s snatch the SOB who killed your baby?" the judge asked. She nodded vigorously as she wept, and Marino spoke with fury.
"You help us, and I promise we're going to nail the goddam bastard."
"I'm sorry to put you through this," said Dr. Jenrette, who would forever be convinced he had failed.
"Then may we proceed?" Begley leaned forward in his chair as if poised to spring, for like everyone in his chambers, he felt this woman's horrible loss. He felt her abject vulnerability in a manner that I was convinced would forever change the way he viewed offenders with hard luck stories and excuses who approached his bench. Denesa Steiner nodded again because she could not speak. Then Marino helped her out of the room, leaving Jenrette and me.
"Dawn will come early and there are plans to make," Begley said.
"We need to coordinate a lot of people," I concurred.
"Which funeral home buried her?" Begley asked Jenrette.
"Wilbur's."
"That's in Black Mountain?"
"Yes, Your Honor."
"The name of the funeral director?" The judge was taking notes.
"Lucias Ray."
"What about the detective working this case?"
"He's in the hospital."
"Oh, that's right." Judge Begley looked up and sighed.
I was not sure why I went straight there, except that I had said I would, and I was mad at Marino. I was irrationally offended by, of all things, his allusion to my Mercedes, which he had unfavorably compared to an Infiniti. It wasn't that his comment was right or wrong, but that its intent was to cause irritation and insult. I would not have asked Marino to go with me now had I believed in Loch Ness monsters, creatures from lagoons, and the living dead. I would | have refused had he begged, despite my secret fear of water snakes. Actually, of all snakes greatj and small. | There was enough light left when I reached Lake Tomahawk to retrace what I had been told were Emily's last steps. Parking by a picnic area, I followed the shoreline with my eyes as I wondered why a little girl would walk out here as night began to fall. I recalled how fearful I had been of the canals when I was growing up in Miami. Every log was an alligator and cruel people loitered along the isolated shores. As I got out of my car, I wondered why Emily had not been afraid. I wondered if there might be some other explanation for why she had chosen this route.
The map Ferguson had passed around during the consultation at Quantico indicated that on the early evening of October 1, Emily had left the church and veered off the street at the point where I was standing. She had passed picnic tables and turned right on a dirt trail that appeared to have been worn by foot traffic rather than cleared, for the path was well defined in some spots and imperceptible in others as it followed the shore through woods and weeds.
I briskly passed riotous clumps of tall grasses and brush as the shadow of mountain ranges deepened over water and the wind picked up, carrying the sharp promise of winter. Dead leaves crackled beneath my shoes as I drew upon the clearing marked on the map with a tiny outline of a body. By now, it had gotten quite dark.
I dug inside my handbag for my flashlight, only to recall that it was broken and still inside Ferguson's basement. I found one book of matches left from my smoking days, and it was half empty.
"Damn," I exclaimed under my breath as I began to feel fear.
I slipped out my. 38 and tucked it in a side pocket of my jacket, my hand loose around its grips as I stared at the muddy ledge at the water's edge where Emily Steiner's body had been found. Shadows compared to photographs I recalled indicated that surrounding brush had recently been cut back, but any other evidence of recent activity had been gently covered by nature and the night. Leaves were deep. I rearranged them with my feet to look for what I suspected the local police might not.
I had worked enough violent crimes in my career to have learned one very important truth. A crime scene has a life of its own. It remembers trauma in soil, insects altered by body fluids, and plants trampled by feet. It loses its privacy just as any witness does, for no stone is left undisturbed, and the curious do not stop coming just because there are no further questions to ask. It is common for people to continue visiting a scene long after there is a reason. They take souvenirs and photographs. They leave letters, cards, and flowers. They come in secret and leave that way, for it is shameful to stare just because you cannot help it. It seems a violation of something sacred even to leave a rose.
I found no flowers in this spot as I swept leaves out of the way. But my toe did strike several small, hard objects that dropped me to my hands and knees, eyes straining. After much rooting around, I recovered what appeared to be four gum balls still in plastic wrappers. It was not until I held them close to a lighted match that I realized the candies were jawbreakers, or Fireballs, as Emily had called them in her diary. I got up, breathing hard. Furtively, I glanced around, listening to every sound. The noise of my feet crashing through leaves seemed horrendously loud as I followed a path that I now could not see at all. Stars were out, the half moon my only guide, my matches long since spent. I knew from the map that I was not far from the Steiners' street, and it was closer to pick my way there than attempt returning to my car.
I was perspiring beneath my coat and terrified of tripping, for in addition to not having a flashlight, I also had failed to bring my portable phone. It occurred to me that I would not want any of my colleagues to see me now, and if I injured myself, I might have to lie about how it happened. Ten minutes into this awful journey, bushes grabbed my legs and destroyed my hose. I stubbed my toe on a root and stepped in mud up to my ankles. When a branch stung my face, barely missing my eye, I stood still, panting and frustrated to the point of tears. To my right, between the street and me, was a dense expanse of woods. To my left was the water.
"Shit," I said rather loudly. Following the shore was the lesser danger, and as I continued I actually got somewhat more adept at it. My eyes adapted better to moonlight. I became more surefooted and intuitive, and could sense from shifts in dampness and temperature of air when I was nearing dryer ground or mud or straying too far from the path. It was as if I were instantly evolving into a nocturnal creature in order to keep my species alive. Then, suddenly, streetlights were ahead as I reached the end of the lake opposite where I had parked. Here the woods had been cleared for tennis courts and a parking lot, and as Emily had done several weeks before, I veered off the path and momentarily was on pavement again. As I walked along her street, I realized I was trembling.
I remembered the Steiner house was two down on the left, and as I got closer to it I wasn't certain what I would say to Emily's mother. I had no desire to tell her where I had been or why, for the last thing she needed was more upset. But I knew no one else in this area and could not imagine knocking on a stranger's door to use the phone. No matter how hospitable anyone in Black Mountain might be, I would be asked why I looked as if I had been lost in a wilderness. It was possible someone might even find me frightening, especially if I had to explain what I did for a profession. As it turned out, my fears were invalidated by an unexpected knight who suddenly rode out of the dark and nearly ran me down.
I got to the Steiners' driveway as Marino was backing out of it in a new midnight-blue Chevrolet. As I waved at him in the beam of his headlights, I could see the blank expression on his face as he abruptly hit the brakes. His mood shifted from incredulity to rage.
"God damn sonofabitch, you practically gave me a heart attack. I coulda run you over."
I fastened my shoulder harness and locked the door.
"What the fuck're you doing out here? Shit!"
"I'm glad you finally got your car and that the scanner works. And I very much need a very strong Scotch and I'm not sure where one finds anything like that around here," I said as my teeth began to chatter.
"How do you turn the heat on?" Marino lit a cigarette, and I wanted one of those, too. But there were some vows I would never break. He turned the heat on high.
"J
esus. You look like you've been mud wrestling," he said, and I couldn't remember when I had seen him so rattled.
"What the heli've you been doing? I mean, are you okay?"
"My car's parked by the clubhouse."
"What clubhouse?"
"On the lake."
"The lake? What? You've been out there after dark? Have you lost your friggin' mind?"
"What I've lost is my flashlight, and I didn't remember that until it was a little late." As I spoke, I slipped my. 38 out of my coat pocket and returned it to my handbag, a move that Marino did not miss. His mood worsened.
"You know, I don't know what the fuck's your problem. I think you're losing it. Doc. I think it's all caught up with you and you're getting goofy as a shithouse rat. Maybe you're going through the change."
"If I were going through'the change' or anything else so personal and so none-of-your-business, you can rest assured I would not discuss it with you. If for no other reason than your vast male dullness or sensitivity of a fence post-which may or may not be gender related, I have to add, to be fair. Because I wouldn't want to assume that all men are like you. If I did, I know I would give them up entirely."
"Maybe you should."
"Maybe I will!"
"Good! Then you can be just like your bratty niece! Hey. Don't think it ain't obvious which way she swings."
"And that is yet one more thing that isn't your goddam business," I said furiously.
"I can't believe you're stooping so low as to stereotype Lucy, to dehumanize her just because she doesn't make the exact choices you would."
"Oh yeah? Well maybe the problem is that she does makes the exact same choices I would. I date women."
"You don't know the first thing about women," I said, and it occurred to me that the car was an oven and I had no idea where we were going.
I flipped the heat down and glared out my window.
"I know enough about women to know you'd drive anybody crazy. And I can't believe you were out walking around the lake after dark. By yourself. So just what the hell would you have done if he was out there, too?"
"Which he?"
"Goddam I'm hungry. I saw a steakhouse on Tunnel Road when I was up this way earlier. I hope they're still open."
"Marino, it's only six forty-five."
"Why did you go out there?" he asked again, and both of us were calming down.
"Someone left candy on the ground where her body was discovered.
Fireballs. " When he made no reply, I added," The same candy she mentioned in her diary. "
"I don't remember that."
"The boy she had a crush on. I think his name was Wren. She wrote that she had seen him at a church supper and he gave her a Fireball. She saved it in her secret box."
"They never found it."
"Found what?"
"Whatever this secret box was. Denesa couldn't find it either. So maybe Wren left the Fireballs at the lake."
"We need to talk to him," I said.
"It would appear that you and Mrs. Steiner are developing a good rapport. "
"Nothing like this should ever have happened to someone like her."
"Nothing like this should ever happen to anyone."
"I see a Western Sizzler."
"No, thank you."
"How about Bonanza?" He flipped on his turn signal.
"Absolutely not." Marino surveyed brightly lighted restaurants lining Tunnel Road as he smoked another cigarette.
"Doc, no offense, but you've got an attitude."
"Marino, don't bother with the'no offense' preamble. All it does is telegraph that I'm about to be offended."
"I know there's a Peddler around here. I saw it in the Yellow Pages."
"Why were you looking up restaurants in the Yellow Pages?" I puzzled, for I'd always known him to shop for restaurants the same way he did for food. He cruised without a list and took what was easy, cheap, and filling.
"I wanted to see what was in the area in case I wanted something nice.
How about calling so I know how to get there? "
I reached for the car phone and thought of Denesa Steiner, for I was not who Marino had hoped he would be taking to the Peddler this night.
"Marino," I told him quietly.
"Please be careful."
"Don't start in about red meat again."
"That's not what worries me most," I said.
8
The cemetery behind Third Presbyterian Church was a rolling field of polished granite headstones behind a chain link fence choked with trees. When I arrived at 6:15, dawn bruised the horizon and I could see my breath. Ground spiders had put up their webbed awnings to begin the business of the day, and I respectfully stepped around them as Marino and I walked through wet grass toward Emily Steiner's grave. She was buried in a corner close to woods where the lawn was pleasantly mingled with cornflowers, clover, and Queen Anne's lace.
Her monument was a small marble angel, and to find it we simply followed the scraping noise of shovels digging dirt. A truck with a winch had been left running at the site, and its headlights illuminated the progress of two leathery old men in overalls. Shovels glinted, the surrounding grass bleached of color, and I smelled damp earth as it fell from steel blades to a mound at the foot of the grave. Marino turned on his flashlight, and the tombstone stood in sad relief against the morning, wings folded back and head bent in prayer. The epitaph carved in its base read: There is no other in the World- Mine was the only one
"Jeez. Got any idea what that means?" Marino said close to my ear.
"Maybe we can ask him," I replied as I watched the approach of a startlingly large man with thick white hair. His long dark overcoat flowed around his ankles as he walked, giving the eerie impression from a distance that he was several inches off the ground. When he got to us, I saw he had a Black Watch scarf wrapped around his neck, black leather gloves on his huge hands, and rubbers pulled over his shoes. He was close to seven feet tall, with a torso the size of a barrel.
"I'm Lucias Ray," he said, and enthusiastically shook our hands as we introduced ourselves.
"We were wondering about the significance of the epitaph," I said.
"Mrs. Steiner sure did love her little girl. It's just pitiful," the funeral director said in a thick drawl that sounded more Georgian than North Carolinian.
"We have a whole book of verses you can look through when you're deciding on what to have inscribed."
"Then Emily's mother got this from your book?" I asked.
"Well, to tell you the truth, no. I believe she said it's Emily Dickinson." The grave diggers had put down their shovels, and it was light enough now for me to see their faces, wet with sweat and as furrowed as a farmer's fields. Heavy chain clanked as they unwound it from the winch's drum. Then one of the men stepped down into the grave. He secured the chain to hooks on the sides of the concrete vault as Ray went on to tell us that more people had shown up for Emily Steiner's funeral than he had ever heard of around here.
"They were outside the church, on the lawn, and it took close to two hours for all of them to walk past the casket to pay their respects."
"Did you have an open casket?" Marino asked in surprise.
"No, sir." Ray watched his men.
"Now, Mrs. Steiner wanted to, but I wouldn't hear of it. I told her she was distraught and would thank me later for saying no. Why, her little girl wasn't in any kind of shape for a thing like that. I knew a lot of folks would show up just to stare. Course, a lot of rubber neckers showed up anyway, seeing as how there was so much in the news." The winch strained loudly and the truck's diesel engine throbbed as the vault was slowly lifted from the earth. Soil rained down in chunks as the concrete burial chamber rocked higher in the air with each turn of the crank, and one of the men stood by like a member of a ground crew to direct with his hands. At almost the precise moment the vault was free of its grave and lowered to the grass, we were invaded by television crews with cameras mounted and reporters and photog
raphers. They swarmed around the gaping wound in the earth and the vault so stained with red clay that it almost looked bloody.
"Why are you exhuming Emily Steiner?" one of them called out.
"Is it true the police have a suspect?" yelled another.
"Dr. Scarpetta?"
"Why has the FBI been called in?"
"Dr. Scarpetta?" A woman pushed a microphone close to my face.
"It sounds like you're second-guessing the Buncombe County medical examiner."
"Why are you desecrating this little girl's grave?" And above the fray Marino suddenly bellowed as if he had been wounded, "Get the fuck out of here now! You're interfering with an investigation! You hear me, goddam it?" He stomped his feet.
"Leave now!" The reporters froze with shocked faces. They stared at him with open mouths as he continued to rail against them, complexion crimson, blood vessels bulging in his neck.
"The only one desecrating anything around here is you assholes! And if you don't leave right now, I'm gonna start breaking cameras and anything else in my reach, including your goddam ugly heads!"
"Marino," I said, and I placed my hand on his arm. He was so tense he had turned to iron.
"All my goddam career I've been dealing with you assholes and I've had it! You hear me! I've goddam had it, you bunch of mother fuckin sonofabitch, BLOOD SUCKIN' PARASITES! "
"Marino!" I pulled him by the wrist as fear electrified every nerve in my body. Never had I seen him in such a rage. Dear Lord, I thought. Don't let him shoot anyone.
I got in front of him to make him look at me, but his eyes danced wildly above my head.
"Marino, listen to me! They're leaving. Please calm down. Marino, take it easy. Look, every last one of them is leaving right now. See them? You've certainly made your point. They're almost running." The journalists were gone as suddenly as they had appeared, like some phantom band of marauders that had materialized and vanished in the mist. Marino stared across the empty expanse of gently rolling lawn with its sprigs of plastic flowers and perfect rows of gray markers.
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