Kay Scarpet - The Last Precinct Part 10

I page Marino to see if he can help. He drops by forty-five minutes later, by which time Stanfield is long gone and Turk is tucking John Doe's sectioned organs inside a heavy plastic bag that she will place in the body cavity before she sews up the Y incision.

"Yo Turk," Marino hails her when he pa.s.ses through opening steel doors. "Freezing leftovers again?"

She glances up at him with one raised eyebrow and a c.o.c.ked smile. Marino likes Turk. He likes her so much he is rude to her at every opportunity. Turk doesn't look like what one might conjure up from her nickname. She is pet.i.te, with a clean prettiness and creamy complexion, her long blond hair tied back and clipped up high like a show horse's tail. She threads heavy white waxed twine into a twelve-gauge suture needle as Marino continues to pick on her. "I tell ya," he says, "I ever get cut, I ain't coming to you for st.i.tches, Turk." She smiles, dipping the big, angled needle into flesh and tugging twine through.

Marino looks hung over, his eyes bloodshot and puffy. Despite his quips, he is in a foul mood. "You forget to go to bed last night?" I ask him.

"More or less. It's a long story." He tries to ignore me, watching Turk and oddly distracted and ill at ease. I untie my gown and take off my face s.h.i.+eld, mask and O.R. cap. "See how quickly you guys can get these into the computer," I tell him, all business and not especially friendly. He is keeping secrets from me and I am p.i.s.sed off by his peac.o.c.k display of adolescent behavior. "We've got a bad situation here, Marino."

His attention lifts off Turk and lights on me. He gets sen-ous. He drops the childish act. "How 'bout you tell me what's going on while I smoke," he says to me, meeting my eyes for the first time in days.

Mine is a nonsmoking building, which has not stopped various people high in the pecking order from lighting up inside their offices if they are surrounded by people who won't snitch on them. In the morgue, I don't care who asks. I don't allow smoking, period. It isn't that our clientele need to worry about inhaling secondhand smoke, but my concern is for the living who should do nothing in the morgue that requires them to have hand-to-mouth contact. No eating, drinking or smoking, and I discourage chewing gum or sucking on candies or lozenges. Our designated smoking area is two chairs by an upright ash can near the soda machines in the bay. This time of year, this is not a warm, cozy place to sit, but it is private. The James City County case isn't Marino's jurisdiction, but I need to tell him about the clothes. "It's a feeling I have," I sum it up.

He flicks an ash toward the can, his legs splayed in the plastic chair. We can see our breath.

"Yeah, well I don't like it, either," he replies. "Fact is, it may be coincidence, Doc. But another fact is, the Chandonne family's scary s.h.i.+t. What we don't know is what the h.e.l.l the fallout's going to be now that their ugly duckling son's locked up in the U.S. for murdernow that he's managed to draw so much attention to his G.o.dfather daddy and all the rest. These are bad people capable of anything, you ask me. Believe me, I'm just beginning to see how really, really bad they are," he cryptically adds. "I don't like the mob, Doc. No sir. When I was coming along, they ran everything." His eyes get hard as he says this. "f.u.c.k, they probably still do, only difference is, there ain't any rules, any respect anymore. I don't know what the h.e.l.l this guy was doing out near Jamestown, but it wasn't to sightsee, that's for sure. And Chandonne's just sixty miles away in the hospital. Something's going on."

"Marino, let's get Interpol on this immediately," I say. It is up to the police to report individuals to Interpol, and to do this Marino will have to contact the liaison at State Police, who will pa.s.s on the case information to InterpoFs U.S. National Central Bureau in Was.h.i.+ngton. What we will be asking Interpol to do is to issue an international advisory notice for our case and to search their ma.s.sive criminal intelligence database at their General Secretariat in Lyon. Notices are color-coded: Red is for immediate arrest with probable extradition; blue is for someone who is wanted but his ident.i.ty isn't absolutely clear; green is a warning about someone who is likely to commit crimes, such as habitual offenders like child molesters and p.o.r.nographers; yellow is for missing people; and black is for unidentified dead bodies; those who most likely are fugitives are also coded red. My case will be my second black notice this year, following the first one just weeks ago when the badly decomposed body of Thomas Chandonne was discovered in a cargo container at the Richmond Port.

"Okay, we'll get Interpol a mug shot, prints and your autopsy info," Marino makes a mental note. "I'll do that soon as I leave here. Just hope Stanfield don't feel I'm stepping on his toes." He says this as more of a warning. Marino doesn't care if he steps on Stanfield's toes but he doesn't want a ha.s.sle.

"He's clueless, Marino."

"A shame, too, because James City County has real good cops," Marino replies. "Problem is, Stanfield's brother-in-law is Representative Matthew Dinwiddie, so Stanfield's always gotten extra good treatment down there and has about as much business working homicides as Winnie-the-Pooh. But I guess he had that on his wish list and Dimwit, as I call him, must have sweet-talked the chief."

"See what you can do," I tell Marino.

He lights another cigarette, his eyes roving around the bay, thoughts palpable. I resist smoking. The craving is awful and I hate myself for ever resuming the habit. Somehow I always think I can have just one cigarette, and I am always wrong. Marino and I share an awkward silence. Finally, I bring up the subject of the Chandonne case and what Righter told me on Sunday.

"Are you going to tell me what's going on?" I quietly say to Marino. "I a.s.sume he was released from the hospital early this morning, and I a.s.sume you were there. And I guess you've met Berger."

He sucks on the cigarette, taking his time. "Yeah, Doc, I was there. f.u.c.king zoo." His words drift out on smoke. "They even had reporters from Europe." He glances at me, and I sense there is much he isn't going to tell me, and this depresses me deeply. "You ask me, they ought to stick a.s.sholes like him in the Bermuda Triangle and not let n.o.body talk to them or take their picture," Marino goes on. "It ain't right, except at least in this case, the guy's so ugly, he probably gave everybody technical problems, broke a bunch of expensive cameras. They brought him out in enough chains to anchor a d.a.m.n battles.h.i.+p, leading him along like he was stone-blind. He had bandages over his eyes, faking like he's in pain, the whole nine yards."

"Did you talk to him?" This is what I really want to know.

"It wasn't my show," he oddly replies, staring off across the bay, clenching his jaw muscles. "They're saying they might have to do cornea transplants. f.u.c.k. Here we got all these people in the world who can't even afford gla.s.ses, and this piece of furry s.h.i.+t's gonna get new corneas. And I guess the taxpayers will bankroll his corrective surgery, just like we're paying all these doctors and nurses and G.o.d knows who to take care of his a.s.s." He crushes out the cigarette in the ash can. "Guess I'd better get cracking." He reluctantly gets up. He wants to talk to me but for some reason won't. "The Luce and I are grabbing a beer later on. Says she's got some big news for me."

"I'll let her tell you herself," I reply.

He gives me a sidelong glance. "So you're gonna just leave me hanging, huh?"

I start to say that he is one to talk.

"Not even a hint? I mean, is it good news or bad? Don't tell me she's pregnant," he adds ironically as he holds the door for me and we leave the bay.

Inside the autopsy suite, Turk is hosing off my workstation, water slapping and steel grates clanking loudly as she sponges off the table. When she spots me, she shouts above the clamor that -Rose is trying to reach me. I go to the phone. "Courts are closed," Rose tells me. "But Righter's office says he plans to stipulate your testimony anyway. So not to worry."

"What a shock." What was it Anna called him? Ein Mann something. No backbone.

"And your bank called. A man named Greenwood wants you to call." My secretary gives me a number.

Whenever my bank tries to reach me, I am paranoid. Either investments have taken a dive or I am overdrawn because the computer is screwed up or there is a problem of one sort or another. I get hold of Mr. Greenwood in the private banking division. "I'm very sorry," he says coolly. "The message was a mistake. A misunderstanding, Dr. Scarpetta. I'm very sorry you were bothered."

"So no one needs to talk to me. No problems?" I am perplexed. I have dealt with Greenwood for years and he is acting as if he has never met me.

"It was a mistake," he repeats in the same distant tone. "Again, I apologize. Have a good day."["_Toc37098911"]

CHAPTER 9.

I SPEND THE NEXT FEW HOURS AT MY DESK, DICTAT-ing the autopsy report of John Doe and returning phone calls and initialing paperwork, and leave the office late afternoon, heading west.

Sunlight filters through broken clouds and gusts of wind send brown leaves fluttering to the earth like lazy birds. It has stopped snowing and the temperature is rising, the world dripping and sizzling with the wet sounds of traffic.

I drive Anna's silver Lincoln Navigator toward Three Chopt Road while news on the radio endlessly goes on about Jean-Baptiste Chandonne's transport out of the city. There is much made over his bandaged eyes and chemical burns. The story of my maiming him to save my life has taken on an energy. Reporters have found their angle. Justice is blind. Dr. Scarpetta has rendered the cla.s.sic corporeal punishment. "Blinding somebody, hey take that," a host says on the air. "Who was the guy in Shakespeare? Remember, they gouged his eyes out? King Lear? You see that movie? The old king had to put raw eggs in his eye sockets or something so it wouldn't hurt so much. Really gross."

The sidewalk leading to St. Bridget's brown double front doors is slushy with salt and melted snow, and there are at most twenty cars in the parking lot. It is as Marino predicted: The police are not out in force, nor is the press. The weather may be what has kept the crowds away from the old Gothic brick church, or more likely it is the deceased herself. I, for one, am not here out of respect or affection or even a sense of loss. I unb.u.t.ton my coat and step inside the narthex as I try to evade the uncomfortable truth: I could not stand Diane Bray and have come here only out of duty. She was a police official. I was acquainted with her. She was my patient.

There is a large photograph of her on a table, just inside the narthex, and I am startled to see her haughty self-absorbed beauty, the icy cruel glint in her eyes that no camera could disguise, no matter the angle, the lighting or skills of the photographer. Diane Bray hated me for reasons I still fail to completely grasp. By all accounts, she was obsessed with me and my power and focused on my every dimension in ways I never have. I suppose I do not see myself the way she did, and I was slow to catch on when she began her aggressions, her unbelievably intense war against me which culminated in her aspiring to be appointed to a cabinet position in the commonwealth.

Bray had it all figured out. She would help mastermind transferring the medical examiner's division from the health department to public safety so she could then, if all went according to plan, somehow maneuver the governor into appointing her secretary of public safety. That done, I would politically answer to her, and she could even have the pleasure of firing me. Why? I continue to search for reasonable motivations and fail to find any that completely satisfy me. I had never even heard of her before she signed on with the Richmond P.D. last year. But she certainly knew about me and moved to my fair city with plots and schemes in the works to undo me s.a.d.i.s.tically, slowly, through a series of shocking disruptions, slanders and professional obstructions and humiliations before she ultimately ruined my career, my life. I suppose in her fantasies, the climax to her cold-blooded machinations would have been for me to give up my position in disgrace, commit suicide and leave a note saying it was her fault. Instead, I am still here. She is not. That I should have been the one who tended to her brutalized remains is an irony beyond description.

A cl.u.s.ter of police officers in dress uniform are talking to each other, and near the sanctuary door, Chief Rodney Harris is with Father O'Connor. There are civilians, too, people in fine clothes who don't look familiar, and I sense from the lost, vacant way they are casting about that they aren't local. I pick up a service bulletin and wait to speak to Chief Harris and my priest. "Yes, yes, I understand," Father O'Connor is saying. He is serene in a long, creamy robe, his fingers laced at his waist. I realize with a twinge of guilt that I have not seen him since Easter.

"Well, Father, I just can't. That's the part I can't accept," Harris replies, his thinning red hair plastered back from his flabby, unattractive face. He is a short man with a soft body that is genetically coded to be fat, a Pillsbury Dough Boy in dress blues. Harris is not a nice man and he resents powerful women. I have never understood why he hired Diane Bray and can only a.s.sume it wasn't for the right reasons.

"G.o.d's will is not always for us to understand," says Father O'Connor, and then he sees me. "Dr. Scarpetta." He smiles and takes my hand in both of his. "So good of you to come. You've been in my thoughts and prayers." The pressure of his fingers and the light in his eyes convey that he understands what has happened to me and cares. "How's your arm? I wish you would come by to see me sometime."

"Thank you, Father." I offer my hand to Chief Harris. "I know this is a difficult time for your department," I tell him. "And for you personally."

"Very, very sad," he says, staring off at other people as he gives me a perfunctory, brusque handshake.

The last time I saw Harris was at Bray's house when he walked in and was confronted by the appalling sight of her body. That moment will forever lodge between him and me. He should never have come to the scene. There was no good reason for him to see his deputy chief so completely degraded, and I will always resent him for it. I have a special distaste for people who treat crime scenes callously and with disrespect, and Harris's showing up at Bray's scene was a power play and an indulgence in voyeurism, and he knows I know it. I move on into the sanctuary and feel his eyes on my back. "Amazing Grace" swells from the organ, and people are finding pews midway up the aisle. Saints and crucifixion scenes glow in rich stained gla.s.s, and marble and bra.s.s crosses gleam. I sit on the aisle, and moments later the processional begins, and the smartly dressed strangers I noticed earlier walk in with the priest. A young crucifer carries the cross, while a man in a black suit bears the gold-and-red enamel urn containing Diane Bray's cremated remains. An elderly couple holds hands, dabbing tears.

Father O'Connor greets all of us and I learn that Bray's parents and two brothers are here. They have come from upstate New York, Delaware and Was.h.i.+ngton, D.C., and loved Diane very much. The service is simple. It isn't long. Father O'Connor sprinkles the waters of baptism on the urn. No one but Chief Harris offers any reflections or eulogies, and what he has to say is stilted and generic. "She gladly enlisted in a profession that is all about rendering help to others." He stands stiffly behind the pulpit and reads from his notes. "Knowing every day that she was placing herself at risk, for that is the life of the police. We learn to stare death in the face and fear not. We know what it is to be alone and even to be hated, and yet we fear not. We know what it is to be a lightning rod for evil, for those who are on this planet to take from others."

Wood creaks as people s.h.i.+ft in their pews. Father O'Connor smiles kindly, his head tilted at an angle as he listens. I tune out Harris. I have never attended such a sterile, hollow service and I shrink inside with dismay. The liturgy, the gospel acclamations, the singing and prayers carry no music or pa.s.sion, because Diane Bray did not love anyone, including herself. Her rapacious, overreaching life has scarcely left a ripple, All of us leave silently, venturing out into the raw, dark night to find our cars and escape. I walk briskly with head bent, the way I do when I wish to avoid others. I am aware of sounds, of a presence, and I turn around as I unlock my car door. Someone has stepped up behind me.

"Dr. Scarpetta?" The woman's refined features are accentuated by the uneven glare of streetlights, her eyes deeply set in shadows, and she wears a full-length shorn mink coat. A hint of recognition sparks somewhere in the deep. "I didn't know you were going to be here, but sure am glad," she adds. I am aware of her New York accent, and shock rocks me before I comprehend. "I'm Jaime Berger," she says, offering a kid-gloved hand. "We need to talk."

"YOU WERE AT THE SERVICE?" THESE ARE THE FIRST words out of my mouth. I didn't see her there. I am paranoid enough to consider that Jaime Berger never stepped inside the church at all but has been waiting in the parking lot for me. "Did you know Diane Bray?" I ask her.

"I'm getting to know her now." Berger turns up her coat collar, her breath smoking out. She glances at her watch and pushes the winding stem. The luminescent dial glows pale green. "I don't suppose you're going back to your office."

"I wasn't planning on it, but I can," I say without enthusiasm. She wants to talk about the murders of Kim Luong and Diane Bray. Of course, she's interested in the unidentified body from the port, toothe one we all a.s.sume is Chandonne's brother, Thomas. But if his case ever sees a courtroom at all, she adds, it isn't going to be in this country. This is her way of telling me Thomas Chandonne is another free lunch. Jean-Baptiste murdered his brother and got away with it. I climb up into the driver's seat of the Navigator.

"How do you like your car?" she asks what seems an inane, inappropriate question at a time like this. Already I am feeling probed. I sense instantly that Berger does nothing, asks nothing, without a reason. She surveys the luxurious sport utility vehicle that Anna is letting me use while my sedan remains strangely off limits.

"It's borrowed. Maybe you'd better follow me, Ms.

Berger," I say. "There are some parts of town you wouldn't want to get lost in after dark."

"I'm wondering if you could track down Pete Marino." She points a remote key at her own sport utility vehicle, a white Mercedes ML430 with New York plates, and headlights flash as the doors unlock. "Maybe it would be a good thing for all of us to talk."

I start the engine and s.h.i.+ver in the dark. The night is soggy and icy water drips from trees. The cold seeps inside my cast and finds its way into the cracks of my fractured elbow, seizing exquisitely tender s.p.a.ces where nerve endings and marrow live, and they begin to complain in deep rolling throbs. I page Marino and realize I don't know the number of Anna's car phone. I fumble to dig my cell phone out of my satchel while steering with the fingertips of my broken arm and keeping an eye on Berger's headlights in my rearview mirror. Marino calls me back long minutes later. I tell him what has happened and he reacts with typical cynicism, but beneath it is an excited current, maybe anger, maybe something else. "Yeah, well, I don't believe in coincidences," he says sharply. "You just happen to go to Bray's memorial service and Berger just happens to be there? Why the h.e.l.l did she go, in the first place?"

"I don't know why," I reply. "But if I were new to the town and to the characters involved, I'd want to see who cared enough about Bray to show up. I'd also want to see who didn't." I try to be logical. "She didn't tell you she was going? What about when you met with her last night?" I am out with it. 1 want to know what went on in that meeting.

"Didn't say nothing about it," he replies. "She had other things on her mind."

"Such as? Or are we keeping secrets?" I add pointedly.

He is silent for a long moment. "Look, Doc," he finally says, "this ain't my case. It's New York's case and I'm just doing what I'm told. You want to know stuff, ask her, 'cause that's the way she f.u.c.king wants it." Resentment hardens his tone. "And I'm in the middle of lovely Mosby Court and have other things to do besides jump every time she snaps her fancy big-city fingers."

Mosby Court is not the princely residential neighborhood the name suggests, but one of seven low-rent housing projects in the city. All are called courts, and four are named for outstanding Virginians: an actor, an educator, a prosperous tobacconist, a Civil War hero. I hope Marino isn't in Mosby Court because there has been another shooting. "You're not bringing me more business, are you?" I ask him.

"Another misdemeanor murder."

I don't laugh at this bigoted codethis cynical label for a young, black male shot multiple times, probably on the street, probably over drugs, probably dressed in expensive athletic clothes and basketball shoes, and n.o.body saw a thing.

"Meet you in the bay," Marino sullenly says. "Five, ten minutes."

The snow has completely stopped and the temperature remains warm enough to keep the city from locking up with freezing slush again. Downtown is dressed for the holidays, the skyline bordered in white lights, some of them burned out. In front of the James Center, people have pulled over to explore a blaze of reindeer sculpted of light, and on 9th Street, the capitol glows like an egg through the bare branches of ancient trees, the pale yellow mansion next to it elegant with candles in every window. I catch a glimpse of couples in evening clothes getting out of cars in the parking lot and remember with panic that tonight is the governor's Christmas party for top state officials. I sent in my RSVP more than a month ago, confirming I would attend. Oh G.o.d. It will not be lost on Governor Mike Mitch.e.l.l and his wife, Edith, that I am a no-show, and the impulse to swerve onto the capitol grounds is so strong that I flip on my turn signal. I just as quickly flip it off. I can't possibly go, not even for fifteen minutes. What would I do with Jaime Berger? Take her along? Introduce her to everyone? I smile ruefully and shake my head inside my dark c.o.c.kpit as I imagine the looks I would get, as I fantasize about what would happen if the press found out.

Having worked for government my entire career, I never underestimate the potential for the mundane. The telephone number for the governor's mansion is listed, and directory a.s.sistance can automatically dial it for an additional fifty cents. Momentarily, I have an executive protection unit officer on the line, and before I can explain that I simply want to pa.s.s on a message, the trooper puts me on hold. A tone sounds at measured intervals, as if my call is being timed, and I wonder if calls to the mansion are taped. Across Broad Street, an older, drearier part of town gives way to the new brick and gla.s.s empire of Biotech, where my office is the anchor. I check the rearview mirror for Berger's SUV. She doggedly follows, her lips moving in my rearview mirror. She is on the phone, and it gives me an uneasy feeling as I watch her say words I can't hear.

"Kay?" Governor Mitch.e.l.l's voice suddenly sounds over Anna's hands-free car phone.

My own voice catches in surprise as I rush to tell him I wasn't expecting to disturb him, that I am terribly sorry to miss his party tonight. He doesn't answer right away, his hesitation his way of saying I am making a mistake by not coming to his party. Mitch.e.l.l is a man who understands opportunity and knows how to appropriate it. In his way of thinking, for me to pa.s.s up a chance for even a moment with him and other powerful leaders of the commonwealth is foolish, especially now. Yes, now of all times.

"The New York prosecutor's in town." I don't have to say for which cases. "I'm on my way to meet her right now, Governor. I hope you understand."

"I think it would be a good idea for you and me to meet, too." He is firm. "I was going to take you aside at the party."

I have the sensation of stepping on broken gla.s.s, afraid to look because I might find I am bleeding. "Whenever it's convenient for you, Governor Mitch.e.l.l," I respectfully answer.

"Why don't you stop by the mansion on your way home?"

"I can probably be free in about two hours," I tell him. "I'll see you then, Kay. Say h.e.l.lo to Ms. Berger," he goes on. "When I was attorney general, we had a case that involved her office. I'll tell you about it sometime."

Off 4th Street, the enclosed bay where bodies are received looks like a square, gray igloo appended to the side of my building. I drive up the ramp and stop at the ma.s.sive garage door, realizing with intense frustration that I have no way to get in. The remote opener is in my car, which is inside my garage at the house I have been banished from. I dial the number for the after-hours morgue attendant. "Arnold?" I say when he answers on the sixth ring. "Could you please open the bay door?"

"Oh, yes ma'am." He sounds groggy and confused, as if I just woke him up. "Doing it right now, ma'am. Your opener not working?"

I try to be patient with him. Arnold is one of those people who is overwhelmed by inertia. He battles gravity. Gravity wins. I am constantly having to remind myself that there is no point in getting angry with him. Highly motivated people aren't fighting for his job. Berger has pulled up behind me and Marino is behind her, all of us waiting for the door to rise, granting us entrance into the kingdom of the dead. My portable phone rings.

"Well, ain't this cozy," Marino says in my ear.

"Apparently she and the governor are acquainted." I watch a dark van turn into the ramp behind Marino's midnight blue Crown Victoria. The bay door begins to lurch up with screeching complaints.

"Well, well. You don't think he has something to do with Wolfman leaving us for the Big Apple, do you?"

"I don't know what to think anymore," I confess. The bay is large enough to hold all of us, and we get out at the same time, the rumbling of engines and shutting of doors amplified by concrete. Cold, raw air jars my fractured elbow again, and I am baffled to see Marino in a suit and tie. "You look nice," I dryly comment. He lights a cigarette, his eyes fastened to Berger's mink-draped figure as she leans inside her Mercedes to collect belongings from the backseat. Two men in long, dark coats open the tailgate of the van, revealing the stretcher inside and its ominous, shrouded cargo.

"Believe it or not," Marino says to me, "I was going to stop by the memorial service for the h.e.l.l of it, then he decides to get whacked." He indicates the dead body in the back of the van. "It's turning out to be a little more complicated than we thought at first. Maybe more than a case of urban renewal." Berger heads toward us, loaded down with books, accordion files and a st.u.r.dy leather briefcase. "You came prepared." Marino stares at her with a flat expression on his face. Aluminum clacks as stretcher legs open. The tailgate slams shut.

"I really appreciate both of you seeing me on such short notice," Berger says.

In the glare of the lighted bay, I note the fine lines on her face and neck, the faint hollows in her cheeks that tattle on her age. At a glance, or when she's made up for the camera, she could pa.s.s for thirty-five. I suspect she is a few years older than I am, closer to fifty. Her angular features, short dark hair and perfect teeth coalesce into a portrait of the familiar, and I connect her with the expert I have seen on Court TV. She begins to resemble the photographs I pulled up on the Internet when I released search engines to find her in cybers.p.a.ce so I could prepare myself for this invasion from what seems an alien galaxy.

Marino doesn't offer to help her carry anything. He ignores her the same way he does me when he is stung or resentful or jealous. I unlock the door leading inside as the attendants wheel the stretcher in our direction, and I recognize the two men but can't recall their names. One of them stares at Berger with starstruck eyes. "You're the lady on TV," he pipes up. "Holy smoke. That lady judge."

"'Fraid not. I'm no judge." Berger looks them in the eye and smiles.

"You ain't the lady judge? You swear?" The stretcher clatters through the doorway. "I guess you want him in the cooler," one of the men says to me.

"Yes," I reply. "You know where to sign him in. Arnold's around here somewhere."

"Yes ma'am, I know what to do." Neither attendant makes any indication that I might have ended up in their van last weekend as another delivery had my destiny turned out differently. It is my observation that people who work for funeral homes and removal services aren't shocked or even moved by much. It is not lost on me that these two guys are more impressed with Berger's celebrity than with the fact that their local chief medical examiner is lucky to be alive and is faring rather poorly in the public eye these days. "You ready for Christmas?" one of them asks me.

"Never am," I reply. "You gentlemen have a happy one."

"Lot happier than he's gonna have." Indicating the pouched body, they roll off in the direction of the morgue office, where they will fill out a toe tag and sign in the newest patient. I push b.u.t.tons to open several sets of stainless steel doors as we walk over disinfected floors, pa.s.sing coolers and the rooms where autopsies are done. Industrial-strength deodorizers are heavy-handed in their presence, and Marino talks about the case from Mosby Court. Berger asks him nothing about it, but he seems to think she wants to know. Or maybe he is showing off now.

"First, it looked like a drive-by since he was in the street and his head was b.l.o.o.d.y. But I gotta tell you, now I'm wondering if maybe he got hit by a car," he informs us. I open doors leading into the dim silence of the administrative wing while he goes on to tell Berger every detail of a case he hasn't even discussed with me yet. I show them into my private conference room and we take off our coats. Berger is dressed in dark wool slacks and a heavy black sweater that does not accentuate but certainly can't hide her ample bosom. She has the slender, firm build of an athlete, and her scuffed Vibram boots hint that she will go anywhere and do anything if work requires it. She pulls out a chair and begins arranging briefcase, files and books on the round wooden table.

"See, he's got burns here and here." Marino points to his left cheek and neck and pulls out Polaroid photographs from the inside pocket of his suit jacket. He makes the smart choice of handing them to me first.

"Why would a hit-and-run have burns?" My question is a reb.u.t.tal, and I am getting an uneasy feeling.

"If he was pushed out while the car was moving, or if he got toasted by the exhaust pipe," Marino suggests, not sure, not really caring. He has other matters on his mind.

"Not likely," I reply in an ominous tone.

"s.h.i.+t," Marino says, and it begins to dawn on him as he meets my eyes. "I never looked at him, was already in a bag by the time I got there. G.o.dd.a.m.n, I just went by what I was told by the guys at the scene. s.h.i.+t," he says again, glancing at Berger, his face darkening with gathering embarra.s.sment and irritation. "They'd already bagged the body by the time I got there. Dumb as a bag of hammers, all of 'em."

The man in the Polaroids is light-skinned with handsome features and short, tightly curled hair dyed egg-yolk yellow. A small gold loop pierces his left ear. I know instantly that his burns were not made by an exhaust pipe, which would leave elliptical burns and not these, which are perfectly round and the size of silver dollars and blistered. He was alive when he got them. I give Marino a long look. He makes the connection and blows out, shaking his head. "We have an ID?" I say to him.

"We don't got a clue." He smooths back hair that at this stage in his life is nothing more than gray fringe gelled to the top of his broad bald pate. He would look much better if he would just shave his head. "n.o.body in the area says they've ever seen him before, either, and none of my guys think he looks like anybody we're used to seeing out there on the street."

"I need to look at the body now." I get up from the table.

Marino pushes back his chair. Berger watches me with penetrating blue eyes. She has stopped spreading out her paperwork. "Do you mind if I come along?" she asks.