The Bone Bed

by Patricia Cornwell

  “Months? Two, three, five months? How does this work when you look at a dead body and calculate?” she asks, and I do the best I can to explain what isn’t simple as I walk into a kitchen dominated by an antique oak table and handmade iron chandelier.

  Double porcelain sinks are empty and dry, the bistro coffeemaker unplugged and clean, and blinds are shut in windows on either side of the door that leads out to the garage. She follows me, lets me lead the way, scarcely attending to what I say as she continues to check her phone and probe, carrying on with what feels like a chipping away of who and what I am. I can’t help but feel betrayed. I can’t help but feel Benton chose the side he’s on and it isn’t my side, and at the same time I completely understand and would suspect nothing less from him.

  The FBI is doing its job the same way I do mine, and Burke can ask anything she wants without Mirandizing me because I’m not in police custody. I’m not a suspect in a crime or even a person of interest. Marino is. I could stop Douglas Burke at any time, but that would only further galvanize her suspicions about him.

  “It’s impossible to precisely determine how rapidly a body desiccates unless you know the conditions.” I explain mummification as she continues to question whatever I say about it. “How hot? How cold? How humid? The name Stanton isn’t French.” I look around. “Antiques and certain other items in this house are French and quite fine and somewhat unique. What was her family name?”

  “Margaret Lynette Bernard. Peggy Lynn. Born on January twelfth, 1963, in New York. Father was a French antiques dealer with shops in New York, Paris, London. She grew up in the city, was working on her master’s degree in social work at Columbia but didn’t finish, presumably because she got married and started a family.”

  She’s been doing research, digging into records, covering a lifetime of history in the blink of an eye or in the keystrokes of a cyber-expert like Valerie Hahn, who is conspicuously absent, it crosses my mind. E-mails seem to be landing nonstop on Burke’s phone.

  “All that sacrifice. Look what she gave up for him, and the guy decides to fly in bad conditions.” She stands in one spot, her watery eyes on me. “Pilot error.” She sneezes, and I think of the irony.

  The FBI’s DNA, not Marino’s, will be all over the house.

  “That’s the NTSB’s conclusion or yours?” I inquire.

  “Took off in an overloaded aircraft, failed to maintain airspeed, possible the nine-year-old daughter, Sally, might have been at the controls—”

  “A nine-year-old child was flying the plane?”

  “She’d been taking lessons, apparently was quite skilled, a lot of media attention about the latest little Amelia Earhart.”

  Live feeds from headquarters, I think. Search engines chugging through the news and downloading it to Burke so she can ambush me while she’s got the chance. I could walk out, leave.

  “Anyway, the plane went into a stall after taking off from Nantucket. One hundred percent pilot error. One hundred percent parental error.” Burke says it judgmentally.

  “That’s very sad. I’m sure a father would never mean to make such an error,” I reply. “And what did Peggy Lynn do in life after her entire family was gone?”

  “It appears she received a few public-service awards that made the news,” Burke says. “Volunteer work with the elderly, teaching them hobbies, arts and crafts. Exactly how long do you think she’s been dead?” she asks, as if I’ve yet to answer that.

  The black granite countertop is neat and mostly bare, a pad of paper and a pen next to the phone, and I notice a six-ounce pouch of salmon-flavored cat treats that has been torn open and resealed.

  “I think this should be collected.” I nudge the cat treats with my gloved finger, and the space beneath it is free of dust.

  Burke stares at the bag on the counter without stepping closer, a blank expression on her splotchy face.

  “The cat appears to be missing,” I remind her. “And it appears someone gave it treats, which suggests the cat wasn’t missing while the house was still occupied.”

  “She would have taken the cat with her wherever she went when she left here.” Her voice is nasal. “And she obviously left here, and I would say willingly as opposed to having been abducted. And it’s obvious that when she left this house she wasn’t coming back for a while.” She fires this off at me as if I’m trying her patience and have about used it up.

  “So she left with her cat but without her car, possibly for Illinois or Florida, and along the way something happened that ended with her being dumped in the bay,” I summarize what is illogical.

  “We can’t assume she wasn’t meeting up with someone.” She pulls a fresh tissue out of her Tyvek sleeve. “Someone who perhaps picked her up, which is why her car’s still here. That maybe she got involved with the wrong person, someone she met on the Internet, for example.”

  The cat bowls are on a mat on the floor near the door leading outside, and one is empty, and the other has a hard residue, what’s left of wet food.

  “You’ve known Pete Marino a long time,” Burke says.

  “I would collect it,” I repeat my suggestion about the cat treats. “It strikes me as out of place. Nothing else is left out and opened. It should go to the labs to be checked for fingerprints, for DNA. It’s best you don’t touch it.”

  She’s wiping her nose and sneezing. Her gloves aren’t clean.

  “Benton’s told me a little bit about him.” She intends to ignore me about the cat, and I won’t let her.

  “One dish is empty because the water would have evaporated,” I continue. “The other dish had food in it and wasn’t washed. Sometimes it’s the one little thing that doesn’t seem to matter.”

  “A troubled volatile marriage. Abusive to his wife.”

  “I’m not aware he was abusive to Doris. Not physically,” I say, and I can’t imagine Doris’s shock if she picked up the phone or opened her door and the FBI was there to question her about Marino.

  “A son who was involved in organized crime and was murdered in Poland.” Burke is looking at her phone.

  I can take care of the bag myself, but I prefer not to because it’s not related to the body, it’s not biological, and I open my scene case. Burke has left me no choice. I collect the cat treats and label the bag and initial it.

  “You shouldn’t dismiss the possibility that whoever might be responsible for what happened to her has been inside this house after the fact.” I continue thinking about the missing house keys and pocketbook. I think about a car key left in an expensive antique Lalique bowl where someone fastidious about her belongings would never keep keys or any items that might break or scratch delicate glass or polished old wood.

  “The case in Virginia about nine years ago, by which time Marino was working for you.” Burke is relentless, not the least bit subtle about it anymore. “You returned to Richmond, were called in as a consultant on the unsolved death of a little girl named Gilly Paulsson.”

  So now the search engines have found that, I think.

  “While you and Marino were there he had a problem,” she says.

  That wouldn’t be on the Internet, and it’s unlikely Marino told her. Maybe Benton did. It’s also possible Gilly Paulsson’s mother has been questioned already, I suppose. Lucy knows what Marino was accused of, but she would never talk to Douglas Burke or give her the time of day.

  “A charge that was proven to be completely unfounded.” I try not to be too adamant or show my anticipation of what I’m certain is next.

  “No report was ever filed with the police.” Burke types another e-mail.

  “There was no report because it was a groundless accusation made by a disturbed individual who Marino was unwise enough to get involved with,” I tell her.

  “It seems he’s done his share of unwise things.”

  “If you look at most people’s relationships, they include a lot of unwise things.”

  “I don’t think his list is exactly typical.”
/>   “No, it probably isn’t.” I open the refrigerator door.

  twenty-five

  THERE IS NOTHING INSIDE BUT CONDIMENTS AND SUGARLESS fruit preserves. No juice or milk or food with an expiration date that might be helpful, and either Peggy Stanton cleaned out her refrigerator because she was leaving town or someone else did for another reason, a malignant one. I feel Burke watching my every move, my every facial expression.

  She’s dissecting me, picking at every part of me, and I’m allowing it. Like any determined investigator, she’ll go as far as I let her, and she has other motives, and maybe pseudoephedrine is having its way with her, is making her overly aggressive.

  “You’ve known him about half your life, haven’t you, Kay.”

  I step on the metal trash bin’s foot pedal and find nothing inside but an empty bag. I open a cabinet under the sink and pull out an open box of kitchen trash bags and set it on the counter.

  “Maybe someone emptied the trash,” I explain. “Maybe someone other than her. Maybe someone who came in here to do a number of things.”

  “He has quite the temper, has been through rehab, and in recent months started drinking again.” Burke isn’t looking at anything except me as she stands near the door, her arms folded across her chest.

  “This should be checked for prints, for DNA. If you don’t want to collect it, I will.” I retrieve a paper bag from my case and collect the evidence myself.

  “He started drinking again about the time he started tweeting Peggy Stanton.”

  “She was dead by Labor Day.” Next I collect the empty bag lining the trash can. “She was dead long before then.”

  “When did you become aware that Marino had started drinking again?”

  “I don’t know for a fact if and when Marino started drinking again.”

  “She was dead long before Labor Day? You’re absolutely sure of that?”

  I tell her I am.

  “And how you arrived at what you seem to believe is gospel I simply find confusing.” She’s typing on her phone again. “In fact, it’s about as subjective as three blind people describing an elephant.”

  “Time of death is dependent on many factors, and it’s complicated.” I won’t give her the satisfaction of making me defensive.

  “Tell me why you’re so sure this lady’s been dead since the spring. Tell me why, based on information other than dates on magazines and how wilted the flowers are or how many burned-out lights there are or how overgrown the yard is.”

  I check the gas burners on the stovetop, and they flame up.

  “The lack of insect damage, the mold on her face and neck, and decomposition of organs, and her core body temperature are indications that she was stored in a closed structure where the air was dry and very cold,” I tell her again. “Possibly she was frozen.”

  “According to articles I’ve looked at, complete mummification can occur in as little as two weeks. So it really is rather up for grabs how long this lady’s been dead.”

  “It really isn’t.”

  “You say months. Someone else says weeks.”

  I open the pantry and find nothing that wouldn’t keep. The usual canned goods, all of them sodium-free, and whole-grain cereals, rice, and pasta.

  “It requires more than surfing the Internet to have an informed opinion.” I let her know someone is doing just that, probably whoever is sending the e-mails.

  “I’m sure I could find experts with your level of training who might have opinions very different from yours.” I’ve made her angry.

  “I’m sure you could.” I feel her eyes on my back. “That doesn’t mean those opinions would be correct.”

  It appears Peggy Stanton ate a lot of salads. A shelf is filled with bottles of fat-free Italian dressing, what must be two dozen bottles that were on special at Whole Foods. I shut the pantry door.

  A lady who was cautious and took good care of herself and her cat. She was frugal. She tightly controlled the world she had left.

  “Two weeks.” I consider what Burke said earlier. “Cases of a body completely mummifying in two weeks? That’s very interesting.”

  “It’s in the literature.” She’s openly argumentative, and it’s better that way.

  It’s easier. Let her skim through whatever lands in her inbox and hammer away.

  “And where might this have been? Where human remains were completely desiccated after only two weeks?” I walk out of the kitchen.

  “I certainly can’t tell you exactly where. Only that it’s possible.”

  “If you’re talking about the Sahara Desert, I suppose.” I head upstairs. “The hottest desert on the planet, and a body in those conditions will have some seventy percent loss of volume through dehydration in no time at all. It will be as dried out as beef jerky.”

  Burke is right behind me.

  “A hundred-and-forty-pound person who becomes completely mummified will weigh maybe forty pounds, will be leather over bones, hard dried-out skin that splits,” I let her know. “That’s what extreme heat and aridness does. It’s not something you find around here.”

  “People are creative. Especially if they’re experts, if it’s what they do professionally.” Of course she means Marino. “Experts in death investigation and all associated forensic evidence.”

  A guest room is on the left of the landing, and straight ahead through an open door is the master bedroom. I ignore what she’s so blatant about.

  “You were quoted all over the news for saying in court today that it would have taken months for Mildred Lott’s body to turn to soap.” Burke brings this in, and I’m not surprised, and I wonder if that’s been e-mailed to her, too. “You said one of the requirements is submersion in cold water.”

  The queen-size bed is canopied, the black-and-white damask duvet smooth and neatly tucked under three pillows. The one nearest the bedside table where the phone is plugged in has been plumped but is wrinkled, the way pillows look when they’ve been slept on.

  “But they’ve also found this same soaplike condition when bodies have been sealed in watertight coffins and vaults, isn’t that correct?” Burke isn’t going to quit, and she should. “Bodies forming adipocere when there’s no water.”

  “Watertight isn’t always as advertised,” I reply.

  “You seem to believe you’re infallible.”

  “Nobody is infallible. But a lot of people are misinformed.”

  I pull back the duvet, and the sheets and pillows underneath are perfectly smooth on one side of the bed and wrinkled on the side near the phone. I notice cat fur that looks short and grayish-white.

  “The linens weren’t changed after whoever slept in here last.” I continue taking photographs of everything I look at. “Someone slept or lay down on the right side of the bed next to the phone. It appears the cat was in the bed at some point. I’d like to check the bedside drawer.”

  A night guard in a blue plastic container is labeled with the name and address of the West Palm Beach dentist who caused Peggy Stanton so much damage and unnecessary expense. I set two prescription bottles on the table and photograph them, then place them in separate plastic evidence bags.

  “Muscle relaxers prescribed by her dentist, Dr. Pulling,” I let Burke know. “Any meds should go in to the labs. And I’d like to collect the night guards. Dr. Adams might want to take a look at them.”

  “What I’m getting at, Kay, and what I need you to objectively comment on—” she starts to say, and I cut her off.

  “Why would you assume I might be anything other than objective?” I open the closet door.

  “I’m sure you can imagine why I might be concerned.” Her tone is no longer accusing or hostile, but sympathetic, as if she can well understand why I would cover for Marino, why I might slant or even falsify autopsy findings for him.

  I run my gloved hands through the clothing on hangers, a lot of pantsuits and slacks and blouses that are prim and old-fashioned, with hanging cedar planks spaced along the rod. I d
on’t see a dress or a skirt, and no blazers or jackets have antique military buttons or even distinctive ones.

  “You care about him,” Burke says, as if it’s a good thing.

  Peggy Stanton lost her family and never moved beyond it, everything old and the same, the future she looked forward to crashing with that plane. Her existence was rigidly maintained and obsessively protected, and it’s hard for me to imagine she was on Twitter.

  “I’m wondering if you’ve come across a computer?” I ask.

  “Not yet.”

  Photographs displayed on tables and dressers are of an era when Peggy Stanton had people in her life she loved, her husband a pleasant-looking man with mischievous dark eyes and a lock of dark hair falling over his brow, the two girls into horses and swimming, one of them into airplanes. None of the photographs is recent. Peggy Stanton isn’t in any of them.

  “If she has no computer, how was she on Twitter?” I ask.

  “Maybe a laptop she took with her. Maybe her phone, her iPad, whatever she had with her when she left here.”

  “I see nothing to suggest she was interested in technology,” I reply. “In fact, quite to the contrary, if you look at the old TV in here, at the princess phone.”

  I open another closet, where button-up sweaters are folded on shelves with cedar blocks tucked between them, and shoes arranged on a rack on the floor are crepe-soled and low-heeled, made for comfort, not style. I’m not surprised that Peggy Stanton’s hair was prematurely white and that she didn’t bother to dye or style it or that her nail polish was an understated pale pink, almost flesh-colored. I see nothing to indicate she made any effort to be alluring or attractive beyond what the dentist did to her, and I suspect she was talked into those procedures.

  “No Tulle or Audrey Marybeth or Peruvian Connection, not a single label like that.” I look at a men’s outback hat box, thick with dust, on the closet floor, PHOTOGRAPHS printed in neat block letters on the lid. “Most of her clothing is size eight or ten, not size six. I’d like to open this.”

  Inside are framed photographs that I look through, all of them of her, a pretty woman with jet-black hair and dark sparkling eyes, vibrant and not at all the way I have imagined her after examining her dead body and now her belongings. In riding clothes, and hiking and kayaking, and a picture of her in Paris when she must have been in her twenties, someone adventuresome and full of life before her world stopped.