Patricia Cornwell - Trace

She already lived there, was born there and did nothing to earn it, and then she laughed at Pogue. She rode by on the gurney and almost hit him when he was walking past, pushing an empty fifty-gallon drum of formaldehyde on a dolly, and because of Lucy, he jumped and came to an abrupt halt and the dolly tipped and the drum toppled over and rolled, and Lucy clattered by on the gurney like a bratty kid riding a shopping cart in the grocery store, only she wasn't a kid, she was a teenager, a very bratty pretty prideful seventeen-year-old, and Pogue remembers her age exactly. He knows her birthday. For years he has sent her anonymous sympathy cards on her birthday, in care of Scarpetta at the OCME at the old 9 North 14th Street address, even after the building was abandoned. He doubts Lucy ever got them.

That day, that fateful day, Scarpetta stood by the open vat, and she was wearing a lab coat over a very smart dark suit because she had a meeting with a legislator, she told Dave, and was going to address whatever the problem was. She was going to talk to the legislator about some proposed cockeyed bill, and Pogue can't remember what it was because at the time the bill wasn't the point of anything. He takes a breath and it rattles in his stiff lungs as he sits in the sun. Scarpetta was a very good-looking woman when she was dressed smartly like she was that morning, and it always pained Pogue to look at her when she wasn't looking at him, and he would feel a deep twinge that he couldn't define when he watched her from a distance. He felt something for Lucy but it was different, what he felt for her. He sensed the intensity of what Scarpetta felt for her, and that made him feel something for Lucy. But it was different.

The empty drum made the most god-awful racket as it rolled across the tile, and Pogue rushed to grab it as it rolled right toward Lucy on the gurney, and it was never possible to get every drop of formaldehyde out of a fifty-gallon metal drum, and the swill in the bottom was spilling and splashing as the drum rolled. Several drops hit his face as he grabbed the drum, and one drop went into his mouth and he inhaled it. Then he was coughing and vomiting in the bathroom and no one came to check on him. Scarpetta didn't. Lucy certainly didn't. He could hear Lucy through the closed bathroom door. She was riding the gurney again, laughing. No one knew that Pogue's life was broken at that precise moment, broken for good.

Are you all right? Are you all right, Edgar Allan? Scarpetta asked through the shut door, but she didn't come in.

He has replayed what she said, replayed it so many times he is no longer certain he has her voice right, that he has remembered it right, exactly right.

Are you all right, Edgar Allan?

Yes, ma'am. I'm just washing up.

When Pogue finally emerged from the bathroom, Lucy's gurney go cart was abandoned in the middle of the floor and she was gone and Scarpetta was gone. Dave was gone. Only Pogue was there, and he was going to die because of a single drop of formaldehyde that he could feel exploding and burning into his lungs like red-hot sparks, and nobody was there but him.

So you see, I know all about it, he later explained to Mrs. Arnette when he was lining up six bottles of pink embalming fluid on the cart next to her stainless-steel table. Sometimes you have to suffer in order to feel the suffering of others, he told Mrs. Arnette as he cut off sections of string from a roll on the cart. I know you remember how much time I spent with you when we talked about your paperwork and your intentions and what would happen to you if you went to MCV or UVA. You said you love Charlottesville, and I promised you I'd make sure you went to UVA since you love Charlottesville. I listened to you for hours in your house, didn't I? I came by whenever you called, at first because of the paperwork, then because you needed someone to listen and were afraid your family would overrule you.

They can't, I told you. This paperwork is a legal document. It's your last wishes, Mrs. Arnette. If you want your body to go to science and later to be cremated by me, your family can't do a thing about it.

Pogue fingers six brass-and-lead.38 caliber cartridges deep in his pocket as he sits in the sun inside the white Buick, and he remembers feeling the most powerful he'd ever felt in his life when he was with Mrs. Arnette. He was God when he was with her. He was the law when he was with her.

I'm a miserable old woman and nothing works anymore, Edgar Allan, she said the last time they were together. My doctor lives on the other side of the fence, and he can't be bothered'to check on me anymore, Edgar Allan. Don't ever get this old.

I won't, Pogue promised.

They're strange people on the other side of the fence, she told him with a wicked laugh, a laugh that implied something. His wife is such a trashy thing, that one. Have you met her?

No, ma'am. Don't believe I have.

Don't. She shook her head and her eyes implied something. Don't ever meet her.

I won't, Mrs. Arnette. That's terrible your doctor can't be bothered. He shouldn't get away with that.

People like him get what they deserve, she said from her pillow on the bed in the back room of the house. Take my word for it, Edgar Allan, people get what they dish out. I've known him for many a year and he can't be bothered. Don't count on him signing me out.

What do you mean? Pogue asked her, and she was so small and feeble in her bed, and covered up with many layers of sheets and quilts because she said she couldn't get warm anymore.

Well, I reckon when you go on, somebody has to sign you out, don't they?

Yes, they do. Your attending doctor signs your death certificate. One thing Pogue knew was how death worked.

He'll be too busy. You mark my words. Then what? God throws me back? She laughed harshly, a laugh that wasn't funny. He would, you know. Me and God don't get along.

I can certainly understand that, Pogue assured her. But don't you worry, he added, knowing fully that he was God at that moment. God wasn't God. Pogue was. If that doctor on the other side of your fence won't sign you out, Mrs. Arnette, you can trust I'll take care of it.

How?

There are ways.

You are the dearest boy I've ever known, she said from her pillow. Oh how lucky your mother was.

She didn't think so.

Then she was a wicked woman.

I'll sign you out myself, Pogue promised her. I see those certificates every day and half of them are signed by doctors who don't care.

Nobody cares, Edgar Allan.

I'll forge a signature if I have to. Don't you waste a minute worrying.

You are such a love. What would you like of mine? It's in my will, you know, that they can't sell this house. I fixed them but good. You can live in my house, just don't let them know, and you can just take my car, course I haven't driven it in so long, the battery's probably dead. The time is coming, you and I know it. What do you want? Just tell me. I wish I had a son like you.

Your magazines, he told her. Those Hollywood magazines.

Oh Lordy. Those things on my coffee table? I ever tell you about the times I spent at the Beverly Hills Hotel and all those movie stars I'd see in the Polo Lounge and out around the bungalows?

Tell me again. I love Hollywood more than anything.

That scoundrel husband of mine at least took me to Beverly Hills, I'll give him that, and we had us some real times out there. I love the movies, Edgar Allan. I hope you watch movies. There's nothing like a good movie.

Yes, ma'am. There's nothing like it. Someday I'm going to Hollywood.

Well, you should. If I weren't so old and worthless, I'd take you to Hollywood. Oh what fun.

You're not old and worthless, Mrs. Arnette. Would you like to meet my mother? I'll bring her over sometime.