Trace

  She fastens her eyes on Dr. Marcus and says, “I think we’d better lay down some ground rules.”

  “Goodness, Kay. Ground rules?” he asks with a puzzled frown that is feigned and annoying.

  She can’t believe his blatant condescension. He reminds her of a defense attorney, not a good one, who hoodwinks the courtroom by stipulating away the seventeen years she spent in postgraduate education and reduces her on the witness stand to Ma’am or Mrs. or Ms. or, worst of all, Kay.

  “I’m sensing resistance to my being here…” she starts to say.

  “Resistance? I’m afraid I don’t understand.”

  “I think you do…”

  “Let’s don’t make assumptions.”

  “Please don’t interrupt me, Dr. Marcus. I don’t have to be here.” She takes in trashed tables and unloved books and wonders if he is this contemptuous with his own belongings. “What in God’s name has happened to this place?” she asks.

  He pauses as if it requires a moment of divining to understand what she means. Then he comments blandly, “Today’s medical students. No doubt they were never taught to pick up after themselves.”

  “In five years they’ve changed that much,” she says, dryly.

  “Perhaps you’re misinterpreting my mood this morning,” he replies in the same coaxing tone that he used with her over the phone yesterday. “Granted, I have a lot on my mind, but I’m quite pleased you’re here.”

  “You seem anything but pleased.” She keeps her eyes steadily on him while he stares past her. “Let’s start with this. I didn’t call you. You called me. Why?” I should have asked you yesterday, she thinks. I should have asked you then.

  “I thought I’d made myself clear, Kay. You’re a very respected forensic pathologist, a well-known consultant.” It sounds like an ingenuous endorsement for someone he secretly can’t stand.

  “We don’t know each other. We’ve never even met. I’m having a hard time believing you called me because I’m respected or well known.” Her arms are folded and she is glad she wore a serious dark suit. “I don’t play games, Dr. Marcus.”

  “I certainly don’t have time for games.” Any attempt at cordiality fades from his face and pettiness begins to glint like the sharp edge of a blade.

  “Did someone suggest me? Were you told to call me?” She is certain she detects the stench of politics.

  He glances toward the door in a not-so-subtle reminder that he is a busy, important man with eight cases and a staff meeting to run. Or perhaps he is worrying that someone is eavesdropping. “This is not productive,” he says. “I think it’s best we terminate this discussion.”

  “Fine.” She picks up her briefcase. “The last thing I want is to be a pawn in some agenda. Or shut off in a room, drinking coffee half the day. I can’t help an office that isn’t open to me, and my number-one ground rule, Dr. Marcus, is that an office requesting my assistance must be open to me.”

  “All right. If you want candor, indeed you shall have it.” His imperiousness fails to hide his fear. He doesn’t want her to leave. He sincerely doesn’t. “Frankly, bringing you here wasn’t my idea. Frankly, the health commissioner wanted an outside opinion and somehow came up with you,” he explains as if her name were drawn from a hat.

  “He should have called me himself,” she replies. “That would have been more honest.”

  “I told him I would do it. Frankly, I didn’t want to put you on the spot,” he explains, and the more he says “frankly,” the less she believes a word he says. “What happened is this. When Dr. Fielding couldn’t determine a cause or manner of death, the girl’s father, Gilly Paulsson’s father, called the commissioner.”

  The mention of Dr. Fielding’s name stings her. She didn’t know whether he was still here and she hasn’t asked.

  “And as I said, the commissioner called me. He said he wanted a full-court press. Those were his words.”

  The father must have clout, she thinks. Phone calls from upset families are not unusual, but rarely do they result in a high-ranking government official’s demanding an outside expert.

  “Kay, I can understand how uncomfortable this must be for you,” Dr. Marcus says. “I wouldn’t relish being in your position.”

  “And what is my position as you see it, Dr. Marcus?”

  “I believe Dickens wrote a story about that called A Christmas Carol. I’m sure you’re familiar with the Ghost of Christmas Past?” He smiles his trifling smile, and perhaps he doesn’t realize he is plagiarizing Bruce, the guard who called Marino a ghost from the past. “Going back is never easy. You have guts, I’ll give you that. I don’t believe I would have been so generous, not if I perceived that my former office had been somewhat uncharitable to me, and I can well understand your feeling that way.”

  “This isn’t about me,” she replies. “It’s about a dead fourteen-year-old girl. It’s about your office—an office that, yes, I’m quite familiar with, but…”

  He interrupts her, “That’s very philosophical of…”

  “Let me state the obvious,” she cuts him off. “When children die, it’s federal law that their fatalities are thoroughly investigated and reviewed, not only to determine cause and manner of death, but whether the tragedy might be part of a pattern. If it turns out that Gilly Paulsson was murdered, then every molecule of your office is going to be scrutinized and publicly judged, and I would appreciate it if you wouldn’t call me Kay in front of your staff and colleagues. Actually, I would prefer that you didn’t call me by my first name at all.”

  “I suppose part of the commissioner’s motivation is preventive damage control,” Dr. Marcus replies as if she said nothing about his calling her Kay.

  “I didn’t agree to participate in some media relations scheme,” she tells him. “When you called yesterday, I agreed to do what I could to help you figure out what happened to Gilly Paulsson. And I can’t do that if you aren’t completely open with me and whoever I bring in to assist me, which in this case is Pete Marino.”

  “Frankly, it didn’t occur to me that you would have a strong desire to attend a staff meeting.” He glances at his watch again, an old watch with a narrow leather wristband. “But as you wish. We have no secrets in this place. Later, I’ll go over the Paulsson case with you. You can re-autopsy her if you want.”

  He holds open the library door. Scarpetta stares at him in disbelief.

  “She died two weeks ago and her body hasn’t been released to her family yet?” she asks.

  “They’re so distraught, they haven’t made arrangements to claim her, allegedly,” he replies. “I suppose they’re hoping we’ll pay for the burial.”

  4.

  IN THE CONFERENCE ROOM of the OCME, Scarpetta rolls out a chair at the foot of the table, an outer reach of her former empire that she never visited when she was here. Not once did she sit at the foot of the conference table in the years she ran this office, not even if it was to have a casual conversation over a bagged lunch.

  It registers somewhere in her disturbed thoughts that she is being contraire by choosing a chair at the foot of the long dark polished table when there are two other empty seats midway. Marino finds a chair against the wall and sets it next to hers, so he is neither at the foot of the table nor against the wall but somewhere in between, a big grumpy lump in black cargo pants and an LAPD baseball cap.

  He leans close to her and whispers, “Staff hates his guts.”

  She doesn’t respond and concludes that his source is Julie the clerk. Then he jots something on a notepad and shoves it toward her. “FBI involved,” she reads.

  Marino must have made phone calls while Scarpetta was with Dr. Marcus in the library. She is baffled. Gilly Paulsson’s death is not federal jurisdiction. At the moment it’s not even a crime, because there is no cause or manner of death, only suspicion and sticky politics. She subtly pushes the notepad back in Marino’s direction and senses Dr. Marcus is watching them. For an instant, she is in grammar school, passing n
otes and about to be scorched by one of the nuns. Marino has the nerve to slip out a cigarette and begin tapping it on top of his notepad.

  “This is a nonsmoking building, I’m afraid,” Dr. Marcus’s authoritative voice punctures the silence.

  “And it oughta be,” Marino says. “Secondary smoke will kill ya.” He taps the filtered end of a Marlboro on top of the notepad that bears his secret message about the FBI. “I’m happy to see the Guts Man is still around,” he adds, referring to the male anatomical model on a stand behind Dr. Marcus, who sits at the head of the table. “Now that’s a thousand-yard stare if I ever saw one,” Marino says of the Guts Man, whose removable plastic organs are present and primly in place, and Scarpetta wonders if he has been used for teaching or explaining injuries to families and attorneys since she was here. Probably not, she decides. Otherwise Guts Man would be missing organs.

  She does not know anyone on Dr. Marcus’s staff except Assistant Chief Jack Fielding, who so far has avoided eye contact with her and has developed a skin disorder since she saw him last. Five years have passed, she thinks, and she can scarcely believe what has become of her vain bodybuilding former forensic-pathology partner. Fielding was never supremely useful in administrative matters or necessarily respected for having a searing medical mind, but he was loyal, respectful, and caring during the decade he worked for her. He never tried to undermine her or take her place, and he never came to her defense, either, when detractors far bolder than he decided to banish her and succeeded. Fielding has lost most of his hair and his once attractive face is puffy and blotchy, his eyes runny. He sniffs a lot. He would never touch drugs, and she is sure of that, but he looks like a drinker.

  “Dr. Fielding,” she says, staring at him. “Allergies? You didn’t used to have them. Perhaps you have a cold,” she suggests, although she seriously doubts he has a cold or the flu or any other contagious disease.

  Possibly, he is hungover. Probably, he is suffering from a histamine reaction to something or perhaps to everything. Scarpetta detects the raw edge of a rash peeking out from the V-neck collar of his surgical scrubs, and she follows the white sleeves of his unbuttoned lab coat, over the contours of his arms, to his raw, scaly hands. Fielding has lost considerable muscle mass. He is almost skinny and is suffering from an allergy or allergies. Dependent personality types are thought to be more susceptible to allergies, diseases, and dermatological complaints, and Fielding isn’t thriving. Maybe he shouldn’t thrive, and for him to do well without her would seem to confirm that the Commonwealth of Virginia and humankind in general are better off since she was fired and publicly degraded half a decade ago. The small nasty beast inside her that finds relief in Fielding’s misery instantly crawls back into its dark place, and she is stung by upset and concern. She gives Fielding her eyes again. He won’t complete the connection.

  “I hope we’ll have a chance to catch up before I leave,” she says to him from her green upholstered chair at the foot of the table, as if nobody else is in the room, just Fielding and her, the way it used to be when she was chief and so well respected that now and then naive medical students and rookie cops asked for her autograph.

  She feels Dr. Marcus watching her again, his stare as palpable as thumbtacks driven into her skin. He wears neither lab coat nor any other medical mantle, and she isn’t surprised. Like most passionless chiefs who should have left the profession years ago and probably never loved it, he’s not the sort to perform autopsies unless there is no one else to do them.

  “Let’s get started,” he announces. “I’m afraid we have a full house this morning, and we have guests. Dr. Scarpetta. And her friend Captain Marino…Or is it Lieutenant or Detective? Are you with Los Angeles now?”

  “Depends on what’s going on,” Marino says, his eyes shadowed by the brim of his baseball cap as he fiddles with the unlit cigarette.

  “And where are you working now?” Dr. Marcus reminds him that he has not fully explained himself. “I’m sorry. I don’t recall Dr. Scarpetta mentioning she was bringing you.” He has to remind Scarpetta again, this time before an audience.

  He is going to take swipes at her in front of everyone. She can see it coming. He will make her pay for confronting him inside his slovenly library, and it occurs to her that Marino made phone calls. Someone he talked to might have alerted Dr. Marcus.

  “Oh, of course.” He suddenly remembers. “She did mention you work together, I believe?”

  “Yes,” Scarpetta confirms from her lowly spot at the foot of the table.

  “So we’re going to get through the cases quickly,” he informs Scarpetta. “Once again, if you and, uh, I guess I’ll just call you Mr. Marino, if the two of you want to get coffee? Or smoke as long as it’s outside. You’re welcome to sit through our staff meeting but you certainly don’t have to.”

  His words are for the benefit of those not privy to what has already transpired in less than one rude hour, and she detects a warning in his tone. She wanted to intrude and now she may get an exposure she will find decidedly unpleasant. Dr. Marcus is a politician and not a good one. Perhaps when he was appointed, those in power had deemed him malleable and harmless, the antithesis of what they thought of her, and maybe they were wrong.

  He turns to the woman directly on his right, a big, horsey woman with a horsey face and closely shorn gray hair. She must be the administrator, and he nods at her to proceed.

  “Okay,” says the administrator, and everyone looks at the yellow photocopies of today’s turndowns, views, and autopsies. “Dr. Ramie, you were on call last night?” she asks.

  “I sure was. ’Tis the season,” Dr. Ramie replies.

  No one laughs. A pall hangs over the conference room. It has nothing to do with the patients down the hall who await the last and most invasive physical examination they’ll ever have with any doctor on earth.

  “We have Sissy Shirley, ninety-two-year-old black female from Hanover County, history of heart disease, found dead in bed,” Dr. Ramie says, looking at her notes. “She was a resident of an assisted-living facility and she’s a view. In fact, I already viewed her. Then we have Benjamin Franklin. That really is his name. Eighty-nine-year-old black male, also found dead in bed, history of heart disease and nerve failure…”

  “What?” Dr. Marcus interrupts. “What the hell is nerve failure?”

  Several people laugh and Dr. Ramie’s face heats up. She is an overweight, homely young woman and her face is glowing like a halogen heater on high.

  “I don’t believe nerve failure is a legitimate cause of death.” Dr. Marcus plays off his deputy chief’s acute embarrassment like an actor playing off his captive audience. “Please don’t tell me we’ve brought some poor soul into our clinic because he allegedly died of nerve failure.”

  His attempt at humor is not meant kindly. Clinics are for the living and poor souls are people in hard times, not victims of violence or random, senseless death. In three words, he has managed to completely deny and mock the reality of people down the hall who are pitifully cold and stiff and zipped inside vinyl and fake fur funeral home pouches, or naked on hard steel gurneys or on hard steel tables, ready for the scalpel and Stryker saw.

  “I’m sorry,” Dr. Ramie says with glowing cheeks. “I misread my notes. Renal failure is what I have here. Even I can’t read my writing anymore.”

  “So old Ben Franklin,” Marino starts in with a serious face as he plays with the cigarette, “he didn’t die of nerve failure after all? Like maybe when he was out there tying a key to his kite string? Anybody on that list of yours happen to die of lead poisoning? Or are we still calling it gunshot wounds?”

  Dr. Marcus’s stare is flat and cold.

  Dr. Ramie goes on in a monotone, “Mr. Franklin also is a view. I did view him already. We have Finky…uh, Finder…”

  “Not Finky, oh Lordy,” Marino keeps up the straight-man charade in that huge voice of his. “You can’t find her? I hate it when Finky does that, damn her.”

  “Is
that the proper name?” Dr. Marcus’s voice has the thin ring of a metal triangle, several octaves higher than Marino’s voice.

  Dr. Ramie’s face is so red that Scarpetta worries the tortured woman is going to burst into tears and flee from the room. “The name I was given is what I just stated,” Dr. Ramie woodenly replies. “Twenty-two-year-old black female, dead on the toilet, needle still in her arm. Possible heroin O.D. That’s the second in four days in Spotsylvania. This was just handed to me.” She fumbles with a call sheet. “Right before staff meeting we got a call about a forty-two-year-old white male named Theodore Whitby. Injured while working on a tractor.”

  Dr. Marcus blinks behind his small wire-rimmed glasses. Faces blank out. Don’t do it, Scarpetta silently says to Marino. But he does.

  “Injured?” he asks. “He’s still alive?”

  “Actually,” Dr. Ramie stammers, “I didn’t take this call. Not personally. Dr. Fielding…”

  “No, I didn’t,” Fielding interrupts like a gun hammer clicking back.

  “You didn’t? Oh. Dr. Martin did. This is his note,” Dr. Ramie goes on, her hot and humiliated head bent low over the call sheet. “No one seems to be real clear on what happened, but he was on or near the tractor one minute and then his coworkers suddenly saw him badly injured in the dirt. Around half past eight this morning, not even an hour ago. So, somehow, he ran over himself, fell off or something, you know, and ran over himself. Was dead when the squad got there.”

  “Oh. So he killed himself. A suicide,” Marino decides, slowly twirling the cigarette.

  “Well, it’s an irony that this occurred at the old building, the one they’re tearing down at Nine North Fourteenth Street,” Dr. Ramie adds tersely.