'James, there is nothing lighthearted about this conversation,' I abruptly said.
His face lit up and his eyes got wide as the meaning became clear. 'Oh my God. The man I've been reading about? That's who… My God. He was in my gallery?'
I made no comment.
James was ecstatic. 'Do you realize what this will do?' he said. 'When people find out he shopped here?'
I said nothing.
'It will be fabulous for my business. People from all over will come here. My gallery will be on the tour routes.'
'That's right. Be certain to advertise something like that,' I said. 'And character disorders from everywhere will stand in line. They'll touch your expensive paintings, bronzes, tapestries, and ask you endless questions. And they won't buy a thing.'
He got quiet.
'When he came in,' I said, 'what did he do?'
'He looked around. He said he was looking for a last-minute gift.'
'What was his voice like?'
'Quiet. Kind of high-pitched. I asked who the present was for, and he said his mother. He said she was a doctor. That's when I showed him the pin he ended up buying. It's a caduceus. Two white gold serpents twined around a yellow gold winged staff.
He said she was a doctor. That's when I showed him the pin he ended up buying. It's a caduceus. Two white gold serpents twined around a yellow gold winged staff. The serpents have ruby eyes. It's handmade and absolutely spectacular.'
'That's what he bought for two hundred and fifty dollars?' I asked.
'Yes.' He was appraising me, crooked finger under his chin. 'Actually, it's you. The pin is really you. Would you like for me to have the artist make another one?'
'What happened after he bought the pin?'
'I asked if he wanted it gift wrapped, and he didn't. He pulled out the charge card. And I said, «Well, small, small world. Your mother works right around the corner.» He didn't say anything. So I asked if he was home for the holidays, and he smiled.'
'He didn't talk,' I said.
'Not at all. It was like pulling hens' teeth. I wouldn't call him friendly. But he was polite.'
'Do you remember how he was dressed?'
'A long black leather coat. It was belted, so I don't know what he had on under it. But I thought he looked sharp.'
'Shoes?'
'It seems he had on boots.'
'Did you notice anything else about him?'
He thought for a while, looking past me at the door. He said, 'Now that you mention it, he had what looked like burns on his fingers. I thought that was a little scary.'
'What about his hygiene?' I then asked, for the more addicted a crack user got, the less he cared about clothing or cleanliness.
'He seemed clean to me. But I really didn't get close to him.'
'And he bought nothing else while he was here?'
'Unfortunately not.'
Elmer James propped an elbow on the showcase and rested his cheek on his fist. He sighed. 'I wonder how he found me.'
I walked back, avoiding slushy puddles on streets and the cars that drove through them heedlessly. I got splashed once. I returned to my office, where Janet was in the library watching a teaching videotape of an autopsy while Lucy worked in the computer room. I left them alone and went down to the morgue to check on my staff.
Fielding was at the first table, working on a young woman found dead in the snow below her bedroom window. I noted the pinkness of the body and could smell alcohol in the blood. On her right arm was a cast scribbled with messages and autographs.
'How are we doing?' I asked.
'She's got a STAT alcohol of.23,' he replied, examining a section of aorta. 'So that didn't get her. I think she's going to be an exposure death.'
'What are the circumstances?' I could not help but think of Jane.
'Apparently, she was out drinking with friends and by the time they took her home around eleven p.m. it was snowing pretty hard. They let her out and didn't wait to see her in. The police think her keys fell in the snow and she was too drunk to find them.'
He dropped the section of aorta into a jar of formalin. 'So she tried to get in a window by breaking it with her cast.'
He lifted the brain out of the scale. 'But that didn't work. The window was too high up, and with one arm she couldn't have climbed in it anyway. Eventually she passed out.'
'Nice friends,' I said, walking off.
Dr. Anderson, who was new, was photographing a ninety-one-year-old woman with a hip fracture. I collected paperwork from a nearby desk and quickly reviewed the case.
'Is this an autopsy?' I asked.
'Yes,' Dr. Anderson said.
'Why?'
She stopped what she was doing and looked at me through her face shield. I could see intimidation in her eyes. 'The fracture was two weeks ago.
The medical examiner in Albemarle was concerned her death could be due to complications of that accident.'
'What are the circumstances of her death?'
'She presented with pleural effusion and shortness of breath.'
'I don't see any direct relationship between that and a hip fracture,' I said.
Dr. Anderson rested her gloved hands on the edge of the steel table.
'An act of God can take you at any time,' I said. 'You can release her. She's not a medical examiner's case.'
'Dr. Scarpetta,' Fielding spoke above the whining of the Stryker saw. 'Did you know that the Transplant Council meeting is Thursday?'
'I've got jury duty.' I turned to Dr. Anderson. 'Do you have court on Thursday?'
'Well, it's been continued. They keep sending me subpoenas even though they've stipulated my testimony.'
'Ask Rose to take care of it. If you're free and we don't have a full house on Thursday, you can go with Fielding to the council meeting.'
I checked carts and cupboards, wondering if any other boxes of gloves were gone. But it seemed Gault had taken only those that were in the van. I wondered what else he might find in my office, and my thoughts darkened.
I went directly to my office without speaking to anyone I passed and opened a cabinet door beneath my microscope. In back I had tucked a very fine set of dissecting knives Lucy had given to me for Christmas. German made, they were stainless steel with smooth light handles. They were expensive and incredibly sharp. I moved aside cardboard files of slides, journals, microscope lightbulbs and batteries and reams of printer paper. The knives were gone.
Rose was on the phone in her office adjoining mine, and I walked in and stood by her desk.
'But you've already stipulated her testimony,' she was saying. 'If you've stipulated her testimony, then you obviously don't need to subpoena her to appear so she can give you her testimony…'
