Patricia Cornwell - Book of the Dead

“Who was going to take care of Shandy’s little inconvenience? The body. What was my son supposed to do?” Dr. Self says. “That’s what happens, isn’t it? One person’s sin becomes your own. Will loved his son. But when Daddy goes marching off to war, Mommy has to be both parents. And in this instance, Mommy is a monster. I’ve always despised her.”

“You’ve supported her,” Scarpetta says. “Handsomely, I might add.”

“Let’s see. And you know that? Let me guess. Lucy’s invaded her privacy, probably knows what she has — or had — in the bank. I wouldn’t have ever known my grandson was dead if Shandy hadn’t called. I suppose the day the body was found. She wanted money. More of it. And my advice.”

“Is she and what she told you why you’re here?”

“Shandy has managed to do a rather brilliant job of blackmailing me all these years. People don’t know I have a son. They certainly don’t know I have a grandson. If these facts were known, I would be viewed as neglectful. A terrible mother. A terrible grandmother. All those things my own dear mother says about me. By the time I became famous, it was too late to go back and undo my very deliberate distancing. I had no choice but to continue it. Mommie Dearest — and I mean Shandy — kept my secret in exchange for cashier’s checks.”

“Now you intend to keep her secret safe in exchange for what?” Scarpetta says. “She abused her son to death and you want her to get away with it, in exchange for what?”

“I suppose a jury would love to see the tape of her in your morgue, in your refrigerator, looking at her dead son. The murderer inside your morgue. Imagine what a story that would make. I would say, conservatively say, that you would have no career left, Kay. With that in mind, you should thank me. My privacy ensures your own.”

“Then you don’t know me.”

“I forgot to offer you coffee. Service for two.” Smiling.

“I won’t forget what you’ve done,” Scarpetta says, getting up. “What you’ve done to Lucy, to Benton, to me. I’m not sure what you’ve done to Marino.”

“I’m not sure what he did to you. But I know enough. How is Benton handling it?” She refills her coffee. “Such a peculiar thing to consider.” She leans back into the pillows. “You know, when Marino was seeing me in Florida, his lust couldn’t have been more palpable unless he’d grabbed me and torn off my clothes. It’s oedipal and pitiful. He wants to fuck his mother — the most powerful person in his life, and forever and a day he will chase the end of his oedipal rainbow. There was no pot of gold when he had sex with you. At last, at last. Hooray for him. It’s a wonder he hasn’t killed himself.”

Scarpetta stands at the door, staring at her.

“What kind of lover is he?” Dr. Self asks. “Benton, I can see. But Marino? I haven’t heard from him in days. Have the two of you worked it out? And what does Benton say?”

“If Marino didn’t tell you, who did?” Scarpetta quietly asks.

“Marino? Oh, no. Certainly not. He didn’t tell me about your little foray. He was followed to your house from, oh, dear, what’s the name of that bar? Another one of Shandy’s thugs, this one commissioned to give you serious thoughts about relocating.”

“You did that, then. I thought so.”

“To help you.”

“Do you have so little in your life that you have to overpower people this way?”

“Charleston isn’t a good place for you, Kay.”

Scarpetta shuts the door behind her. She leaves the hotel. She walks over pavers, past a plashing fountain of horses, and into the hotel’s garage. The sun isn’t up yet, and she should call the police, but all she can think about is the misery one person can cause. The first shadow of panic touches her in a deserted level of concrete and cars, and she thinks about one remark Dr. Self made.

It’s a wonder he hasn’t killed himself.

Was she making a prediction or voicing an expectation or hinting at yet another horrible secret she knows? Now Scarpetta can think of nothing else, and she can’t call Lucy or Benton. Truth be told, they have no sympathy for him, may even hope he ate his gun or drove off a bridge, and she imagines Marino dead inside his truck at the bottom of the Cooper River.

She decides to call Rose, and gets out her cell phone, but there’s no signal, and she walks to her SUV, vaguely aware of the white Cadillac parked next to it. She notices an oval sticker on the rear bumper, recognizes the HH for Hilton Head, and she feels what is happening before she is aware of it, and turns around as Captain Poma rushes out from behind a concrete support. She feels the air move behind her, or she hears it, and he lunges, and she wheels around as something clamps her arm. For a suspended second, a face is level with hers, a young man with a buzz cut and a red, swollen ear, staring wildly. He slams against her car, and a knife clatters at her feet, and the captain is punching him and yelling.

Bull holds his cap in his hands.

He is stooped over a little in the front seat, mindful that his head touches the roof if he sits up straight, which is what he’s prone to do. Bull carries himself with pride, even when he’s just been bailed out of the city jail for a crime he didn’t commit.

“I sure thank you for the ride, Dr. Kay,” he says as she parks in front of her house. “I’m sorry for your trouble.”

“Don’t keep saying that, Bull. I’m really angry right now.”

“I know you are, and I sure am sorry, because it’s nothing you did.” He opens his door and is slow working his way out of the front seat. “I tried to get the dirt off my boots, but it looks like I messed up your mat a little, so I think I best clean it or at least shake it out.”

“Don’t apologize anymore, Bull. You’ve been doing it since we left the jail, and I’m so mad I could spit, and next time something like this happens, if you don’t call me right away, I’m going to be mad at you, too.”

“Wouldn’t want that.” He shakes out his mat, and she’s getting the idea that he’s about as stubborn as she is.

It’s been a long day full of painful images, and near misses, and bad smells, and then Rose called. Scarpetta was up to her elbows in Lydia Webster’s decomposed body when Hollings appeared at the autopsy table and said he had news and she needed to hear it. How Rose found out, exactly, isn’t exactly clear, but a neighbor of hers who knows a neighbor of a neighbor of Scarpetta’s — someone she’s never met — heard a rumor that the neighbor Scarpetta has met — Mrs. Grimball — had Bull arrested for trespassing and attempted burglary.

He was hiding behind a pittosporum to the left of Scarpetta’s front porch, and Mrs. Grimball happened to spot him while she was looking out her upstairs window. It was nighttime. Scarpetta can’t blame a neighbor for being alarmed by such a sight, unless that neighbor happens to be Mrs. Grimball. Calling nine-one-one to report a prowler wasn’t enough. She had to embellish her story and claim Bull was hiding on her property, not Scarpetta’s, and the long and short of it is Bull — who has been arrested before — went to jail, where he’s been since the middle of the week, and where he’d likely still be, had Rose not interrupted an autopsy. After Scarpetta was attacked in a parking garage.

Now Will Rambo is in the city jail, not Bull.

Now Bull’s mother can relax. Doesn’t have to keep lying, saying he’s out picking oysters or just out, period, because the last thing she wants is for him to get fired again.

“I’ve thawed stew,” Scarpetta says, unlocking her front door. “There’s plenty of it, and I can only imagine what you’ve had to eat for the last few days.”