Patricia Cornwell - Trace

By now, the truck and the men on it are stopping and starting, jumping off the truck and back on, and emptying Supercans several streets away, and they will keep on going until they turn off on Patterson Avenue, and where they go from there Dr. Marcus doesn't know or care, as long as they are gone. He stares out his window at his haphazardly placed Supercans and decides it is not safe to go out.

He doesn't feel up to going out yet, and he walks to his bedroom and checks again to make sure his burglar alarm is still armed, and he takes off his wet pajamas and robe and gets into the shower. He doesn't stay in the shower long, but when he is clean and warm, he dries off and gets dressed for the office, grateful that the attack has passed, and careful not to contemplate what might happen should an attack come on suddenly when he is in public. Well, it won't. As long as he is home or near his office, he can shut the door and safely wait out the storm.

In the kitchen, he takes an orange pill. He's already had one Klonopin and his antidepressant this morning, but he takes another.5 milligram of Klonopin. In the past few months he has gotten up to three milligrams a day, and he is not happy about being dependent on benzodiazepines. His psychiatrist in Chaiiottcsvillc says not to worry. As long as Dr. Marcus doesn't abuse alcohol or other drugs, and he doesn't touch either, he is fine taking Klonopin. Better to take Klonopin than to be so crippled by panic attacks that he hides inside his house and loses his job or humiliates himself. He can't afford to lose his job or be humiliated. He isn't wealthy like Scarpetta and he could never endure the humiliations she seems to take in stride. Before he succeeded her as chief medical examiner of Virginia, he didn't need Klonopin or antidepressants, but now he has a co-morbid disorder, according to his psychiatrist, meaning he has not one disorder but two. In St. Louis, he missed work sometimes and almost never traveled, but he managed. Life before Scarpetta was manageable.

In the living room, he looks out the window again at the big green Supercans and listens for the big truck and the men on it, but he does not hear them. Slipping on his old gray wool overcoat and an old pair of black pigskin gloves, he pauses by the front door to see how he is feeling. He seems to be fine, so he disarms the burglar alarm and opens the door. He walks briskly to the end of his driveway, checking up and down the street for the truck but not hearing or seeing it, and he feels fine as he rolls the Supercans to the side of the garage where they belong.

He returns to his house and takes off his coat and gloves, and he is much calmer now, even happy, and he thoroughly washes his hands and his thoughts return to Scarpetta and he feels relaxed and in good spirits because he is going to get his way about things. All these months he has heard Scarpetta-this and Scarpetta-that, and because he didn't know her, he could not complain. When the health commissioner said, "Her shoes will be hard to fill, probably impossible for you to fill, and there are still some people who won't respect you just because you aren't her," Dr. Marcus said not a word, because what could he say? He didn't know her.

When the new governor extended the courtesy of inviting Dr. Marcus to have coffee in her office after she appointed him, he had to decline because she set the time at eight-thirty on a Monday, which is the same day and time as garbage collection in Westham Green. Of course, he couldn't explain why he couldn't have coffee with her, but it was out of the question, just impossible, and he "remembers sitting in his living room listening for the big truck and its big men and wondering how life was going to be for him in Virginia since he declined to have coffee with the governor, who is a woman and probably wouldn't respect him anyway because he's not a woman and he's not Scarpetta.

Dr. Marcus doesn't know for a fact that the new governor is an admirer of Scarpetta, but she probably is. He had no idea what he was up against when he accepted the job of chief and moved here from St. Louis, leaving behind an office full of women medical examiners and death investigators, all of whom knew about Scarpetta and told him what a lucky man he was to get her job because thanks to her, Virginia has the best ME system in the United States, and it was a shame she didn't get on with whoever the governor was back then, the one who fired her, and the women in his office encouraged him to take Scarpetta's job.

They wanted him gone. He knew that at the time. They couldn't figure out for the life of them why Virginia was interested in him, of all people, unless it was because he was nonconfrontational and nonpolitical and nonexistent. He knew what the women in his office were saying at the time. They whispered and worried that his opportunity was going to fall through and they would be stuck with him, and he knew exactly what was being said at the time.

So he moved to Virginia and not a month later found himself at odds with the governor, all because of garbage collection in Westham Green, and he blamed it on Scarpetta. He was cursed because of her. All he did was hear about her and complaints about him because he's not her. He was barely on the job when he came to hate her and everything she had accomplished, and he became masterful at showing his contempt in small ways, by neglecting whatever had been associated with Scarpetta way back when, whether it was a painting or a plant or a book or a pathologist or a dead patient who would have been better off were Scarpetta still chief. He became obsessed with proving that she is a myth and a fraud and a failure, but he couldn't destroy a perfect stranger. He couldn't even utter a negative word about her because he didn't know her.

Then Gilly Paulsson died and her father called the health commissioner, who in turn called the governor, who immediately called the director of the FBI, all because the governor heads a national terrorist committee and Frank Paulsson has connections with the Department of Homeland Security, and wouldn't it be awful if it turned out that little Gilly was killed by some enemy of the U.S. government?

The FBI was quick to agree that the matter merited checking into, and instantly the Bureau interfered with the local police and nobody knew what the other person was doing and some evidence went to the local labs and some evidence went to the FBI labs and other evidence wasn't collected at all, and Dr. Paulsson didn't want Gilly's body released from the morgue until all the facts were known. Mixed in with this mess was Dr. Paulsson's dysfunctional relationship with his estranged wife, and soon enough the death of this nobody little fourteen-year-old was so screwed up and politicized that Dr. Marcus had no choice but to ask the health commissioner what should be done.

"We need to bring in a big-gun consultant," the health commissioner replied. "Before things go really bad."

"They're already bad," Dr. Marcus replied. "The minute Richmond PD heard the FBI was involved, they backed off, ran for cover. And to make matters worse, we don't know what killed the girl. I think her death is suspicious, but we don't have a cause of death."

"We need a consultant. Immediately. Someone who's not from here. Someone who can take the brunt of it, if need be. If the governor gets a lot of shit from this case, national shit, heads will roll and mine won't be the only one, Joel."

"What about Dr. Scarpetta?" Dr. Marcus suggested, and it amazed him at the time that her name leaped to his tongue without premeditation. His response was that effortless and quick.

"Excellent idea. An inspired one," the health commissioner agreed. "Do you know her?"

"I will soon enough,' Dr. Marcus said, and it amazed him that he was such a brilliant strategist.