“Tell me about them.”
“Let’s see. The most recent one. What I know about it. What anybody knows about it. Two days after Easter, just four nights ago,” she begins. “A forty-year-old schoolteacher named Glenda Marler. She’s a teacher at the high school—same high school I went to. Blonde, blue-eyed, pretty, very smart. Divorced, no children. This past Tuesday night, she goes to the Road Side Bar Be Q, gets pulled pork, hush puppies and slaw to go. She has a ’94 Honda Accord, blue, and is observed driving away from the restaurant, south on Main Street, right through the middle of town. She vanishes, her car found abandoned in the parking lot of the high school where she taught. Of course, the task force is suggesting she was having a rendezvous with one of her students, that the case isn’t related to the others, that it’s a copycat. Bullshit.”
“Her own high school parking lot,” Scarpetta thoughtfully observes. “So he talked to her, found out about her after he had her in his car, maybe asked her where she worked, and she told him. Or else he stalked her.”
“Which do you think it is?”
“I don’t know. Most serial killers stalk their victims. But there’s no set rule, despite what most profilers would like to think.”
“The other victim,” Nic continues, “vanished right before I came here. Ivy Ford. Forty-two years old, blonde, blue-eyed, attractive, worked as a bank teller. Kids are off in college, and her husband was up in Jackson, Mississippi, on a business trip, so she was home alone when someone must have showed up at her door. As usual, no sign of a struggle. No nothing. And she’s gone without a trace.”
“Nothing is ever without a trace,” Scarpetta says as she envisions each scenario, contemplating the obvious: The victim has no reason to fear her attacker until it is too late.
“Is Ivy Ford’s house still secured?” Scarpetta doubts it after all this time.
“Family’s still living in it. I don’t know how people return to homes where such awful things have happened.”
Nic starts to say that she wouldn’t. But that isn’t true. Earlier in her life, she did.
“The car in this most recent case, Glenda Marler’s case, is impounded and was thoroughly examined?” Scarpetta asks.
“Hours and hours we . . . well, as you know, I was here.” This detail disappoints her. “But I’ve gotten the full report, and I know we spent a lot of time on it. My guys lifted every print they could find. Entered the useable ones in AFIS, and no matches. Personally, I don’t think that matters because I believe that whoever grabbed Glenda Marler was never inside her car. So his prints wouldn’t be in there, anyway. And the only prints on the door handles were hers.”
“What about her keys and wallet and any other personal effects?”
“Keys in the ignition, her pocketbook and wallet in the high school parking lot about twenty feet from the car.”
“Money in the wallet?” Scarpetta asks.
Nic shakes her head. “But her checkbook and charge cards weren’t touched. She wasn’t one to carry much cash. Whatever she had, it was gone, and I know she had at least six dollars and thirty-two cents because that was the change she got when she gave the guy at the barbeque a ten-dollar bill to pay for her food. I had my guys check, because oddly, the bag of food wasn’t inside her car. So there was no receipt. We had to go back to the barbeque and have him pull her receipt.”
“Then it would appear that the perpetrator took her food, too.”
This is odd, more typical of a burglary or robbery, certainly not the usual in a psychopathic violent crime.
“As far as you know, is robbery involved in the cases of the other eight missing women?” Scarpetta asks.
“Rumor has it that their billfolds were cleaned out of cash and tossed not far from where they were snatched.”
“No fingerprints in any of the cases, as far as you know?”
“I don’t know for a fact.”
“Perhaps DNA from skin cells where the perpetrator touched the billfold?”
“I don’t know what the Baton Rouge police have done, because they don’t tell anybody shit. But the guys at my department swabbed everything we could, including Ivy Ford’s wallet, and did get her DNA profile—and another one that isn’t in the FBI’s database, CODIS. Louisiana, as you know, is just getting started on a DNA database and is so backed up on entering samples, you may as well forget it.”
“But you do have an unknown profile,” Scarpetta says with interest. “Although we have to accept right off that it could be anybody’s. What about her children, her husband?”
“The DNA’s not theirs.”
Scarpetta nods. “Then you have to start wondering who else would have had good reason to touch Ivy Ford’s wallet. Who else besides the killer.”
“I wonder about that twenty-four hours a day.”
“And this most recent case, Glenda Marler?”
“The state police labs have the evidence. The tests results will be a while, even though there’s a rush on them.”
“An alternate light source used on the inside of the car?”
“Yes. Nothing, nothing, nothing, nothing,” Nic says in frustration. “No crime scenes, no bodies, like it’s all a bad dream. If even just one body would show up. The coroner’s great. You’ve heard of him? Dr. Sam Lanier.”
Scarpetta doesn’t know him.
THE EAST BATON ROUGE PARISH Coroner’s Office overlooks a long straight reach of the Mississippi River and the former art deco state capitol where the wily, fearless and despotic Huey Long was assassinated.
Muddy, sluggish water carries Dr. Sam Lanier’s eye to a riverboat casino and past the USS Kidd battleship to the distant Old Mississippi Bridge, as he stands before his office window on the fifth floor of the Governmental Building. He is a fit man in his early sixties with a head of gray hair that naturally parts neatly on the right side. Unlike most men of his power, he shuns suits except when he is in court or attending the political functions he cannot avoid.
His may be a political office, but he despises politics and virtually all people involved in it. Contrary by nature, Dr. Lanier wears the same outfit pretty much every day, even if he’s meeting with the mayor: comfortable shoes capable of walking him into unpleasant places, dark slacks and a polo shirt embroidered with the East Baton Rouge Parish coroner’s crest.
Deliberate man that he is, he ponders how to handle the bizarre communication he received yesterday morning, a letter enclosed in a National Academy of Justice postage-paid mailing. Dr. Lanier has been a member of the organization for years. The large white NAJ envelope was sealed. It did not look tampered with in any way until Dr. Lanier opened it and found another envelope, also sealed. It was addressed to him by hand in block printing, the return address the Texas Department of Criminal Justice, Polunsky Unit. A search on the Internet revealed that the Polunsky Unit is death row. The letter, also written by hand in block printing, reads:
Greetings Monsieur Lanier,
Of course you remember Madame Charlotte Dard, whose untimely, sad death occurred on 14 September 1995. You witnessed her autopsy, and I do envy you for that delicious experience, having never seen one myself, not in person. I will be executed soon and am relieving myself of secrets.
Madame Dard was murdered very cleverly.
Mais non! Not by me.
A person of interest, as they stupidly refer to possible suspects these days, fled to Palm Desert shortly after Madame Dard’s death. This person is not there now. This person’s location and identity you must discover for yourself. I very much encourage you to seek assistance. Might I suggest the great skills of Detective Pete Marino? He knows me very well from my joyous Richmond days. Surely you must have heard of the great Marino?
Your surname, mon cher monsieur, implies you are of French descent. Perhaps we are related.
Á bientôt,
Jean-Baptiste Chandonne
Dr. Lanier has heard of Jean-Baptiste Chandonne. He has not heard of Pete Marino but is introduced to him easi
ly enough by sending out a few search engines to chug through cyberspace and find him. It is true. Marino led the investigation when Chandonne was murdering women in Richmond. What interests Dr. Lanier more, however, is that Marino is best known for his close professional relationship with Dr. Kay Scarpetta, a gifted forensic pathologist. Dr. Lanier has always respected her and was more than a little impressed when he heard her lecture at a regional meeting of coroners. Most forensic pathologists, particularly ones with her status, look down on coroners, think they’re all funeral home directors who got voted into office. Of course, some of them are.
Trouble stuck out its big foot and tripped Dr. Scarpetta, hurting her badly, several years back. For that she has Dr. Lanier’s sympathy. Not a day goes by when trouble doesn’t stomp around looking for him, too.
Now some notorious serial killer seems to think Dr. Lanier needs the help of her colleague Marino. Maybe he does. Maybe he’s being set up. With the election not even six months away, Dr. Lanier is suspicious of any deviation from routine, and a letter from Jean-Baptiste Chandonne makes him as leery as hell. The only reason he can’t dismiss it is simple: Jean-Baptiste Chandonne, if the letter is really from him, knows about Charlotte Dard. Her case has been forgotten by the public and was never all that newsworthy outside of Baton Rouge. Her cause of death was undetermined. Dr. Lanier has always entertained the possibility that she was murdered.
He’s always believed that the best way to identify a cottonmouth is to poke at it. If the inside of its mouth is white, whack off its head. Otherwise, the critter’s nothing more than a harmless water snake.
He may as well poke at the truth and see what he finds. While sitting at his desk, he picks up the phone and discovers Marino doesn’t care who finds him—he has what Dr. Lanier calls a bring-’em-on attitude. He envisions Marino as the type who would ride a Fat Boy Harley, probably without a helmet. The cop’s answering machine doesn’t say he can’t answer the phone because he’s not in or is on the other line, which is what most professional, polite people record as greetings. The recorded gruff male voice says, “Don’t call me at home,” and offers another number for the person to try.
Dr. Lanier tries the other number. The voice that answers sounds like the recorded one.
“Detective Marino?”
“Who wants to know?”
He’s from New Jersey and doesn’t trust anyone, probably doesn’t like hardly anyone, either.
Dr. Lanier introduces himself, and he’s careful about what he says, too. In the trust and like department, Marino’s met his match.
“We had a death down here about eight years ago. You ever heard of a woman named Charlotte Dard?”
“Nope.”
Dr. Lanier gives him a few details of the case.
“Nope.”
Dr. Lanier gives him a few more.
“Let me ask you something. Why the hell would I know anything about some drug overdose in Baton Rouge?” Marino’s not at all nice about it.
“Same question I have.”
“Huh? What is this? Are you some asshole bullshitting me?”
“A lot of people think I’m an asshole,” Dr. Lanier replies. “But I’m not bullshitting you.”
He debates whether he should tell Marino about the letter from Jean-Baptiste Chandonne. He decides that no useful purpose would be served. He’s already found out what he needed to know: Marino is clueless about Charlotte Dard and annoyed at being bothered by some coroner.
“One other quick question, and then I won’t take up any more of your time,” Dr. Lanier says. “You have a long history with Dr. Kay Scarpetta . . . .”
“What’s she got to do with this?” Marino’s entire demeanor changes. Now he’s just plain hostile.
“I understand she’s doing private consulting.” Dr. Lanier had read a brief mention of it on the Internet.
Marino doesn’t respond.
“What do you think of her?” Dr. Lanier asks the question that he feels sure will trigger a volcanic temper.
“Tell you what, asshole. I think enough of her not to talk about her with some shitbag stranger!”
The call ends with a dial tone.
In Sam Lanier’s mind, he couldn’t have gotten a stronger validation of Dr. Kay Scarpetta’s character. She’s welcome down here.
SCARPETTA WAITS IN LINE at the Marriott’s front desk, her head throbbing, her central nervous system shorted out by wine so terrible it ought to have a skull and crossbones on the label.
Her malady, her malaise, is far more serious than she ever let on to Nic, and with each passing minute, her physical condition and mood worsen. She refuses to diagnose her illness as a hangover (after all, she barely had two glasses of that goddamn wine), and she refuses to forgive herself for even considering an alcoholic beverage sold in a cardboard box.
Painful experience has proven for years that when she suffers such merry misadventures, the more coffee she drinks, the more awful she’s going to feel, but this never stops her from ordering a large pot in her room and flying by the seat of her pants instead of trusting her instruments, as Lucy likes to say when her aunt ignores what she knows and does what she feels and crash-lands.
When she finally reaches the front desk, she asks for her bill and is handed an envelope.
“This just came in for you, ma’am,” the harried receptionist says as he tears off the printout of her room charges and hands it to her.
Inside the envelope is a fax. Scarpetta walks behind the bellman pushing her cart. It is loaded with bags and three very large hard cases containing carousels of slides that she has not bothered to convert to PowerPoint presentations because she can’t stand them. Showing a picture of a man who has blown off the top of his head with a shotgun or a child scalded to death does not require a computer and special effects. Slide presentations and handouts serve her purposes just as well now as they did when she started her career.
The fax is from her secretary, Rose, who must have called about the same time Scarpetta was miserably making her way from the elevator to the lobby. All Rose says is that Dr. Sam Lanier, the coroner of East Baton Rouge Parish, very much needs to speak to her. Rose includes his home, office and cell telephone numbers. Immediately, Scarpetta thinks of Nic Robillard, of their conversation not even an hour ago.
She waits until she is inside her taxi before calling Dr. Lanier’s office number. He answers himself.
“How did you know who my secretary is and where to reach her?” she asks right off.
“Your former office in Richmond was kind enough to give me your number in Florida. Rose is quite charming, by the way.”
“I see,” she replies as the taxi drives away from the hotel. “I’m in a taxi on the way to the airport. Can we make this quick?”
Her abruptness is more about her annoyance with her former office than with him. Giving out her unlisted phone number is blatant harassment—not that it hasn’t happened before. Some people who still work at the Chief Medical Examiner’s Office remain loyal to their boss. Others are traitors and bend in the direction that power pulls.
“Quick it will be,” Dr. Lanier says. “I’m wondering if you would review a case for me, Dr. Scarpetta—an eight-year-old case that was never successfully resolved. A woman died under suspicious circumstances, apparently from a drug overdose. You ever heard of Charlotte Dard?”
“No.”
“I’ve just gotten information—don’t know if it’s good or not—but I don’t want to discuss it while you’re on a cell phone.”
“This is a Baton Rouge case?” Scarpetta digs in her handbag for a notepad and pen.
“Another story for another day. But yes, it’s a Baton Rouge case.”
“Your case?”
“It was. I’d like to send you the reports, slides and all the rest. Looks like I’d better dig back into this thing.” He hesitates. “And as you might suspect, I don’t have much of a budget . . .”
“Nobody who calls me has consultants built int
o the budget,” she interrupts him. “I didn’t either when I was in Virginia.”
She tells him to FedEx her the case and gives him her address.
She adds, “Do you happen to know an investigator in Zachary named Nic Robillard?”
A pause, then, “Believe I talked to her on the phone a few months back. I’m sure you know what’s going on down here.”
“I can’t help but know. It’s all over the news,” Scarpetta cautiously replies over the noise of the taxi and rush-hour traffic.
Neither her tone nor her words betray that she has any personal information about the cases, and her trust of Nic slips several notches as she frets that perhaps Nic called Dr. Lanier and talked about her. Why she might have done that is hard to say, unless she simply volunteered that Scarpetta could be a very useful resource for him, should he ever need her. Maybe he really does need her for this cold case he’s just told her about. Maybe he’s trying to develop a relationship with her because he’s not equipped to handle these serial murders by himself.
“How many forensic pathologists work for you?” Scarpetta asks him.
“One.”
“Did Nic Robillard call you about me?” She doesn’t have time for subtlety.
“Why would she?”
“That’s no answer.”
“Hell no,” he says.
AN AIR-CONDITIONING UNIT rattles in a dusty window, the afternoon hotter than usual for April, as Jay Talley hacks meat into small pieces and drops them into a bloody plastic bucket below the scarred wooden table where he sits.
The table, like everything else inside his fishing shack, is old and ugly, the sort of household objects people leave at the edges of their driveways to be picked up by garbage collectors or spirited away by scavengers. His work space is his special place, and he is patient as he repeatedly adjusts torn bits of clothing that he jams under several of the table legs in his ongoing attempt to keep the table level. He prefers not to chop on a surface that moves, but balance is virtually impossible in his warped little world, and the graying wood floor slopes enough to roll an egg from the kitchenette right out to the dock, where some planks are rotted, others curled like dull dead hair flipped up at the ends.
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