and holds it in one hand, the bat in the other, cocking his head, squinting at the early stages of a large sketch on the dingy, beige-painted sheetrock. Gently, he touches the blunt lead tip to a large staring eye and thickens the lashes. The pencil is wet and pitted between the tips of his index finger and thumb as he draws.<\/span><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 <\/span>“There.” He steps back, cocking his head again, admiring the big, staring eye and the curve of a cheek, the tee ball bat twitching in his other hand.<\/span><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 <\/span>“Did I happen to mention how especially pretty you look today? Such a nice color you’ll soon have in your cheeks, very flushed and rosy, as if you’ve been out in the sun.”<\/span><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 <\/span>He tucks the pencil behind an ear and holds his hand in front of his face, splaying his fingers, tilting and turning, looking at every joint, crease, scar, and line, and at the delicate ridges in his small, rounded nails. He massages the air, watching fine muscles roll as he imagines rubbing cold skin, working cold, sluggish blood out of subcutaneous tissue, kneading flesh as he flushes out death and pumps in a nice rosy glow. The bat twitches in his other hand and he imagines swinging the bat. He misses rubbing chalky dust in his palms and swinging the bat, and he twitches with a desire to smash the bat through the eye on the wall, but he doesn’t, he can’t, he mustn’t, and he walks around, his heart flying inside his chest, and he is frustrated. So frustrated by the mess.<\/span><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 <\/span>The apartment is bare but a mess, the countertop in the kitchenette scattered with paper napkins and plastic plates and utensils, and canned foods and bags of macaroni and pasta that Pogue hasn’t bothered to store inside the kitchenette’s one cupboard. A pot and a frying pan soak in a sink full of cold, greasy water. Strewn about on the stained blue carpet are duffel bags, clothing and books, pencils, and cheap white paper. Pogue’s living quarters are beginning to take on the stale aroma of his cooking and cigars, and his own musky, sweaty scent. It is very warm in here and he is naked.<\/span><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 <\/span>“I believe we should check on Mrs. Arnette. She’s not been well, after all,” he says to his mother without looking at her. “Would you like to have a visitor today? I suppose I should ask you that first. But it might make both of us feel better. I’m a bit out of sorts, I must confess.” He thinks of the little fish that got away and he looks around at the mess. “A visit might be just the thing, what do you think?”<\/span><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 <\/span>That would be nice.<\/span><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 <\/span>“Oh, it would, would it?” His baritone voice rises and falls, as if he is addressing a child or a pet. “You would like to have a visitor? Well, then! How splendid.”<\/span><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 <\/span>His bare feet pad across the carpet and he squats by a cardboard box filled with videotapes and cigar boxes and envelopes of photographs, all of them labeled in his own small, neat handwriting. Near the bottom of the box, he finds Mrs. Arnette’s cigar box and the envelope of Polaroid photographs.<\/span><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 <\/span>“Mother, Mrs. Arnette is here to see you,” he says with a contented sigh as he opens the cigar box and sets it on the lawn chair. He looks through the photographs and picks out his favorite. “You remember her, don’t you? You’ve met before. A true-blue old woman. See her hair? It really is blue.”<\/span><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 <\/span>Why, it sure enough is.<\/span><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 <\/span>“Whyyyit-shorrre-nuffffis,” he echoes his mother’s deep drawl and the slow, thick way she swims through her words when she’s in the vodka bottle, way deep inside the vodka bottle.<\/span><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 <\/span>“Do you like her new box?” he asks, dipping his finger inside the cigar box and blowing a puff of white dust into the air. “Now don’t be jealous, but she’s lost weight since you saw her last. I wonder what her secret is,” he teases, and he dips in his finger again and blows more white dust into the air for his enormously fat mother’s benefit, to make his disgustingly fat mother jealous, and he wipes his hands on the white handkerchief. “I think our dear friend Mrs. Arnette looks wonderful, divine really.”<\/span><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 <\/span>He peers closely at the photograph of Mrs. Arnette, her hair a blue-tinted aura around her pink dead face. The only reason he knows her mouth is sutured shut is because he remembers doing it. Otherwise, his expert surgery is impossible to discern, and the uninitiated would never detect that the round contour of her eyes is due to the caps beneath the lids, and he remembers gently setting the caps in place over the sunken eyeballs and overlapping the lids and sticking them together with dabs of Vaseline.<\/span><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 <\/span>“Now be sweet and ask Mrs. Arnette how she’s feeling,” he says to the cookie tin beneath the lawn chair. “She had cancer. So many of them did.”<\/span><\/span><\/span><\/span><\/span><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

<\/span><\/span><\/span><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

Chapter 3<\/span><\/span><\/span><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

<\/span><\/span><\/span><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 <\/span><\/span><\/span><\/span><\/span>Dr. Joel Marcus <\/span><\/span>gives her a stiff smile, and she shakes his dry, small-boned hand. She feels she might despise him given a chance, but other than that premonition, which she pushes down into a dark part of her heart, she feels nothing.<\/span><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 <\/span>About four months ago, she found out about him the same way she has found out about most things that have to do with her past life in Virginia. It was an accident, a coincidence. She happened to be on a plane reading USA Today, <\/span>and happened to notice a news brief about Virginia that read, “Governor appoints new chief medical examiner after long search . . .” Finally, after years of no chief or acting chiefs, Virginia got a new chief. Scarpetta’s opinion and guidance were not requested during the endless ordeal of a search. Her endorsement was not necessary when Dr. Marcus became a candidate for her former position.<\/span><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 <\/span>Had she been asked, she would have confessed that she had never heard of him. This would have been followed by her diplomatic suggestion that she must have run into him at a national meeting or two and just didn’t recall his name. Certainly he is a forensic pathologist of note, she would have offered, otherwise he would not have been recruited to head the most prominent statewide medical examiner system in the United States.<\/span><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 <\/span>But as she shakes Dr. Marcus’s hand and looks into his small cold eyes, she realizes he is a complete stranger. Clearly, he has been on no committees of significance, nor has he lectured at any pathology or medico-legal or forensic science meetings she has attended, or she would remember him. She may forget names, but rarely a face.<\/span><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 <\/span>“Kay, at last we meet,” he says, offending her again, only now it is worse because he is offending her in person.<\/span><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 <\/span>What her intuition was reluctant to pick up over the phone is unavoidable now that she is in his presence inside the lobby of the building called Biotech II where she last worked as chief. Dr. Marcus is a small thin man with a small thin face and a small thin stripe of dirty gray hair on the back of his small head, as if nature has been trifling with him. He wears an outdated narrow tie, shapeless gray trousers and loafers. A sleeveless undershirt is visible beneath a cheap white dress shirt that sags around his thin neck, the inside of the collar dingy and rough with cotton picks.<\/span><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 <\/span>“Let’s go in,” he says. “I’m afraid we’ve got a full house this morning.”<\/span><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 <\/span>She is about to inform him that she isn’t alone when Marino emerges from the men’s room, hitching up his black cargo pants, the LAPD cap pulled low over his eyes. Scarpetta is polite but all business as she makes introductions, explaining Marino, as much as he can be explained.<\/span><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 <\/span>“He used to be with the Richmond Police Department and is a very experienced investigator,” she says as Dr. Marcus’s face hardens.<\/span><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 <\/span>“You didn’t mention you were bringing anyone,” he says curtly in her former spacious lobby of granite and glass blocks, where she has signed in, where she has stood for twenty minutes, feeling as conspicuous as a statue in a rotunda, while she waited for Dr. Marcus, or someone, to come get her. “I thought I made it clear this is a very sensitive situation.”<\/span><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 <\/span>“Hey, not to worry. I’m a real sensitive guy,” Marino says loudly.<\/span><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 <\/span>Dr. Marcus doesn’t seem to hear him, but he bristles. Scarpetta can almost hear his anger displace air.<\/span><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 <\/span>“My senior superlative in high school was Most Likely to Be Sensitive,” Marino adds loudly. “Yo, Bruce!” he yells to a uniformed guard who is at least thirty feet away, having just stepped out of the evidence room and into the lobby. “What’cha know, man? Still bowling on that sorry team The Pin Heads?”<\/span><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 <\/span>“I didn’t mention it?” Scarpetta is saying. “I apologize.” She didn’t mention it, and she isn’t sorry. When she is called into a case, she’ll bring who and whatever she wants, and she can’t forgive Dr. Marcus for calling her Kay.<\/span><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 <\/span>Bruce the guard looks puzzled, then amazed. “Marino! Holy smoke, that you? Talk about a ghost from the past.”<\/span><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 <\/span>“No, you didn’t,” Dr. Marcus reiterates to Scarpetta, momentarily off balance, his confusion palpable, like the flapping of startled birds.<\/span><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 <\/span>“The one and only, and I ain’t no ghost,” Marino says as obnoxiously as possible.<\/span><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 <\/span>“I’m not sure I can allow it. This hasn’t been cleared,” Dr. Marcus says, flustered and inadvertently exposing the ugly fact that someone he answers to not only knows Scarpetta is here but may indeed be the reason she is here.<\/span><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 <\/span>“How long you in town?” The yelling between old friends goes on.<\/span><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 <\/span>Scarpetta’s inner voice warned her and she didn’t listen. She is walking into something.<\/span><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 <\/span>“Long as it takes, man.”<\/span><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 <\/span>This was a mistake, a bad one, she thinks. I should have gone to Aspen.<\/span><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 <\/span>“When you get a minute, stop by.”<\/span><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 <\/span>“You got it, buddy.”<\/span><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 <\/span>“That’s enough, please,” Dr. Marcus snaps. “This is not a beer hall.”<\/span><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 <\/span>He wears a master key to the kingdom on a lanyard around his neck, and he stoops to hold the magnetic card close to an infrared scanner next to an opaque glass door. On the other side is the chief medical examiner’s wing. Scarpetta’s mouth is dry. She is sweating under the arms and her stomach feels hollow as she walks into the chief medical examiner’s section of the handsome building she helped design and find funding for and moved into before she was fired. The dark blue couch and matching chair, the wooden coffee table, and the painting of a farm scene hanging on the wall are the same. The reception area hasn’t changed, except there used to be two corn plants and several hibiscus. She was enthusiastic about her plants, watering them herself, picking off the dead leaves, rearranging them as the light changed with the seasons.<\/span><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 <\/span>“I’m afraid you can’t bring a guest,” Dr. Marcus makes a decision as they pause before another locked door, this one leading into administrative offices and the morgue, the inner sanctum that once was hers rightfully and completely.<\/span><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 <\/span>His magnetic card does its magic again and the lock clicks free. He goes first, walking fast, his small wire-rimmed glasses catching fluorescent light. “I got caught in traffic, so I’m running late, and we have a full house. Eight cases,” he continues, directing his comments to her as if Marino doesn’t exist. “I have to go straight into staff meeting. Probably the best thing is for you, Kay, to get
\n<\/span>coffee. I may be a while. Julie?” he calls out to a clerk who is invisible inside a cubicle, her fingers tapping like castanets on a computer keyboard. “If you could show our guest where to get coffee.” This to Scarpetta, “If you’ll just make yourself comfortable in the library. I’ll get to you as soon as I can.”<\/span><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 <\/span>At the very least, as a matter of professional courtesy, a visiting forensic pathologist would be welcomed at staff meeting and in the morgue, especially if she is providing expertise pro bono to the medical examiner’s office that she once headed. Dr. Marcus could not have insulted Scarpetta more had he asked her to drop off his dry cleaning or wait in the parking lot.<\/span><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 <\/span>“I’m afraid your guest really can’t be in here.” Dr. Marcus makes that clear once again as he looks around impatiently. “Julie, can you show this gentleman back out to the lobby?”<\/span><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 <\/span>“He’s not my guest and he’s not waiting in the lobby,” Scarpetta says quietly.<\/span><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 <\/span>“I beg your pardon?” Dr. Marcus’s small thin face looks at her.<\/span><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 <\/span>“We’re together,” she says.<\/span><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 <\/span>“Perhaps you don’t understand the situation,” Dr. Marcus replies in a tight voice.<\/span><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 <\/span>“Perhaps I don’t. Let’s talk.” It is not a request.<\/span><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 <\/span>He almost flinches, his reluctance is so acute. “Very well,” he acquiesces. “We’ll duck into the library for a minute.”<\/span><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 <\/span>“Will you excuse us?” She smiles at Marino.<\/span><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 <\/span>“No problem.” He walks inside Julie’s cubicle and picks up a stack of autopsy photographs and starts going through them like playing cards. He snaps one out between forefinger and thumb like a blackjack dealer. “Know why drug dealers got less body fat than let’s say you and me?” He drops the photograph on her keyboard.<\/span><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 <\/span>Julie, who can’t be more than twenty-five and is attractive but a bit plump, stares at a photograph of a muscular young black male, as naked as the day he was born. He is on top of an autopsy table, chest cut open wide, hollowed out, organs gone except for one very conspicuously large organ, probably his most vital organ, at least to him, at least when he was alive enough to care about it. “What?” Julie asks. “You’re kidding me, right?”<\/span><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 <\/span>“I’m serious as a heart attack.” Marino pulls up a chair and sits next to her, very close. “See, darling, body fat directly correlates to the weight of the brain. Witness you and me. Always a struggle, ain’t it?”<\/span><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 <\/span>“No kidding. You really think smarter people get fat?”<\/span><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 <\/span>“A fact of life. People like you and me gotta work extra hard.”<\/span><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 <\/span>“Don’t tell me you’re on one of those eat-all-you-want-except-white-stuff diets.”<\/span><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 <\/span>“You got it, babe. Nothing white for me except women. Now me? If I was a drug dealer, I wouldn’t give a shit. Eat whatever the hell I wanted. Twinkies, Moon Pies, white bread and jelly. But that’s because I wouldn’t have a brain, right? See, all these dead drug dealers are dead because they’re stupid, and that’s why they ain’t got body fat and can eat all the white shit they want.”<\/span><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 <\/span>Their voices and laughter fade as Scarpetta follows a corridor so familiar she remembers the brush of the gray carpet beneath her shoes, the exact feel of the firm low-pile carpet she picked out when she designed her part of the building.<\/span><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 <\/span>“He really is most inappropriate,” Dr. Marcus is saying. “One thing I do require in this place is proper decorum.”<\/span><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 <\/span>Walls are scuffed, and the Norman Rockwell prints she bought and framed herself are cockeyed and two are missing. She stares inside the open doorways of offices they pass, noticing sloppy mounds of paperwork and microscopic slide folders and compound microscopes perched like big tired gray birds on overwhelmed desks. Every sight and sound reaches out to her like needy hands, and deep down she feels what has been lost and it hurts much more than she ever thought it could.<\/span><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 <\/span>“Now I’m making the connection, regrettably. The infamous Peter Marano. Yes indeed. Quite a reputation that man has,” Dr. Marcus says.<\/span><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 <\/span>“Marino,” she corrects him.<\/span><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 <\/span>A right turn and they do not pause at the coffee station but Dr. Marcus opens a solid wooden door that leads into the library, and she is greeted by medical books abandoned on long tables and other reference books tilted and upended on shelves like drunks. The huge horseshoe-shaped table is a landfill of journals, scraps of paper, dirty coffee cups, even a Krispy Kreme doughnut box. Her heart pounds as she looks around. She designed this generous space and was proud of the way she budgeted her funds because medical and scientific textbooks and a library to hold them are exorbitantly expensive and beyond what the state considers necessary for an office whose patients are dead. Her attention hovers over sets of Greenfield’s Neuropathology <\/span>and law reviews that she donated from her own collection. The volumes are out of order. One of them is upside down. Her anger spikes.<\/span><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 <\/span>She fastens her eyes on Dr. Marcus and says, “I think we’d better lay down some ground rules.”<\/span><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 <\/span>“Goodness, Kay. Ground rules?” he asks with a puzzled frown that is feigned and annoying.<\/span><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 <\/span>She can’t believe his blatant condescension. He reminds her of a defense attorney, not a good one, who hoodwinks the courtroom by stipulating away the seventeen years she spent in postgraduate education and reduces her on the witness stand to Ma’am or Mrs. or Ms. or, worst of all, Kay.<\/span><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 <\/span>“I’m sensing resistance to my being here …” she starts to say.<\/span><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 <\/span>“Resistance? I’m afraid I don’t understand.”<\/span><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 <\/span>“I think you do …”<\/span><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 <\/span>“Let’s don’t make assumptions.”<\/span><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 <\/span>“Please don’t interrupt me, Dr. Marcus. I don’t have to be here.” She takes in trashed tables and unloved books and wonders if he is this contemptuous with his own belongings. “What in God’s name has happened to this place?” she asks.<\/span><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 <\/span>He pauses as if it requires a moment of divining to understand what she means. Then he comments blandly, “Today’s medical students. No doubt they were never taught to pick up after themselves.”<\/span><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 <\/span>“In five years they’ve changed that much,” she says, dryly.<\/span><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 <\/span>“Perhaps you’re misinterpreting my mood this morning,” he replies in the same coaxing tone that he used with her over the phone yesterday. “Granted, I have a lot on my mind, but I’m quite pleased you’re here.”<\/span><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 <\/span>“You seem anything but pleased.” She keeps her eyes steadily on him while he stares past her. “Let’s start with this. I didn’t call you. You called me. Why?” I should have asked you yesterday, she thinks. I should have asked you then.<\/span><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 <\/span>“I thought I’d made myself clear, Kay. You’re a very respected forensic pathologist, a well-known consultant.” It sounds like an ingenuous endorsement for someone he secretly can’t stand.<\/span><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 <\/span>“We don’t know each other. We’ve never even met. I’m having a hard time believing you called me because I’m respected or well known.” Her arms are folded and she is glad she wore a serious dark suit. “I don’t play games, Dr. Marcus.”<\/span><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 <\/span>“I certainly don’t have time for games.” Any attempt at cordiality fades from his face and pettiness begins to glint like the sharp edge of a blade.<\/span><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 <\/span>“Did someone suggest me? Were you told to call me?” She is certain she detects the stench of politics.<\/span><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 <\/span>He glances toward the door in a not so subtle reminder that he is a busy, important man with eight cases and a staff meeting to run. Or perhaps he is worrying that someone is eavesdropping. “This is not productive,” he says. “I think it’s best we terminate this discussion.”<\/span><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 <\/span>“Fine.” She picks up her briefcase. “The last thing I want is to be a pawn in some agenda. Or shut off in a room, drinking coffee half the day. I can’t help an office that isn’t open to me, and my number-one ground rule, Dr. Marcus, is that an office requesting my assistance must be open to me.”<\/span><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 <\/span>“All right. If you want candor, indeed you shall have it.” His imperiousness fails to hide his fear. He doesn’t want her to leave. He sincerely doesn’t. “Frankly, bringing you here wasn’t my idea. Frankly, the health commissioner wanted an outside opinion and somehow came up with you,” he explains as if her name were drawn from a hat.<\/span><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 <\/span>“He should have called me himself,” she replies. “That would have been more honest.”<\/span><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 <\/span>“I told him I would do it. Frankly, I didn’t want to put you on the spot,” he explains, and the more he says “frankly,” the less she believes a word he says. “What happened is this. When Dr. Fielding couldn’t determine a cause or manner of death, the girl’s father, Gilly Paulsson’s father, called the commissioner.”<\/span><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 <\/span>The mention of Dr. Fielding’s name stings her. She didn’t know whether he was still here and she hasn’t asked.<\/span><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 <\/span>“And as I said, the commissioner called me. He said he wanted a full-court press. Those were his words.”<\/span><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 <\/span>The father must have clout, she thinks. Phone calls from upset families are not unusual, but rarely do they result in a high-ranking government official’s demanding an outside expert.<\/span><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 <\/span>“Kay, I can understand how uncomfortable this must be for you,” Dr. Marcus says. “I wouldn’t relish being in your position.”<\/span><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 <\/span>“And what is my position as you see it, Dr. Marcus?”<\/span><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 <\/span>“I believe Dickens wrote a story about that called A Christmas Carol. <\/span>I’m sure you’re familiar with the Ghost of Christmas Past?” He smiles his trifling smile, and perhaps he doesn’t realize he is plagiarizing Bruce, the guard who called Marino a ghost from the past. “Going back is never easy. You have guts, I’ll give you that. I don’t believe I would have been so generous, not if I perceived that my former office had been somewhat uncharitable to me, and I can well understand your feeling that way.”<\/span><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 <\/span>“This isn’t about me,” she replies. “It’s about a dead fourteen-year-old girl. It’s about your office\u2014an office that, yes, I’m quite familiar with, but …”<\/span><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 <\/span>He interrupts her, “That’s very philosophical of . . .”<\/span><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 <\/span>“Let me state the obvious,” she cuts him off. “When children die, it’s federal law that their fatalities are thoroughly investigated and reviewed, not only to determine cause and manner of death, but whether the tragedy might be part of a pattern. If it turns out that Gilly Paulsson was murdered, then every molecule of your office is going to be scrutinized and publicly judged, and I would appreciate it if you wouldn’t call me Kay in front of your staff and colleagues. Actually, I would prefer that you didn’t call me by my first name at all.”<\/span><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 <\/span>“I suppose part of the commissioner’s motivation is preventive damage control,” Dr. Marcus replies as if she said nothing about his calling her Kay.<\/span><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 <\/span>“I didn’t agree to participate in some media relations scheme,” she tells him. “When you called yesterday, I agreed to do what I could to help you figure out what happened to Gilly Paulsson. And I can’t do that if you aren’t completely open with me and whoever I bring in to assist me, which in this case is Pete Marino.”<\/span><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 <\/span>“Frankly, it didn’t occur to me that you would have a strong desire to attend staff meeting.” He glances at his watch again, an old watch with a narrow leather wristband. “But as you wish. We have no secrets in this place. Later, I’ll go over the Paulsson case with you. You can re-autopsy her if you want.”<\/span><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 <\/span>He holds open the library door. Scarpetta stares at him in disbelief.<\/span><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 <\/span>“She died two weeks ago and her body hasn’t been released to her family yet?” she asks.<\/span><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 <\/span>“They’re so distraught, they haven’t made arrangements to claim her, allegedly,” he replies. “I suppose they’re hoping we’ll pay for the burial.”<\/span><\/span><\/span><\/span><\/span><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

<\/span><\/span><\/span><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

Chapter 4<\/span><\/span><\/span><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

<\/span><\/span><\/span><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 <\/span><\/span><\/span><\/span><\/span>In\u00a0 <\/span>the\u00a0\u00a0 <\/span>conference\u00a0\u00a0 <\/span>room <\/span><\/span>of the OCME, Scarpetta rolls out a chair at the foot of the table, an outer reach of her former empire that she never visited when she was here. Not once did she sit at the foot of the conference table in the years she ran this office, not even if it was to have a casual conversation over a bagged lunch.<\/span><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 <\/span>It registers somewhere in her disturbed thoughts that she is being contraire <\/span>by choosing a chair at the foot of the long dark polished table when there are two other empty seats midway. Marino finds a chair against the wall and sets it next to hers, so he is neither at the foot of the table nor against the wall but somewhere in between, a big grumpy lump in black cargo pants and an LAPD baseball cap.<\/span><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 <\/span>He leans close to her and whispers, “Staff hates his guts.”<\/span><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 <\/span>She doesn’t respond and concludes that his source is Julie the clerk. Then he jots something on a notepad and shoves it toward her. “FBI involved,” she reads.<\/span><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 <\/span>Marino must have made phone calls while Scarpetta was with Dr. Marcus in the library. She is baffled. Gilly Paulsson’s death is not federal jurisdiction. At the moment it’s not even a crime, because there is no cause or manner of death, only suspicion and sticky politics. She subtly pushes the notepad back in Marino’s direction and senses Dr. Marcus is watching them. For an instant, she is in grammar school, passing notes and about to be scorched by one of the nuns. Marino has the nerve to slip out a cigarette and begin tapping it on top of his notepad.<\/span><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 <\/span>“This is a nonsmoking building, I’m afraid,” Dr. Marcus’s authoritative voice punctures the silence.<\/span><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 <\/span>“And it oughta be,” Marino says. “Secondary smoke will kill ya.” He taps the filtered end of a Marlboro on top of the notepad that bears his secret message about the FBI. “I’m happy to see the Guts Man is still around,” he adds, referring to the male anatomical model on a stand behind Dr. Marcus, who sits at the head of the table. “Now that’s a thousand-yard stare if I ever saw one,” Marino says of the Guts Man, whose removable plastic organs are present and primly in place, and Scarpetta wonders if he has been used for teaching or explaining injuries to families and attorneys since she was here. Probably not, she decides. Otherwise Guts Man would be missing organs.<\/span><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 <\/span>She does not know anyone on Dr. Marcus’s staff except Assistant Chief Jack Fielding, who so far has avoided eye contact with her and has developed a skin disorder since she saw him last. Five years have passed, she thinks, and she can scarcely believe what has become of her vain bodybuilding former forensic pathology partner. Fielding was never supremely useful in administrative matters or necessarily respected for having a searing medical mind, but he was loyal, respectful, and caring during the decade he worked for her. He never tried to undermine her or take her place, and he never came to her defense, either, when detractors far bolder than he decided to banish her and succeeded. Fielding has lost most of his hair and his once attractive face is puffy and blotchy, his eyes runny. He sniffs a lot. He would never touch drugs, and she is sure of that, but he looks like a drinker.<\/span><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 <\/span>“Dr. Fielding,” she says, staring at him. “Allergies? You didn’t used to have them. Perhaps you have a cold,” she suggests, although she seriously doubts he has a cold or the flu or any other contagious disease.<\/span><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 <\/span>Possibly, he is hungover. Probably, he is suffering from a histamine reaction to something or perhaps to everything. Scarpetta detects the raw edge of a rash peeking out from the v-neck collar of his surgical scrubs, and she follows the white sleeves of his unbuttoned lab coat, over the contours of his arms, to his raw, scaly hands. Fielding has lost considerable muscle mass. He is almost skinny and is suffering from an allergy or allergies. Dependent personality types are thought to be more susceptible to allergies, diseases, and dermatological complaints, and Fielding isn’t thriving. Maybe he shouldn’t thrive, and for him to do well without her would seem to confirm that the Commonwealth of Virginia and humankind in general are better off since she was fired and publicly degraded half a decade ago. The small nasty beast inside her that finds relief in Fielding’s misery instantly crawls back into its dark place, and she is stung by upset and concern. She gives Fielding her eyes again. He won’t complete the connection.<\/span><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 <\/span>“I hope we’ll have a chance to catch up before I leave,” she says to him from her green upholstered chair at the foot of the table, as if nobody else is in the room, just Fielding and her, the way it used to be when she was chief and so well respected that now and then naive medical students and rookie cops asked for her autograph.<\/span><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 <\/span>She feels Dr. Marcus watching her again, his stare as palpable as thumbtacks driven into her skin. He wears neither lab coat nor any other medical mantle, and she isn’t surprised. Like most passionless chiefs who should have left the profession years ago and probably never loved it, he’s not the sort to perform autopsies unless there is no one else to do them.<\/span><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 <\/span>“Let’s get started,” he announces. “I’m afraid we have a full house this morning, and we have guests. Dr. Scarpetta. And her friend Captain Marino … Or is it Lieutenant or Detective? Are you with Los Angeles now?”<\/span><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 <\/span>“Depends on what’s going on,” Marino says, his eyes shadowed by the brim of his baseball cap as he fiddles with the unlit cigarette.<\/span><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 <\/span>“And where are you working now?” Dr. Marcus reminds him that he has not fully explained himself. “I’m sorry. I don’t recall Dr. Scarpetta mentioning she was bringing you.” He has to remind Scarpetta again, this time before an audience.<\/span><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 <\/span>He is going to take swipes at her in front of everyone. She can see it coming. He will make her pay for confronting him inside his slovenly library, and it occurs to her that Marino made phone calls. Someone he talked to might have alerted Dr. Marcus.<\/span><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 <\/span>“Oh, of course.” He suddenly remembers. “She did mention you work together, I believe?”<\/span><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 <\/span>“Yes,” Scarpetta confirms from her lowly spot at the foot of the table.<\/span><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 <\/span>“So we’re going to get through the cases quickly,” he informs Scarpetta. “Once again, if you and, uh, I guess I’ll just call you Mr. Marino, if the two of you want to get coffee? Or smoke as long as it’s outside. You’re welcome to sit through our staff meeting but you certainly don’t have to.”<\/span><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 <\/span>His words are for the benefit of those not privy to what has already transpired in less than one rude hour, and she detects a warning in his tone. She wanted to intrude and now she may get an exposure she will find decidedly unpleasant. Dr. Marcus is a politician and not a good one. Perhaps when he was appointed, those in power had deemed him malleable and harmless, the antithesis of what they thought of her, and maybe they were wrong.<\/span><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 <\/span>He turns to the woman directly on his right, a big, horsey woman with a horsey face and closely shorn gray hair. She must be the administrator, and he nods at her to proceed.<\/span><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 <\/span>“Okay,” says the administrator, and everyone looks at the yellow photocopies of today’s turndowns, views, and autopsies. “Dr. Ramie, you were on call last night?” she asks.<\/span><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 <\/span>“I sure was. “Tis the season,” Dr. Ramie replies.<\/span><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 <\/span>No one laughs. A pall hangs over the conference room. It has nothing to do with the patients down the hall who await the last and most invasive physical examination they’ll ever have with any doctor on earth.<\/span><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 <\/span>“We have Sissy Shirley, ninety-two-year-old black female from Hanover County, history of heart disease, found dead in bed,” Dr. Ramie says, looking at her notes. “She was a resident of an assisted living facility and she’s a view. In fact, I already viewed her. Then we have Benjamin Franklin. That really is his name. Eighty-nine-year-old black male, also found dead in bed, history of heart disease and nerve failure …”<\/span><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 <\/span>“What?” Dr. Marcus interrupts. “What the hell is nerve failure?”<\/span><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 <\/span>Several people laugh and Dr. Ramie’s face heats up. She is an overweight, homely young woman and her face is glowing like a halogen heater on high.<\/span><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 <\/span>“I don’t believe nerve failure is a legitimate cause of death,” Dr. Marcus plays off his deputy chief’s acute embarrassment like an actor playing off his captive audience. “Please don’t tell me we’ve brought some poor soul into our clinic because he allegedly died of nerve failure.”<\/span><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 <\/span>His attempt at humor is not meant kindly. Clinics are for the living and poor souls are people in hard times, not victims of violence or random, senseless death. In three words, he has managed to completely deny and mock the reality of people down the hall who are pitifully cold and stiff and zipped inside vinyl and fake fur funeral home pouches, or naked on hard steel gurneys or on hard steel tables, ready for the scalpel and Stryker saw.<\/span><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 <\/span>“I’m sorry,” Dr. Ramie says with glowing cheeks. “I misread my notes. Renal failure is what I have here. Even I can’t read my writing anymore.”<\/span><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 <\/span>“So old Ben Franklin,” Marino starts in with a serious face as he plays with the cigarette, “he didn’t die of nerve failure after all? Like maybe when he was out there tying a key to his kite string? Anybody on that list of yours happen to die of lead poisoning? Or are we still calling it gunshot wounds?”<\/span><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 <\/span>Dr. Marcus’s stare is flat and cold.<\/span><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 <\/span>Dr. Ramie goes on in a monotone, “Mr. Franklin also is a view. I did view him already. We have Finky . . . uh, Finder …”<\/span><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 <\/span>“Not Finky, oh Lordy,” Marino keeps up the straight-man charade in that huge voice of his. “You can’t find her? I hate it when Finky does that, damn her.”<\/span><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 <\/span>“Is that the proper name?” Dr. Marcus’s voice has the thin ring of a metal triangle, several octaves higher than Marino’s voice.<\/span><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 <\/span>Dr. Ramie’s face is so red that Scarpetta worries the tortured woman is going to burst into tears and flee from the room. “The name I was given is what I just stated,” Dr. Ramie woodenly replies. “Twenty-two-year-old black female, dead on the toilet, needle still in her arm. Possible heroin O.D. That’s the second in four days in Spotsylvania. This was just handed to me.” She fumbles with a call sheet. “Right before staff meeting we got a call about a forty-two-year-old white male named Theodore Whitby. Injured while working on a tractor.”<\/span><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 <\/span>Dr. Marcus blinks behind his small wire-rimmed glasses. Faces blank out. Don’t do it, Scarpetta silently says to Marino. But he does.<\/span><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 <\/span>“Injured?” he asks. “He’s still alive?”<\/span><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 <\/span>“Actually,” Dr. Ramie stammers. “I didn’t take this call. Not personally. Dr. Fielding …”<\/span><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 <\/span>“No, I didn’t,” Fielding interrupts like a gun hammer clicking back.<\/span><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 <\/span>“You didn’t? Oh. Dr. Martin did. This is his note,” Dr. Ramie goes on, her hot and humiliated head bent low over the call sheet. “No one seems to be real clear on what happened, but he was on or near the tractor one minute and then his coworkers suddenly saw him badly injured in the dirt. Around half past eight this morning, not even an hour ago. So, somehow, he ran over himself, fell off or something, you know, and ran over himself. Was dead when the squad got there.”<\/span><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 <\/span>“Oh. So he killed himself. A suicide,” Marino decides, slowly twirling the cigarette.<\/span><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 <\/span>“Well, it’s an irony that this occurred at the old building, the one they’re tearing down at Nine North Fourteenth Street,” Dr. Ramie adds tersely.<\/span><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 <\/span>This catches Marino. He drops his not-so-funny act, his silent reaction nudging Scarpetta while she remembers the man in olive-green pants and a dark jacket standing in front of the tractor’s back tire on the pavement near the bay door. He was alive then. Now he’s dead. He should not have been standing in front of the tire, doing whatever he was doing to the engine. She thought that at the time, and now he’s dead.<\/span><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 <\/span>“He’s a post,” Dr. Ramie says, her composure and authority somewhat restored.<\/span><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 <\/span>Scarpetta remembers turning the corner as she drove around her old building, and the man and his tractor vanished from sight. He must have gotten his tractor started within minutes of her seeing him, and then he died.<\/span><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 <\/span>“Dr. Fielding, I suggest you do the tractor death,” Dr. Marcus says. “Make sure he didn’t have a heart attack or some other underlying problem before he was run over. The inventory of his injuries is going to be extensive and time-consuming. I don’t need to remind you of how thorough we need to be in cases like this. Somewhat ironical, in light of our guest.” He looks at Scarpetta. “A bit before my time, but I believe Nine North Fourteenth Street was your old building.”<\/span><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 <\/span>“It was,” says she, the ghost from the past as she recalls Mr. Whitby from a distance in black and olive green, now a ghost too. “I started out in that building. A bit before your time,” she repeats. “Then I moved to this one.” She reminds him that she worked in this building too, and then feels slightly foolish for reminding him of a fact that is indisputable.<\/span><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 <\/span>Dr. Ramie continues going through the cases: a prison death that isn’t suspicious, but by law, all prison deaths are medical examiner cases; a man found dead in a parking lot, possibly hypothermia; a woman who was a known diabetic died suddenly while climbing out of her car; an unexpected infant death; and a nineteen-year-old found dead in the middle of a street, possibly a drive-by shooting.<\/span><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 <\/span>“I’m on call for court in Chesterfield,” Dr. Ramie concludes. “I’m going to need a ride, my car’s in the shop again.”<\/span><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 <\/span>“I’ll drop you off,” Marino volunteers, winking at her.<\/span><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 <\/span>Dr. Ramie looks terrified.<\/span><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 <\/span>Everyone makes moves to get out of their chairs, but Dr. Marcus stops them. “Before you go,” he says, “I could use your help and you could probably use a little mental stretching. As you know, the Institute is running another death investigation school, and as usual I’ve been prevailed upon to lecture about the medical examiner system. I thought I’d try out a few test cases on the group, especially since we are fortunate enough to have an expert in our midst.”<\/span><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 <\/span>The bastard, Scarpetta thinks. So this is what it’s going to be like. The hell with their talk in the library. The hell with his making the office open to her.<\/span><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 <\/span>He pauses, looking around the table. “A twenty-year-old white female,” he begins, “seven weeks pregnant. Her boyfriend kicks her in the belly. She calls the police and goes to the hospital. Hours later she passes the fetus and placenta. The police notify me. What do I do?”<\/span><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 <\/span>No one answers him. It’s obvious that they aren’t accustomed to his mental stretches and just stare at him.<\/span><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 <\/span>“Come on, come on,” he says with a smile. “Let’s say I just got such a phone call, Dr. Ramie.”<\/span><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 <\/span>“Sir?” She turns red again.<\/span><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 <\/span>“Come, come. Tell me how to handle it, Dr. Ramie.”<\/span><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 <\/span>“Process it like a surgical?” she guesses as if some alien force has just sucked away her long years of medical training, her very intelligence.<\/span><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 <\/span>“Anybody else?” Dr. Marcus asks. “Dr. Scarpetta?” He says her name slowly, making sure she notices that he didn’t call her Kay. “Ever had a case like this?”<\/span><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 <\/span>“I’m afraid so,” she replies.<\/span><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 <\/span>“Tell us. What’s the legal impact?” he asks quite pleasantly.<\/span><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 <\/span>“Obviously, if you beat up a pregnant woman, it’s a crime,” she answers. “On the CME-1, I’m going to call the fetal death a homicide.”<\/span><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 <\/span>“Interesting.” Dr. Marcus looks around the table as he takes aim at her again. “So your initial report of investigation would say homicide. Perhaps a bit bold of you? Intent is for the police to determine, not us, correct?”<\/span><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 <\/span>The sniping son of a bitch, she thinks. “Our job as mandated by code is to determine cause and manner of death,” she says. “As you may recall, in the late nineties the statute changed after a man shot a woman through the belly and she lived but her unborn child died. In the scenario you’ve put before us, Dr. Marcus, I suggest you have the fetus brought in. Autopsy it and give it a case number. There’s no place on a yellow-bordered death certificate for manner of death, so you include that with cause, an intrauterine fetal demise due to an assault on the mother. Use a yellow-bordered death certificate since the fetus wasn’t born alive. Keep a copy with the case file because a year from now that certificate won’t exist anymore, after the Bureau of Vital Records compiles its statistics.”<\/span><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 <\/span>“And what do we do with the fetus?” Dr. Marcus asks, not quite so pleasantly.<\/span><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 <\/span>“Up to the family.”<\/span><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 <\/span>“It’s not even ten centimeters,” he says, his voice getting tight again. “There’s nothing left for the funeral home to bury.”<\/span><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 <\/span>“Then fix it in formalin. Give it to the family, whatever they want.”<\/span><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 <\/span>“And call it a homicide,” he says coldly.<\/span><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 <\/span>“The new statute,” she reminds him. “In Virginia, an assault with the intent of killing family members, born or unborn, is a capital crime. Even if you can’t prove intent and the charge is malicious wounding of the mother, that carries the same penalty as murder. From there it tracks down through the system as manslaughter and so on. The point is, there doesn’t have to be intent. The fetus doesn’t even have to be viable. A violent crime has occurred.”<\/span><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 <\/span>“Any debate?” Dr. Marcus asks his staff. “No comments?”<\/span><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 <\/span>No one responds, not even Fielding.<\/span><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 <\/span>“Then we’ll try another one,” Dr. Marcus says with an angry smile.<\/span><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 <\/span>Go ahead, Scarpetta thinks. Go ahead, you insufferable bastard.<\/span><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 <\/span>“A young male in a hospice program,” Dr. Marcus begins. “He’s dying of AIDS. He tells the doctor to pull the plug. If the doctor withdraws life support and the patient dies, is it an ME case or not? Is it a homicide? How about our guest expert again? Did the doctor commit homicide?”<\/span><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 <\/span>“It’s a natural death unless the doctor put a bullet through the patient’s head,” Scarpetta answers.<\/span><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 <\/span>“Ah. Then you’re an advocate of euthanasia.”<\/span><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 <\/span>“Informed consent is murky.” She doesn’t answer his ridiculous charge. “The patient is often dealing with depression, and when people are depressed, they can’t make informed decisions. This is really a societal question.”<\/span><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 <\/span>“Let me clarify what you’re saying,” Dr. Marcus replies.<\/span><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 <\/span>“Please do.”<\/span><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 <\/span>“You have this man in hospice who says, ‘I think I’d like to die today.’ Should you expect your local doc to do it?”<\/span><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 <\/span>“The truth is, the patient in hospice already has that capacity. He can decide to die,” she replies. “He can have morphine when he wants it for pain, so he asks for more and goes to sleep and dies from an O.D. He can wear a Do Not Resuscitate bracelet and a squad doesn’t have to resuscitate him. So he dies. Chances are there will be no consequences to anyone.”<\/span><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 <\/span>“But is it our case?” Dr. Marcus insists, his thin face white with rage as he glares at her.<\/span><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 <\/span>“People are in hospices because they want pain control and want to die in peace,” she says. “People who make informed decisions to wear DNR bracelets basically want the same thing. A morphine O.D., a withdrawal of vital support in a hospice, a person wearing a DNR bracelet isn’t resuscitated. These are not our issues. If you get called about a case like that, Dr. Marcus, I hope you turn it down.”<\/span><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 <\/span>“Any comment?” Dr. Marcus asks tersely, shuffling paperwork and ready to leave.<\/span><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 <\/span>“Yeah,” Marino says to him. “You ever thought of writing Q-and-A’s for Jeopardy?”<\/span><\/span><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

<\/span><\/span><\/span><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

Chapter 5<\/span><\/span><\/span><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

<\/span><\/span><\/span><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 <\/span><\/span><\/span><\/span><\/span>Benton Wesley <\/span><\/span>paces from window to window inside his three-bedroom town home at the Aspen Club. The signal of his cell phone surges in and out, and Marino’s voice is clear, then broken.<\/span><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 <\/span>“What? I’m sorry, say that again.” Benton backs up three steps and stands still.<\/span><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 <\/span>“I said that’s not the half of it. A hell of a lot worse than you thought.” Marino’s voice comes through intact. “It’s like he brought her in to kick the shit out of her in front of an audience. Or try. I emphasize try.”<\/span><\/span><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 <\/span>Benton stares out at snow caught in crooks of aspen trees and piled on the stubby needles of black spruce. The morning is sunny and clear for the first time in days, and magpies frolic from branch to branch, landing in a flutter and then flitting off in small white bursts of snow. A part of Benton’s mind processes the activity and tries to determine a reason, perhaps a biological cause and effect that might explain the long-tailed birds’ gymnastics, as if it matters. His mental probing is as conditioned as the wildlife and as relentless as the gondolas swinging up and down the mountain.<\/span><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 <\/span>“Try, yes. Try.” Benton smiles a little as he imagines it. “But you need to understand he didn’t invite her because it was a choice. It was an order. The health commissioner’s behind it.”<\/span><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 <\/span>“And you know that how?”<\/span><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 <\/span>“It took me one phone call after she told me she was going.”<\/span><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 <\/span>“It’s too bad about Asp\u2014” Marino’s voice fractures.<\/span><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 <\/span>Benton moves to the next window, flames snapping and wood popping in the fireplace at his back. He continues to stare out the floor-to-ceiling glass, his attention fixing on the stone house across the street as the front door opens. A man and a boy emerge dressed for the weather, their breath streaming out in a frozen vapor.<\/span><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 <\/span>“By now she’s aware of it,” Benton says. “Aware she’s being used.” He knows Scarpetta well enough to make predictions that undoubtedly are true. “I promise she knows the politics or simply that there are politics. Unfortunately, there’s more, a lot more. Can you hear me?”<\/span><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 <\/span>He looks out at the man and the boy shouldering their skis and poles, walking sluggishly in half-buckled ski boots. Benton will not ski or snowshoe today. He doesn’t have time.<\/span><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 <\/span>“Huh.” Marino has started saying that a lot of late, and Benton finds it annoying.<\/span><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 <\/span>“Can you hear me?” Benton asks.<\/span><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 <\/span>“Yeah, I’m copying now,” Marino comes back, and Benton can tell he’s moving around, roaming for a better signal. “He’s trying to blame everything on her, like he brought her here to do that. I don’t know what else to tell you until I get
\n<\/span>into it more. The kid, I mean.”<\/span><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 <\/span>Benton is aware of Gilly Paulsson. Her mysterious death may not be national news, not yet, but details from Virginia media sources are on the Internet, and Benton has his own ways of accessing information, very confidential information. Gilly Paulsson is being used, because it is not a requirement to be alive if certain people want to use you.<\/span><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 <\/span>“Did I lose you again? Dammit,” Benton says, and communication would be immensely improved if he could use the land line in his own home, but he can’t.<\/span><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 <\/span>“I’m copying you, boss.” Marino’s voice is suddenly strong. “Why don’t you use your land line? That would solve half our problem,” he says, as if reading Benton’s thoughts.<\/span><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 <\/span>“Can’t.”<\/span><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 <\/span>“You think it’s bugged?” Marino isn’t joking. “There are ways to detect that. Get Lucy to do it.”<\/span><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 <\/span>“Thanks for the suggestion.” Benton doesn’t need Lucy’s help with countersurveillance, and his concern isn’t that his line is bugged.<\/span><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 <\/span>He follows the progress of the man and the boy as he contemplates Gilly Paulsson. The boy looks about Gilly’s age, the age Gilly was when she died. Thirteen, maybe fourteen, only Gilly never got to ski. She never visited Colorado or anywhere else. She was born in Richmond and that’s where she died, and during her short life, mostly she suffered. Benton notices that the wind is picking up. Snow blowing off trees fills the woods like smoke.<\/span><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 <\/span>“This is what I want you to tell her,” Benton says, and his emphasis on the word “her” indicates he means Scarpetta. “Her successor, if I must call him that,” he says, and he doesn’t want to say Dr. Marcus’s name either or engage in any specifics, and he can’t stomach the thought of anyone, least of all this worm Dr. Joel Marcus, succeeding Scarpetta. “This person is of interest,” Benton continues, talking cryptically. “When she gets here,” he adds, referring to Scarpetta again, “I’ll go over all of it in person with her. But for now, use caution, extreme caution.”<\/span><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 <\/span>“What do you mean, ‘when she gets here? I’m assuming she might be stuck here for a while.”<\/span><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 <\/span>“She needs to call me.”<\/span><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 <\/span>“Extreme caution?” Marino complains. “Shit, you would have to say something like that.”<\/span><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 <\/span>“While she’s there, you stay with her.”<\/span><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 <\/span>“Huh.”<\/span><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 <\/span>“Stay with her, am I clear?”<\/span><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 <\/span>“She won’t like it,” Marino says.<\/span><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 <\/span>Benton looks out at the harsh slopes of the snow-laced Rockies, at a beauty shaped by cruel, scouring winds and the brute force of glaciers. Aspens and evergreens are a stubble on the faces of mountains that surround this old mining town like a bowl, and to the east, beyond a ridge, a distant gray shroud of clouds is slowly spreading across the intense blue sky. Later today, it will snow again.<\/span><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 <\/span>“No, she never does,” Benton says.<\/span><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 <\/span>“She said you got a case.”<\/span><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 <\/span>“Yes.” Benton can’t discuss it.<\/span><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 <\/span>“Well, it’s too bad, being in Aspen and all, and you got a case and now she does. So you’ll just stay there and work your case, I guess.”<\/span><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 <\/span>“For now I will,” Benton says.<\/span><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 <\/span>“Must be something serious if you’re on it during your vacation in Aspen,” Marino fishes.<\/span><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 <\/span>“I can’t get
\n<\/span>into it.”<\/span><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 <\/span>“Huh. These damn phones,” Marino says. “Lucy ought to invent something that can’t be tapped into or picked up on a scanner. She could make a fortune.”<\/span><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 <\/span>“I believe she’s already made a fortune. Maybe several fortunes.”<\/span><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 <\/span>“No kidding.”<\/span><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 <\/span>“Take care,” Benton says. “If I don’t talk to you in the next few days, take care of her. Watch your back and hers, I mean it.”<\/span><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 <\/span>“Tell me something I don’t already do,” Marino says. “Don’t hurt yourself out there playing in the snow.”<\/span><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 <\/span>Benton ends the call and returns to a couch that faces the windows near the fire. On the wormy chestnut coffee table is a legal pad filled with his almost indecipherable scrawl and near that is a Glock .40-caliber pistol. Slipping a pair of reading glasses out of the breast pocket of his denim shirt, he settles against the armrest and begins flipping through the legal pad. Each lined page is numbered and in the upper right-hand corner is a date. Benton rubs his angular jaw, remembering that he hasn’t shaved in two days, and his rough, graying beard reminds him of the bristly trees on the mountains. He circles the words “shared paranoia” and tilts his head up as he peers through the reading glasses on the tip of his straight, sharp nose.<\/span><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 <\/span>In the margin he scribbles, “Will seem to work when fills in gaps. Serious gaps. Can’t last. L is real victim, not H. H is narcissist,” and he underlines “narcissist” three times. He jots “histrionic” and underlines it twice, and he turns to a different page, this one with the heading “Post Offense Behavior,” and he listens for the sound of running water, puzzled that he hasn’t heard it yet. “Critical mass. Will reach no later than Xmas. Tension unbearable. Will kill by Xmas if not sooner,” he writes, quietly looking up as he senses her before he hears her.<\/span><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 <\/span>“Who was that?” asks Henri, which is short for Henrietta. She stands on the stairway landing, her delicate hand resting on the railing. Henri Walden stares across the living room at him.<\/span><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 <\/span>“Good morning,” Benton says. “You usually take a shower. There’s coffee.”<\/span><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 <\/span>Henri pulls a plain red flannel robe more tightly around her thin body, her green eyes sleepy and reticent as she takes in Benton, studying him as if a preexisting argument or encounter stands between them. She is twenty-eight and attractive in an off-tilt way. Her features aren’t perfect, because her nose is strong and, according to her own warped beliefs, too big. Her teeth aren’t perfect either, but right now nothing would convince her that she has a beautiful smile, that she is disturbingly alluring even when she doesn’t try to be. Benton hasn’t tried to convince her and won’t. It is too dangerous.<\/span><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 <\/span>“I heard you talking to someone,” she says. “Was it Lucy?”<\/span><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 <\/span>“No,” he replies.<\/span><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 <\/span>“Oh,” she says and disappointment tugs her lips and anger flashes in her eyes. “Oh. Well. Who was it then?”<\/span><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 <\/span>“It was a private conversation, Henri.” He takes off his reading glasses. “We’ve talked a lot about boundaries. We’ve talked about them every day, haven’t we?”<\/span><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 <\/span>“I know,” she says from the landing, her hand on the railing. “If it wasn’t Lucy, who was it? Was it her aunt? She talks too much about her aunt.”<\/span><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 <\/span>“Her aunt doesn’t know you’re here, Henri,” Benton says very patiently. “Only Lucy and Rudy know you’re here.”<\/span><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 <\/span>“I know about you and her aunt.”<\/span><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 <\/span>“Only Lucy and Rudy know you’re here,” he repeats.<\/span><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 <\/span>“It was Rudy then. What did he want? I always knew he liked me.” She smiles and the look on her face is peculiar and unsettling. “Rudy is gorgeous. I should have gotten with him. I could have. When we were out in the Ferrari I could have. I could have with anybody when I was in the Ferrari. Not that I need Lucy to have a Ferrari.”<\/span><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 <\/span>“Boundaries, Henri,” Benton says, and he refuses to accept the abysmal defeat that is a dark plain in front of him, nothing but darkness that has spread wider and deeper ever since Lucy flew Henri to Aspen and entrusted her to him.<\/span><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 <\/span>You won’t hurt her, Lucy said to him at the time. Someone else will hurt her, take advantage of her, and find out things about me and what I do.<\/span><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 <\/span>I’m not a psychiatrist, Benton said.<\/span><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 <\/span>She needs a post-incident stress counselor, a forensic psychologist. That’s what you do. You can do it. You can find out what happened. We have to know what happened, Lucy said, and she was beside herself. Lucy never panics, but she was panicking. She believes Benton can figure out anyone. Even if he could, that doesn’t mean all people can be fixed. Henri is not a hostage. She could leave anytime. It profoundly unsettles him that she seems to have no interest in leaving, that she just might be enjoying herself.<\/span><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 <\/span>Benton has figured out a lot in the four days he has spent with Henri Walden. She is a character disorder and was a character disorder before the attempted murder. If it wasn’t for the scene photographs and the fact that someone really was inside Lucy’s house, Benton might believe there was no attempted murder. He worries that Henri’s personality now is simply an exaggeration of what it was before the assault, and that realization is extremely disturbing to him and he can’t imagine what Lucy was thinking when she met Henri. Lucy wasn’t thinking, he decides. That’s the likely answer.<\/span><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 <\/span>“Did Lucy let you drive her Ferrari?” he asks.<\/span><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 <\/span>“Not the black one.”<\/span><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 <\/span>“What about the silver one, Henri?”<\/span><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 <\/span>“It’s not silver. It’s California blue. I drove it whenever I wanted.” She looks at him from the landing, her hand on the railing, her long hair messy and her eyes sultry with sleep as if she is posing for a sexy photo shoot.<\/span><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 <\/span>“You drove it by yourself, Henri.” He wants to make sure. A very important missing piece is how the perpetrator found Henri, and Benton does not believe the attack was random, the luck of the draw, a pretty young woman in the wrong mansion or in the wrong Ferrari at the wrong time.<\/span><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 <\/span>“I told you I did,” Henri says, her face pale and lacking in expression. Only her eyes are alive and the energy in them is volatile and unsettling. “But she’s selfish with the black one.”<\/span><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 <\/span>“When was the last time you drove the California blue Ferrari?” Benton asks in the same mild, steady voice, and he has learned to get information when he can. It doesn’t matter if Henri is sitting or walking or standing on the other side of the room with her hand on the railing, if something comes up, he tries to dislodge it from her before it is out of sight again. No matter what happened or happens to her, Benton wants to know who went inside Lucy’s house and why. The hell with Henri, he is tempted to think. What he really cares about is Lucy.<\/span><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 <\/span>“I’m something in that car,” Henri replies, her eyes bright and cold in her expressionless face.<\/span><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 <\/span>“And you drove it often, Henri.”<\/span><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 <\/span>“Whenever I wanted.” She stares at him.<\/span><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 <\/span>“Every day to the training camp?”<\/span><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 <\/span>“Whenever I damn well wanted.” Her impassive pale face stares at him and anger shines in her eyes.<\/span><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 <\/span>“Can you remember the last time you drove it? When was that, Henri?”<\/span><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 <\/span>“I don’t know. Before I got sick.”<\/span><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 <\/span>“Before you got the flu, and that was when? About two weeks ago?”<\/span><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 <\/span>“I don’t know.” She has become resistant and will not say anything else about the Ferrari right now, and he doesn’t push her because her denials and avoidance have their own truths to tell.<\/span><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 <\/span>Benton is quite adept at interpreting what isn’t said, and she has just indicated that she drove the Ferrari whenever she pleased and was aware of the attention she attracted and enjoyed it because she has to be the eye of the storm. Even on her best days, Henri has to be the center of chaos and the creator of chaos, the star of her own crazy drama, and for this reason alone most police and forensic psychologists would conclude that she faked her own attempted murder and staged the crime scene, that the attack never happened. But it did. That’s the irony, this bizarre, dangerous drama is real, and he worries about Lucy. He has always worried about Lucy, but now he is really worried.<\/span><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 <\/span>“Who were you talking to on the phone?” Henri gets back to that. “Rudy misses me. I should have gotten with him. I wasted so much time down there.”<\/span><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 <\/span>“Let’s start the day with a reminder of our boundaries, Henri,” Benton patiently says the same thing he said yesterday morning and the morning before that, when he was making notes on the couch.<\/span><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 <\/span>“Okay,” she replies from the landing. “Rudy called. That’s who it was,” she says.<\/span><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

<\/span><\/span><\/span><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

Chapter 6<\/span><\/span><\/span><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

<\/span><\/span><\/span><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 <\/span><\/span><\/span><\/span><\/span>Water drums <\/span><\/span>in sinks and x-rays are illuminated on every light box as Scarpetta leans close to a gash that almost severed the dead tractor driver’s nose from his face.<\/span><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 <\/span>“I’d do a STAT alcohol and CO on him,” she says to Dr. Jack Fielding, who is on the other side of the stainless-steel gurney, the body between them.<\/span><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 <\/span>“You noticing something?” he asks.<\/span><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 <\/span>“I don’t smell alcohol, and he’s not cherry-pink. But just to be on the safe side. I’m telling you, cases like this are trouble, Jack.”<\/span><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 <\/span>The dead man is still clothed in his olive-green work pants, which are dusted with red clay and ripped open at the thighs. Fat and muscle and shattered bones protrude from split skin. The tractor ran over the middle of his body, but not while she was watching. It could have happened one minute, maybe five minutes, after she turned the corner, and she is certain that the man she saw was Mr. Whitby. She tries not to envision him alive but every other minute he is there in her mind, standing in front of the huge tractor tire, poking at the engine, doing something to the engine.<\/span><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 <\/span>“Hey,” Fielding calls out to a young man whose head is shaved, probably a soldier from Fort Lee’s Graves Registration Unit. “What’s your name?”<\/span><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 <\/span>“Bailey, sir.”<\/span><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 <\/span>Scarpetta picks out several other young men and women in scrubs, shoe and hair covers, face masks and gloves who are probably interns from the Army and here to learn how to handle dead bodies. She wonders if they are destined for Iraq. She sees the olive green of the Army and it is the same olive green of Mr. Whitby’s ripped work pants.<\/span><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 <\/span>“Do the funeral home a favor, Bailey, and tie off the carotid,” Fielding says gruffly, and when he worked for Scarpetta, he wasn’t so unpleasant. He didn’t boss people around and loudly find fault with them.<\/span><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 <\/span>The soldier is embarrassed, his muscular tattooed right arm frozen midair, his gloved fingers around a long crooked surgical needle threaded with #7 cotton twine. He is helping a morgue assistant suture up the Y incision of an autopsy that was begun prior to staff meeting, and it is the morgue assistant and not the soldier who should know about tying off the carotid. Scarpetta feels sorry for the soldier, and if Fielding still worked for her, she would have a word with him and he would not treat anyone rudely in her morgue.<\/span><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 <\/span>“Yes, sir,” the soldier says with a stricken look on his young face. “Just getting ready to do that, sir.”<\/span><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 <\/span>“Really?” Fielding asks, and everyone in the morgue can hear what he is saying to the poor young soldier. “You know why you tie off the carotid?”<\/span><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 <\/span>“No, sir.”<\/span><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 <\/span>“It’s polite, that’s why,” Fielding says. “You tie string around a major blood vessel such as the carotid so funeral home embalmers don’t have to dig around for it. It’s the polite thing to do, Bailey.”<\/span><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 <\/span>“Yes sir.”<\/span><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 <\/span>“Jesus,” Fielding says. “I put up with this every day because he lets everyone and their brother in here. You see him in here?” He resumes making notes on his clipboard. “Hell no. He’s been here almost four damn months and hasn’t done one autopsy. Oh. And in case you haven’t figured it out, he likes to make people wait. His favorite thing. Obviously, nobody gave you the rundown on him. Excuse the pun.” He indicates the dead man between them who managed to run himself down with a tractor. “If you’d called me, I’d have told you not to bother coming here.”<\/span><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 <\/span>“I should have called you,” she says, watching five people struggle to roll an enormous woman off a gurney onto a stainless-steel table. Bloody fluid trickles from her nose and mouth. “She’s got a huge panniculus.” Scarpetta refers to the fold or drape of fat that people as obese as the dead woman have over their bellies, and what Scarpetta is really saying to Fielding is that she won’t engage in comments about Dr. Marcus when she is standing in his morgue and surrounded by his staff.<\/span><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 <\/span>“Well, it’s my fucking case,” Fielding says, and now he is talking about Dr. Marcus and Gilly Paulsson. “The asshole never even stepped foot in the morgue when her body came in, for Christ’s sake, and everyone knew the case was going to cause a stink. His first big stink. Oh, don’t give me one of your looks, Dr. Scarpetta.” He never could stop calling her that, even though she encouraged him to call her Kay because they respected each other and she considered him a friend, but he wouldn’t call her Kay when he worked for her and he still won’t. “No one here is listening, not that I give a damn. You got dinner plans?”<\/span><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 <\/span>“With you, I hope.” She helps him remove Mr. Whitby’s muddy leather work boots, untying the filthy laces and pulling out the dirty cowhide tongues. Rigor mortis is in the very early stages, and he is still limber and warm.<\/span><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 <\/span>“How the hell do these guys run over themselves, can you tell me that?” Fielding says. “I never can figure it out. Good. My house at seven. I still live in the same place.”<\/span><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 <\/span>“I’ll tell you how they often do it,” she says as she remembers Mr. Whitby standing in front of the tractor tire, doing something to the engine. “They’re having some sort of mechanical problem and get off the seat and stand right in front of that huge back tire and fool with the starter, possibly trying to jump it with a screwdriver, forgetting the tractor’s in gear. It’s their bad luck it starts. In his case, running him over midsection.” She points at the dirty tire tread pattern on Mr. Whitby’s olive work pants and his black vinyl jacket that is embroidered with his name, T. Whitby, in thick red thread. “When I saw him, he was standing in front of the tire.”<\/span><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 <\/span>“Yeah. Our old building. Welcome back to town.”<\/span><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

\n

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Book Preview Trace Kay Scarpetta Novel (13) by Patricia Cornwell Chapter 1 \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Yellow bulldozers hack earth and stone in an old city block that has seen more death than most modern wars, and Kay Scarpetta slows her rental SUV almost to a stop. Shaken by the destruction ahead, she stares at the mustard-colored machines … Read more<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":3177,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[172],"class_list":["post-3178","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-patricia-cornwell"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/epub-book.com\/download\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3178","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/epub-book.com\/download\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/epub-book.com\/download\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/epub-book.com\/download\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/epub-book.com\/download\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3178"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/epub-book.com\/download\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3178\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/epub-book.com\/download\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/3177"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/epub-book.com\/download\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3178"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/epub-book.com\/download\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3178"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/epub-book.com\/download\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3178"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}