Cause of Death

by Patricia Cornwell

  "I wouldn't take it lightly." He paused. "You know how cops talk, so I hear things. And there's a rumor being spread out there that you hit on Roche, and his chief's going to try to get the governor to fire you."

  "People can gossip about whatever they'd like," I impatiently said.

  "Well, part of the problem is they look at him and how young he is, and some people don't have a hard time imagining that you might be attracted." He hesitated, and I could tell he despised Roche and wanted to maim him. "I hate to tell you," Marino said, "but you'd be a whole lot better off if he wasn't good-looking."

  "Harassment is not about how people look, Marino. But he has no case, and I'm not worried about it."

  "Point is, he wants to hurt you, Doc, and he's already trying hard. One way or another he's going to screw you, if he can."

  "He can wait in line with all the other people who want to."

  "The person who called the tow lot in Virginia Beach and said they was you, was a man." He stared at me. "Just so you know."

  "Danny wouldn't have done that," was all I could say.

  "I wouldn't think so. But maybe Roche would," Marino replied.

  "What are you doing tomorrow?"

  He sighed. "I don't have time to tell you."

  "We may need to make a trip to Charlottesville."

  "What for?" He frowned. "Don't tell me Lucy's still acting screwy."

  "That's not why we need to go. But maybe we'll see her, too," I said.

  THE NEXT MORNING, I MADE EVIDENCE ROUNDS. AND my first stop was the Scanning Electron Microscopy lab where I found forensic scientist Betsy Eckles sputter coating a square of tire rubber. She was sitting with her back to me, and I watched her mount the sample on a plat form, which would next go into a vacuum chamber of glass so it could be coated by atomic particles of gold. I noted the cut in the center of the rubber, and thought it looked familiar, but couldn't be sure.

  "Good morning," I said.

  She turned around from her intimidating console of pressure gauges, dials and digital microscopes that built images in pixels instead of lines on video screens. Graying and trim in a long lab coat, she seemed more harried than usual this Thursday.

  "Oh, good morning, Dr. Scarpetta," she said as she placed the sample of punctured rubber into the chamber.

  "Slashed tires?" I asked.

  "Firearms asked me to coat the sample. They said it had to be done right now. Don't ask me why."

  She was not happy about it in the least, for this was an unusual response to what was generally not considered a serious crime. I did not understand why it would be a priority today when labs were backed up to the moon, but this was not why I was here.

  "I came to talk to you about the uranium," I said.

  " That's the first time I've ever found anything like that."

  She was opening a plastic envelope. "We're talking twenty-two years."

  "We need to know which isotope of uranium we're dealing with," I said.

  I agree, and since this has never come up before, I'm not sure where to do that. But I can't do it here."

  Using double sticky tape, she began mounting what looked like particles of dirt on a stub that would go into a storage vial. She got vacuumings every day and Was never caught up.

  "Where is the radioactive sample now?" I asked.

  "Right where I left it. I haven't opened that chamber back up and don't think I want to."

  "May I see what we've got?"

  "Absolutely."

  She moved to another digitalized scope, turned on the monitor, and it filled with a black universe scattered with stars of different sizes and shapes. Some were a very bright white while others were dim, and all were invisible to the unaided eye.

  "I'm zooming it up to three thousand," she said as she turned dials. "You want it higher?"

  "I think this will do the trick," I replied.

  We stared at what could have been a scene from inside an observatory. Metal spheres looked like threedimensional planets surrounded by smaller moons and stars.

  "That's what came out of your car," she let me know.

  "The bright particles are uranium. Duller ones are iron oxide, like you find in soil. Plus there's aluminum, which is used in just about everything these days. And silicon, or sand.

  "Very typical for what someone might have on the bottom of his shoes," I said. "Except for the uranium."

  "And there's something else I'll point out," she went on. "The uranium has two shapes. The lobed or spherical, which resulted from some process in which the uranium was molten. But here." She pointed. "We have irregular shapes with sharp edges, meaning these came from a process involving a machine." -CP&L would use uranium for their nuclear power plants." I referred to Commonwealth Power & Light, which supplied electricity for all of Virginia and some areas of North Carolina.

  "Yes, they would."

  "Any other business around here that might?" I asked.

  She thought for a minute. "There are no mines around here or processing plants. Well, there's the reactor at UVA, but I think that's mainly for teaching."

  I continued to stare at the small storm of radioactive material that had been tracked into my car by whoever had killed Danny. I thought of the Black Talon bullet with its savage claws, and the weird phone call I had gotten in Sandbridge which was followed by someone climbing over my wall. I believed Eddings was somehow the common link, and that was because of his interest in the New Zionists.

  "Look," I said to Eckles, "just because a Geiger counter's gone off doesn't mean the radioactivity is harmful. And, in fact, uranium isn't harmful."

  "The problem is we don't have a precedent for something like this," she said.

  I patiently explained, "It's very simple. This material is evidence in a homicide investigation. I am the medical examiner in that case, and it is Captain Marino's jurisdiction.

  What you need to do is receipt this vacuuming to Marino and me. We will drive it to UVA and have the nuclear physicist there determine which isotope it is."

  Of course, this could not be accomplished without a telephone conference that included the director of the Bureau of Forensic Science, along with the health commissioner, who was my direct boss. They worried about a possible conflict of interest because the uranium had been found in my car, and of course, Danny had worked for me. When I pointed out that I was not a suspect in the case, they were appeased, and in the end, relieved to have the radioactive sample taken off their hands.

  I returned to the SEM lab and Eckles opened that frightful chamber while I slipped on cotton gloves. Carefully, I removed the sticky tape from its stub and tucked it inside a plastic bag, which I sealed and labeled. Before I left her floor, I stopped by Firearms, where Frost was seated before a comparison microscope, examining an old military bayonet on top of a stage. I asked him about the punctured rubber he was having sputter-coated with gold, because I had a feeling.

  "We've got a possible suspect in your tire-slashing case," he said, adjusting the focus as he moved the blade.

  "This bayonet?" I knew the answer before I asked.

  "That's right. It was just turned in this morning."

  "By whom?" I said as my suspicions grew.

  He looked at a folded paper bag on a nearby table. I saw the case number and date, and the last name "Roche."

  . "Chesapeake," Frost replied.

  "Do you know anything about where it came from?" I felt enraged.

  "The trunk of a car. That's all I was told. Apparently, there's a hellfire rush on it for some reason."

  I went upstairs to Toxicology because it was a last round I certainly needed to make. But my mood was bad, and I was not cheered when I finally found someone home who could confirm what my nose had told me in the Norfolk morgue. Dr. Rathbone was a big, older man whose hair was still very black. I found him at his desk signing lab reports.

  "I just called you." He looked up at me. "How was your New Year?"

  "it was new and different. How ab
out you?"

  "I got a son in Utah, so we were there. I swear I'd move if I could find a job, but I reckon Mormons don't have much use for my trade."

  "I think your trade is good anywhere," I said. "And I assume you've got results on the Eddings case," I added as I thought of the bayonet.

  "The concentration of cyanide in his blood sample is point five milligrams per liter, which is lethal, as you know." He continued signing his name.

  "What about the hookah's intake valve and tubes and so on?"

  "Inconclusive."

  I was not surprised, nor did it really matter since there was now no doubt that Eddings had been poisoned with cyanide gas, his manner of death unequivocally a homicide.

  I knew the prosecutor in Chesapeake and stopped by my office long enough to give her a call so she could encourage the police to do the right thing.

  "You shouldn't have to ring me up for that," she said.

  "You're right, I shouldn't."

  "Don't give it another thought." She sounded angry.

  "What a bunch of idiots. Has the FBI gotten into this one at all?"

  "Chesapeake doesn't need their help."

  "Oh good. I guess they work homicidal cyanide gas poisonings in diving deaths all the time. I'll get back to you."

  Hanging up, I collected coat and bag and walked out into what was becoming a beautiful day. Marino's car was parked on the side of Franklin Street, and he was sitting inside with the engine running and his window down. As I headed toward him he opened his door and released the trunk.

  "Where is it?" he said.

  I held up a manila envelope, and he looked shocked.

  "That's all you've got it in?" he exclaimed, eyes wide.

  "I thought you'd at least put it in one of those metal paint cans."

  "Don't be ridiculous," I said. "You could hold uranium in your bare hand and it wouldn't hurt you."

  I shut the envelope inside the trunk.

  "Then how come the Geiger counter went off?" he continued arguing as I climbed in. "It went off because the friggin' shit is radioactive, right?"

  "Without a doubt, uranium is radioactive, but by itself, not very, because it is decaying at such a slow rate. Plus, the sample in your trunk is extremely small."

  "Look, a little radioactive is like a little pregnant or a little dead, in my opinion. And if you ain't worried about it how come you sold your Benz?"

  "That's not why I sold it."

  "I don't want to be rayed, if it's all the same to you," he irritably said.

  "You're not going to be rayed."

  But he railed on, "I can't believe you'd expose me and my car to uranium."

  "Marino," I tried again, "a lot of my patients come into the morgue with very grim diseases like tuberculosis, hepatitis, meningitis, AIDS. And you've been present for their autopsies, and you've always been safe with me."

  He drove fast along the interstate, cutting in and out of traffic.

  "I should think that you would know by now that I would never deliberately place you in harm's way," I added.

  "Deliberately is right. Maybe you're into something you don't know about," he said. "When was the last time you had a radioactive case?"

  "in the first place," I explained, "the case itself is not radioactive, only some microscopic debris associated with it is. And secondly, I do know about radioactivity. I know about X-rays, MRIs and isotopes like cobalt, iodine and technetium that are used to treat cancer. Physicians learn about a lot of things, including radiation sickness. Would you please slow down and choose a lane?"

  I stared at him with growing alarm as he eased up on the accelerator. Sweat was beaded on top of his head and rolling down his temples, his face dark red. With jaw muscles clenched, he gripped the steering wheel hard, his breathing labored.

  "Pull over," I demanded.

  He did not respond.

  "Marino, pull over. Now," I repeated in a tone he knew not to resist.

  The shoulder was wide and paved on this stretch of 64, and without a word I got out and walked around to his side of the car. I motioned with my thumb for him to get out, and he did. The back of his uniform was soaking wet and I could see the outline of his undershirt through it.

  "I think I must be getting the flu," he said.

  I adjusted the seat and mirrors.

  ., I don't know what's wrong with me." He mopped his face with a handkerchief.

  "You're having a panic attack," I said. "Take deep breaths and try to calm down. Bend over and touch your toes. Go limp, relax."

  "Anybody sees you driving a city car, my ass is on report," he said, pulling the shoulder harness across his chest.

  "Right now the city should be grateful that you're not driving anything," I said. "You shouldn't be operating any machinery at this moment. In fact, you should probably be sitting in a psychiatrist's office." I looked over at him and sensed his shame.

  "I don't know what's wrong," he mumbled, staring out his window.

  "Are you still upset about Doris?"

  "I don't know if I ever told you about one of the last big fights she and I had before she left." He mopped his face again. "It was about these damn dishes she got at a yard sale. I mean, she'd been thinking about getting new dishes for a long firne, right? And I come home from work one night and here's this big set of blaze orange dishes spread out on the dining-room table." He looked at me.

  "You ever heard of Fiesta Ware?"

  "Vaguely."

  "Well, there was something in the glaze of this particular line that I come to find out will set a Geiger counter off."

  " It doesn't take much radioactivity to set a Geiger counter off." I made that point again.

  "Well, there'd been stories written about the stuff, which had been taken off the market," he went on. "Doris wouldn't listen. She thought I was overreacting."

  "And you probably were."

  "Look, people are phobic of all kinds of things. Me, it's radiation. You know how much I hate even being in the X-ray room with you, and when I turn on the microwave, I leave the kitchen. So I packed up all the dishes and dumped them without telling her where."

  He got quiet and wiped his face again. He cleared his throat several times.

  Then he said, "A month later she left."

  "Listen," I softened my voice, "I wouldn't want to eat off those dishes, either. Even though I know better. I understand fear, and fear isn't always rationales'

  "Yeah, Doc, well maybe in my case it is." He opened his window a crack. "I'm afraid of dying. Every morning I get up and think about it, if you want to know. Every day I think I'm going to stroke out or be told I got cancer. I dread going to bed because I'm afraid I'll die in my sleep."

  He paused, and it was with great difficulty that he added, "That's the real reason Molly stopped seeing me, if you want to know."

  "That wasn't a very kind reason." What he just said hurt me.

  "Well--he got more uncomfortable--she's a lot younger than me. And part of the way I feel these days is I don't want to do anything that might exert myself."

  "Then you're afraid of having sex."

  "Shit," he said, "why don't you just wave it like a flag."

  "Marino, I'm a doctor. All I want to do is help, if I can."

  "Molly said I made her feel rejected," he went on.

  "And you probably did. How long have you had this problem?"

  "I don't know, Thanksgiving."

  "Did something happen?"

  He hesitated again. "Well, you know I've been off my medicine."

  "Which medication? Your adrenergic blocker or the finasteride? And no, I didn't know."

  "Both."

  "Now why would you do anything that foolish?"

  "Because when I'm on it nothing works right," he blurted out. "I quit taking it when I started dating Molly.

  Then I started again around Thanksgiving after I had a checkup and my blood pressure was really up there and my prostate was getting bad again. It scared me."

/>   "No woman is worth dying for," I said. "And what this is all about is depression, which you're a perfect candidate for, by the way."

  "Yeah, it's depressing when you can't do it. You don't understand."

  "Of course, I understand. It's depressing when your body fails you, when you get older and have other stressors in your life like change. And you've had a lot of change in the past few years."