Patricia Cornwell - Predator

There were drag marks in the snow leading from a parking area to where the body was found. There are no footprints in the snow that might have been the victim’s, only her killer’s. Approximately size nine, maybe ten, big tread, some type of hiking boot.

It’s not fair that Scarpetta should blame him. He had no choice. Lucy swore him to secrecy, said she would never forgive him if he told anyone, especially her aunt, especially Marino.

There are no blood drips or smears along the trail the killer left, suggesting he wrapped her body in something, dragged her wrapped up. Police recovered some fibers from the drag marks.

Scarpetta is projecting, she’s attacking him because she can’t attack Lucy. She can’t attack Lucy’s tumor. She can’t get angry at someone who is sick.

Trace evidence on the body includes fibers and microscopic debris under the fingernails and adhering to blood and to abraded skin and hair. A preliminary lab analysis indicates most of the trace is consistent with carpet and cotton fibers, and there are minerals, the fragments of insects and vegetation and pollen found in soil, or what the medical examiner so eloquently called “dirt.”

When the telephone rings onBenton’s desk, the call is identified as unavailable, and he assumes it is Scarpetta. He snaps up the phone.

“Hello,” he says.

“This is theMcLeanHospitaloperator.”

He hesitates, disappointed deeply and hurt. Scarpetta could have called him back. He doesn’t remember the last time she hung up on him.

“I’m trying to reach Dr. Wesley,” the operator says.

It still sounds strange when people call him that. He has had his Ph.D. for many years, as far back as his career with the FBI, but never insisted on or wanted people to call him doctor.

“Speaking,” he says.

Lucy sits up in bed in her aunt’s guest room. The lights are out. She had too many tequilas to drive. She looks at the number on the illuminated display of her Treo, the one with the 617 exchange. She’s a little woozy, a little drunk.

She thinks about Stevie, remembers her acting upset and insecure as she abruptly left the cottage. She thinks of Stevie following her to the Hummer in the parking lot and acting like the same seductive, mysterious and self-assured woman Lucy had met in Lorraine’s, and as she thinks about that first meeting in Lorraine’s, she feels what she felt then. She doesn’t want to feel anything but she does and it unsettles her.

Stevie unsettles her. She might know something. She was inNew Englandaround the same time the lady was murdered and dumped atWalden Pond. Both of them had red handprints on their bodies. Stevie claims she didn’t paint the handprints, someone else did.

Who?

Lucy hits send, a little bleary, a little scared. She should have traced the 617 number Stevie gave her, see who it really comes back to, see if it really is Stevie’s number or if her name is Stevie.

“Hello?”

“Stevie?” So it is her number. “You remember me?”

“How could I forget you? No one could.”

She sounds seductive. Her voice is soothing and rich, and Lucy feels what she felt atLorraine’s. She reminds herself why she is calling.

The handprints. Where did she get them? Who?

“I was sure I’d never hear from you again,” Stevie’s seductive voice is saying.

“Well, you have,” Lucy says.

“Why are you talking so quietly?”

“I’m not in my own house.”

“I suppose I shouldn’t ask what that means. But I do quite a lot of things I shouldn’t. Who are you with?”

“No one,” Lucy says. “You still up in Ptown?”

“I left right after you did. Drove straight through. I’m back home.”

“Gainesville?”

“Where are you?”

“You never have told me your last name,” Lucy says.

“What house are you in if it’s not yours? I assume you live in a house. I guess I don’t know.”

“You ever come south?”

“I can go anywhere I want. South of where? Are you inBoston?”

“I’m inFlorida,” Lucy says. “I’d like to see you. We need to talk. How about telling me your last name, you know, like maybe we’re not strangers.”

“You want to talk about what.”

She’s not going to tell Lucy her full name. There’s no point in asking again. She’s probably not going to tell Lucy anything, at least not over the phone.

“Let’s talk in person,” Lucy says.

“That’s always better.”

She asks Stevie to meet her inSouthBeachtomorrow night at ten.

“You heard of a place called Deuce?” Lucy asks.

“It’s quite famous,” Stevie’s seductive voice says. “I know it well.”

The round, brass head shines like a moon on the screen. Inside the Massachusetts State Police firearms lab, Tom, a firearms examiner, sits amid computers and comparison microscopes in a low-lighted room where the National Integrated Ballistics Information Network, NIBIN, has finally answered his query.

He stares at the magnified images of fine striations and gouges transferred from the metal parts of a shotgun to the brass heads of two shells. The two images are superimposed, the two halves joined in the middle, the microscopic signatures, as Tom calls them, lining up perfectly.

“Of course, officially, I’m calling it a possible match until I can validate it on the comparison scope,” he is explaining to Dr. Wesley over the phone, the legendary Benton Wesley.

This is cool, Tom can’t help but think.

“Which means the examiner down inBrowardCountyneeds to send me his evidence, and fortunately, that’s not a problem,” Tom goes on. “Preliminarily, let me just say that I don’t think there’s going to be a question about this one being a hit in the computer. It’s my opinion-again, preliminarily-that the two shells were fired by the same shotgun.”

He waits for the reaction and feels charged-up, excited, as high as if he’s had two whisky sours. To say there’s a hit is like telling the investigator he won the lottery.

“What do you know about theHollywoodcase?” Dr. Wesley says without so much as a hint of gratitude.

“For one thing, it’s solved,” Tom answers, insulted.

“I’m not sure I understand,” Dr. Wesley says in the same ungracious tone.

He’s unappreciative and high-handed, and that figures. Tom has never met him, never talked to him and had no idea what to expect. But he’s heard of him, heard about his past career with the FBI, and everyone knows the FBI throws its considerable weight around, exploits the local investigators while treating them like inferiors and then takes credit for anything good that comes of a case. He’s an arrogant prick. That figures. No wonder Thrush made him talk directly to the legendary Dr. Benton Wesley. Thrush doesn’t want to deal with him or anyone that is or was or even knows the FBI.

“Two years ago,” Tom is saying, his friendliness withdrawn.

He sounds obtuse, dull. That’s what his wife tells him when his ego is bruised and he justifiably reacts. He has a right to react, but he doesn’t want his affect to become obtuse and dull, as if he’s been hit on the head with a wooden plank, as his wife puts it.

“Hollywoodhad a robbery in a convenience store,” he is saying, trying not to sound obtuse and dull. “Guy comes in wearing a rubber mask and pointing a shotgun. He shoots this kid who’s sweeping the floor, and then the night manager shoots him in the head with the pistol he kept under the counter.”

“And they ran the shotgun shell through NIBIN?”

“Apparently, to see if this same masked guy might have been connected to some other unsolved cases.”

“I don’t understand,” Dr. Wesley impatiently says again. “What happened to the weapon after the masked guy was killed? It should have been recovered by the police. And now it’s just been used again in a homicide up here inMassachusetts?”