Patricia Cornwell - Book of the Dead

“Whatever makes you happy makes me happy.”

“Until you visited him, he assumed you hated him. That hasn’t helped,” Rose says.

“Then it’s my fault for not giving him a chance,” Scarpetta says.

“I couldn’t assure him otherwise, now, could I? You’ve assumed the worst about him, just as he’s assumed the worst about you.” Rose struggles to breathe, and she’s getting worse. The cancer is destroying her right before Scarpetta’s eyes.

“It will be different now,” she says to Rose.

“He was so happy you came to see him,” Rose says, reaching for a tissue, coughing. “That’s why he was here tonight. To tell me all about it. He talked of nothing else. He likes you. He wants the two of you to work together. Not against each other.” She coughs some more, the tissue speckled with blood.

“Does he know?”

“Of course. From the start.” She gets a pained expression on her face. “In that little wineshop on East Bay. It was instant. When we met. Started talking about burgundy versus Bordeaux. As if I know. Out of the blue, he suggests we try a few. He didn’t know where I work, so it wasn’t that. He didn’t learn I work for you until later.”

“It doesn’t matter what he knew. I don’t care.”

“He loves me. I tell him not to. He says if you love someone, that’s the way it is. And who can say how long any of us will be here. That’s how Henry explains life.”

“Then I’m his friend,” Scarpetta says.

She leaves Rose, and finds Hollings talking to the detective, the two of them near the shrubbery where the body was found. The ambulance and fire truck are gone, nothing parked nearby except an unmarked car and a cruiser.

“I thought you’d ducked out on us,” the detective says as Scarpetta walks toward them.

She says to Hollings, “I was making sure Rose got safely back into her apartment.”

“Let me bring you up to speed,” Hollings says. “Body’s en route to MUSC and will be autopsied in the morning. You’re welcome to be present and participate in any way you see fit. Or not.”

“Nothing so far to indicate it’s anything other than a suicide,” the detective says. “Except it bothers me he’s got no clothes on. If he jumped, why did he take all his clothes off?”

“You might get your answer from toxicology,” Scarpetta says. “The doorman says Lupano sounded intoxicated when he called him not long before he died. I think all of us have seen enough to know that when people decide to commit suicide, they can do a number of things that seem illogical, even suspicious. By chance did you find clothes inside that might be what he took off?”

“Got a few guys up there right now. Clothes on his bed. Jeans, shirt. Nothing unusual about that part of it. No sign anybody else was in there with him when he went out the window.”

“Ed say anything about seeing a stranger come inside the building tonight?” Hollings asks her. “Or perhaps someone who showed up to visit Lupano? And I will tell you, Ed’s a real stickler about letting people in.”

“I didn’t get that far with him,” Scarpetta says. “I did ask him why he had his wallet out and in plain view on his desk. He says it was on his desk when he got the call from Lupano and rushed upstairs.”

“He’s ordered a pizza,” the detective says. “That’s what he told me, said he’d just gotten a hundred-dollar bill out of his wallet when Lupano called. Ed did order a pizza. From Mama Mia’s. Was a no-show, and the guy left. I have trouble with the part about him having a hundred-dollar bill. Did he think some pizza deliverer was going to have change?”

“Maybe you should ask him who called first.”

“That’s a good idea,” Hollings says. “Lupano’s known for his flashy lifestyle, for having expensive tastes and carrying around a lot of cash. If he came back to the building during Ed’s shift, Ed would know he’s home. He places his pizza order, then realizes all he has is three dollars and a hundred-dollar bill.”

Scarpetta’s not going to tell them that yesterday Lucy was inside Lupano’s car, looking at his GPS.

She says, “That might be what happened — Ed called Lupano for change. And by this point, Lupano’s drunk, maybe drugged, irrational. Ed’s concerned and goes upstairs.”

“Or maybe he went upstairs to get change,” Hollings says.

“Still implying Ed called him first.”

The detective walks away and says, “I’m going to ask him.”

“I have a feeling you and I have a few matters to clear up,” Hollings says to her.

She looks at the sky and thinks about flying.

“How about we find a private place to talk,” he says.

Across the street is White Point Gardens, several acres of Civil War monuments, live oak trees, and plugged cannon aimed at Fort Sumter. Scarpetta and Hollings sit on a bench.

“I know about Rose,” she says.

“I figured you might.”

“As long as you take care of her.”

“Seems you do a fine job of that. I had some of your stew earlier tonight.”

“Before you left and came back. So no one would realize you were already inside the building,” Scarpetta says.

“So you don’t mind,” he says, as if he needs her approval.

“As long as you’re good to her. Because if you’re not, I’ll do something about it.”

“I believe that.”

“I need to ask you about Lupano,” she says. “I’m wondering if you might have contacted him after I left your funeral home earlier today.”

“Might I ask why you’d wonder that?”

“Because you and I talked about him. I asked you why he might have attended Holly Webster’s funeral. I think you know what would enter my mind.”

“That I asked him about it.”

“Did you?”

“Yes.”

“It’s in the news that Lydia Webster’s missing and presumed dead,” Scarpetta says.

“He knew her. Very well. We talked for a long time. He was very upset.”

“Is Lydia why he’s kept an apartment here?”

“Kay — I hope you don’t mind if I call you that — I was well aware that Gianni attended Holly’s funeral last summer. I couldn’t let on that I was. It would have betrayed a confidence.”

“I’m growing so weary of people and their confidences.”

“I didn’t try to obstruct you. If you found out on your own…”

“I’m tired of that, too. Finding out on my own.”

“If you found out on your own he’d attended Holly’s funeral, that was fair enough. So I made the guest books available to you. I understand your frustration. But you’d do the same thing. You wouldn’t betray a confidence, now, would you?”

“Depends. That’s what I’ve about decided.”

Hollings looks at the lighted windows of the apartment building. He says, “Now I have to worry I’m somehow responsible.”

“What confidence?” Scarpetta asks. “Since we’re talking about them and you seem to have a secret.”

“That he’d met Lydia several years ago when the Family Circle Cup used to be played in Hilton Head. They had an affair, an ongoing one, which is why he kept an apartment here. Then that day in July, their punishment. He and Lydia were in her bedroom, you can fill in the rest. No one checked on Holly, and she drowned. They broke up. Her husband left her. She fell apart, completely.”

“And he started sleeping with Drew?”

“God knows how many people he’s slept with, Kay.”

“Why did he continue to keep this apartment? If his affair with Lydia was over.”

“Maybe to have a clandestine place to be with Drew. Under the guise of training. Maybe because he said the bright foliage, the weather, the ironwork, and old stucco homes reminded him of Italy. He continued to be a friend to Lydia — this is according to him. Went to see her now and then.”