Patricia Cornwell - Book of the Dead

“The coroner isn’t a woman.”

“That doesn’t mean a damn thing. He wouldn’t do his dirty work himself.”

“Call him. Ask him point-blank if he’s trying to run you out of town. Run all of us out of town, I should say. It seems you have a number of people to talk to. Starting with Marino.” She coughs, and as if on command, the Volvo’s interior light goes out.

“He shouldn’t have moved here.” Scarpetta stares at the back of her old brick building, small, with one floor and a basement she converted into a morgue. “He loved Florida,” she says, and that reminds her of Dr. Self again.

Rose adjusts the air-conditioning, turns the vents to blow cold air on her face, and takes another deep breath.

“Are you sure you’re all right? Let me follow you home,” Scarpetta says.

“Absolutely not.”

“How about we spend some time together tomorrow? I’ll cook dinner. Prosciutto and figs and your favorite drunk pork roast. A nice Tuscan wine. I know how much you like my ricotta and coffee crème.”

“Thank you, but I have plans,” Rose says, her voice touched by sadness.

The dark shape of a water tower on the southern tip of the island, or the toe, as it is called.

Hilton Head is shaped like a shoe, like the shoes Will saw in public places in Iraq. The white stucco villa that belongs to the No Trespassing sign is worth at least fifteen million dollars. The electronic blinds are down, and she is probably on the couch in the great room watching another movie on the retractable screen that covers an expanse of glass facing the sea. From Will’s perspective, outside looking in, the movie plays backward. He scans the beach, scans the nearby empty houses. The dark, overcast sky hangs low and thick as the wind gusts in fierce fits and starts.

He steps up on the boardwalk and follows it toward the gate that separates the outside world from the backyard as images on the big movie screen flash backward. A man and woman fucking. His pulse quickens as he walks, his sandy footsteps quiet on the weathered boards, actors flashing backward on the movie screen. Fucking inside an elevator. The volume is low. He can barely hear the thudding and moans, those sounds that sound so violent as characters fuck in Hollywood, and then there is the wooden gate, and it is locked. He climbs over it and goes to his usual place at the side of the house.

Through a space between the window and the shade he has watched her on and off for months, watched her pace and cry and pull out her hair. She never sleeps at night, is afraid of the night, afraid of storms. She watches movies all night and into the morning. She watches movies when it rains, and if there’s thunder, she turns the volume up very loud, and when the sun is bright, she hides from it. Usually she sleeps on the black leather wraparound couch where she’s now stretched out, propped up by leather pillows, a blanket over her. She points the remote control and backs up the DVD, returning to the scene where Glenn Close and Michael Douglas are fucking in the elevator.

The houses on either side are obscured by tall borders of bamboo and trees, nobody home. Empty because the rich owners don’t rent them out and aren’t here and haven’t been here. Families often don’t start using their expensive beach homes until after their children are out of school for the year. She wouldn’t want other people here, and no neighbors have been here all winter. She wants to be alone and is terrified of being alone. She dreads thunder and rain, dreads clear skies and sunlight, doesn’t want to be anywhere anymore under any conditions whatsoever.

That’s why I have come.

She backs up the DVD again. He’s familiar with her rituals, lying there in the same soiled pink sweatsuit, backing up movies, replaying certain scenes, usually people fucking. Now and then she goes out by the pool for a smoke and to let her pitiful dog out of his crate. She never picks up after him, the grass full of dried shit, and the Mexican yardman who comes every other week doesn’t pick up the shit, either. She smokes and stares at the pool while the dog wanders about the yard, sometimes baying his deep, throaty howl, and she calls out to him.

“Good dog,” or more often “Bad dog,” and “Come. Come here right now!” Clapping her hands.

She doesn’t pet him, can scarcely bear to look at him. Were it not for the dog, her life would be unbearable. The dog understands none of it. It’s unlikely he remembers what happened or understood it at the time. What he knows is the crate in the laundry room where he sleeps and sits up and bays. She thinks nothing of it when he bays as she drinks vodka and takes pills and pulls out her hair, the routine the same day after day after day.

Soon I’ll hold you in my arms and carry you back through the inner darkness to the higher realm, and you’ll be separated from the physical dimension that’s now your hell. You will thank me.

Will keeps up his scan, making sure no one sees him. He watches her get up from the couch and walk drunkenly to the slider to go out for a smoke and, as usual, she forgets the alarm is set. She jumps and swears when it wails and hammers, and she stumbles to the panel to shut it off. The phone rings, and she rakes her fingers through her thinning dark hair, saying something, then she yells and slams down the receiver. Will gets low to the ground behind shrubbery, doesn’t move. In minutes the police come, two officers in a Beaufort County sheriff’s cruiser. Will watches invisibly as the officers stand on the porch, not bothering to go inside because they know her. She forgot her password again, and the alarm company dispatched the police again.

“Ma’am, it’s not a good idea to use your dog’s name, anyway.” One of the officers tells her the same thing she’s been told before. “You should use something else for your password. A pet’s name is one of the first things an intruder tries.”

She slurs. “If I can’t remember the damn dog’s name, how can I remember something else? All I know is the password’s the dog’s name. Oh, hell. Buttermilk. There, now I remember it.”

“Yes, ma’am. But I still think you should change it. Like I said, it’s not good to use a pet’s name, and you never remember it anyway. There must be something you’ll remember. We have a fair number of burglaries around here, especially this time of year, when so many of the houses are empty.”

“I can’t remember a new one.” She can barely talk. “When it goes off, I can’t think.”

“You sure you’re all right being alone? Is there anyone we can call?”

“I have no one anymore.”

Eventually, the cops drive off. Will emerges from his safe place and, through a window, watches her reset the alarm. One, two, three, four. The same code, the only one she can remember. He watches her sit back down on the couch, crying again. She pours herself another vodka. The moment is no longer right. He follows the boardwalk back to the beach.

The next morning, eight o’clock, Pacific Daylight Time. Lucy eases to a stop in front of the Stanford Cancer Center.

Whenever she flies her Citation X jet to San Francisco and rents a Ferrari for the hour’s drive to see her neuroendocrinologist, she feels powerful, the way she feels at home. Her tight jeans and tight T-shirt show off her athletic body and make her feel vital, the way she feels at home. Her black crocodile boots and titanium Breitling Emergency watch with its bright orange dial make her feel she’s still Lucy, fearless and accomplished, the way she feels when she’s not thinking about what’s wrong with her.

She rolls down the window of the red F430 Spider. “Can you park this thing?” she asks the valet in gray who tentatively approaches her at the entrance of the modern brick-and-glass complex. She doesn’t recognize him. He must be new. “It’s Formula One shift, these paddles on the steering wheel. Right for shifting up, left for down, both at the same time for neutral, this button for reverse.” She notes the anxiety in his eyes. “Well, okay, I admit it’s kind of complicated,” she says, because she doesn’t want to belittle him.