Patricia Cornwell - Point of Origin

'You do enough autopsies and move enough bodies, and you don't need to lift weights,' I distorted the truth, badly.

'Hold out your hands.'

I did, and she glanced over at them, changing lanes at the same time.

'Damn. I guess it didn't occur to me what saws and scalpels and hedge pruners will do for muscle tone,' she commented.

'Hedge pruners?'

'You know, what you use to open the chest.'

'Rib shears, please.'

'Well, I've seen hedge pruners in some morgues, and knitting needles used to track bullet wounds.'

'Not in my morgue. At least not in the one I have now. Although I will admit that in the early days one learned to improvise,' I felt compelled to say as Mozart played.

'One of those little trade secrets you don't want to ever come out in court,' McGovern confessed. 'Sort of like stashing the best jar of confiscated moonshine in a secret desk drawer. Or cops keeping souvenirs from scenes, like marijuana pipes and whacko weapons. Or medical examiners hanging on to artificial hips and parts of fractured skulls that in truth should be buried with the bodies.'

'I won't deny that some of my colleagues aren't always appropriate,' I said. 'But keeping body parts without permission is not in the same category as pinching a jar of moonshine, if you ask me.'

'You're awfully straight and narrow, aren't you, Kay?' McGovern stated. 'Unlike the rest of us, you never seem to use poor judgment or do anything wrong. You probably never overeat or get drunk. And to be honest, it makes the rest of us schleps afraid to be around you, afraid you'll look at us and disapprove.'

'Good Lord, what an awful image,' I exclaimed. 'I hope that's not how I'm perceived.'

She said nothing.

'Certainly I don't see myself that way,' I said. 'Quite to the contrary, Teun. Maybe I'm just more reserved because I have to be. Maybe I'm more self-contained because I always have been, and no, it's not my tendency to publicly confess my sins. But I don't look around and judge. And I can promise I'm much harder on myself than I'd ever be on you.'

'That's not been my impression. I think you size me up and down and inside out to make sure I'm suitable to train Lucy and won't be a pernicious influence.'

I could not answer that charge, because it was true.

'I don't even know where she is,' I suddenly realized.

'Well, I can tell you. She's in Philly. Bouncing back and forth between the field office and her new apartment.'

For a while, music was our only conversation, and as the beltway carried us around Baltimore, I could not help but think of a medical student who also had died in a suspicious fire.

'Teun,' I said. 'How many children do you have?'

'One. A son.'

I could tell this was not a happy subject.

'How old is he?' I asked.

'Joe is twenty-six.'

'He lives nearby?'

I stared out the window at reflective signs flowing by, announcing exits to Baltimore streets I used to know very well when I studied medicine at Johns Hopkins.

'I don't know where he lives, to tell you the truth,' she said. 'We were never close. I'm not sure anyone has ever been close to Joe. I'm not sure anyone would want to be.'

I did not pry, but she wanted to talk.

'I knew something was wrong with him when he started sneaking into the liquor cabinet at the tender age of ten, drinking gin, vodka, and putting water in the bottles, thinking he would fool us. By sixteen, he was a raging alcoholic, in and out of treatment, DUIs, drunk and disorderlies, stealing, one thing after another. He left home at nineteen, skipping around here and there and eventually cut off all contact. To be honest, he's probably a street person somewhere.'

'You've had a hard life,' I said.

THE ATLANTA BRAVES were staying at the Sheraton Hotel on Society Hill when McGovern dropped me off at almost seven P.M. Groupies, old and young, were dressed in baseball jackets and caps, prowling hallways and bars with huge photographs in hand to be signed by their heroes. Security had been called, and a desperate man stopped me as I was coming through the revolving door.

'Have you seen them?' he asked me, his eyes wildly darting around.

'Seen who?' I said.

'The Braves!'

'What do they look like?' I asked.

I waited in line to check in, not interested in anything but a long soak in the tub. We had been held up two hours in traffic just south of Philadelphia, where five cars and a van had smashed into each other, sending broken glass and twisted metal across six lanes. It was too late to drive another hour to the Lehigh County morgue. That would have to wait until morning, and I took the elevator to the fourth floor and slid in my plastic card to open the electronic lock. I opened curtains and looked out at the Delaware River, and masts of the Moshulu moored at Penn's Landing. Suddenly, I was in Philadelphia with a turn-out bag, my aluminum case, and my purse.

My message light was blinking, and I listened to Benton's recorded voice saying that he was staying at my same hotel, and should be arriving as soon as he could break free of New York and its traffic. I was to expect him around nine. Lucy had left me her new phone number and didn't know if she'd see me or not. Marino had an update that he would relay when I called, and Fielding said the Quinns had gone on the television news earlier this evening to say they were suing the medical examiner's office and me for violating the separation of church and state and causing irreparable emotional damage.

I sat on the edge of the bed and took off my shoes. My pantyhose had a run, and I wadded them and hurled them into the trash. My clothes had bitten into me because I had worn them too long, and I imagined the stench of cooking human bones lingering in my hair.

'Shit!' I exclaimed under my breath. 'What kind of goddamn life is this?'

I snatched off my suit, blouse, and slip and flung them inside out on the bed. I made sure the deadbolt was secure and began filling the tub with water as hot as I could stand it. The sound of it pouring on top of itself began to soothe me, and I dribbled in foaming bath gel that smelled like sun-ripened raspberries. I was confused about seeing Benton. How had it all come to this? Lovers, colleagues, friends, whatever we were supposed to be had blended into a mixture, like paintings in sand. Our relationship was a design of delicate colors, intricate and dry and easily disturbed. He called as I was drying off.

'I'm sorry it's so late,' he said.

'How are you?' I asked.

'Are you up for the bar?'

'Not if the Braves are there. I don't need a riot.'

'The Braves?' he asked.

'Why don't you come to my room? I have a mini-bar.'

'In two minutes.'

He showed up in his typical uniform of dark suit and white shirt. Both showed the harshness of his day, and he needed to shave. He gathered me in his arms and we held each other without speaking for a very long time.

'You smell like fruit,' he said into my hair.

'We're supposed to be in Hilton Head,' I muttered. 'How did we suddenly end up in Philadelphia?'

'It's a bloody mess,' he said.

Benton gently pulled away from me and took off his jacket. He draped it over my bed and unlocked the mini-bar.

'The usual?' he asked.

'Just some Evian.'

'Well, I need something stronger.'

He unscrewed the top of a Johnnie Walker.

'In fact, I'll make that a double, and the hell with ice,' he let me know.

He handed me the Evian, and I watched him as he pulled out the desk chair and sat. I propped up pillows on the bed and made myself comfortable as we visited each other from a distance.

'What's wrong?' I asked. 'Besides everything.'

'The usual problem when ATF and the Bureau are suddenly thrown together on a case,' he said, sipping his drink. 'It makes me glad I'm retired.'