“The police? You aren't the police?”
“No. I'm the chief medical examiner. Kay Scarpetta.”
He stared numbly at me.
“Your daughter worked for me.”
“Oh. Of course. I'm sorry.”
“I don't know how to comfort you,” I said with difficulty.
“I haven't begun to deal with this myself. But I'm going to do everything possible to find out what happened. I want you to know that.”
“Susan spoke of you. She always wanted to be a doctor.”
He averted his gaze, blinking back tears.
“I saw her last night. Briefly, at her home.”
I hesitated, reluctant to probe the soft places of their lives. “Susan seemed troubled. And she has not been herself at work of late.”
He swallowed, fingers laced tightly on top of the table. His knuckles were white.
“We need to pray. Would you pray with me, Dr. Scarpetta?”
He held out his hand. “Please.”
“As his fingers wrapped firmly around mine, I could not help but think of Susan's obvious disregard for her father and distrust for what he represented. Fundamentalists frightened me, too. I felt anxious shutting my eyes holding hands with the Reverend Mack Dawson as he thanked God for a mercy I saw no evidence of and claimed promises too late for God to keep. Opening my eyes, I withdrew my hand. For an uneasy moment I feared that Susan's father sensed my skepticism and wou1d question my beliefs. But the fate of my soul was foremost on his mind.
A loud voice sounded from upstairs, a muffled protest could not make out A chair scraped across the floor. The telephone rang and rang, and the voice rose again in a primal outcry of rage and pain. Dawson closed his eyes. He muttered something under his breath that rather strange. I thought he said, “Stay in your room.”
“Jason has been here the whole time.” he said. I could see his pulse pounding in his temples. “I realize he can speak for himself. But I just want you to know this from me.”
“You mentioned he's not feeling well.”
“He woke up with a cold, the beginning of one. Susan took his temperature after lunch and encouraged him to go to bed. He would never hurt… Well.” He coughed “I know the police have to ask, have to consider domestic situations. But that's not the case here.”
“Reverend Dawson, what time did Susan leave the house today, and where did she say she was going?”
"She left after dinner; after Jason went to bed. I think that would have been around one-thirty or two: She said she was going. over to a friend's house.”
"Which friend?” He stared past me. "A friend she went to high school with. Dianne Lee.”
“Where does Dianne live?”
“Northside, near the seminary.”
"Dianne’s car was found off Strawberry Street, not in Northside.”
"I suppose if somebody… She could have ended up anywhere.”
"It would be helpful to know if she ever made it to Dianne's house, and whose idea the visit was," I said.
He got up and started opening kitchen drawers. It took him three tries to find the telephone directory. His hands trembled as he turned pages and dialed a number. Clearing his throat several times, he asked to speak to Dianne. "I see. What was that?” He listened for a moment. "No, no.” His voice shook. "Things are not all right.”
I sat quietly as he explained, and I imagined him many years earlier praying and talking on the phone as he dealt with the death of his other daughter, Judy. When he returned to the table, he confirmed what I feared. Susan had not visited her friend that afternoon, nor had there been any plan for her to do so. Her friend was not in town.
"She's with her husband's family in North Carolina," Susan's father said. "She's been there several days. Why would Susan lie? She didn't have to. I've always told her no matter what, she didn't have to lie.”
"It would seem she did not want anyone to know where she was going or who she was going to see. I know that raises unhappy speculations, but we need to face them," I said gently.
He stared down at his hands.
"Were she and Jason getting along all right?”
"I don't know.”
He fought to regain his composure.
"Dear Lord, not again.”
Again he whispered curiously.
"Go to your room. Please go.”
Then he looked up at me with bloodshot eyes. "She had a twin sister. Judy died when they were in high school. "
"In a car accident, yes. Susan told me. I'm so sorry.”
"She's never gotten over it. She blamed God. She blamed me.”
"I did not get that impression," I said.’
"If she blamed anyone, it seemed to be a girl named Doreen.”
Dawson slipped out a handkerchief and quietly blew his nose. "Who?” he asked.
"The girl in high school who allegedly was a witch" He shook his head.
"She supposedly put a curse on Judy?”
But it was pointless to explain further. I could tell that Dawson did not know what I was talking about. We both turned as Hailey walked into the kitchen. She was cradling a baseball glove, her eyes frightened.
"What have you got there, darling?”
I asked, trying to smile.
She came close to me. I could smell the new leather. The glove was tied with string; a softball in the sweet spot like a large pearl inside an oyster.
"Aunt Susan gave it to me," she said in a small voice. "You got to break it in. I have to put it under my mattress. Aunt Susan says I have to for a week.”
Her grandfather reached for her arid lifted her onto his lap. He buried his nose in her hair, holding her tight. "I need for you to go to your room for a little while, sugar. Will you do that for me so I can take care of things? Just for a while?”
She nodded, her eyes not leaving me.
"What are Grandma and Charlie doing?”
"Don't know.”
She slid off his lap and reluctantly left us.
"You said that before," I said to him.
He looked lost.
"You told her to go to her room," I said. "I heard you say that earlier, mutter something about going to your room. Who were you talking to?’
He dropped his eyes. "The child is self. Self feels intensely, cries, cannot control emotions. Sometimes it is best to send self to his room as I just did Hailey. To hold together. A trick I learned. When I was a boy I learned I had to; my father did not react well if I cried.”
"It is all right to cry, Reverend Dawson.”
His eyes filled with tears. I heard Marino's footsteps on the stairs. Then he strode into the kitchen and Dawson said the phrase again, in anguish, under his breath.
Marino looked at him, baffled. "I think your son's home," he said.
Susan's father began to weep uncontrollably as car doors slammed shut out front in the wintry darkness and laugher sounded from the porch.
Christmas dinner went into the trash, the evening spent pacing about the house and talking on the phone while Lucy stayed inside my study with the door shut. Arrangements had to be made. Susan's homicide had thrown the office into a state of crisis. Her case would have to be sealed, photographs kept away from those who had known her. The police would have to go through her office and her locker. They would want to interview members of my staff.
"I can't be down there," Fielding, my deputy chief, told me over the phone. "I realize that," I said, a lump forming in my throat. "I neither expect nor want anyone down there.”
„And you?„ "I have to be.”
"Christ. I can't believe this has happened. I just can't believe it.”
Dr. Wright, my deputy chief in Norfolk, kindly agreed to drive to Richmond early the next morning. Because it was Sunday, no one else was in the building except for Vander, who had come to assist with the Luma-Lite. Had I been emotionally capable of doing Susan's autopsy, I would have refused. The worst thing I could do for her was to jeopardize her case by having the defense question the ob
jectivity and judgment of an expert witness who also happened to be her boss. So I sat at a desk in the morgue while Wright worked. From time to time he commented to me above the clatter of steel instruments and running water as I stared at the cinderblock wall. I did not touch any of her paperwork of label a single test tube. I did not turn around to look.
Once I asked him, "Did you smell anything on her or her clothes? A cologne of some sort?”
He stopped what he was doing and I heard him walk several steps. "Yes. Definitely around the collar of her coat and on the scarf.”
"Does it smell like men's cologne to you?”
"Hmm. I think so. Yes, I'd say the fragrance is masculine. Perhaps her husband wears cologne?”
Wright was near retirement age, a balding, potbellied man with a West Virginian accent. He was a very capable forensic pathologist and knew exactly what I was contemplating.
"Good question," I said. "I'll ask Marino to check it, but her husband was ill yesterday and went to bed after lunch. That doesn't mean he didn't have on cologne. It doesn't mean her brother or father didn't have on cologne that got on her collar when they hugged her.”
"This looks small-caiiber. No exit wounds.”
I dosed my eyes and listened. "The wound in her right temple is three-sixteenths of an inch with half an inch of smoke - an incomplete pattern. A little bit of stippling and some powder but most will be lost in her hair. There's some powder in the temporalis muscle. Nothing much in bone or dura. "
"Trajectory?” I asked.
"The bullet goes through the posterior aspect of the right frontal lobe, travels across anterior to basal ganglia and strikes the left temporal bone, and gets hung up in muscle under the skin. And we're talking about a plain lead bullet, uh, copper coated but not jacketed.”
"And it didn't fragment?” I asked.
"No. Then we've got this second wound here at the nape of the neck. Black, burned abraded margin with muzzle mark. A little laceration about one-sixteenth of an inch at the edges. Lots of powder in the occipital muscles.”
"Tight contact?”
"Yes. Looks to, me like he pressed the barrel hard against her neck. The bullet enters at the junction of the foramen magnum and C-one and takes out the cervicalmedullary junction. Travels right up into the pons.”
"What about the angle?” I asked.
"It's angled up quite a bit. I'd say that if she was sitting in the car at the time she received this wound, she was slumped forward or had her head bowed.”
"That's not the way she was found," I said. "She was leaning back in the seat.”
"Then I guess he positioned her that way;" Wright commented. "After he shot her. And I'd say that this shot that went through the pons was fired last. I would speculate she was already incapacitated, maybe slumped over when she was shot the second time.”
At intervals I could handle it, as if we were not referring to anyone I knew. Then a tremor would go through me, tears fighting to break free. Twice I had to walk outside and stand in the parking lot in the cold. When he got to the ten week-old fetus in her womb, a girl, I retreated to my office upstairs. According to Virginia law, the unborn child was not a person and therefore could not have been murdered because you cannot murder a non person.
"Two for the price of one," Marino said bitterly over the phone later in the day.
"I know," I said, digging a bottle of aspirin out of my pocketbook.
"In court the damn jurors won't be told she was pregnant. It won't be admissible, don't count he murdered a pregnant woman.”
"I know," I said again. 'Wright's about done. Nothing significant turned up during her external exam. No trace to speak of, nothing that jumped out. What's going on at your end?”
"Susan was definitely going through something, Marino said.
"Problems with her husband?”
"According to him, her problem was with you. He claims you were doing weird shit like calling her a lot at home, hassling her. And sometimes she'd come home from work acting half crazy, like. she was scared shitless about something.”
"Susan and I did not have a problem.”
I swallowed three aspirin with a mouthful of cold coffee.
"I'm just telling you what the guy's saying. Other thing is - and I think you'll find this interesting - looks like we got us another feather. Not that I'm saying it links Deighton and this one, Doc, or that I'm necessarily thinking that way. But damn. Maybe we're dealing with some squirrel who wears down-filled gloves, a jacket. I don't know. It's just not typical. Only other time I've ever found feathers was when this drone broke into a crib by smashing out a window and cut his down jacket on broken glass.”
My head hurt so much I felt sick to my stomach.
"What we found in Susan's car is real small - a little piece of white down," he went on. "It was clinging to the upholstery of the passenger's door. On the inside, near the floor, a couple inches below the armrest"
"Can you get that to me?” I asked.
"Yeah. What are you going to do?”
"Call Benton.”
"I've been trying, dammit. I think he and the wife went out of town.”
"I need to ask him if Minor Downey can help us.”
"You talking about a person or a fabric softener?”
"Minor Downey with hairs and fibers at the FBI labs. His specialty is feather analysis.”
"And his name's Downey, it really is?” Marino was incredulous.
"It really is," I said.
8
The telephone rang for a long time at the FBI's Behavioral Science Unit, located in the subterranean reaches of the Academy at Quantico. I could envision its bleak, confusing hallways and offices cluttered with the mementos of polished warriors like Benton Wesley, who had gone skiing, I was told.
"In fact, I'm the only one here at the moment," said the courteous agent who answered the phone.
"This is Dr. Kay Scarpetta and it's urgent that I reach him.
Benton Wesley returned my call almost immediately.
"Benton, where are you?”
I raised my voice above terrible static.
"In my car," he said. "Connie and I spent Christmas with her family in Charlottesville. We're just west of there on our way to Hot Springs. I heard about what happened to Susan Story. God, I'm sorry. I was going to call you tonight"
"You're breaking up. I almost can't hear you.”
"Hold on.”
I waited impatiently for a good minute. Then he was back.
"That's better. We were in a low area. Listen, what do you need from me?”
"I need the Bureau's help with analysis of some feathers."
"No problem. I'll call Downey.”
"I need to talk," I said with great reluctance, for I knew I was putting him on the spot. "I don't feel it can wait.”
"Hold on.”
This time the pause was not due to static. He was conferring with his wife.
"Do you ski?” His voice came back.
"It depends on who you ask.”
"Connie and I are on our way to the Homestead for a couple of days. We could talk there. Can you get away?”
"I'll move heaven and earth to, and I'll bring Lucy.”
"That's good. She and, Connie can pal around while you and I talk. I'll see about your room when we check in. Can you bring something for me to look at?”
"Yes.”
"Including whatever you've got on the Robyn Naismith case. Let's cover every base and every imagined one.”
"Thank you, Benton," I said gratefully. "And please thank Connie.”
I decided to leave the office immediately, and offered little explanation.
"It will be good for you," Rose said, jotting down the Homestead's number. She did not understand that my intention was not to unwind at a five-star resort. For an instant, her eyes were bright with tears as I told her to let Marino know where I was so he could contact me immediately if there were any new developments in Susan's case.
"P
lease don't release my whereabouts to anyone else," I added.
"Three reporters have called in the last twenty minutes," she said. "Including the Washington Post.”
"I'm not discussing Susan's case right now. Tell them the usual, that we're waiting on lab results. Just tell them I'm out of town and unavailable.”
I was haunted by images as I drove west toward the mountains. I pictured Susan in her baggy scrubs, and the faces of her mother and father as Marino told them their daughter was dead.
"Are you feeling okay?”
Lucy asked. She had been looking at me every other minute since we left my house.
"I'm just preoccupied," I replied, concentrating on the toad. "You're going to love skiing. I have a feeling you'll be good at it.”
She silently gazed out the windshield. The sky was a washed-out denim blue, mountains rising in the distance dusted with snow.
"I'm sorry about this," I added. "It seems that every time you visit, something happens and I can't give you my full attention.”
"I don't need your full attention.”
"Someday you'll understand.”
"Maybe I'm the same way about my work. In fact, maybe I learned from you. I'll probably be successful like you, too.”
My spirit felt as heavy as lead. I was grateful that I was wearing sunglasses. I did not want Lucy to see my eyes.
"I know you love me. That's what counts. I know my mother doesn't love me," my niece said.
"Dorothy loves you as much as she is able to love anyone.”
"You're absolutely right. As much as she is able to, which isn't much because I'm not a man. She only loves men.”
"No, Lucy. Your mother doesn't really love men. They are a symptom of her obsessive quest of finding somebody who will make her whole. She doesn't understand that she has to make herself whole.”
"The only thing 'whole' in the equation is she picks assholes every time.”
"I agree that her batting average hasn't been good.”
"I'm not going to live like that. I don't want to be anything like her.”
"You aren't," I said.
"I read in the brochure they have skeet shooting where we're going.”
"They have all sorts of things.”
"Did you bring one of the revolvers?”
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