Unnatural Exposure

  The rain had not relented, and this had not seemed to deter a single journalist, cameraman or photographer in this town. They seemed crazed, as if the story must be huge for everyone else to be braving a downpour.

  “Where are Fielding and Grant?” I asked about my deputy chief and this year’s fellow.

  My administrator was a retired sheriff who loved cologne and snappy suits. He stepped away from the window, while Rose continued to look out.

  “Dr. Fielding’s in court,” he said. “Dr. Grant had to leave because his basement’s flooding.”

  Rose turned around with the demeanor of one ready to fight, as if her nest had been invaded. “I put Jess in the filing room,” she said of the receptionist.

  “So there’s no one out front.” I looked toward the lobby.

  “Oh, there are plenty of people, all right,” my secretary angrily said as phones rang and rang. “I didn’t want anybody sitting out there with all those vultures. I don’t care if there is bulletproof glass.”

  “How many reporters are in the lobby?”

  “Fifteen, maybe twenty, last I checked,” my administrator answered. “I went out there once and asked them to leave. They said they weren’t going until they had a statement from you. So I thought we could write something up and . . .”

  “I’ll give them a statement, all right,” I snapped.

  Rose put her hand on my arm. “Dr. Scarpetta, I’m not sure it’s a good idea . . .”

  I interrupted her, too. “Leave this to me.”

  The lobby was small, and the thick glass partition made it impossible for any unauthorized person to get in. When I rounded the corner, I could not believe how many people were crammed into the room, the floor filthy with footprints and dirty puddles. As soon as they saw me, camera lights blazed. Reporters began shouting, shoving microphones and tape recorders close as flash guns went off in my face.

  I raised my voice above all of them. “Please! Quiet!”

  “Dr. Scarpetta . . .”

  “Quiet!” I said more loudly, as I blindly stared out at aggressive people I could not make out. “Now, I am going to ask you politely to leave,” I said.

  “Is it the Butcher again?” A woman raised her voice above the rest.

  “Everything is pending further investigation,” I said.

  “Dr. Scarpetta.”

  I could just barely make out the television reporter as Patty Denver, whose pretty face was on billboards all over the city.

  “Sources say you’re working this as another victim in these serial killings,” she said. “Can you verify that?”

  I did not respond.

  “Is it true the victim is Asian, probably prepubescent, and came off a truck that is local?” she went on, to my dismay. “And are we to assume that the killer may now be in Virginia?”

  “Is the Butcher killing in Virginia now?”

  “Possible he deliberately wanted the other bodies dumped here?”

  I held up a hand to quiet them. “This is not the time for assumptions,” I said. “I can tell you only that we are treating this as a homicide. The victim is an unidentified white female. She is not prepubescent but an older adult, and we encourage people who might have information to call this office or the Sussex County Sheriff’s Department.”

  “What about the FBI?”

  “The FBI is involved,” I said.

  “Then you are treating this as the Butcher . . .”

  Turning around, I entered a code on a keypad and the lock clicked free. I ignored the demanding voices, shutting the door behind me, my nerves humming with tension as I walked quickly down the hall. When I entered my office, Wesley was gone, and I sat behind my desk. I dialed Marino’s pager number, and he called me right back.

  “For God’s sake, these leaks have got to stop!” I exclaimed over the line.

  “We know damn well who it is,” Marino irritably said.

  “Ring.” I had no doubt, but could not prove it.

  “The drone was supposed to meet me at the landfill. That was almost an hour ago,” Marino went on.

  “It doesn’t appear the press had any trouble finding him.”

  I told him what sources allegedly had divulged to a television crew.

  “Goddamn idiot!” he said.

  “Find him and tell him to keep his mouth shut,” I said. “Reporters have practically put us out of business today, and now the city’s going to believe there’s a serial killer in their midst.”

  “Yeah, well, unfortunately, that part could be true,” he said.

  “I can’t believe this.” I was only getting angrier. “I have to release information to correct misinformation. I can’t be put in this position, Marino.”

  “Don’t worry, I’m going to take care of this and a whole lot more,” he promised. “I don’t guess you know.”

  “Know what?”

  “Rumor has it that Ring’s been seeing Patty Denver.”

  “I thought she was married,” I said as I envisioned her from a few moments earlier.

  “She is,” he said.

  I began dictating case 1930–97, trying to focus my attention on what I was saying and reading from my notes.

  “The body was received pouched and sealed,” I said into the tape recorder, rearranging paperwork smeared with blood from Wingo’s gloves. “The skin is doughy. The breasts are small, atrophic and wrinkled. There are skin folds over the abdomen suggestive of prior weight loss . . .”

  “Dr. Scarpetta?” Wingo was poking his head in the doorway. “Oops. Sorry,” he said when he realized what I was doing. “I guess now’s not a good time.”

  “Come in,” I said with a weary smile. “Why don’t you shut the door.”

  He did and closed the one between my office and Rose’s, too. Nervously, he pulled a chair close to my desk, and he was having a hard time meeting my eyes.

  “Before you start, let me.” I was firm but kind. “I’ve known you for many years, and your life is no secret to me. I don’t make judgments. I don’t label. In my mind, there are only two categories of people in this world. Those who are good. And those who aren’t. But I worry about you because your orientation places you at risk.”

  He nodded. “I know,” he said, eyes bright with tears.

  “If you’re immunosuppressed,” I went on, “you need to tell me. You probably shouldn’t be in the morgue, at least not for some cases.”

  “I’m HIV positive.” His voice trembled and he began to cry.

  I let him go for a while, his arms over his face, as if he could not bear for anyone to see him. His shoulders shook, tears spotting his greens as his nose ran. Getting up with a box of tissues, I went over to him.

  “Here.” I set the tissues nearby. “It’s all right.” I put my arm around him and let him weep. “Wingo, I want you to try to get hold of yourself so we can talk about this, okay?”

  He nodded, blowing his nose and wiping his eyes. For a moment he nuzzled his head against me, and I held him like a child. I gave him time before I faced him straight on, gripping his shoulders.

  “Now is the time for courage, Wingo,” I said. “Let’s see what we can do to fight this thing.”

  “I can’t tell my family,” he choked. “My father hates me anyway. And when my mother tries, he gets worse. To her. You know?”

  I moved a chair close. “What about your friend?”

  “We broke up.”

  “But he knows.”

  “I just found out a couple weeks ago.”

  “You’ve got to tell him and anybody else you’ve been intimate with,” I said. “It’s only fair. If someone had done that for you, maybe you wouldn’t be sitting here now, crying.”

  He was silent, staring down at his hands. Taking a deep breath, he said, “I’m going to die, aren’t I.”

  “We’re all going to die,” I gently told him.

  “Not like this.”

  “It could be like this,” I said. “Every physical I get, I’m tested for HIV. Yo
u know what I’m exposed to. What you’re going through could be me.”

  He looked up at me, his eyes and cheeks burning. “If I get AIDS, I’m going to kill myself.”

  “No, you’re not,” I said.

  He began to cry again. “Dr. Scarpetta, I can’t go through it! I don’t want to end up in one of those places, a hospice, the Fan Free Clinic, in a bed next to other dying people I don’t know!” Tears flowed, his face tragic and defiant. “I’ll be all alone just like I’ve always been.”

  “Listen.” I waited until he calmed down. “You will not go through this alone. You have me.”

  He dissolved in tears again, covering his face and making sounds so loud I was certain they could be heard in the hall.

  “I will take care of you,” I promised as I got up. “Now I want you to go home. I want you to do what’s right and tell your friends. Tomorrow, we’ll talk more and figure out the best way to handle this. I need the name of your doctor and permission to talk to him or her.”

  “Dr. Alan Riley. At MCV.”

  I nodded. “I know him, and I want you to call him first thing in the morning. Let him know I’ll be contacting him and that it’s all right for him to talk to me.”

  “Okay.” He looked furtively at me. “But you’ll be . . . You won’t tell anyone.”

  “Of course not,” I said with feeling.

  “I don’t want anyone here to know. Or Marino. I don’t want him to.”

  “No one will know,” I said. “At least not from me.”

  He slowly got up and stepped toward the door with the unsteadiness of someone drunk or dazed. “You won’t fire me, will you?” His hand was on the knob as he cast bloodshot eyes my way.

  “Wingo, for God’s sake,” I said with quiet emotion. “I would hope you would think more of me than that.”

  He opened the door. “I think more of you than anyone.” Tears spilled again, and he wiped them on his scrubs, exposing his thin bare belly. “I always have.”

  His footsteps were rapid in the hall as he almost ran, and the elevator bell rang. I listened as he left my building for a world that did not give a damn. I rested my forehead on my fist and shut my eyes.

  “Dear God,” I muttered. “Please help.”

  Five

  The rain was still heavy as I drove home, and traffic was terrible because an accident had closed lanes in both directions on I-64. There were fire trucks and ambulances, rescuers prying open doors and hurrying with stretchers and boards. Broken glass glistened on wet pavement, drivers slowing to stare at injured people. One car had flipped multiple times before catching fire. I saw blood on the shattered windshield of another and that the steering wheel was bent. I knew what that meant, and said a prayer for whoever the people were. I hoped I would not see them in my morgue.

  In Carytown, I pulled off at P. T. Hasting’s. Festooned with fish nets and floats, it sold the best seafood in the city. When I walked in, the air was spicy and pungent with fish and Old Bay, and fillets looked thick and fresh on ice inside displays. Lobsters with bound claws crawled in their tank of water, and were in no danger from me. I was incapable of boiling anything alive and wouldn’t touch meat if the cattle and pigs were first brought to my table. I couldn’t even catch fish without throwing them back.

  I was trying to decide what I wanted when Bev emerged from the back.

  “What’s good today?” I asked her.

  “Well, look who’s here,” she exclaimed warmly, wiping her hands on her apron. “You’re about the only person to brave the rain. So you sure got plenty to choose from.”

  “I don’t have much time, and need something easy and light,” I said.

  A shadow passed over her face as she opened a jar of horseradish. “I’m afraid I can imagine what you’ve been doing,” she said. “Been hearing it on the news.” She shook her head. “You must be plumb worn out. I don’t know how you sleep. Let me tell you what to do for yourself tonight.”

  She walked over to a case of chilled blue crabs. Without asking, she selected a pound of meat in a carton.

  “Fresh from Tangier Island. Hand-picked it myself, and you tell me if you find even a trace of cartilage or shell. You’re not eating alone, are you?” she said.

  “No.”

  “That’s good to hear.”

  She winked at me. I had brought Wesley in here before.

  She picked out six jumbo shrimp, peeled and deveined, and wrapped them. Then she set a jar of her homemade cocktail sauce on the counter by the cash register.

  “I got a little carried away with the horseradish,” she said, “so it will make your eyes water, but it’s good.” She began ringing up my purchases. “You sauté the shrimp so quick their butts barely hit the pan, got it? Chill ’em, and have that as an appetizer. By the way, those and the sauce are on the house.”

  “You don’t need to . . .”

  She waved me off. “As for the crab, honey, listen up. One egg slightly beaten, one-half teaspoon dry mustard, a dash or two of Worcestershire sauce, four unsalted soda crackers, crushed. Chop up an onion, a Vidalia if you’re still hoarding any from summer. One green pepper, chop that. A teaspoon or two of parsley, salt and pepper to taste.”

  “Sounds fabulous,” I gratefully said. “Bev, what would I do without you?”

  “Now you gently mix all that together and shape it into patties.” She made the motion with her hands. “Sauté in oil over medium heat until lightly browned. Maybe fix him a salad or get some of my slaw,” she said. “And that’s as much as I would fuss over any man.”

  It was as much as I did. I got started as soon as I got home, and shrimp were chilling by the time I turned on music and climbed into a bath. I poured in aromatherapy salts that were supposed to reduce stress, and shut my eyes as steam carried soothing scents into my sinuses and pores. I thought about Wingo, and my heart ached and seemed to lose its rhythm like a bird in distress. For a while, I cried. He had started out with me in this city, then left to go back to school. Now he was back and dying. I could not bear it.

  At seven P.M., I was in the kitchen again, and Wesley, always punctual, eased his silver BMW into my drive. He was still in the suit he had been wearing earlier, and he had a bottle of Cakebread chardonnay in one hand, and a fifth of Black Bush Irish whiskey in the other. The rain, at last, had stopped, clouds marching on to other fronts.

  “Hi,” he said when I opened the door.

  “You profiled the weather right.” I kissed him.

  “They don’t pay me this much money for nothing.”

  “The money comes from your family.” I smiled as he followed me in. “I know what the Bureau pays you.”

  “If I was as smart with money as you are, I wouldn’t need it from my family.”

  In my great room was a bar, and I went behind it because I knew what he wanted.

  “Black Bush?” I made sure.

  “If you’re serving it. Fine pusher that you are, you’ve managed to get me hooked.”

  “As long as you bootleg it from D.C., I’ll serve it any time you like,” I said.

  I fixed our drinks on the rocks with a splash of seltzer water. Then we went into the kitchen and sat at a cozy table by an expansive window overlooking my wooded yard and the river. I wished I could tell him about Wingo and how it felt for me. But I could not break a confidence.

  “Can I bring up a little business first?” Wesley took off his suit jacket and hung it on the back of a chair.

  “I have some, too.”

  “You first.” He sipped his drink, his eyes on mine.

  I told him what had been leaked to the press, adding, “Ring’s a problem that’s only getting worse.”

  “If he’s the one, and I’m not saying he is or isn’t. The difficulty’s getting proof.”

  “There’s no doubt in my mind.”

  “Kay, that’s not good enough. We can’t just throw someone out of an investigation based on our intuition.”

  “Marino’s heard rumors that
Ring’s having an affair with a well-known local broadcaster,” I then said. “She’s with the same station that had the misinformation about the case, about the victim being Asian.”

  He was silent. I knew he was thinking about proof again, and he was right. This all sounded circumstantial even as I said it.

  Then he said, “This guy’s very smart. Are you aware of his background?”

  “I know nothing about him,” I replied.

  “Graduated with honors from William and Mary, double major in psychology and public administration. His uncle is the secretary of public safety.” He piled worse news upon bad. “Harlow Dershin, who’s an honorable guy, by the way. But it goes without saying this is not a good situation for making accusations unless you’re one hundred percent damn sure of yourself.”

  The secretary of public safety for Virginia was the immediate boss of the superintendent of the state police. Ring’s uncle couldn’t have been more powerful unless he had been the governor.

  “So what you’re saying is that Ring’s untouchable,” I said.

  “What I’m saying is, his educational background makes it clear he has high aspirations. Guys like him are looking to be a chief, a commissioner, a politician. They’re not interested in being a cop.”

  “Guys like him are interested only in themselves,” I impatiently said. “Ring doesn’t give a damn about the victims or the people left behind who have no idea what has happened to their loved one. He doesn’t care if someone else gets killed.”

  “Proof,” he reminded me. “To be fair, there are a lot of people—including those working at the landfill—who could have leaked information to the press.”

  I had no good argument, but nothing would shake me loose from my suspicions.

  “What’s important is breaking these cases,” he went on to say, “and the best way to do that is for all of us to go about our business and ignore him, just like Marino and Grigg are doing. Follow every lead we can, steering around the impediments.” His eyes were almost amber in the overhead light, and soft when they met mine.