Quantum

by Patricia Cornwell

  I wish I’d asked her a lot more questions. But it never entered my mind that she might be a candidate for suicide. And I still don’t think it, not unless the evidence gives me no choice, and so far that couldn’t be further from the case. Predictabilities, probabilities and equations that don’t add up are dancing crazily through my head, and if I close my eyes, I almost can see the data flowing by on the backs of my lids.

  I’m also fast turning into a block of ice, and shutting the driver’s door, I take off my exam gloves. Stuffing them in a pocket of my jacket, I sense something, an energy touching my awareness. Similar to white noise only what I’m picking up is slow and rhythmic like a heavy surf in the low-frequency range of a bass guitar, the A string at 55 Hertz (Hz). But nope, not quite, more like an octave lower at 31 Hz, like a B string.

  As opposed to the 440 Hz produced by the note that violinists tune their instruments by, and I feel the music of a living being. It’s invisible spectral energy thrumming in the dead quiet cold. I feel it in the brown grass, bare trees, thick shrubbery and water surrounding an endless row of low brick apartments. And I worry I’m being watched, feeling eyes on me like heat.

  Possibly an animal getting closer to human habitation because of the extreme cold. Maybe a deer. But I don’t see anything or anyone even as the sensation persists. Having no idea where the energy might be coming from, I’m careful how I maneuver myself. Unsure where to turn my back. Mindful of the Glock 27 subcompact pistol on my hip.

  A .40-cal hollow point is chambered and ready to find its mark with an extra 8 rounds for good measure if someone does the wrong thing, and I’m thinking what I always do. Please don’t force me to shoot, because I will. There’s never been a question that if needed I would kill to defend myself or someone else. Hopefully, that won’t be called for tonight, and I open my mind like a dish antenna, seeing what I pick up. The unsettling sensation persists, and I can’t pinpoint the source or know if it’s imagined.

  00:00:00:00:0

  I SHOULDER my bags of gear, starting out for the walkway while taking on the mindset of a predator.

  I tell people to consider it an instructive and adrenaline-boosting game if they wish, but don’t mistake it for entertainment or a fun distraction while out to dinner or running errands. The paces I put myself through as a matter of routine aren’t for everyone. Not unless you want to lose what innocence you had left.

  Ignorance really is bliss, but in my book looking at the world through the eyes of an opportunistic a-hole is necessary for survival, not to mention peace of mind. Once snakebit by reality, you can’t make it unreal, and as I approach Vera Young’s apartment, I ask myself what a violent individual would notice and assess about the former brick barracks where she lived. Most glaringly are the perennials in front, tall and plenty thick enough to hide behind.

  But there are other ways just as easy if the goal was to keep her on the radar. Driving or jogging by, making sure to change the routine constantly. Or using a high-powered telescopic lens from the concealed vantage point of tree canopies, this time of year the evergreens, the huge spruces and hemlocks. Also fire escapes, rooftops or nearby rental units. Maybe someone was watching, possibly stalking her. If so, why? Are we talking NASA or Pandora related, in other words, professional? Or personal and someone she knew? Or a stranger? What about erotomania?

  Or sexual homicide, which is what I fear. It could explain the bleach. For sure, sodium hypochlorite isn’t going to do anything helpful to blood, semen, saliva, and it wouldn’t be the first time that toxic chemicals have been used by killers in an attempt to eradicate DNA. It’s also nothing new for a violent crime to be staged in hopes of throwing the police off track.

  Adrienne Shelly, the actress who wrote the movie-to-Broadway hit Waitress, is a tragic example that instantly comes to mind. In 2006 she was found hanging by a bedsheet inside her New York apartment shower, the suicide scene faked by the real killer, a construction worker on a job inside her building. There are other terrible stories, and it’s been my experience that the most common answer very often and tragically is the obvious one.

  The wrong person in the wrong place at the wrong time. If only certain paths never crossed. More often than not, offenders look for low-hanging fruit, for an easy opportunity.

  00:00:00:00:0

  THE SHARP STENCH of bleach wafts up my nose with each wet sound of the mop. The airman in his camo BDUs going about his duty cleaning up. No expression on his young clean-shaven face, no aura of disdain or distaste. As if it’s normal to be confronted by blood that’s been dripped, smeared, spattered and tracked everywhere inside the break room.

  The mop head’s long cotton strings leave feathery trails on the gory tile floor, the water in the bucket turning deep pink. Sloshing, slapping wetly, and I’m aware of my rapid shallow breathing, aware of Dick leaning heavily against me, tearing off a strip of adhesive tape. Pain throbbing in my finger to the beat of my pulse, pounding like a bass drum as I worry.

  “Please don’t let me lose part of me,” I silently pray to whatever out there might decide to listen. “I’m sorry for being stupid. I won’t ever be again.” Not a word of it out loud.

  Pain and fear throbbing as I burn with shame, the pungent odor of chlorine, the sounds of water lapping and plashing. Returning me to the river, to the dock at the edge of the yard on the day the world stood still. How my mom describes it. Don’t know what Dad has to say, doesn’t talk about what he and the police decided. Or what Fran’s father had to say when he dropped by the house that night.

  I can see the moon shining on wind-ruffled water as if it’s yesterday. Walking through newly mown grass, smelling wild onions, the air clean and cool. Turning around at the sound of a car engine, small rocks popping under tires, headlights shining.

  Dust billowing from the police cruiser on our driveway, headed to the barn as Mom emerges from it, running toward me, demanding I come inside. Demanding I tell her and Dad what happened, that I explain to them and the police what I’d done.

  Yelling and in tears, her long hair down and flying everywhere, as the cop car parked and she clutched me by my shoulders, digging her fingers in. Hugging me so tight I was lifted off the ground.

  00:00:00:00:0

  IT WOULD SEEM Vera wasn’t as security minded as she should have been. I can tell that already by her ground-level apartment with no motion sensor lights or alarm system, and you wouldn’t have to recognize her silver Lexus on the curb to suspect she’s in. All you’d need is to know which apartment is hers, number 110.

  You could tuck yourself out of sight behind dense boxwoods and arborvitae. Peering inside her windows to your heart’s content in broad daylight or middle of the night, and chances are the neighbors wouldn’t notice. Not when they’re staying indoors and out of the brutal cold or leaving in droves before a major storm makes landfall. But no matter what, it wouldn’t be hard to spy, doesn’t matter if the drapes are drawn as they are right now.

  The fabric isn’t heavy enough to black out the shadows of people moving inside when the lights are on. Someone interested could determine when Vera was home. In which room. And if she were alone. Added to that, the lighting in this well-heeled residential development isn’t exactly 400 watt and closely spaced like a prison yard. The graciously spread-out iron lamps I pass are intended for gentle nonintrusive illumination that doesn’t ruin the view and keep residents awake.

  It’s always quite dark around here at night no matter the time of year or weather. But pitch black or high noon, it doesn’t matter if there are no eyes and ears. And I suspect there weren’t in the greater Fort Monroe area earlier today, based on the empty buildings and parking lots. The low-lying streets and alleyways have been shut down and blocked off with traffic cones and barricades. Sandbags are piled in all the right places to prevent flooding should the monster nor’easter hit dead on, hardly anybod
y out and about in this neck of the woods.

  Folks around here are old hands at life on the water, at going with the flow, taking the good with the bad, and I estimate that at least a third of the peninsula residents drove away long hours ago. We don’t need permission or an invitation in this idyllic part of the world that we call home. No official evacuation order is required for the locals to seek higher ground, taking pets and vehicles out of harm’s way.

  The apartment’s front door is unlocked, and walking in, I call out, “Hello, hello!” Not wishing to startle anyone or get shot.

  Stopping just inside, I’m instantly aware of the pungent chlorine odor, sharp in my lungs, stinging my eyes. Setting down my bags, I’m pulling the door shut when Fran yells for me to leave it open a crack.

  “It’s good to get some fresh air circulating now and then.” Her voice is muffled as she checks inside the dishwasher on the other side of the apartment, which is two small rooms with the total square footage of a cracker box.

  17

  THE KITCHEN and living area are combined into a single open space, the wide-board heart-of-pine flooring and exposed brick walls going to the 1820s. To the right of the refrigerator is the bedroom, and through the half-open door, I can see a stretcher.

  “You won’t believe how bloody hot it gets in here.” Fran turns my way, pushing up the clear plastic flip-up visor of her full-face respirator, what looks like a stealth-black motorcycle helmet with a Bluetooth-integrated intercom system that makes communicating with each other easy.

  “That sounds like a problem I’d like to have.” My lips move frozenly, my hands uncooperative as if they belong to someone else.

  Crouching, I unzip my equipment bag as Fran lifts a stainless steel knife out of the silverware rack, holding it up to the light.

  “Dishwasher wasn’t run,” she reports loudly. “Nothing in it except a knife that looks like it has mustard on it.”

  “Maybe used to make the sandwich left in here,” Scottie Ryan offers, busy checking for evidence near the fireplace while Butch Pagan films.

  Everyone is in level-A dark-gray chemical suits, and over these go our tactical vests and weapons. Plus, heavy rubber boots, gloves, respirator helmets, and I happen to know from experience that it doesn’t take long to get fed up slogging about, sweating profusely and breathing through a charcoal filter while worrying about contaminating evidence.

  The smallest task becomes a cumbersome chore when you’re insulated in unbreathing synthetic fabrics and rubber, fogging up your visor, and trying to handle delicate forensic tools like measuring devices, thermometers, tweezers, scalpels. But then I’ve yet to meet a scene that was a vacation, most of them deplorable with no access to food, water or a toilet we can use.

  Not to mention filth and critters, extreme cold and heat, sickness and stenches. The list is endless, nothing on it good, and the challenge is to resist difficult distractions. To pay attention when conditions are abysmal. Not letting discomfort get the best of you. Block it out.

  Focus. Focus. Focus.

  “Okay, that’s it.” I can’t take it anymore, shutting the front door before I get frostbite, putting my respirator on right away so I can better communicate.

  “You may not believe it, but in 15 minutes you’re going to have sweat running in your eyes,” Butch apologizes as I begin taking off my boots. “And the bigger problem’s going to be driving home later in sweaty clothes. Even when the hazmat truck gets here, I can decon, but I’ve got nothing to change into, will have to put on the same sweaty BDUs I got on under this shower curtain I’m wearing right now.”

  “Or drive home in all of it,” I suggest to him. “Which is what I’m going to do.”

  As he photographs the inside of the fireplace, and from here it looks like a working one but unused. No screen or logs, the andirons bare, and I notice a silver laptop propped up on the antique cast-iron mantel.

  “Ditto about putting on sweaty clothes,” Fran’s voice in my helmet as she opens a cupboard, looking a little bit like a combination of an astronaut and a character in Avengers: Infinity War. “Even my socks are wet. But I got to admit, when I went outside to take a few puffs a little while ago? It actually felt good, so comfy I could have taken a nap.”

  “That’s what people say before they die of hypothermia.” Leaning against the front door in my stocking feet, I work my feet through the legs of my front-entry protective suit, some 5 pounds of antistatic butyl rubber and a fluoropolymer material with sealed seams that won’t leak.

  It zips diagonally across the chest like a tactical wetsuit, and has padded shoulders and knees with cleverly placed pockets. Next up are my hazmat boots, more butyl rubber, pull-on with thick tread worthy of a snow tire, and already I’m warming up.

  “The fumes in here are worse than they might be because the place is so small, about 800 square feet total, I’m going to guess,” Scottie lets me know. “So you really do need all this crap on as miserable as it is, and also for the record going forward? This is my first scene at Fort Monroe, and it’s tough in more ways than one.”

  “Worse than ever under the circumstances,” Butch chimes in.

  “What they’re saying,” Fran’s voice, “is if you gotta pee, there’s no place to go around here. Especially when nothing’s open.”

  “The bushes are always an option,” Butch says, “explaining why Scottie keeps toilet paper in the back of her truck.”

  “It’s called thinking ahead and taking care of business.”

  “That’s exactly what it’s called. Taking care of business.”

  “Except not happening in this weather.”

  “Unless we’re talking about freezing your ass off.”

  “Let’s not talk about it at all. I was doing just fine until you had to bring it up.”

  “When it’s this cold, yellow snow hangs around for a while . . .”

  On it goes, back and forth, and Butch and Scottie do this a lot, carping and picking at each other like sibling rivals or frustrated lovers. In their late 20s and triathlete strong, they often are confused for brother and sister, with their straw-blond shaggy hair, fair skin and blue eyes. None of which is visible at the moment, just glimpses of their upper faces through scratched plastic as they work side by side like astro-CSIs in all their gear. Taking video and photographs, dusting the coffee table for prints.

  As I watch them, I can’t help but feel pleased that they’re processing the scene the way they’ve been trained by Fran and me, the same way archaeologists excavate a site of antiquity. Working one layer at a time, preparing for every contingency because there’s no going back. A single act of carelessness, and the ancient vase or skull is crushed. And if you don’t dust for prints or swab for DNA when you should, chances are it will be too late by the time you realize your mistake.

  My rule is to treat every death as a suspicious one, and I look around while pulling on my rubber gloves, scanning for signs of what might have gone on in here not so long ago. Something that might make me think of a burglary gone bad, a home invasion or attack resulting in a struggle. I don’t see blood, not anything that strikes me as out of place. But that doesn’t mean I’m picking up positive vibes. Because I’m not.

  “Jeez Louise, what took you so long?” Fran walks over to me, reopening the front door to the arctic chill. “Not to worry, we’ve been keeping track of changes in temperature in the bedroom where she’s at,” indicating the door ajar in the far wall, where I can hear someone moving around.

  Hopefully, Tidewater’s ace death investigator, Joan Williams, is busy looking at the body and will have something helpful to say by the time I get to her. But that won’t be for a while. I know better than to walk in there right now, and it’s going to take all of my self-control to resist.

  “We’ve
got our forensic bases covered,” Fran is saying. “Better to supply a little air-conditioning than have sweat dripping in your eyes and not be able to see what the frick you’re doing. This is twice today I’ve almost gotten heat exhaustion because of you.”

  “I might understand the tunnel,” over my helmet’s intercom as I put on my ballistic vest. “But how is this my fault?”

  “Somehow that’s how it will turn out.” Her face is shiny and hot behind plastic, wet ringlets of hair plastered to her forehead, and it’s creepy when she talks.

  The respirator’s filter is twice the size of a hockey puck. Meaning it’s impossible for me to see the lower part of Fran’s face as I listen to whatever it is she has to say. It’s almost as if she’s communicating by telepathy, speaking without a mouth, and I find this disconcerting.

  “You okay?” Staring at me. “I got a little worried when you weren’t answering your phone.”

  00:00:00:00:0

  HER blue eyes study me carefully, and I don’t look forward to the exchange we’re about to have because she won’t be happy with my answer.

  “Suffice it to say that I was detained unexpectedly and unavoidably,” I reply cryptically. “General Melville wanted a ride back to his quarters.”

  “And why pray tell would Moby need you for a ride?” Her pet name for Dick Melville, and not necessarily said playfully or with affection.

  Intractably threatened by him, she wouldn’t admit in a thousand years that for someone so accomplished and tough, she can be woefully insecure and yes, jealous. In her mind, Dick outranks and outshines her in every way imaginable, and she’ll tell you he’s another one who thinks he’s God’s gift. An accusation she makes about a lot of attractive, powerful people, I might add. Including her somewhat estranged husband, Tommy.