Patricia Cornwell - Body of Evidence

"Have you gotten the Florida police to check out her contacts down there?" I asked seriously.

"A couple of them said they poked around. Talk about a sorry assignment. They was afraid to eat anything, drink the water. One of the queerbaits from the restaurant she wrote about in her letters is dying of AIDS even as we speak. The cops had to wear gloves the entire time."

"During the interviews?"

"Oh, yeah. Surgical masks, too-at least when they was talking to the guy dying. Didn't come up with nothing helpful, none of the information worth a damn."

"I guess not," I commented. "You treat people like lepers and they're not likely to open up to you."

"You ask me, they ought to saw off that part of Florida and send it drifting out to sea."

"Well, fortunately," I said, "nobody asked you."

There were numerous messages waiting on my answering machine when I returned home midevening.

I hoped one would be from Mark. I sat on the edge of my bed drinking a glass of wine and half-heartedly listening to the voices drifting out of the machine.

Bertha, my housekeeper, had the flu and announced she would not be able to come the next day. The attorney general wanted to meet me for breakfast tomorrow morning and went on to report that Beryl Madison's estate was suing over the missing manuscript. Three reporters had called demanding comment, and my mother wanted to know if I would prefer turkey or ham for Christmas- her not-so-subtle way of finding out if she could count on me for at least one holiday this year.

I did not recognize the breathy voice that followed.

"… You have such pretty blond hair. Is it real or do you bleach it, Kay?"

I rewound the tape. I frantically opened the drawer of my bedside table.

"… Is it real or do you bleach it, Kay? I left a little gift for you on your back porch."

Stunned and with Ruger in hand, I rewound the tape one more time. The voice was almost a whisper, very quiet and deliberate. A white male. I could determine no accent, sense no emotion in the tone. The sound of my feet on the stairs unnerved me, and I turned on the lights in each room I passed through. The back porch was off the kitchen, and my heart was pounding as I stepped to one side of the picture window overlooking the bird feeder and barely parted the curtains, the revolver held high, barrel pointed at the ceiling.

Light seeped from the porch, pushing back the darkness from the lawn and etching the shapes of trees in the wooded blackness at the edge of my property. The brick stoop was bare. I saw nothing on it or the steps. I curled my fingers around the doorknob and stood very still, my heart hammering as I unfastened the dead bolt.

A scraping against the wooden exterior of the door was barely perceptible as it opened, and when I saw what was looped over the outer knob I slammed the door so hard the windows shook.

Marino sounded as if I had gotten him out of bed.

"Get here now!"

I exclaimed into the phone, my voice an octave higher than usual.

"Stay put," he said firmly. "Don't open the door for nobody until I get there. You got that? I'm on my way."

Four cruisers lined the street in front of my house, and in the darkness officers probed the woods and shrubbery with long fingers of light.

"The K-nine unit's on the way," Marino said, setting his portable radio upright on my kitchen table. "Seriously doubt the drone hung around, but we'll make damn sure he didn't before we book on out of here."

It was the first time I had ever seen Marino in jeans, and he might have looked casually stylish were it not for the pair of white athletic socks and penny loafers, and the gray sweatshirt one size too small. The smell of fresh coffee filled the kitchen. I was percolating a pot big enough to accommodate half the neighborhood. My eyes were darting around, looking for things to do.

"Tell it to me again real slow," Marino said as he lit a cigarette.

"I was playing back the messages on my answering machine," I repeated. "When I got to the last one it was this voice, a white male, young. You'll have to hear it for yourself. He said something about my hair, wanting to know whether I bleach it."

Marino's eyes annoyingly shifted to my roots. "Then he said he'd left a present on my back porch. I came down here, looked out the window and didn't see anything. I don't know what I was expecting. I don't know. Something awful in a box, gift wrapped. When I opened the door, I heard something scraping against the wood. It was looped over the outer knob."

Inside a plastic evidence envelope in the center of the table was an unusual gold medallion attached to a thick gold chain.

"You're sure it's what Harper was wearing at the tavern?" I asked again.

"Oh, yeah," Marino replied, his face tight. "No question about it. No question where the thing's been all this time either. The squirrel took it from Harper's body and now you're getting an early Christmas present. Looks like our friend's gotten sweet on you."

"Please," I said impatiently.

"Hey. I'm taking it serious, okay?"

He wasn't smiling as he slid the envelope closer and examined the necklace through the plastic. "You notice the clasp's bent, so's the little ring at the end. Looks to me like maybe it got broke when he yanked it off Harper's neck. Then he maybe fixes it with pliers. He's probably been wearin' it. Shit."

He tapped an ash. "Find any injury on Harper's neck from the chain?"

"There wasn't much of his neck left," I said dully.

"Ever seen a medallion like this before?"

"No."

It looked like a coat of arms in eighteen-karat gold, but there was nothing engraved on it except the date 1906 on the back.

"Based on the four jeweler's marks stamped on the back, I think its origin is English," I said. "The marks are a universal code indicating when the medallion was made, where, and by whom. A jeweler could interpret them. I know it's not Italian-"

"Doc-"

"It would have a seven-fifty stamped on the back for eighteen-karat gold, five hundred for the equivalent of fourteen - karat-"

"Doc…"

"I have a jeweler consultant at Schwarzschild's-"

"Hey," Marino said loudly. "It don't matter, all right?"

I was prattling on like a hysterical old woman.

"A friggin' family tree of everybody who ever owned this necklace ain't going to tell us the most important thing-the name of the squirrel who hung it on your door."

His eyes softened a little and he lowered his voice. "What you got to drink in this crib? Brandy. You got any brandy?"

"You're on the job."

"Not for me," he said, laughing. "For you. Go pour yourself this much."

Touching his thumb to the middle knuckle of his index finger, he marked off two inches. "Then we'll talk."

I went to the bar and returned with a small snifter. The brandy burned going down and instantly began to spread warmth through my blood. I stopped shivering inside. I stopped shaking. Marino eyed me curiously. His attentiveness began to make me conscious of many things. I was wearing the same rumpled suit I had worn on the train back from Baltimore. My pantyhose were biting into my waist and bagging around my knees. I was aware of a maddening compulsion to wash my face and brush my teeth. My scalp itched. I was certain I looked awful.

"This guy ain't into empty threats," Marino said quietly as I sipped.

"He's probably just jerking me around because I'm involved in the case. Taunting. It's not unusual for psychopaths to taunt investigators or even send them souvenirs."

I didn't really believe it. Certainly Marino didn't.

"I'm going to keep a unit or two staked out. We'll watch your house," he said. "And I got a couple rules for you. Follow them to the letter. No fooling around."

He met my eyes. "For starters, whatever your normal routines are, I want you to scramble them up as much as possible. If you usually go to the grocery store on Friday afternoon, go on Wednesday next time and pick a different store. Don't ever set foot outside your house or car without looking around. You see anything that catches your eye, like a strange car parked on the street or evidence anybody's been on your property, you haul ass out of there or keep yourself locked up tight in here and call the police. When you walk inside your house, if you sense anything - I mean if you so much as get a creepy feeling-get out of here, find a phone and call the police, ask an officer to accompany you inside to make sure everything's okay."