Cause of Death

by Patricia Cornwell

  "Too bored to accept your financial help, Mrs. Eddings?" I delicately said.

  She lifted her chin. "Now I believe you're getting a bit too personal."

  Yes, I am, and I regret that you have to be subjected to it. But I am a doctor, and right now, your son is my patient. It is my mission to do everything I can to determine what might have happened to him."

  She took a deep, tremulous breath and fingered the top button of her jacket. I waited as she fought back tears.

  "I sent him money every month. You know how inheritance taxes are, and Ted was accustomed to living beyond his means. I suppose his father and I are to blame." She could barely continue. "Life was not hard enough for my sons. I don't suppose life was very hard for me until Arthur passed on."

  "What did your husband do?"

  "He worked in tobacco. We met during the war when most of the world's cigarettes were made around here and you could find hardly a one, or stockings either."

  Her reminiscing soothed her, and I did not interrupt.

  "One night I went to a party at the Officers' Service Club at the Jefferson Hotel. Arthur was a captain in a unit of the Army called the Richmond Grays, and he could dance." She smiled. "Oh, he could dance like he breathed music and had it in his veins, and I spotted him right away.

  Our eyes needed to meet but once, and then we were never without each other."

  She stared off, and the fire snapped and waved as if it had something important to say.

  "Of course, that was part of the problem," she went on.

  Arthur and I never stopped being absorbed with each other and I think the boys sometimes felt they were in the way." She was looking directly at me now. "I didn't even ask if you'd like tea or perhaps a touch of something stronger."

  "Thank you. I'm fine. Was Ted close to his brother?"

  "I already gave the policeman Jeff's number. What was his name? Martino or something. I actually found him rather rude. You know, a little Goldschlager is good on a night like this."

  "No, thank you."

  "I discovered it through Ted," she oddly went on as tears suddenly spilled down. "He found it when he was skiing out west and brought a bottle home. It tastes like liquid fire with a little cinnamon. That's what he said when he gave it to me. He was always bringing me little things."

  "Did he ever bring you champagne?"

  She delicately blew her nose.

  "You said he was to have visited you today," I reminded her.

  "He was supposed to come for lunch," she said.

  "There is a very nice bottle of champagne in his refrigerator. It has a bow tied around it, and I'm wondering if this might have been something he had intended to bring when he came by for lunch today."

  "Oh my." Her voice shook. "That must have been for some other celebration he planned. I don't drink champagne. It gives me a headache."

  "We're looking for his computer disks," I said. "We're looking for any notes pertaining to what he might have been recently writing. Did he ever ask you to store anything for him here?"

  "Some of his athletic equipment is in the attic but it's old as Methuselah." Her voice caught and she cleared it.

  "And papers from school."

  "Are you aware of his having a safe deposit box, perhaps?"

  "No." She shook her head.

  "What about a friend he might have entrusted these things to?"

  "I don't know about his friends," she said again as freezing rain clicked against glass.

  "And he didn't mention any romantic interests. You're saying he had none?"

  She pressed her lips tight.

  "Please tell me if I am misunderstanding something."

  "There was a girl he brought by some months back. I guess it was in the summer and apparently she's some sort of scientist." She paused. "Seems he was doing a story or something, they met that way. We had a bit of a disagreement over her."

  "Why?"

  "She was attractive and one of these academic types.

  Maybe she's a professor. I can't recall but she's from overseas somewhere."

  I waited, but she had nothing more to say.

  "What was your disagreement?" I asked. -[ knew the minute I met her that she was not of good character, and she was not permitted in my home," Mrs. Eddings replied.

  "Does she live in this area?" I asked.

  "One would expect so, but I wouldn't know where she is."

  "But he might have still been seeing her."

  "I have no idea who Ted was seeing," she said, and I believed she was lying.

  "Mrs. Eddings," I said, "by all appearances, your son was not home much."

  She just looked at me.

  "Did he have a housekeeper? For example, someone who took care of his plants?"

  "I sent my housekeeper by when needed," she said.

  "Corian. Sometimes she brings him food. Ted can never bother with cooking."

  "When was the last time she went by?"

  "I don't know," she said, and I could tell she was getting weary of questions. "Some time before Christmas, I suspect, because she's had the flu."

  "Did Corian ever mention to you what is in his house?"

  "I guess you mean his guns," she said. "Just another something he started to collect a year or so back. That's all he wanted for his birthdays gift certificate for one of those gun stores around here. As if a woman would dare walk into such a place."

  It was pointless to probe further, for she had the single desire for her son to be alive. Beyond that, any activity or inquiry was simply an invasion she was determined to sidestep. At close to ten, I headed home, and almost slipped twice on vacant streets where it was too dark to see. The night was bitterly cold and filled with sharp wet sounds as ice coated trees and glazed the ground.

  I felt discouraged because it did not seem anyone knew Eddings beyond what he had been like on the surface or in the past. I had learned he had collected coins and butterflies and had always been charming. He was an ambitious reporter with a limited attention span, and I thought how odd it was that I should be walking through his old neighborhood in such weather to talk about this man. I wondered what he would think could I tell him, and I felt very sad.

  I did not want to chat with anyone when I walked into my house, but went straight to my room. I was warming my hands with hot water and washing my face when Lucy appeared in the doorway. I knew instantly that she was in one of her moods.

  "Did you get enough to eat?" I looked at her in the mirror over the sink.

  "I never get enough to eat," she irritably replied.

  "Someone named Danny from your Norfolk office called.

  He said the answering service was contacted about our cars.

  For a moment my mind went blank. Then I remembered.

  "I gave the towing service the office number." I dried my face with a towel. "So I guess the answering service reached Danny at home."

  "Whatever. He wants you to call." She stared at me in the mirror as if I had done something wrong.

  "What is it?" I stared back.

  "I've just got to get out of here."

  "I'll try to get the cars here tomorrow," I said, stung.

  I walked out of the bathroom, and she followed.

  "I need to get back to UVA."

  "Of course you do, Lucy," I said.

  "You don't understand. I've got so much to do."

  "I didn't realize your independent study or whatever it is had already started." I walked into the gathering room and headed for the bar.

  "It doesn't matter if it's started. I've got a lot to set up. And I don't understand how you're going to get the cars

  here. Maybe Marino can take me to get mine."

  "Marino is very busy and, my plan is simple," I said.

  "Danny will drive my car to Richmond and he has a reliable friend who will drive your Suburban. Then Danny and his friend will take the bus back to Norfolk."

  "What time?" -That's the only snag. I can't permit Danny to do any
of this until after hours, because he can't deliver my personal car on state time." I was opening a bottle of Chardonnay.

  "Shit," Lucy impatiently said. "So I won't have transportation tomorrow, either?"

  "I'm afraid neither of us will," I said.

  "And what are you going to do, then?"

  I handed her a glass of wine. "I'll be going into my office and probably spending a lot of time on the phone.

  Anything you might be able to do at the field office here?"

  She shrugged. "I know a couple people who went through the Academy with me."

  At the very least she could find another agent to take her to the gym so she could work off her ugly mood, I started to say, but held my tongue.

  "I don't want wine." She set the glass down on the bar.

  "I think I'll just drink beer for a while."

  "Why are you so angry?"

  "I'm not angry." She got a Beck's Light out of the small refrigerator and popped off the cap.

  "Do you want to sit down?"

  "No," she said. "By the way, I've got the Book, so don't get alarmed when you don't find it in your briefcase."

  "What do you mean, you have it?" I looked uneasily at her.

  "I was reading it while you were out talking to Mrs. Eddings." She took a swallow of beer. "I thought it would be a good idea to go over it again in case there's something we didn't notice."

  "I think you've looked at it quite enough," I flatly said.

  "in fact, I think all of us have."

  "There's a lot of Old Testament-type stuff in there. I mean, it's not like it's satanic, really."

  I watched her in silence as I wondered what was really going on in that incredibly complicated brain.

  "I actually find it rather interesting, and believe it has power only if you allow it to have power. I don't allow it, so it doesn't bother me," she was saying.

  I set down my glass. "Well, something certainly is."

  "Only thing bothering me is I'm stranded and tired. So guess I'll just go to bed," she said. "I hope you sleep well."

  But I did not. Instead, I sat before the fire worrying about her, for I probably knew my niece better than anyone did.

  Perhaps she and Janet had simply had a fight and repairs would be made in the morning, or maybe she really did have too much to do, and not being able to return to Charlottesville was more of a problem than I knew.

  I turned the fire off and checked the burglar alarm one more time to make certain it was armed, then I walked back to my bedroom and shut the door. Still, I could not sleep, so I sat up in lamplight listening to the weather as I studied the journal that had been printed by Eddings' fax machine.

  There were eighteen numbers dialed over the past two weeks, and all of them were curious and suggestive that he certainly had been home at least some of the time and doing something in his office.

  What also struck me right away was that if he had worked at home, I would have expected numerous transmissions to the AP office downtown. But this was not the case. Since mid-December, he had faxed his office only twice, at least from the machine we had found at his house.

  This was simple enough to determine because he had entered a speed dial label for the wire service's fax number, so "AP DESK" appeared in the journal's identification column, along with less obvious labels like -NVSE,"DRMS,"

  "CPT" and "LM." Three of those numbers had Tidewater, Central and Northern Virginia area codes and exchanges, while the area code for DRMS was Memphis, Tennessee.

  I tried to sleep but information drifted past my eyes and questions spoke because I could not shut them off. I wondered who Eddings had been contacting in these different places, or if it mattered. But what I could not get away from was where he had died. I could still see his body suspended in that murky river, tethered by a useless hose caught on a rusting screw. I could feel his stiffness as I held him in my arms and swam him up with me. I had known before I had ever reached the surface that he had been dead many hours.

  At three A.M. I sat up in bed and stared at the darkness.

  The house was quiet except for its usual shifting sounds, and I simply could not turn off my conscious mind. Reluctantly, I put my feet on the floor, my heart beating hard, as if it were startled that I should stir at such an hour. In my office I shut the door and wrote the following brief letter:

  TO WHOM IT MAY CONCERN:

  I realize this is a fax number, otherwise I would call in person. I need to know your identification, if possible, as your number has shown up on the printout of a recently deceased individual's fax machine. Please contact me at your earliest convenience, If you need verification of the authenticity of this communication, contact Captain Pete Marino of the Richmond Police Department.

  I gave telephone numbers and signed my title and my name, and I faxed the letter to every speed dial listing in Eddings' journal, except, of course, the Associated Press.

  For a while I sat at my desk, staring rather glazed, as if my fax machine were going to solve this case immediately. But it remained silent as I read and waited. At the reasonable hour Of Six A.M., I called Marino.

  "I take it there was no riot," I said after the phone banged and dropped and his voice mumbled over the line.

  "Good, you're awake," I added.

  "What time is it?" He sounded as if he were in a stupor.

  "It's time for you to rise and shine."

  "We locked up maybe five people. The rest got quiet after that and went back inside. What are you doing awake?"

  "I'm always awake. And by the way, I could use a ride to work today and I need groceries."

  "Well, put on some coffee," he said. "I guess I'm coming over."

  CHAPTER 8

  WHEN HE ARRIVED, LUCY WAS STILL IN BED AND I was making coffee. I let him in, dismayed again when I looked out at my street. Overnight, Richmond had turned to glass, and I had heard on the news that falling branches and trees had knocked down power lines in several sections of the city.

  "Did you have any trouble?" I asked, shutting the front door.

  "Depends on what kind you mean." Marino set down groceries, took off his coat and handed it to me.

  "Driving."

  "I got chains. But I was out till after midnight and I'm tired as hell."

  "Come on. Let's get you some coffee."

  "None of that unleaded shit."

  "Guatemalan, and I promise it's leaded."

  "Where's the kid?"

  "Asleep."

  "Yo. Must be nice." He yawned again.

  I began making fresh fruit salad in my kitchen with its many windows. Through them the river was pewter and slow. Rocks were glazed, the woods a fantasy just beginning to sparkle in the wan morning light. Marino poured his own coffee, adding plenty of sugar and cream.

  "You want some?" he asked.

  "Black, please."

  "I think by now you don't have to tell me."

  "I never make assumptions," I said, getting plates out of a cabinet. "Especially about men, who seem to have a Mendelian trait which precludes them from remembering details important to women."

  "Yeah, well, I could give you a list of things Doris never remembered, starting with using my tools and not putting them back," he said of his ex-wife.

  I worked at the counter while he looked around as if he wanted to smoke. I wasn't going to let him.

  "I guess Tony never fixed coffee for you," he said.

  "Tony never did much of anything for me except try to get me pregnant."

  "He didn't do a very good job unless you didn't want kids."

  "Not with him I didn't."

  "What about now?"

  "I still don't want them with him. Here." I handed Marino a plate. "Let's sit."

  "Wait a minute. This is it?"

  "What else do you want?"

  "Shit, Doc. This ain't food. And what the hell are these little green slices with black things."

  "The kiwi fruit I told you to get. I'm sure you must have had it bef
ore," I patiently said. "I've got bagels in the freezer."

  "Yeah, that'd be good. With cream cheese. You got any poppyseed?"