'So I'm supposed to move somewhere and spend my savings?' I asked. 'I'm supposed to just give all of this up?' I swept my hand around the room. 'I'm supposed to give that monster that much power?'
'You can't drive your ride, either,' he went on, thinking aloud. 'You got to drive something he won't recognize. You can take my truck, if you want.'
'Hell no,' I said.
Marino looked hurt. 'It's a big thing for me to let someone use my truck. I never let anybody.'
'That's not it. I want my life. I want to feel Lucy is safe. I want to live in my house and drive my car.'
He got up and brought me his handkerchief.
'I'm not crying,' I said.
'You're about to.'
'No, I'm not.'
'You want a drink?' he asked.
'Scotch.'
'I think I'll have a little bourbon.'
'You can't. You're driving.'
'No, I'm not,' he said as he stepped behind the bar. 'I'm camping on your couch.'
Close to midnight, I carried in a pillow and blanket and helped him get settled. He could have slept in a guest room, but he wanted to be right where he was with the fire turned low.
I retreated upstairs and read until my eyes would no longer focus. I was grateful Marino was in my house. I did not know when I had ever been this frightened. So far Gault had always gotten his way.
So far he had not failed in a single evil task he had set out to accomplish. If he wanted me to die, I had no confidence I could evade him. If he wanted Lucy to die, I believed that would happen, too.
It was the latter I feared most. I had seen his work. I knew what he did. I could diagram every piece of bone and ragged excision of skin. I looked at the black metal nine-millimeter pistol on the table by my bed, and I wondered what I always did. Would I reach for it in time? Would I save my life or someone else? As I surveyed my bedroom and adjoining study, I knew Marino was right. I could not stay here alone, I drifted to sleep pondering this and had a disturbing dream. A figure with a long dark robe and a face like a white balloon was smiling insipidly at me from an antique mirror. Every time I passed the mirror the figure in it was watching with its chilly smile. It was both dead and alive and seemed to have no gender.
The governor may fire me. Little by little I will lose all that I have and all that I've been. Because of him.'
Still, Marino did not answer, and I realized he was asleep. A tear slid down my cheek as I pulled the covers to his chin and went back upstairs.
12
I parked behind my building at a quarter after seven and for a while sat in my car, staring at cracked blacktop, dingy stucco and the sagging chain-link fence around the parking lot.
Behind me were railroad trestles and the 1-95 overpass, then the outer limits of a downtown boarded up and battered by crime. There were no trees or plantings and very little grass. My appointment to this position certainly had never included a view, but right now I did not care. I missed my office and my staff, and all that I looked at was comforting.
Inside the morgue, I stopped by the office to check on the day's cases. A suicide needed to be viewed along with an eighty-year-old woman who had died at home from untreated carcinoma of the breast. An entire family had been killed yesterday afternoon when their car was struck by a train, and my heart was heavy as I read their names. Deciding to take care of the views while I waited for my assistant chiefs, I unlocked the walk-in refrigerator and doors leading into the autopsy suite.
The three tables were polished bright, the tile floor very clean. I scanned cubbyholes stacked with forms, carts neatly lined with instruments and test tubes, steel shelves arranged with camera equipment and film. In the locker room I checked linens and starchy lab coats as I put on plastic apron and gown, then went out in the hall to a cart of surgical masks, shoe covers, face shields.
Pulling on gloves, I continued my inspection as I went inside the refrigerator to retrieve the first case. Bodies were in black pouches on top of gurneys, the air properly chilled to thirty-four degrees and adequately deodorized considering we had a full house. I checked toe tags until I found the right one, and I wheeled the gurney out.
No one else would be in for another hour, and I cherished the silence. I did not even need to lock the autopsy suite doors because it was too early for the elevator across the hall to be busy with forensic scientists going upstairs. I couldn't find any paperwork on the suicide and checked the office again. The report of sudden death had been placed in the wrong box. The date scribbled on it was incorrect by two days, and much of the form had not been completed. The only other information it offered was the name of the decedent and that the body had been delivered at three o'clock this morning by Sauls Mortuary, which made no sense.
My office used three removal services for the pickup and delivery of dead bodies. These three local funeral homes were on call twenty-four hours a day, and any medical examiner case in central Virginia should be handled by one of them. I did not understand why the suicide had been delivered by a funeral home we had no contract with, and why the driver had not signed his name. I felt a rush of irritation. I had been gone but a few days and the system was falling apart. I went to the phone and called the night-time security guard, whose shift did not end for another half hour.
'This is Dr. Scarpetta,' I said when he answered.
'Yes, ma'am.'
'To whom am I speaking, please?'
'Evans.'
'Mr. Evans, an alleged suicide was delivered at three o'clock this morning.'
'Yes, ma'am. I let him in.'
'Who delivered him?'
He paused. 'Uh, I think it was Sauls.'
'We don't use Sauls.'
He got quiet,
'I think you'd better come over here,' I said to him.
He hesitated. 'To the morgue?'
'That's where I am.'
He stalled again.
'
He stalled again. I could feel his strong resistance. Many people who worked in the building could not deal with the morgue. They did not want to come near it, and I had yet to employ a security guard who would so much as poke his head inside the refrigerator. Many guards and most cleaning-crews did not work for me long.
While I waited for this fearless guard named Evans, I unzipped the black pouch, which looked new. The victim's head was covered by a black plastic garbage bag that had been tied around the neck with a shoelace. He was clothed in blood-soaked pajamas and wore a thick gold bracelet and Rolex watch. Peeking out of the breast pocket of his pajama top was what appeared to be a pink envelope. I took a step back, getting weak in the knees.
I ran to the doors, slammed them shut and turned dead bolt locks as I fumbled inside my pocketbook for my revolver. Lipsticks and hairbrush clattered to the floor. I thought of the locker room, of places one could hide as I dialed the telephone, my hands trembling. Depending on how warmly he was dressed, he could hide inside the refrigerator, I frantically thought as I envisioned the many gurneys and black body bags on top of them. I hurried to the great steel door and snapped the padlock on the handle while I waited for Marino to return my page.
