Patricia Cornwell - Cause Of Death

When I reached the Sulgrave address, it was familiar, for I knew the judge who lived next door and had been to many of his parties. Three-story brick, the Eddings home was Federal-style with paired end chimneys, arched dormer windows and an elliptical fanlight over the paneled front door. To the left of the entry porch was the same stone lion that had been standing guard for years. I climbed slick steps, and had to ring the bell twice before a voice sounded faintly on the other side of thick wood.

"It's Dr. Scarpetta," I answered, and the door slowly opened.

"I thought it would be you." An anxious face peered out as the space got wider. "Please come in and get warm.

It is a terrible night."

"It's getting very icy," I said as I stepped inside.

Mrs. Eddings was attractive in a well-bred, vain way, with refined features, and spun-white hair swept back from a high, smooth brow. She had dressed in a Black Watch suit and cashmere turtleneck sweater, as if she had been bravely receiving company all day. But her eyes could not hide her irrecoverable loss, and as she led me into the foyer, her gait was unsteady and I suspected she had been drinking.

"This is gorgeous," I said as she took my coat. "I've walked and driven past your house I don't know how many times and had no idea who lives here."

"And you live where?"

"Over there. Just west of Windsor Farms." I pointed.

"My house is new. In fact, I just moved in last fall."

"Oh yes, I know where you are." She closed the closet door and led me down a hall. "I know quite a number of people over there."

The gathering room she showed me was a museum of antique Persian rugs, Tiffany lamps and yew wood furniture in the style of Biedermeier. I sat on a black-upholstered couch that was lovely but stiff, and was already beginning to wonder how well mother had gotten along with son. The decors of both their dwellings painted portraits of people who could be stubborn and disconnected.

"Your son interviewed me a number of times," I began our conversation as we got seated.

"Oh, did he?" She tried to smile but her expression collapsed.

"I'm sorry. I know this is hard," I gently said as she tried to compose herself in her red leather chair. "Ted was someone I happened to like quite a lot. My staff liked him, too."

"Everyone likes Ted," she said. "From day one, he could charm. I remember the first big interview he got in Richmond." She stared into the fire, hands tightly clasped.

"It was with Governor Meadows, and I'm sure you remember him. Ted got him to talk when no one else could.

That was when everyone was saying the governor was using drugs and associating with immoral women."

"Oh, yes," I replied as if the same had never been said of other governors.

She stared off, her face distressed, and her hand trembled as she reached up to smooth her hair. "How could this happen? Oh Lord, how could he drown?"

"Mrs. Eddings, I don't think he did."

Startled, she stared at me with wide eyes. "Then what happened?"

"I'm not sure yet. There are tests to be done."

"What else could it be?" She began dabbing tears with a tissue. "The policeman who came to see me said it happened underwater. Ted was diving in the river with that contraption of his."

"There could be a number of possible causes," I answered. "A malfunction of the breathing apparatus he was using, for example. He could have been overcome by fumes. I don't know right this minute."

"I told him not to use that thing. I can't tell you how many times I begged him not to go off and dive with that thing."

"Then he had used it before."

"He loved to look for Civil War relics. He'd go diving almost anywhere with one of those metal detectors. I believe he found a few cannonballs in the James last year.

I'm surprised you didn't know. He's written several stories about his adventures."

"Generally, divers have a partner with them, a buddy," I said. "Do you know who he usually went with?"

"Well, he may have taken someone with him now and then. I really don't know because he didn't discuss his friends with me very much."

"Did he ever say anything to you about going diving in the Elizabeth River to look for Civil War relics?" I asked.

"I don't know anything about him going there. He never mentioned it to me. I thought he was coming here today."

She shut her eyes, brow furrowed, and her bosom deeply rose and fell as if there were not enough air in the room.

"What about these Civil War relics he collected?" I went on. "Do you know where he kept them?"

She did not respond.

"Mrs. Eddings," I went on, "we found nothing like that in his house. Not a single button, belt buckle or minis ball.

Nor did we find a metal detector."

She was silent, hands shaking as she clutched the tissue hard.

"It is very important that we establish what your son might have been doing at the Inactive Ship Yard in Chesapeake," I spoke to her again. "He was diving in a classified area around Navy decommissioned ships and no one seems to know why. It's hard to imagine he was looking for Civil War relics there."

She stared at the fire and in a distant voice said, "Ted goes through phases. Once he collected butterflies. When he was ten. Then he gave them all away and started collecting gems. I remember he would pan for gold in the oddest places and pluck up garnets from the roadside with a pair of tweezers. He went from that to coins, and those he mostly spent because the Coke machine doesn't care if the quarter's pure silver or not. Baseball cards, stamps, girls. He never kept anything long. He told me he likes journalism because it's never the same."

I listened as she tragically went on.

. "Why, I think he would have traded in his mother for a different one if that could have been arranged.- A tear slid down her cheek. "I know he must have gotten so bored with me."

"Too bored to accept your financial help, Mrs. Eddings?" I delicately said.

She lifted her chin. "Now I believe you're getting a bit too personal."

Yes, I am, and I regret that you have to be subjected to it. But I am a doctor, and right now, your son is my patient. It is my mission to do everything I can to determine what might have happened to him."

She took a deep, tremulous breath and fingered the top button of her jacket. I waited as she fought back tears.

"I sent him money every month. You know how inheritance taxes are, and Ted was accustomed to living beyond his means. I suppose his father and I are to blame." She could barely continue. "Life was not hard enough for my sons. I don't suppose life was very hard for me until Arthur passed on."

"What did your husband do?"

"He worked in tobacco. We met during the war when most of the world's cigarettes were made around here and you could find hardly a one, or stockings either."

Her reminiscing soothed her, and I did not interrupt.

"One night I went to a party at the Officers' Service Club at the Jefferson Hotel. Arthur was a captain in a unit of the Army called the Richmond Grays, and he could dance." She smiled. "Oh, he could dance like he breathed music and had it in his veins, and I spotted him right away.

Our eyes needed to meet but once, and then we were never without each other."

She stared off, and the fire snapped and waved as if it had something important to say.

"Of course, that was part of the problem," she went on.

Arthur and I never stopped being absorbed with each other and I think the boys sometimes felt they were in the way." She was looking directly at me now. "I didn't even ask if you'd like tea or perhaps a touch of something stronger."

"Thank you. I'm fine. Was Ted close to his brother?"

"I already gave the policeman Jeff's number. What was his name? Martino or something. I actually found him rather rude. You know, a little Goldschlager is good on a night like this."