Patricia Cornwell - Unnatural Exposure

The door slid open and Marino and I climbed inside, where crew seats were already occupied by scientists from USAMRIID. We were surrounded by rescue gear, and another portable isolator that was collapsed like an accordion. I was handed a helmet with a microphone, and I put this on and fastened my five-point harness. Then I helped Marino with his as he perched primly on a fold-down seat not built for people his size.

'God knows I hope reporters don't get wind of this,' someone said as the heavy door shut.

I plugged the cord of my microphone into a port in the ceiling. 'They will. Probably already have.'

Deadoc liked attention. I could not believe he would leave this world silently, or without his presidential apology. No, there was something else in store for us, and I did not want to imagine what that might be. The trip to Janes Island State Park was less than an hour, but complicated by the fact that the campground was densely wooded with pines. There was nowhere to land.

Our pilots set us down at the Coast Guard station in Crisfield, in a marina called Somer's Cove, where sailboats and yachts battened down for winter bobbed on the dark blue ruffled water of the Little Annemessex River. We went inside the tidy brick station long enough to put on exposure suits and life vests while Chief Martinez briefed us.

'We got a lot of problems going at the same time,' he was saying as he paced the carpet inside the communication room, where all of us were gathered. 'For one thing, Tangier folk have kin here, and we've had to station armed guards at roads leading out of town because now CDC is concerned about Crisfield people going anywhere.'

'No one's gotten sick here,' Marino said, as he struggled to get cuffs over his boots.

'No, but I'm worried that at the very start of this thing, some people snuck through the cracks, got out of Tangier and came here. Point being, don't expect much friendliness in these parts.'

'Who's at the campground?' someone else asked.

'Right now, the FBI agents that found the body.'

'What about other campers?' Marino said.

'Here's what I've been told,' Martinez said. 'When the agents went in, they found maybe half a dozen campers and only one with a phone hookup. That was campsite sixteen, and they banged on the door. Nothing, so they look in a window and see the body on the floor.'

'The agents didn't go inside?' I said.

'No. Realizing it might be the perp's, they worried it could be contaminated and didn't. But I'm afraid one of the rangers did.'

'Why?' I asked.

'You know what they say. Curiosity killed the cat. Apparently one of the agents had gone to the airstrip where you landed to pick up two other agents. Whatever. At some point, no one was looking and the ranger went inside, came right back out like a ball of fire. Said there was some kind of monster in there straight out of Stephen King. Don't ask me.' He shrugged and rolled his eyes.

I looked at the USAMRIID team.

'We'll take the ranger back with us,' said a young man whose Army pins identified him as a captain. 'By the way, my name is Clark. This is my crew,' he said to me.

'They'll take good care of him, put him in quarantine, keep an eye on him.'

'Campsite sixteen,' Marino said. 'We know anything about who rented that?'

'We don't have those details yet,' Martinez said. 'Everybody suited up?' He scanned us and it was time to go.

The Coast Guard took us in two Boston Whalers because where we were going was too shallow for a cutter or patrol boat. Martinez was piloting mine, standing up and calm as if racing forty miles an hour on choppy waters was a very normal thing to do. I honestly thought I might sail overboard at any moment as I held hard to the rail, sitting on the side. It was like riding a mechanical bull, air rushing so fast into my nose and mouth, I could barely breathe.

Marino was across the boat from me and looked like he might get sick. I tried to mouth a reassurance to him, but he stared blankly at me as he held on with all his strength. We eventually slowed in a cove called Flat Cat, thick with cat-tails and spartina grass, where there were NO WAKE signs as the park got near. I could see nothing but pines. Then as we got closer, there were paths and bathrooms, a small ranger station, and only one camper peeking through. Martinez glided us into the pier, and another Guardsman tied us to a piling as the engine quit.

'I'm gonna puke,' Marino said in my ear as we clumsily climbed out.

'No you're not.' I gripped his arm.

'I ain't going inside that trailer.'

I turned around and looked at his wan face.

'You're right. You're not,' I said. 'That's my job, but first we need to locate the ranger.' Marino stalked off before the second boat had docked, and I looked through the woods toward the camper that was deadoc's. Rather old and missing whatever had towed it, it was parked as far from the rangers' station as was possible, tucked in the shadow of loblolly pines. When all of us were ashore, the USAMRIID team passed out the familiar orange suits, air packs and extra four-hour batteries

'Here's what we're doing.' It was the USAMRIID team leader named Clark who spoke.

'We suit up and get the body out.'

'I would like to go in first,' I said. 'Alone.'

'Right.' He nodded. 'Then we see if there's anything hazardous in there, which hopefully there's not. We get the body out, and the camper's hauled out of here.'

'It's evidence,' I said, looking at him. 'We can't just haul it out of here.'

I knew what he was thinking by the look on his face. The killer may be dead, the case closed. The camper was a biological hazard and should be burned.

'No,' I said to him. 'We don't close this so quickly. We can't.'

He hesitated, blowing out in frustration as he stared off at the camper.

'I'll go in,' I said. 'Then I'll tell you what we need to do.'

'Fair enough.' He raised his voice again. 'Guys? Let's go. No one inside but the M.E. until you hear otherwise.'

They followed us through the forest, the portable isolator in our wake, an eerie caisson not meant for this world. Pine needles were crisp beneath my feet, like shredded wheat, and the air was sharp and clean as the camper got closer. It was a Dutchman travel trailer, maybe eighteen feet long, with a fold-out orange-striped awning.

'That's old. Eight years, I bet,' said Marino, who knew about such things.

'What would it take to tow it?' I asked as we put on our suits.

'A pickup,' he said. 'Maybe a van. This doesn't need nothing with a lot of horsepower. What are we supposed to do? Put these over everything else we already got on?'

'Yes,' I said, zipping up. 'What I'd like to know is what happened to the vehicle that hauled this thing here.'

'Good question,' he said, huffing as he struggled. 'And where's the license plate?'

I had just turned on my air when a young man emerged from trees in a green uniform and smoky hat. He seemed rather dazed as he looked at all of us in our orange hoods and suits, and I sensed his fear. He did not get close to us as he introduced himself as the night shift park ranger.

Marino spoke to him first. 'You ever see the person staying in there?'

'No,' the ranger said.

'What about guys on the other shifts?'

'No one remembers seeing anyone, just lights on at night sometimes. Hard to say. As you can see it's parked pretty far from the station. You could go out to the showers or whatever and not necessarily be noticed.'

'No other campers here?' I asked over the rush of air inside my hood.

'Not now. There were maybe three other people when I found the body, but I

encouraged them to leave because there might be some kind of disease.'

'Did you question them first?' Marino asked, and I could see he was irritated by this young ranger who had just chased off all of our witnesses.