Patricia Cornwell - Unnatural Exposure

The secretary of public safety for Virginia was the immediate boss of the superintendent of the state police. Ring's uncle couldn't have been more powerful unless he had been the governor.

'So what you're saying is that Ring's untouchable,' I said.

'What I'm saying is, his educational background makes it clear he has high aspirations. Guys like him are looking to be a chief, a commissioner, a politician. They're not interested in being a cop.'

'Guys like him are interested only in themselves,' I impatiently said. 'Ring doesn't give a damn about the victims or the people left behind who have no idea what has happened to their loved one. He doesn't care if someone else gets killed.'

'Proof,' he reminded me. 'To be fair, there are a lot of people - including those working at the landfill - who could have leaked information to the press.'

I had no good argument, but nothing would shake me loose from my suspicions.

'What's important is breaking these cases,' he went on to say, 'and the best way to do that is for all of us to go about our business and ignore him, just like Marino and Grigg are doing. Follow every lead we can, steering around the impediments.' His eyes were almost amber in the overhead light, and soft when they met mine.

I pushed back my chair. 'We need to set the table.'

He got out dishes and opened wine as I arranged chilled shrimp on plates and spooned Bev's Kicked By A Horse Cocktail Sauce into a bowl. I halved lemons and wrapped them in gauze diapers, and fashioned crab cakes. Wesley and I ate shrimp cocktail as night drew closer and cast its shadow over the east.

'I've missed this,' he said. 'Maybe you don't want to hear it, but it's true.'

I did not say anything because I did not want to get into another big discussion that went on for hours, leaving both of us drained.

'Anyway.' He set his fork on his plate the way polite people do when they are finished.

'Thank you. I have missed you, Dr Scarpetta.' He smiled.

'I'm glad you're here, Special Agent Wesley.'

I smiled back at him as I got up. Turning on the stove, I heated oil in a pan while he cleared dishes.

'I want to tell you what I thought of the photograph that was sent to you,'' he said.

'First, we need to establish that it is, in fact, of the victim you worked on today.'

'I'm going to establish that on Monday.'

'Assuming it is,' he went on, 'this is a very dramatic shift in the killer's M.O.'

'That and everything else.' Crab cakes went into the pan and began to sizzle.

'Right,' he said, serving coleslaw. 'It's very blatant this time, as if he's really trying to rub our noses in it. And, of course, the victimology's all wrong, too. That looks great,' he added, watching what I was cooking.

When we were seated again, I said with confidence, 'Benton, this is not the same guy.' He hesitated before replying, 'I don't think it is, either, if you want to know the truth. But I'm not prepared to rule him out. We don't know what games he might be into now.'

I was feeling the frustration again. Nothing could be proven, but my intuition, my instincts, were screaming at me.

'Well, I don't think this murdered old woman has anything to do with the earlier cases from here or Ireland. Someone just wants us to assume she does. I think what we're dealing with is a copycat.'

'We'll get into it with everybody. Thursday. I think that's the date we set.' He tasted a crab cake. 'This is really incredibly good. Wow.' His eyes watered. 'Now that's cocktail sauce.'

'Staging. Disguising a crime that was committed for some other reason,' I said. 'And don't give me too much credit. This was Bev's recipe.'

'The photograph bothers me,' he said.

'You and me both.'

'I've talked to Lucy about it,' he said. Now he really had my interest.

'You tell me when you want her here.' He reached for his wine.

'The sooner the better.' I paused, adding, 'How is she doing? I know what she tells me, but I'd like to hear it from you.'

I remembered we needed water, and got up for it. When I returned, he was quietly staring at me. Sometimes it was hard for me to look at his face, and my emotions began clashing like instruments out of tune. I loved his chiseled nose with its clean straight bridge, his eyes, which could draw me into depths I had never known and his mouth with its sensuous lower lip. I looked out the window, and could not see the river anymore.

'Lucy,' I reminded him. 'How about a performance evaluation for her aunt?'

'No one's sorry we hired her,' he dryly said of someone we all knew was a genius. 'Or maybe that's the understatement of the century. She's simply terrific. Most of the agents have come to respect her. They want her around. I'm not saying there aren't problems. Not everybody appreciates having a woman on HRT.'

'I continue to worry that she'll try to push it too far,' I said.

'Well, she's fit as hell. That's for sure. No way I'd take her on.'

'That's what I mean. She wants to keep up with them, when it really isn't possible.

You know how she is.' I gave him my eyes again. 'She's always got to prove herself. If the guys are fast-roping and running through the mountains wearing sixty-pound packs, she thinks she's got to keep up, when she should just be content with her technical abilities, her robots and all the rest of it.'

'You're missing her biggest motivation, her biggest demon,' he said.

'What?'

'You. She feels she has to prove herself to you, Kay.'

'She has no reason to feel that way.' What he said was piercing. 'I don't want to feel I'm the reason she takes her life into her hands with all of these dangerous things she feels she must do.'

'This is not about blame,' he said, getting up from the table. 'This is about human nature. Lucy worships you. You're the only decent mother figure she's ever had. She wants to be like you, and she feels people compare her to you, and that's a pretty big act to follow. She wants you to admire her, too, Kay.'

'I do admire her, for God's sake.' I got up, too, and we began clearing dishes. 'Now you really have me worried.' He began rinsing, and I loaded the dishwasher.

'You probably should worry.' He glanced at me. 'I will tell you this, she's one of these perfectionists who won't listen to anyone. Other than you, she's the most stubborn human being I've ever come across.'

'Thanks a lot.'

He smiled and put his arms around me, not caring that his hands were wet. 'Can we sit and talk for a while?' he said, his face, his body close to mine. 'Then I've got to hit the road.'

'And after that?'

'I'm going to talk to Marino in the morning, and in the afternoon I've got another case coming in. From Arizona. I know it's Sunday, but it can't wait.'

He continued talking as we carried our wine into the great room.

'A twelve-year-old girl abducted on her way home from school, body dumped in the

Sonora desert,' he said. 'We think this guy's already killed three other kids.'

'It's hard to feel very optimistic, isn't it,' I said bitterly as we sat on the couch. 'It never stops.'

'No,' he replied. 'And I'm afraid it never will. As long as there are people on the planet. What are you going to do with what's left of the weekend?'

'Paperwork.'

One side of my great room was sliding glass doors, and beyond, my neighborhood was black with a full moon that looked like gold, clouds gauzy and drifting.

'Why are you so angry with me?' His voice was gentle, but he let me know his hurt.

'I don't know.' I would not look at him.

'You do know.' He took my hand and began to rub it with his thumb. 'I love your hands. They look like a pianist's, only stronger. As if what you do is an art.'

'It is,' I simply said, and he often talked about my hands. 'I think you have a fetish. As a profiler, that should concern you.'