Patricia Cornwell - Red Mist

The officer stares at the body draped over the right side of the bed. He moves closer as he slips his portable radio off his belt.

“You need to keep back and don’t touch anything,” Marino snaps at him, his eyes blazing.

“Hey, take it easy.”

“You don’t know shit,” Marino erupts. “There’s no fucking reason for you to be in here. You don’t know shit, so get the hell out.”

“Sir, you need to calm down.”

“Sir? What? I’m a fucking knight? Don’t call me sir.”

“Take it easy,” I say to Marino. “Please.”

“Goddamn. I can’t believe this. Jesus Christ. What the hell happened?”

“The more we can limit exposure, the better,” I say to the officer. “We really don’t know what we’re dealing with here,” I add, and he backs up several steps, staying by the doorway as Marino stares at the body and then looks away, his face deep red.

“You mean it could be something we could get, like something contagious?” the officer asks.

“I don’t know, but it’s best you don’t get close or touch anything.” I scan every visible part of her, seeing nothing that tells me anything, and the absence of anything tells me something. “Lucy and Benton shouldn’t come in here,” I tell Marino. “Lucy doesn’t need to be exposed to this. She doesn’t need to see this.”

“Jesus. Shit!”

“Can you go out there and make sure she doesn’t try to come in? Make sure the apartment door is shut and locked.”

“Jesus. What the hell could have happened?” His voice shakes, and his eyes are bright and bloodshot.

“Please make sure the door is locked,” I instruct Marino. “Make sure your partner stays out there so no one comes in who’s not supposed to come in,” I say to the officer, who has short red hair and deep blue eyes. “We can’t do anything else, and we shouldn’t touch anything. We have a suspicious death, and we need to treat this as a crime scene. I’m worried about poisoning, and we need to stop right now before anything is disturbed. I’d prefer you’re not in here, because we don’t know what we’re dealing with,” I repeat. “But I need you to stay right there. I need you to stay with me,” I say to the officer, as Marino walks out, his footsteps loud on hardwood.

“What makes you think it’s a crime scene?” The officer with red hair is looking around, but he doesn’t move away from the doorway. He has no interest in getting near the body after what I just said. He has no interest in being inside this room. “Except for her purse out there. But if she let someone in who ended up robbing her, it must have been someone she knew, or how could he get in the door downstairs?”

“We don’t know that anyone was in here.”

“So something could be poisonous inside this apartment.”

“Yes.”

“Or maybe an overdose and she was digging in her purse for pills.” The officer doesn’t budge from his position in the doorway. “Maybe I should check her bathroom.” He looks at a door that is ajar to the left of the bed, but he doesn’t move an inch.

“It’s best you don’t, and I need you to stay with me.” I enter Benton’s number on my phone.

“I was on a scene last year. Woman OD’d on oxys, and it looked a lot like this. Nothing really out of place except for where she was digging around for drugs in drawers, in her purse. She was dead on the bed, kind of on top of the covers, sort of lying across the bed instead of in it. A real pretty girl trying to be a dancer who got hooked on oxys.”

I press call as I stare at the master bath, but I don’t go near it. Light seeps through the partially open doorway. The bedside lamps are on, and the light is on inside the bathroom. Jaime never went to bed last night, or if she did, she got up again at some point.

“They said accident, but my personal opinion was suicide. Boyfriend had just broke up with her, you know. She had a lot of problems,” the officer is saying, and he may as well be talking to himself.

“Lucy can’t come in here,” I tell Benton the instant he answers, and he knows what that means and is silent. “I don’t know what to suggest,” I add, because I don’t know what he should say to Lucy right now.

She’s going to know the truth if she doesn’t already. There is one question with only two possible answers. Jaime is dead inside this apartment or she’s not, and Lucy already knows. Right this very minute it’s occurring to her as Benton listens to what I’m telling him on the phone, as I describe what I’m seeing, and he’s not doing anything to dispel what Lucy fears. A look, a smile, a gesture, or a word that would make it all go away, but he gives her nothing, and I imagine him staring straight ahead as he listens to me. Lucy realizes the worst, and I have no idea what to do about it, but I can’t go out and deal with her at the moment. I have to deal with what’s happened in here. I have to deal with Jaime. I have to deal with what might happen next.

I look at her body on the bed, her open robe tangled around her hips. She is nude underneath it, and I can’t stand the idea of the redheaded officer in the doorway, of anybody else seeing her this way. But I can’t touch her. I can’t touch anything, and I stand near a window. I don’t wander around or get any closer.

“Please stay with Lucy, and I’ll get back to you as soon as I can,” I’m saying to Benton over the phone. “If you can find a way to get her to the hotel, and I’ll meet you there, that might be the best plan. It’s not good for her to hang around, and you really can’t do anything.” I don’t care that he’s FBI. I don’t care what he is or what powers he has. “Not here, not right now. Please just take care of her.”

“Of course.”

“I’ll meet you back at the hotel.”

“Okay.”

I tell him that the room arrangements need to be changed. I want a suite with a kitchenette, if possible. I want rooms that can be connected, because I have a strong feeling about what will happen. I’m quite sure I know what we’re going to need to do, and most of all, we need to be together.

“I’ll handle it,” Benton promises.

“All of us together,” I say it again. “It’s not negotiable. Maybe you can get a rental car or a Bureau car. We need a car. We can’t just ride around in Marino’s van. I don’t know how long we’re going to be here.”

“I’m not sure about him.” Benton is quiet and gives nothing away in his tone.

Without saying it, he is communicating that if Jaime has been murdered, Marino could have a problem with the police. They might consider him a suspect. He has keys to her building and her apartment. He probably knows her alarm code. He was closely associated with her, and the police already have asked if the two of them might have been arguing or fighting last night. In other words, the assumption is they were lovers.

“I’m not sure exactly what’s happened, obviously,” I say to Benton. “I know what I suspect, and I suspect it strongly, and will deal with it accordingly as best I can. As much as can be allowed.”

I’m implying that I believe Jaime was murdered.

“But I’m not sure about him or either of us.” I’m saying I’ve got a similar complication.

Marino won’t be the only suspect. I carried in the take-out sushi last night. I might have delivered death to Jaime in a white paper bag.

“I’m here,” I add. “I’ll do whatever I can to help.”

“Okay” is all Benton says, because Lucy is with him and he can’t say much.

I end the call, alone in the bedroom with Jaime’s dead body and a Savannah-Chatham officer whose nameplate reads T. J. Harley. He has remained in the doorway, looking at the body, looking around, having no informed idea what he needs to be looking for or if he should stay with me as I’ve requested or join his partner or call for a supervisor or a detective from the homicide unit. I can see myriad thoughts in his eyes.