Patricia Cornwell - From Potter's Field

I took a swallow of my drink and as I reached to set the glass on the bedside table, his hands moved. We kissed again more deeply, and he did not waste time on buttons as his hands slid under and around whatever was in their way. We were frenzied, as if our clothes were on fire and we had to get them off.

Later, curtains began to glow with morning light and we floated between passion and sleep, mouths tasting like stale whiskey. I sat up, gathering covers around me.

'Benton, it's half past six.'

Groaning, he covered his eyes with an arm as if the sun were very rude to rouse him. He lay on his back, tangled in sheets, as I took a shower and began to dress. Hot water cleared my head, and this was the first Christmas morning in years when someone other than me had been in my bed. I felt I had stolen something.

'You can't go anywhere,' Wesley said, half asleep.

I buttoned my coat. 'I have to,' I said, sadly looking down at him.

'It's Christmas.'

'They're waiting for me at the morgue.'

'I'm sorry to hear it,' he mumbled into the pillow. 'I didn't know you felt that bad.'

New York's Office of the Chief Medical Examiner was on First Avenue, across from the Gothic red brick hospital called Bellevue, where the city's autopsies had been performed in earlier years. Winter-brown vines and graffiti marred walls and wrought iron, and fat black bags of trash awaited pickup on top of filthy snow. Christmas music played nonstop inside the beat-up yellow cab squeaking to a halt on a street almost never this still.

'I need a receipt,' I said to my Russian driver, who had spent the last ten minutes telling me what was wrong with the world.

'How much for?'

'Eight.' I was generous. It was Christmas morning.

He nodded, scribbling, as I watched a man on the sidewalk watching me, near Bellevue's fence. Unshaven, with wild long hair, he wore a blue jean jacket lined with fleece, the cuffs of stained army pants caught in the tops of battered cowboy boots.

He began playing an imaginary guitar and singing as I got out of the cab.

'Jingle bells, jingle bells, jingle all the day. OHHH what fun it is to ride to Galveston today-AAAAAYYYYY…'

'You have admirer,' my amused driver said as I took the receipt through an open window.

He drove off in a swirl of exhaust. There was not another person or car in sight, and the horrendous serenading got louder. Then my mentally disfranchised admirer darted after me. I was appalled when he began screaming, 'Galveston!' as if it were my name or an accusation. I fled into the chief medical examiner's lobby.

'There's someone following me,' I said to a security guard decidedly lacking in Christmas spirit as she sat at her desk.

The deranged musician pressed his face against the front door, staring in, nose flattened, cheeks blanched. He opened his mouth wide, obscenely rolling his tongue over the glass and thrusting his pelvis back and forth as if he were having sex with the building. The guard, a sturdy woman with dreadlocks, strode over to the door and banged on it with her fist.

'Benny, cut it out,' she scolded him loudly. 'You quit that right now, Benny.' She rapped harder. 'Don't you make me come out there.'

Benny backed away from the glass. Suddenly he was Nureyev doing pirouettes across the empty street.

'I'm Dr. Kay Scarpetta,' I said to the guard. 'Dr. Horowitz is expecting me.'

'No way the chief's expecting you. It's Christmas.' She regarded me with dark eyes that had seen it all. 'Dr. Pinto's on call. Now, I can try to get hold of him, if you want.' She headed back to her station.

'I'm well aware it's Christmas' - I followed her -'but Dr. Horowitz is supposed to meet me here.' I got out my wallet and displayed my chief medical examiner's gold shield.

She was not impressed. 'You been here before?'

'Many times.'

'Hmm. Well, I sure haven't seen the chief today. But I guess that don't mean he didn't come in through the bay and didn't tell me. Sometimes they're here half a day and I don't know. Hmm. That's right, don't nobody bother to tell me.'

She reached for the phone. 'Hmm. No sir, I don't need to know.' She dialed. 'I don't need to know nothing, no not me. Dr. Horowitz? This is Bonita with security. I got a Dr. Scarlett.' She paused. 'I don't know.'

She looked at me. 'How you spell that?'

'S-c-a-r-p-e-t-t-a,' I patiently said.

She still didn't get it right but was close enough. 'Yes, sir, I sure will.' She hung up and announced, 'You can go on and have a seat over there.'

The waiting area was furnished and carpeted in gray, magazines arranged on black tables, a modest artificial Christmas tree in the center of the room. Inscribed on a marble wall was Taceant Colloquia Effugiat Risus Hie Locus Est Ubi Mors Gaudet Succurrere Vitae, which meant one would find little conversation or laughter in this place where death delighted to help the living. An Asian couple sat across from me on a couch, tightly holding hands. They did not speak or look up, Christmas for them forever wrapped in pain.

I wondered why they were here and whom they had lost, and I thought of all I knew. I wished I could somehow offer comfort, yet that gift did not seem meant for me. After all these years, the best I could say to the bereft was that death was quick and their loved one did not suffer. Most times when I offered such words, they weren't entirely true, for how does one measure the mental anguish of a woman made to strip in an isolated park on a bitterly cold night? How could any of us imagine what she felt when Gault marched her to that ice-filled fountain and cocked his gun?

Forcing her to disrobe was a reminder of the unlimited depths of his cruelty and his insatiable appetite for games. Her nudity had not been necessary. She had not needed it telegraphed to her that she was going to die alone at Christmas with no one knowing her name. Gault could have just shot her and been done with it. He could have pulled out his Glock and caught her unaware. The bastard.

'Mr. and Mrs. Li?' A white-haired woman appeared before the Asian couple.

'Yes.'

I'll take you in now if you're ready.'

'Yes, yes,' said the man as his wife began to cry.

They were led in the direction of the viewing room, where the body of someone they loved would be carried up from the morgue by a special elevator.

Many people could not accept death unless they saw or touched it first, and despite the many viewings I had arranged and witnessed over the years, I really could not imagine going through such a ritual. I did not think I could bear that last fleeting glance through glass. Feeling the beginning of a headache, I closed my eyes and began massaging my temples. I sat like this for a long time until I sensed a presence.

'Dr. Scarpetta?' Dr. Horowitz's secretary was standing over me, her face concerned. 'Are you all right?'

'Emily,' I said, surprised. 'Yes, I'm fine, but I certainly wasn't expecting to see you here today.' I got up.

'Would you like some Tylenol?'

'You're very kind, but I'm fine,' I said.

'I wasn't expecting to see you here today, either. But things aren't exactly normal right now. I'm surprised you managed to get in without being accosted by reporters.'

'I didn't see any reporters,' I said.

'They were everywhere last night. I assume you saw the morning Times?'

'I'm afraid I haven't had a chance,' I said uncomfortably. I wondered if Wesley was still in bed.

'Things are a mess,' said Emily, a young woman with long, dark hair who was always so demure and plainly dressed that she seemed to have stepped forth from another age. 'Even the mayor's called. This is not the sort of publicity the city wants or needs. I still can't believe a reporter just happened to find the body.'