Patricia Cornwell - Unnatural Exposure

'I have things where I want them,' I pointedly said as I returned the files to their original messy space.

'Hey, chill out, Doc,' he said as if it didn't matter. 'How do we know that this thing ain't a hoax?'

Again, he moved the files out of his way, and now I was really irritated.

'Marino, you're going to have to get up,' I said. 'I don't let anybody sit at my desk. You're making me crazy.'

He shot me an angry look and got up out of my chair. 'Hey, do me a favor. Next time call somebody else when you got a problem.'

'Try to be sensitive…'

He cut me off, losing his temper. 'No. You be sensitive and quit being such a friggin'

fussbudges. No wonder you and Wesley got problems.'

'Marino,' I warned, 'you just crossed a line and better stop right there.' He was silent, looking around, sweating.

'Let's get back to this.' I sat in my chair, readjusting it. 'I don't think this is a hoax, and

I believe it's the torso from the landfill.'

'Why?' He would not look at me, hands in his pockets.

'Arms and legs are severed through the long bones, not the joints.' I touched the screen.

'There are other similarities. It's her, unless another victim with a similar body type has been killed and dismembered in the same manner, and we've not found her yet. And I don't know how someone could have perpetrated a hoax like this without knowing how the victim was dismembered. Not to mention, this case hasn't hit the news yet.'

'Shit.' His face was deep red. 'So, is there something like a return address?'

'Yes. Someone on AOL with the name D-E-A-D-O-C.'

'As in Dead-Doc?' He was intrigued enough to forget his mood.

'I can only assume. The message was one word: ten.'

'That's it?'

'In lowercase letters.'

He looked at me, thinking. 'You count the ones in Ireland, this is number ten. You got a copy of this thing?'

'Yes. And the Dublin cases and their possible connection to the first four here have been in the news.' I handed him a printout. 'Anybody could know about it.'

'Don't matter. Assuming this is the same killer and he's just struck again, he knows damn well how many he's killed,' he said. 'But what I'm not getting is how he knew where to send this file to you?'

'My address in AOL wouldn't be hard to guess. It's my name.'

'Jesus, I can't believe you would do that,' he erupted again. 'That's like using your date of birth for your burglar alarm code.'

'I use e-mail almost exclusively to communicate with medical examiners, people in the Health Department, the police. They need something easy to remember. Besides,' I added as his stare continued to pass judgment on me, 'it's never been a problem.'

'Well, now it sure as hell is,' he said, looking at the printout. 'Good news is, maybe we'll find something in here that will help. Maybe he left a trail in the computer.'

'On the Web,' I said.

'Yeah, whatever,' he said. 'Maybe you should call Lucy.'

'Benton should do that,' I reminded him. 'I can't ask her help on a case just because I'm her aunt.'

'So I guess I got to call him about that, too.' He picked his way around my clutter, walking to the doorway. 'I hope you've got some beer in this joint.' He stopped and turned toward me. 'You know, Doc, it ain't none of my business, but you got to talk to him eventually.'

'You're right,' I said. 'It's none of your business.'

The next morning, I woke up to the muffled drumming of heavy rain on the roof and the persistent beeping of my alarm. The hour was early for a day that I was supposed to be taking off from work, and it struck me that during the night the month had

turned into November. Winter was not far away, another year gone. Opening shades, I looked out at the day. Petals from my roses were beaten to the ground, the river swollen and flowing around rocks that looked black.

I felt bad about Marino. I had been impatient with him when I had sent him home without a beer last night. But I did not want to talk with him about matters he would not understand. For him, it was simple. I was divorced. Benton Wesley's wife had left him for another man. We'd been having an affair, so we might as well get married. For a while I had gone along with the plan. Last fall and winter, Wesley and I went skiing, diving, we shopped, cooked in and out and even worked in my yard. We did not get along worth a damn.

In fact, I didn't want him in my house any more than I wanted Marino sitting in my chair. When Wesley moved a piece of furniture or even returned dishes and silverware to the wrong cabinets and drawers, I felt a secret anger that surprised and dismayed me. I had never believed that our relationship was right when he was still married, but back then we had enjoyed each other more, especially in bed. I feared that my failure to feel what I thought I should revealed a trait that I could not bear to see.

I drove to my office with the windshield wipers working hard as the relentless downpour thrummed the roof. Traffic was thin because it was barely seven, and Richmond's downtown skyline came into view slowly and by degrees in the watery fog. I thought of the photograph again. I envisioned it slowly painting down my screen, and the hairs on my arms stood up as a chill crept over me. I was disturbed in a way I could not define as it occurred to me for the first time that the person who had sent it might be someone I knew.

Turning on the Seventh Street exit, I wound around Shockoe Slip, with its wet cobblestones and trendy restaurants that were dark at this hour. I passed parking lots barely beginning to fill, and turned into the one behind my four-story stucco building. I couldn't believe it when I found a television news van waiting in my parking place, which was clearly designated by a sign that read CHIEF MEDICAL EXAMINER. The crew knew that if they waited there long enough, they would be rewarded with me.

I pulled up close and motioned for them to move as the van's doors slid open. A cameraman in a rain suit jumped out, coming my way, a reporter in tow with a microphone. I rolled my window down several inches.

'Move,' I said, and I wasn't nice about it. 'You're in my parking place.'

They did not care as someone else got out with lights. For a moment I sat staring, anger turning me hard like amber. The reporter was blocking my door, her microphone shoved through the opening in the window.

'Dr Scarpetta, can you verify that the Butcher has struck again?' she asked, loudly, as the camera rolled and lights burned.

'Move your van,' I said with iron calm as I stared right at her and the camera.

'Is it in fact a torso that was found?' Rain was running off her hood as she pushed the microphone in farther.

'I'm going to ask you one last time to move your van out of my parking place,' I said like a judge about to cite contempt of court. 'You are trespassing.'

The cameraman found a new angle, zooming in, harsh lights in my eyes.

'Was it dismembered like the others…?'

She jerked the microphone away just in time as my window went up. I shoved the car in gear and began backing, the crew scrambling out of the way as I made a three- hundred-and-sixty-degree turn. Tires spun and skidded as I parked right behind the van, pinning it between my Mercedes and the building.

'Wait a minute!'

'Hey! You can't do that!'

Their faces were disbelieving as I got out. Not bothering with an umbrella, I ran for the door and unlocked it.

'Hey!' the protests continued. 'We can't get out!'

Inside the bay, water was beaded on the oversized maroon station wagon and dripping to the concrete floor. I opened another door and walked into the corridor, looking around to see who else was here. White tile was spotless, the air heavy with industrial strength deodorizer, and as I walked to the morgue office, the massive stainless steel refrigerator door sucked open.