Unnatural Exposure ks-8

by Patricia Cornwell

  'Yes. I'm more worried about you.'

  'What about this disease? What about the risk to you?' He was getting irritated with me, the way he always did when he thought I was in danger.

  'I've been revaccinated.'

  'You've been vaccinated for smallpox,' he said. 'What if that's not what it is?'

  'Then we're in a world of trouble. Janet came by.'

  'I know,' he said into his phone. 'I'm sorry. The last thing you needed right now…'

  'No, Benton,' I interrupted him. 'I had to be told. There's never a good time for news like that. What do you think will happen?'

  But he did not want to say.

  'Then you think it will ruin her, too,' I said in despair.

  'I doubt she'll be terminated. What usually happens is you stop getting promoted, get lousy assignments, field offices out in the middle of nowhere. She and Janet will end up three thousand miles apart. One or both will quit.'

  'How's that better than being fired?' I said in pained outrage.

  'We'll take it as it comes, Kay.' He looked at me. 'I'm dismissing Ring from CASKU.'

  'Be careful what you do because of me.'

  'It's done,' he said.

  Fujitsubo did not stop by my room again until early the next morning, and then he was smiling and opening blinds to let in sunlight so dazzling it hurt my eyes.

  'Good morning, and so far, so good,' he said. 'I'm very pleased that you do not seem to be getting sick on us, Kay.'

  'Then I can go,' I said, ready to leap out of bed right then.

  'Not so fast.' He was reviewing my chart. 'I know how hard this is for you, but I'm not comfortable letting you go quite so soon. Stick it out a little longer, and you can leave the day after tomorrow, if all goes well.'

  I felt like crying when he left because I did not see how I could endure one more hour of quarantine. Miserable, I sat up under the covers and looked out at the day. The sky was bright blue with wisps of clouds beneath the pale shadow of a morning moon. Trees beyond my window were bare and rocking in a gentle wind. I thought of my home in Richmond, of plants to be potted and work piling up on my desk. I wanted to take a walk in the cold, to cook broccoli and homemade barley soup. I wanted spaghetti with ricotta or stuffed frittata, and music and wine.

  For half the day, I simply felt sorry for myself and did not do a thing except stare at television and doze. Then the nurse for the next shift came in with the phone and said there was a call for me. I waited until it was transferred and snatched up the receiver as if this were the most exciting thing that had ever happened in my life.

  'It's me,' Lucy said.

  'Thank God.' I was thrilled to hear her voice.

  'Grans says hi. Rumor has it that you win the bad patient award.'

  'The rumor is accurate. All the work in my office. If only I had it here.'

  'You need to rest,' she said. 'To keep your defenses up.' This made me worry about Wingo again.

  'How come you haven't been on the laptop?' She then got to the point. I was quiet.

  'Aunt Kay, he's not going to talk to us. He's only going to talk to you.'

  'Then one of you sign on as me,' I replied.

  'No way. If he senses that's what's going on, we lose him for good. This guy is scary, he's so clever.'

  My silence was my comment, and Lucy rushed to fill it.

  'What?' she said with feeling. 'I'm supposed to pretend I'm a forensic pathologist with a law degree who's already worked at least one of this guy's cases? I don't think so.'

  'I don't want to connect with him, Lucy,' I said. 'People like him get off on that, they want it, want the attention. The more I play his game, the more it might encourage him. Have you thought about that?'

  'Yes. But think about this. Whether he's dismembered one person or twenty, he's going to do something else bad. People like him don't just stop. And we have no idea, not one clue, as to where the hell he is.'

  'It's not that I'm scared for myself,' I started to say. 'It's all right if you are.'

  'I just don't want to do anything to make it worse,' I repeated.

  That, of course, was always the risk when one was creative or aggressive in an investigation. The perpetrator was never completely predictable. Maybe it was simply something I sensed, an intuitive vibration I was picking up deep inside. But I felt that this killer was different and motivated by something beyond our ken. I feared he knew exactly what we were doing and was enjoying himself.

  'Now, tell me about you,' I said. 'Janet was here.'

  'I don't want to get into it.' Cold fury crept into her tone. 'I have better ways to spend my time.'

  'I'm with you, Lucy, whatever you want to do.'

  'That much I've always been sure of. And this much everybody else can be sure of. No matter what it takes, Carrie's going to rot in jail and hell after that.'

  The nurse had returned to my room to whisk the telephone away again.

  'I don't understand this,' I complained as I hung up. 'I have a calling card, if that's what you're worried about.'

  She smiled. 'Colonel's orders. He wants you to rest and knows you won't if you can be on the phone all day.'

  'I am resting,' I said, but she was gone.

  I wondered why he allowed me to keep the laptop and was suspicious Lucy or someone had spoken to him. As I logged onto AOL, I felt conspired against. I had barely entered the M.E. chat room when deadoc appeared, this time not as an invisible instant message, but as a member who could be heard and seen by anybody else who decided to walk in.

  DEADOC: where have you been SCARPETTA: Who are you? DEADOC: I ve already told you that SCARPETTA: You are not me.

  DEADOC: he gave them power over unclean spirits to cast them out and to heal all manner of sickness and all manner of disease pathophysiological manifestations viruses like hiv our darwinian struggle against them they are evil or are we SCARPETTA: Explain what you mean.

  DEADOC: there are twelve

  But he had no intention of explaining, at least not now. The system alerted me that he had left the room. I waited inside it a while longer to see if he might return, as I wondered what he meant by twelve. Pushing a button on my headboard, I summoned the nurse, who was beginning to cause me guilt. I didn't know where she waited outside the room, or if she climbed in and out of her blue suit every time she appeared and left. But none of this could have been pleasant, including my disposition.

  'Listen,' I said when she got to me. 'Might there be a Bible around here somewhere.' She hesitated, as if she'd never heard of such a thing. 'Gee, now that I don't know.'

  'Could you check?'

  'Are you feeling all right?' She looked suspiciously at me.

  'Absolutely.'

  'They've got a library. Maybe there's one in there somewhere. I'm sorry. I'm not very religious.' She continued talking as she went out again.

  She returned maybe half an hour later with a black leather-bound Bible, Cambridge Red Letter edition, that she claimed to have borrowed from someone's office. I opened it and found a name in front written in calligraphy, and a date that showed the Bible had been given to its owner on a special occasion almost ten years before. As I began to turn its pages, I realized I had not been to Mass in months. I envied people with a faith so strong that they kept their Bibles at work.

  'Now you're sure you're feeling okay?' said the nurse as she hovered near the door.

  'You've never told me your name,' I said.

  'Sally.'

  'You've been very helpful and I certainly appreciate it. I know it's no fun working on

  Thanksgiving.'

  This seemed to please her a great deal and gave her enough confidence to say, 'I haven't wanted to poke my nose into anything, but I can't help but hear what people are talking about. That island in Virginia where your case came from. All they do is crabbing there?'

  'Pretty much,' I said.

  'Blue crab.'

  'And soft-shell crab.'

  'Anybody bothering to worry about
that?'

  I knew what she was getting at, and yes, I was worried. I had a personal reason to be worried about Wesley and me.

  'They ship those things all over the country, right?' she went on. I nodded.

  'What if whatever that lady had is transmitted through water or food?' Her eyes were bright behind her hood. 'I didn't see her body, but I heard. That's really scary.'

  'I know,' I said. 'I hope we can get an answer to that soon.'

  'By the way, lunch is turkey. Don't expect much.'

  She unplugged her air line and stopped talking. Opening the door, she gave me a little wave and went out. I turned back to the Concordance and had to search for a while under various words before I found the passage deadoc had quoted to me. It was Matthew 10, verse one, and in its entirety it read: And when he had called unto him his twelve disciples, he gave them power against unclean spirits, to cast them out, and to heal all manner of sickness and all manner of disease.

  The next verse went on to identify the disciples by name, and then Jesus invoked them to go out and find lost sheep, and to preach to them that the kingdom of heaven was at hand. He directed his disciples to heal the sick, cleanse the lepers, raise the dead, cast out devils. As I read, I did not know if this killer who called himself deadoc had a message he believed, if twelve referred to the disciples, or if he was simply playing games.

  I got up and paced, looking out the window as light waned. Night came early now, and it had become a habit for me to watch people walk out to their cars. Their breath was frosted, and the lot was almost empty because of the furlough. Two women

  chatted while one held open the door to a Honda, and they shrugged and gestured with intensity, as if trying to resolve life's big problems. I stood looking through blinds

  until they drove away.

  I tried to go to sleep early to escape. But I was fitful again, rearranging myself and the covers every few hours. Images floated past the inside of my eyelids, projected like old movies, unedited and illogically arranged. I saw two women talking by a mailbox. One had a mole on her cheek that became eruptions all over her face as she shielded her eyes with a hand. Then palm trees were writhing in fierce winds as a hurricane roared in from the sea, fronds ripped off and flying. A trunk stripped bare, a bloody table lined with severed hands and feet.

  I sat up sweating, and waited for my muscles to stop twitching. It was as if there were an electrical disturbance in my entire system, and I might have a heart attack or a stroke. Taking deep, slow breaths, I blanked out my mind. I did not move. When the vision had passed, I rang for the nurse.

  When she saw the look on my face, she did not argue about the phone. She brought it right away and I called Marino after she left.

  'You still in jail?' he said over the line.

  'I think he killed his guinea pig,' I said.

  'Whoa. How 'bout starting over again.'

  'Deadoc. The woman he shot and dismembered may have been his guinea pig. Someone he knew and had easy access to.'

  'I gotta confess, Doc, I got no idea what the hell you're talking about.' I could tell by his tone he was worried about my state of mind.

  'It makes sense that he couldn't look at her. The M.O. makes a lot of sense.'

  'Now you really got me confused.'

  'If you wanted to find a way to murder people through a virus,' I explained, 'first you would have to figure out a way. The route of transmission, for example. Is it a food, a drink, dust? With smallpox, transmission is airborne, spread by droplets or by fluid from the lesions. The disease can be carried on a person or his clothes.'

  'Start with this,' he said. 'Where did this person get the virus to begin with? Not exactly something you order through the mail.'

  'I don't know. To my knowledge there are only two places in the world that keep archival smallpox. CDC and a laboratory in Moscow.'

  'So maybe this is all a Russian plot,' he said, sardonically.

  'Let me give you a scenario,' I said. 'The killer has a grudge, maybe even some delusion that he has a religious calling to bring back one of the worst diseases this planet has ever known. He's got to figure out a way to randomly infect people and be sure that it can work.'

  'So he needs a guinea pig,' Marino said.

  'Yes. And let's suppose he has a neighbor, a relative, someone elderly and not well. Maybe he even takes care of her. What better way to test the virus than on that person? And if it works, you kill her and stage her death to look like something else. After all, he certainly can't have her die of smallpox. Not if there is a connection between him and her. We might figure out who he is. So he shoots her in the head, dismembers her so we'll think it's the serial killings again.'

  'Then how do you get from that to the lady on Tangier?'

  'She was exposed,' I simply said.

  'How? Was something delivered to her? Did she get something in the mail? Was it carried on the air? Was she pricked in her sleep?'

  'I don't know how.'

  'You think deadoc lives on Tangier?' Marino then asked.

  'No, I don't,' I said. 'I think he picked it because the island is the perfect place to start an epidemic. Small, self-contained. Also easy to quarantine, meaning the killer doesn't intend to annihilate all of society with one blow. He's trying a little bit at a time, cutting us up in small pieces.'

  'Yeah. Like he did the old lady, if you're right.'

  'He wants something,' I said. 'Tangier is an attention-getter.'

  'No offense, Doc, but I hope you're wrong about all of this.'

  'I'm heading to Atlanta in the morning. How about checking with Vander, see if he's had any luck with the thumbprint.'

  'So far he hasn't. It's looking like the victim doesn't have any prints on file. Anything comes up, I'll call your pager.'

  'Damn,' I muttered, for the nurse had taken that, too.

  The rest of the day moved interminably slowly, and it wasn't until after supper that

  Fujitsubo came to say goodbye. Although the act of releasing me implied I was

  neither infected nor infectious, he was in a blue suit, which he plugged into an air line.

  'I should keep you longer,' he said right off, filling my heart with dread. 'Incubation, on average, is twelve to thirteen days. But it can be as long as twenty-one. What I'm saying to you is that you could still get sick.'

  'I understand that,' I said, reaching for my water.

  'The revaccination may or may not help depending on what stage you were in when I

  gave it to you.'

  I nodded. 'And I wouldn't be in such a hurry to leave if you would just take this on instead of sending me to CDC.'

  'Kay, I can't.' His voice was muffled through plastic. 'You know it has nothing to do with what I feel like doing. But I can no more pull something out from under CDC than you can grab a case that isn't your jurisdiction. I've talked to them. They are most concerned over a possible outbreak and will begin testing the moment you arrive with the samples.'

  'I fear terrorism may be involved.' I refused to back down.

  'Until there is evidence of it - and I hope there won't be - we can do nothing more for you here.' His regret was sincere. 'Go to Atlanta and see what they have to say.

  They're operating with a skeleton crew, too. The timing couldn't be worse.'

  'Or perhaps more deliberate,' I said. 'If you were a bad person planning to commit serial crimes with a virus, what better time than when the significant federal health agencies are in extremis? And this furlough's been going on for a while and not predicted to end anytime soon.'

  He was silent.

  'John,' I went on, 'you helped with the autopsy. Have you ever seen a disease like this?'

  'Only in textbooks,' he grimly replied.

  'How does smallpox suddenly just reappear on its own?'

  'If that's what it is.'

  'Whatever it is, it's virulent and it kills,' I tried to reason with him.

  But he could do nothing more, and the rest of the nig
ht I wandered from room to room in AOL. Every hour, I checked my e-mail. Deadoc remained silent until six o'clock

  the next morning when he walked into the M.E. room. My heart jumped as his name appeared on screen. My adrenaline began to pump the way it always did when he talked to me. He was on the line, it was up to me. I could catch him, if only I could trip him.

  DEADOC: Sunday I went to church bet you didn't SCARPETTA: What was the homily about? DEADOC: sermon

  SCARPETTA: You are not Catholic. DEADOC: beware of men

  SCARPETTA: Matthew 10. Tell me what you mean. DEADOC: to say he s sorry

  SCARPETTA: Who is he? And what did he do? DEADOC: ye shall indeed drink of the cup that I drink of

  Before I could answer, he was gone, and I began flipping through the Bible. The verse he quoted this time was from Mark, and again, it was Jesus speaking, which hinted to me, if nothing else, that deadoc wasn't Jewish. Nor was he Catholic, based on his comments about church. I was no theologian, but drinking of the cup seemed to refer to Christ's eventual crucifixion. So deadoc had been crucified and I would be, too?

  It was my last few hours here and my nurse, Sally, was more liberal with the phone. I

  paged Lucy, who called me back almost instantly.

  'I'm talking to him,' I said. 'Are you guys there?'

  'We're there. He's got to stay on longer,' my niece said. 'There are so many trunk lines, and we got to line up all the phone companies to trap and trace. Your last call was coming in from Dallas.'

  'You're kidding,' I said in dismay.

  'That's not the origin, just a switch it was routed through. We didn't get any farther because he disconnected. Keep trying. Sounds like this guy's some kind of religious nut.'

  Chapter Eleven

  Later that morning I left in a taxi as the sun was getting high in the clouds. I had nothing but the clothes on my back, all of which had been sterilized in the autoclave or gassed. I was in a hurry, and guarding a large white cardboard box printed with PERISHABLE RUSH! RUSH! and IMPORTANT KEEP UPRIGHT and other big blue warnings.

  Like a Chinese puzzle, my package was boxes within boxes containing BioPacks. Inside these were Bio-tubes of Lila Pruitt's liver, spleen and spinal fluid, protected by fiber-board shields, and bubble and corrugated wrap. All of it was packed in dry ice with INFECTIOUS SUBSTANCE and DANGER stickers warning anyone who got beyond the first layer. Obviously, I could not let my cargo out of sight. In addition to its well-proven hazard, it could be evidence should it turn out that Pruitt was a homicide. At the Baltimore-Washington International airport, I found a pay phone and called Rose.