“Holy shit,” Marino said, as he pulled into the parking lot. “Will you look at that. Holy smoke.”
He went on as if it were Buckingham Palace as he parked beside a bus.
“You know, I wish I could’ve known him,” he wistfully said.
“Maybe you would have, had he taken better care of himself.” I opened my door as he lit a cigarette.
For the next two hours, we wandered through gilt and mirrors, shag carpeting and stained-glass peacocks as the voice of Elvis followed us through his world. Hundreds of fans had arrived on buses, and their passion for this man was on their faces as they walked around listening to the tour on cassette. Many of them placed flowers, cards and letters on his grave. Some wept as if they had known him well.
We wandered around his purple and pink Cadillacs, Stutz Blackhawk and museum of other cars. There were his planes and shooting range, and the Hall of Gold, with Grammy showcases of gold and platinum records, and trophies and other awards that amazed even me. The hall was at least eighty feet long. I could not take my eyes off splendid costumes of gold and sequins, and photographs of what was truly an extraordinarily and sensuously beautiful human being. Marino was blatantly gawking, an almost pained expression on his face that reminded me of puppy love as we inched our way through rooms.
“You know, they didn’t want him to move here when he bought this place,” he announced, and we were outside now, the fall afternoon cool and bright. “Some of the snobs in this city never did accept him. I think that hurt him, in a way, might be what got him in the end. You know, why he took painkillers.”
“He took more than that,” I made the point again as we walked.
“If you had been the medical examiner, could you have done his autopsy?” He got out cigarettes.
“Absolutely.”
“And you wouldn’t have covered his face?” He looked indignant as he fired up his lighter.
“Of course not.”
“Not me.” He shook his head, sucking in smoke. “No friggin’ way I’d even want to be in the room.”
“I wish he had been my case,” I said. “I wouldn’t have signed him out as a natural death. The world should know the truth, so maybe somebody else would think twice about popping Percodan.”
We were in front of one of the gift shops now, and people were gathered around televisions inside, watching Elvis videos. Through outdoor speakers, he was singing “Kentucky Rain,” his voice powerful and playful, unlike any other I had ever heard in my life. I started walking again and told the truth.
“I am a fan and have a rather extensive collection of his CDs, if you really must know,” I said to Marino.
He couldn’t believe it. He was thrilled.
“And I’d appreciate it if you didn’t spread that around.”
“All these years I’ve known you, and you never told me?” he exclaimed. “You’re not kidding me, right? I never would’ve thought that. Not in a million years. Hey, so maybe now you know I got taste.”
This went on as we waited for a shuttle to return us to the parking lot, and then it continued in the car.
“I remember watching him on TV once when I was a kid in New Jersey,” Marino was saying. “My old man came in drunk, as usual, started yelling at me to switch the channel. I’ll never forget it.”
He slowed and turned into the Peabody Hotel.
“Elvis was singing ‘Hound Dog,’ July 1956. I remember it was my birthday. My father comes in, cussing, turns the TV off, and I get up and turn it back on. He smacks the side of my head, turns the TV off again. I turn it back on and walk toward him. First time in my life I ever laid a hand on him. I slam him against the wall, get in his face, tell the son of a bitch he ever touches me or my mother again, I’m going to kill him.”
“And did he?” I asked as the valet opened my door.
“Shit no.”
“Then Elvis should be thanked,” I said.
Seven
Two days later, on Thursday, November 6, I started out early on the ninety-minute drive from Richmond to the FBI Academy at Quantico, Virginia. Marino and I took separate cars, since we never knew when something might happen to send us off somewhere. For me, it could be a plane crash or derailed train, while he had to deal with city government and layers of brass. I wasn’t surprised when my car phone rang as we neared Fredericksburg. The sun was in and out of clouds, and it felt cold enough to snow.
“Scarpetta,” I said, on speakerphone.
Marino’s voice erupted inside my car. “City council’s freaking,” he said. “You got McKuen whose little kid’s been hit by a car, now more crap about our case, on TV, in the papers, hear it on the radio.”
More leaks had occurred over the past two days. Police had a suspect in serial murders that included five cases in Dublin. An arrest was imminent.
“You believe this shit?” Marino exclaimed. “We’re talking about, what? Someone in his mid-twenties, and somehow he was in Dublin over the past few years? Bottom line is council’s suddenly decided to have some public forum about this situation, probably because they think it’s about to be resolved. Got to get that credit, right, make the citizens think maybe they did something for once.” He was careful what he said, but seething. “So I gotta turn my ass right back around and be at city hall by ten. Plus, the chief wants to see me.”
I watched his taillights up ahead as he approached an exit. I-95 was busy this morning with trucks, and people who commuted every day to D.C. No matter how early I started, whenever I headed north, it seemed traffic was terrible.
“Actually, it’s a good thing you’re going to be there. Cover my back, too,” I said to him. “I’ll get up with you later, let you know what went on.”
“Yo. When you see Ring, do that to his neck,” he said.
I arrived at the Academy, and the guard in his booth waved me through because by now he knew my car and its license plate. The parking lot was so full, I ended up almost in the woods. Firearms training was already in progress on ranges across the road, and Drug Enforcement Agents were out in camouflage, gripping assault rifles, their faces mean. The grass was heavy with dew and soaked my shoes as I took a shortcut to the main entrance of the tan brick building called Jefferson.
Inside the lobby, luggage was parked near couches and the walls, for there were always National Academy, or N.A., police going somewhere, it seemed. The video display over the front desk reminded everyone to have a nice day and properly display his badge. Mine was still in my purse, and I got it out, looping the long chain around my neck. Inserting a magnetized card into a slot, I unlocked a glass door etched with the Department of Justice seal and followed a long glass-enclosed corridor.
I was deep in thought and scarcely cognizant of new agents in dark blue and khaki, and N.A. students in green. They nodded and smiled as they passed, and I was friendly, too, but I did not focus. I was thinking of the torso, of her infirmities and age, of her pitiful pouch in the freezer, where she would stay for several years or until we knew her name. I thought of Keith Pleasants, of deadoc, of saws and sharp blades.
I smelled Hoppes solvent as I turned into the gun-cleaning room with its rows of black counters and compressors blasting air through the innards of guns. I could never smell these smells or hear these sounds without thinking of Wesley, and of Mark. My heart was squeezed by feelings too strong for me when a familiar voice called out my name.
“Looks like we’re heading the same way,” said Investigator Ring.
Impeccably dressed in navy blue, he was waiting for the elevator that would take us sixty feet below ground, where Hoover had built his bomb shelter. I switched my heavy briefcase to my other hand, and tucked the box of slides more snugly under an arm.
“Good morning,” I blandly said.
“Here, let me help with some of that.”
He held out a hand as elevator doors parted, and I noticed his nails were buffed.
“I’m fine,” I said, because I didn’t need his help.
> We boarded, both of us staring straight ahead as we began the ride down to a windowless level of the building directly beneath the indoor firing range. Ring had sat in on consultations before, and he took copious notes, none of which had ended up in the news thus far. He was too clever for that. Certainly, if information divulged during an FBI consultation was leaked, it would be easy enough to trace. There were only a few of us who could be the source.
“I was rather dismayed by the information the press somehow got access to,” I said as we got out.
“I know what you mean,” Ring said with a sincere face.
He held open the door leading into a labyrinth of hallways that comprised what once had begun as Behavioral Science, then changed to Investigative Support, and now was CASKU. Names changed, but the cases did not. Men and women often came to work in the dark and left after it was dark again, spending days and years studying the minutiae of monsters, their every tooth mark and track in mud, the way they think and smell and hate.
“The more information that gets out, the worse it is,” Ring went on as we approached another door, leading into a conference room where I spent at least several days a month. “It’s one thing to give details that might help the public help us . . .”
He talked on, but I wasn’t listening. Inside, Wesley was already sitting at the head of a polished table, his reading glasses on. He was going through large photographs stamped on the back with the name of the Sussex County Sheriff’s Department. Detective Grigg was several chairs away, a lot of paperwork in front of him as he studied a sketch of some sort. Across from him was Frankel from the Violent Criminal Apprehension Program, or VICAP, and at the other end of the table, my niece. She was tapping on a laptop computer, and glanced up at me but did not say hello.
I took my usual chair to the right of Wesley, opened my briefcase and began arranging files. Ring sat on the other side of me and continued our conversation.
“We got to accept as a fact that this guy is following everything in the news,” he said. “That’s part of the fun for him.”
He had everyone’s attention, all eyes on him, the room silent except for his own sound. He was reasonable and quiet, as if his only mission was to convey the truth without drawing undue attention to himself. Ring was a superb con man, and what he said next in front of my colleagues incensed me beyond belief.
“For example, and I have to be honest about this,” he said to me, “I just don’t think it was a good idea to give out the race, age and all about the victim. Now maybe I’m wrong.” He looked around the room. “But it seems like the less said, the better right now.”
“I had no choice,” I said, and I could not keep the edge out of my voice. “Since someone had already leaked misinformation.”
“But that’s always going to happen, and I don’t think it should force us to give out details before we’re ready,” he said in his same earnest tone.
“It is not going to help us if the public is focused on a missing prepubescent Asian female.” I stared at him, eye to eye, while everyone else looked on.
“I agree.” Frankel, from VICAP, spoke. “We’d be getting missing person files from all over the country. An error like that has to be straightened out.”
“An error like that never should have happened to begin with,” Wesley said, peering around the room over the top of his glasses, the way he did when he was in a humorless mood. “With us this morning is Detective Grigg of Sussex, and Special Agent Farinelli.” He looked at Lucy. “She’s the technical analyst for HRT, manages the Criminal Artificial Intelligence Network all of us know as CAIN, and is here to help us with a computer situation.”
My niece did not look up as she hit more keys, her face intense. Ring had her in his sights, staring as if he wanted to eat her flesh.
“What computer situation?” he asked, as his eyes continued to devour her.
“We’ll get to that,” Wesley said, and briskly moved on. “Let me summarize, then we’ll move on to specifics. The victimology in this most recent landfill case is so different from the previous four—or nine, if we include Ireland—as for me to conclude that we are dealing with a different killer. Dr. Scarpetta is going to review her medical findings which I think will make it abundantly clear that this M.O. is profoundly atypical.”
He went on, and we spent until midday going over my reports, diagrams and photographs. I was asked many questions, mostly by Grigg, who wanted very much to understand every facet and nuance of the serial dismemberments so he could better discern that the one in his jurisdiction was unlike the rest.
“What’s the difference between someone cutting through joints and cutting through the bones?” he asked me.
“Cutting through joints is more difficult,” I said. “It requires knowledge of anatomy, perhaps some previous experience.”
“Like if someone was a butcher or maybe worked in a meat-packing plant.”
“Yes,” I replied.
“Well, I guess that sure would fit with a meat saw,” he added.
“Yes. Which is very different from an autopsy saw.”
“Exactly how?” It was Ring who spoke.
“A meat saw is a hand saw designed to cut meat, gristle, bone,” I went on, looking around at everyone. “Usually about fourteen inches long with a very thin blade, ten chisel-type teeth per inch. It’s push action, requiring some degree of strength on the part of the user. The autopsy saw, in contrast, won’t cut through tissue, which must first be reflected back with something like a knife.”
“Which was what was used in this case,” Wesley said to me.
“There are cuts to bone that fit the class characteristics of a knife. An autopsy saw,” I went on to explain, “was designed to work only on hard surfaces by using a reciprocating action that is basically push-pull, going in only a little bit at a time. I know everyone here is familiar with it, but I’ve got photos.”
Opening an envelope, I pulled out eight-by-tens of the saw marks the killer had left on the bone ends I had carried to Memphis. I slid one to each person.
“As you can see,” I went on, “the saw pattern here is multidirectional with a high polish.”
“Now let me get this straight,” said Grigg. “This is the exact same saw you use in the morgue.”
“No. Not exactly the same,” I said. “I generally use a larger sectioning blade than was used here.”
“But this is from a medical sort of saw.” He held up the photograph.
“Correct.”
“Where would your average person get something like that?”
“Doctor’s office, hospital, morgue, medical supply company,” I replied. “Any number of places. The sale of them is not restricted.”
“So he could have ordered it without being in the medical profession.”
“Easily,” I said.
Ring said, “Or he could have stolen it. He could have decided to do something different this time to throw us off.”
Lucy was looking at him, and I had seen the expression in her eyes before. She thought Ring was a fool.
“If we’re dealing with the same killer,” she said, “then why is he suddenly sending files through the Internet when he’s never done that before, either?”
“Good point.” Frankel nodded.
“What files?” Ring said to her.
“We’re getting to that.” Wesley restored order. “We’ve got an M.O. that’s different. We’ve got a tool that’s different.”
“We suspect she has a head injury,” I said, sliding autopsy diagrams and the e-mail photos around the table, “because of blood in her airway. This may or may not be different from the other cases, since we don’t know their causes of death. However, radiologic and anthropologic findings indicate that this victim is profoundly older than the others. We also recovered fibers indicating she was covered in something consistent with a drop cloth when she was dismembered, again, inconsistent with the other cases.”
I explained in more detail about the f
ibers and paint, all the while vividly aware of Ring watching my niece and taking notes.
“So she was probably cut up in someone’s workshop or garage,” Grigg said.
“I don’t know,” I answered. “And as you’ve seen from the photos sent to me through e-mail, we can only know that she’s in a room with putty-colored walls, and a table.”
“Let me again point out that Keith Pleasants has an area behind his house that he uses for a workshop,” Ring reminded us. “It has a big workbench in it and the walls are unpainted wood.” He looked at me. “Which could pass for putty-colored.”
“Seems like it would be awfully hard to get rid of all the blood,” Grigg dubiously mused.
“A drop cloth with a rubber backing might explain the absence of blood,” Ring said. “That’s the whole point. So nothing leaks through.”
Everyone looked at me to see what I would say.
“It would have been very unusual not to get things bloody in a case like this,” I replied. “Especially since she still had a blood pressure when she was decapitated. If nothing else, I would expect blood in wood grain, in cracks of the table.”
“We could try some chemical testing for that.” Ring was a forensic scientist now. “Like luminol. Any blood at all, it’s going to react to it and glow in the dark.”
“The problem with luminol is it’s destructive,” I replied. “And we’re going to want to do DNA, to see if we can get a match. So we certainly don’t want to ruin what little blood we might find.”
“It’s not like we got probable cause to go in Pleasants’ workshop and start any kind of testing anyway.” Grigg’s stare across the table at Ring was confrontational.
“I think we do.” He stared back at him.
“Not unless they changed the rules on me.” Grigg spoke slowly.
Wesley was watching all this, evaluating everyone and every word the way he always did. He had his opinion, and more than likely it was right. But he remained silent as the arguing went on.
“I thought . . .” Lucy tried to speak.
“A very viable possibility is that this is a copycat,” Ring said.