Patricia Cornwell - Book of the Dead

In the lobby, an old woman with a cane clicks her way across marble. Scarpetta and Ed rush past, and out of the building. They run through the dark around the corner, stopping directly below Lupano’s open window. It is filled with light at the top of the building. Scarpetta shoves through a tall hedge, branches snapping and scratching, and finds what she feared. The body is nude and contorted, limbs and neck at unnatural angles against the brick side of the building, blood glistening in the dark. She presses two fingers against the carotid and feels no pulse. She repositions the body flat on its back and begins CPR. When she looks up, she wipes blood off her face, off her mouth. Sirens wail, blue and red lights flashing blocks away on East Bay. She gets to her feet and pushes back through the hedge.

“Come here,” Scarpetta says to Ed. “Take a look and tell me if that’s him.”

“Is he…?”

“Just look.”

Ed pushes through the bushes, then crashes back through them.

“My God in heaven,” he says. “Oh, no. Oh, Lord.”

“Is it him?” she asks, and Ed nods yes. In the back of her mind, it bothers her that she just did mouth-to-mouth without protection. “Right before he called you about his Porsche, you were where?”

“Sitting at my desk.” Ed is scared, his eyes darting. He’s sweating and keeps wetting his lips and clearing his throat.

“Did anyone else come inside the building maybe about that time, or maybe a little before he called?”

Sirens wail as police cars and an ambulance stop on the street, red and blue light pulsing on Ed’s face. “No,” he says. Except for a few of the residents, he says, he saw no one.

Doors slam, radios chatter, diesel engines rumble. Police and EMTs get out of their vehicles.

Scarpetta says to Ed, “Your wallet’s out on the desk. Maybe you’d taken your wallet out, then you got the call? Am I right?” Then she says to a plainclothes cop, “Over there.” She points to the hedge. “Came from up there.” She points to the lighted open window on the top floor.

“You’re that new medical examiner.” The detective looks at her, doesn’t seem entirely sure.

“Yes.”

“You pronounced him?”

“That’s for the coroner to do.”

The detective starts walking toward the bushes as she confirms that the man — Lupano, it seems — is dead. “I’ll need a statement from you, so don’t go anywhere,” he calls back to her. Bushes crack and rustle as he pushes through them.

“I don’t understand what all this is about. My wallet,” Ed says.

Scarpetta moves out of the way so the EMTs can get through with their stretcher and equipment. They head to the far corner of the building so they can maneuver behind the hedge instead of breaking through it.

“Your wallet’s on your desk. Right there with the door open. Is that your habit?” she asks Ed.

“Can we talk inside?”

“Let’s give our statements to the investigator over there,” she says. “Then we’ll talk inside.”

She notices someone heading toward them on the sidewalk, a woman in a housecoat. The woman is familiar, then becomes Rose. Scarpetta intercepts her in a hurry.

“Don’t come over here,” Scarpetta says.

“As if there’s anything I haven’t seen.” Rose looks up at the lighted open window. “That’s where he lived, isn’t it?”

“Who?”

“What would you expect after what happened?” she says, coughing, taking a deep breath. “What did he have left?”

“The question is timing.”

“Maybe Lydia Webster. It’s all over the news. You and I both know she’s dead,” Rose says.

Scarpetta just listens, wondering the obvious. Why would Rose assume Lupano might be affected by what has happened to Lydia Webster? Why would Rose know he’s dead?

“He was quite full of himself when we met,” Rose says, staring toward the dark shrubbery beneath the window.

“I wasn’t aware you’d ever met him.”

“Just once. I didn’t know it was him until Ed said something. He was talking to Ed in the office when I saw him quite a long time ago. Rather rough-looking. I thought he was a maintenance person, had no idea he was Drew Martin’s coach.”

Scarpetta looks down the dark sidewalk, notices Ed is talking to the detective. Paramedics are loading the stretcher inside the ambulance as emergency lights flash and cops poke around with their flashlights.

“Drew Martin comes along only once in a lifetime. What was left for him?” Rose says. “Possibly nothing. People die when there’s nothing left for them. I don’t blame them.”

“Come on. You shouldn’t be out here in the damp air. I’ll walk you back inside,” Scarpetta says.

They round the corner of the building as Henry Hollings comes down the front steps. He doesn’t look in their direction, walking fast and with purpose. Scarpetta watches him dissolve into the darkness along the seawall, toward East Bay Street.

“He got here before the police did?” Scarpetta says.

“He lives only five minutes from here,” Rose says. “He has a quite a place on the Battery.”

Scarpetta stares in the direction Hollings headed. On the harbor’s horizon, two lighted ships look like yellow LEGOs. The weather is clearing. She can see a few stars. She doesn’t mention to Rose that the Charleston County coroner just walked past a dead body and didn’t bother to look. He didn’t pronounce him. He didn’t do anything. Inside the building, she gets on the elevator with Rose, who does a poor job disguising how much she doesn’t want Scarpetta with her.

“I’m fine,” Rose says, holding open the doors, the elevator not going anywhere. “It’s back to bed for me. I’m sure people want to talk to you out there.”

“It’s not my case.”

“People always want to talk to you.”

“After I make sure you’re safely inside your apartment.”

“Since you’re here, maybe he assumed you’d take care of it,” Rose says as the doors shut and Scarpetta presses the button for her floor.

“You mean the coroner.” Even though Scarpetta has yet to mention him or point out that he inexplicably left without doing his job.

Rose is too breathless to talk as they follow the corridor to her apartment. She stands before the door and pats Scarpetta’s arm.

“Open the door and I’ll leave,” Scarpetta says.

Rose gets out her key. She doesn’t want to open the door with Scarpetta standing there.

“Go on inside,” Scarpetta says.

Rose doesn’t. The more reluctant she is, the more stubborn Scarpetta gets. Finally, Scarpetta takes the key from her and lets them in. Two chairs have been pulled up to the window that overlooks the harbor, and between them on a table are two wineglasses and a bowl of nuts.

“The person you’ve been seeing,” Scarpetta says, inviting herself inside. “Henry Hollings.” She shuts the door and looks into Rose’s eyes. “That’s why he hurried out of here. The police called him about Lupano and he told you, then left so he could come back without anyone knowing he was already here.”

She moves to the window as if she might see him on the street. She looks down. Rose’s apartment isn’t very far from Lupano’s.

“He’s a public figure and has to be careful,” Rose says, sitting on the couch, exhausted and pale. “We’re not having an affair. His wife is dead.”

“That’s the reason he’s sneaking?” Scarpetta sits next to her. “I’m sorry. That doesn’t make sense.”

“To protect me.” A deep breath.

“From what?”

“If it got out the coroner was seeing your secretary, somebody might make something of it. Certainly, it would end up in the news.”

“I see.”

“No, you don’t,” Rose says.