Patricia Cornwell - Book of the Dead

The elevator doors open on the second floor, and she follows an empty corridor to a series of labs that are individually sealed off by metal doors and airlocks. In an outer room, she puts on a white disposable gown, a hairnet and cap, shoe covers, gloves, and a face shield. She passes through another sealed area that decontaminates with ultraviolet light, and from there she enters a fully automated lab, where DNA is extracted and replicated — and where Lucy, also in white from head to toe, said to meet her for reasons unknown. She’s sitting near a fume hood, talking to a scientist who is covered up, too, and therefore unrecognizable at a glance.

“Aunt Kay?” Lucy says. “I’m sure you remember Aaron. Our interim director.”

The face behind the plastic shield smiles and suddenly is familiar, and the three of them sit.

“I know you’re a forensic specialist,” Scarpetta says. “But I didn’t know you had a new position.” She asks what happened to the previous lab director.

“Quit. Because of what Dr. Self put on the Internet,” Lucy says, anger in her eyes.

“Quit?” Scarpetta asks, baffled. “Just like that?”

“Thinks I’m going to die and scuttled off to take another job. Anyway, he was a jerk, and I’d been wanting to get rid of him. Kind of ironic. The bitch did me a favor. But that’s not what we’re here to talk about. We’ve got lab results.”

“Blood, saliva, epithelial cells,” Aaron says. “Start with Lydia Webster’s toothbrush and blood from the bathroom floor. We have a good idea about her DNA, mainly important so we can exclude her. Or identify her eventually.” As if there’s no doubt she’s dead. “Then there’s a different profile from the skin cells, the sand and glue recovered from the broken window in her laundry room. And the burglar-alarm keypad. The dirty T-shirt from the laundry basket. All three have her DNA, unsurprisingly. But also a profile from someone else.”

“What about Madelisa Dooley’s shorts?” Scarpetta asks. “The blood on them.”

Aaron says, “Same donor as the three I just mentioned.”

“The killer, we think,” Lucy says. “Or whoever broke into her house.”

“I think we should be careful saying that,” Scarpetta says. “There have been other people in her house, including her husband.”

“The DNA’s not his, and we’ll tell you why in a minute,” Lucy says.

Aaron says, “What we did was your idea — going beyond the usual profile matching in CODIS and opening up the search by using the DNAPrint technology platform you and Lucy have discussed — an analysis that uses paternity and sibship indices to arrive at a probability of relatedness.”

“First question,” Lucy says. “Why would her ex-husband leave blood on Madelisa Dooley’s shorts?”

“Okay,” Scarpetta agrees. “That’s a good point. And if the blood is the Sandman’s — and to be clear, I’m going to call him that — then he must have injured himself somehow.”

“We might know how,” Lucy says. “And we’re beginning to have an idea of who.”

Aaron picks up a file folder. He takes out a report and hands it to Scarpetta.

“The unidentified little boy and the Sandman,” Aaron says. “Knowing that each parent donates approximately half of his or her genetic material to their child, we can have an expectation that samples from a parent and a child are going to indicate their relationship. And in the case of the Sandman and the unidentified little boy, a very close family relationship is implicated.”

Scarpetta looks at the test results. “I’ll say the same thing I did when we got the fingerprint match,” she says. “Are we sure there’s no mistake? No contamination, for example?”

“We don’t make mistakes. Not like that,” Lucy says. “You get only one and you’re done.”

“The boy is the Sandman’s son?” Scarpetta wants to make sure.

“I’d like references and investigation, but I certainly suspect it,” Aaron replies. “At the very least, as I said, they’re closely related.”

“You mentioned his being injured,” Lucy says. “The Sandman’s blood on the shorts? It’s also on the broken crown you found in Lydia Webster’s bathtub.”

“Maybe she bit him,” Scarpetta says.

“A very good chance,” Lucy says.

“Let’s get back to the little boy,” Scarpetta says. “If we’re implying the Sandman killed his own son, I’m not sure what I think. The abuse went on for a while. The child was being looked after by someone when the Sandman was in Iraq, in Italy, if the information we have is correct.”

“Well, I can tell you about the kid’s mother,” Lucy says. “We do have that reference, unless the DNA on Shandy Snook’s underwear came from somebody else. Maybe makes more sense why she was so hot to tour the morgue and look at his body and find out whatever you might know about the case. Find out what Marino might know.”

“Have you told the police?” Scarpetta says. “And should I ask how you got her underwear?”

Aaron smiles. Scarpetta realizes why the question could be construed as funny.

“Marino,” Lucy says. “And it’s sure as hell not his DNA. We have his profile for exclusionary purposes just like we have yours, mine. The police will need more to go on than underwear found on Marino’s floor, but even if she didn’t beat her son to death, she has to know who did.”

“I have to wonder if Marino did,” Scarpetta says.

“You saw the recording of him in the morgue with her,” Lucy says. “Sure didn’t appear to me he had any idea. Besides, he may be a lot of things, but he would never protect someone who did something like that to a kid.”

There are other matches. All pointing to the Sandman and revealing another stunning fact: The two sources of DNA recovered from Drew Martin’s fingernail scrapings are from the Sandman and someone else who is a close relative.

“Male,” Aaron explains. “According to the Italian analysis, ninety-nine percent European. Maybe another son? Maybe the Sandman’s brother? Maybe his father?”

“Three sources of DNA from one family?” Scarpetta is amazed.

“And another crime,” Lucy says.

Aaron hands Scarpetta another report and says, “A match with a biological sample left in an unsolved crime no one has connected to Drew or to Lydia or to any other case.”

“From a rape in 2004,” Lucy says. “Apparently, the guy who broke into Lydia Webster’s house and probably also murdered Drew Martin raped a tourist in Venice three years ago. The DNA profile from that evidence is in the Italian database, which we decided to search. Of course, there’s no suspect to match, because to date they can’t enter the profiles of known individuals. In other words, we don’t have a name. Just semen.”

“By all means, protect the privacy of rapists and murderers,” Aaron says.

“News accounts are sketchy,” Lucy says. “Twenty-year-old student in Venice, a summer program to study art. Out at a bar late at night, walked back to her hotel near the Bridge of Sighs and was attacked. So far, that’s all we know about the case. But since it was worked by the Carabinieri, your friend the captain should have access to the information.”

“Possibly the Sandman’s first violent crime,” Scarpetta says. “At least as a civilian. Assuming it’s true this guy served in Iraq. Frequently, a first-time offender leaves evidence and then gets smart. This guy’s smart, and his MO has evolved considerably. He’s careful about evidence, is ritualistic and much more violent, and after he finishes, his victims aren’t alive to tell. Thankfully, it didn’t occur to him he might leave his DNA in surgical glue. Does Benton know about this?” she asks.