'She needs to be brought back up,' I said to him. 'I see no other way. Was she embalmed?'
'We rarely embalm bodies destined for Hart Island,' he said of the island in the East River where Potter's Field was located. 'Her identification number needs to be located and then she'll be dug up and brought back by ferry. We can do that. That's all we can do, really. It might take a few days.
That's all we can do, really. It might take a few days.'
'Dr. Horowitz?' I carefully said. 'What is going on here?'
His voice was steady but disappointed when he answered, 'I have no earthly idea.'
I sat at my desk for a while, trying to figure out what to do. The more I thought, the less sense anything made. Why would the army care if Jane was identified? If she was General Gault's niece and the army knew she was dead, one would think they would want her identified and buried in a proper grave.
'Dr. Scarpetta.' Rose was in the doorway adjoining her office to mine. 'It's Brent from the Amex.'
She transferred the call.
'I've got another charge,' Brent said.
'Okay.' I tensed.
'Yesterday. A place called Fino in New York. I checked it out. It's on East Thirty-sixth Street. The amount is $104.13.'
Fino had wonderful northern Italian food. My ancestors were from northern Italy, and Gault had posed as a northern Italian named Benelli. I tried Wesley, but he was not in. Then I tried Lucy, and she was not at ERF, nor was she in her room. Marino was the only person I could tell that Gault was in New York again.
'He's just playing more games,' Marino said in disgust. 'He knows you're monitoring his charges, Doc. He's not doing anything he doesn't want you to know about.'
'I realize that.'
'We're not going to catch him through American Express. You ought to just cancel your card.'
But I couldn't. My card was like the modem Lucy knew was under the floor. Both were tenuous lines leading to Gault. He was playing games, but one day he might overstep himself. He might get too reckless and high on cocaine and make a mistake.
'Doc,' Marino went on, 'you're getting too wound up with this. You need to chill out.'
Gault might want me to find him, I thought. Every time he used my card he was sending a message to me. He was telling me more about himself. I knew what he liked to eat and that he did not drink red wine. I knew about the cigarettes he smoked, the clothes he wore, and I thought of his boots.
'Are you listening to me?' Marino was asking.
We had always assumed that the jungle boots were Gault's.
'The boots belonged to his sister,' I thought out loud.
'What are you talking about?' Marino said impatiently.
'She must have gotten them from her uncle years ago, and then Gault took them from her.'
'When? He didn't do it at Cherry Hill in the snow.'
'I don't know when. It may have been shortly before she died. It could have been inside the Museum of Natural History. They basically wore the same shoe size. They could have traded boots. It could be anything. But I doubt she gave them up willingly.
For one thing, the jungle boots would be very good in snow. She would have been better off with them than the ones we found in Benny's hobo camp.'
Marino was silent a moment longer. Then he said, 'Why would he take her boots?'
'That's easy,' I said. 'Because he wanted them.'
That afternoon, I drove to the Richmond airport with a briefcase packed full and an overnight bag. I had not called my travel agent because I did not want anyone to know where I was going. At the USAir desk, I purchased a ticket to Hilton Head, South Carolina.
'I hear it's nice down there,' said the gregarious attendant. 'A lot of people play golf and tennis down there.' She checked my one small bag.
'You need to tag it.' I lowered my voice. 'It has a firearm in it.'
She nodded and handed me a blaze orange tag that proclaimed I was carrying an unloaded firearm.
I'll let you put it inside,' the woman said to me.
'Does your bag lock?'
I locked the zipper and watched her set the bag on the conveyor belt. She handed me my ticket and I headed upstairs to the gate, which was very crowded with people who did not look happy to be going home or back to work after the holidays.
The flight to Charlotte seemed longer than an hour because I could not use my cellular phone and my pager went off twice. I went through the Wall Street Journal and the Washington Post while my thoughts slalomed through a treacherous course. I contemplated what I would say to the parents of Temple Gault and the slain woman we called Jane.
I could not even be sure the Gaults would see me because I had not called. Their number and address were unlisted. But I believed it could not be so hard to find the place they had bought near Beaufort. Live Oaks Plantation was one of the oldest in South Carolina, and the local people would know about this couple whose homestead in Albany had recently washed away in a flood.
There was enough time in the Charlotte airport for me to return my calls. Both were from Rose, who wanted me to verify void dates because several subpoenas had just come in.
'And Lucy tried to get you,' she said.
'She has my pager number,' I puzzled.
'I asked her if she had that,' my secretary said. 'She said she'd try you another time.'
'Did she say where she was calling from?'
'No. I assume she was calling from Quantico.'
I had no time to question further because Terminal D was a long walk, and the plane to Hilton Head left in fifteen minutes. I ran the entire way and had time for a soft pretzel without salt. I grabbed several packages of mustard and carried on board the only meal I'd had this day. The businessman I sat beside stared at my snack as if it told him I were a rude housewife who knew nothing about traveling on planes.
When we were in the air, I got into the mustard and ordered Scotch on the rocks.
'Would you by chance have change for a twenty?'
I asked the man next to me, because I had overheard the flight attendant complaining about not having adequate change.
He got his wallet out as I opened the New York Times. He gave me a ten and two fives, so I paid for his drink. 'Quid pro quo,' I said.
'That's mighty nice,' he said in a syrupy southern accent. 'I guess you must be from New York.'
'Yes,' I lied.
'You by chance going to Hilton Head for the Carolina Convenience Store convention? It's at the Hyatt.'
'No. The funeral home convention,' I lied again. 'It's at the Holiday Inn.'
'Oh.' He shut up.
The Hilton Head airport was parked with private planes and Learjets belonging to the very wealthy who had homes on the island. The terminal was not much more than a hut, and baggage was stacked outside on a wooden deck. The weather was cool with volatile dark skies, and as passengers hurried to awaiting cars and shuttles, I overheard their complaints.
