"How many pages?" he asked.
"I've not actually seen them," I said.
"Who has?"
"Lieutenant Marino. He's the one you really need to talk to," I said.
"I already have, and he tells me he hand delivered this manuscript to you."
I did not believe Marino had actually said such a thing. "A miscommumcation," I replied. "I think Marino must have been referring to his receipting a partial manuscript to the forensic labs, pages of which may be an earlier work. The Bureau of Forensic Science is a separate division. It happens to be located in my building."
I glanced at Mark. His face was hard and he was perspiring.
Leather creaked as Sparacino shifted in the chair.
"I'm going to shoot straight with you, Dr. Scarpetta," he said. "I don't believe you."
"I have no control over what you believe or don't believe," I replied very calmly.
"I've been giving the matter a lot of thought," he said, just as calmly. "The fact is, the manuscript's a lot of worthless paper unless you realize its value to certain parties. I know of at least two people, not including publishers, who would pay a high price for the book she was working on when she died."
"All of this is of no concern to me," I answered. "My office does not have the manuscript you've mentioned. Furthermore, we never had it."
"Someone has it."
He stared out the window. "I knew Beryl better than anyone did, knew her habits, Dr. Scarpetta. She'd been out of town for quite a while, had been home only a few hours before she was murdered. I find it impossible to think she didn't have her manuscript close by. In her office, in her briefcase, in a suitcase."
The small blue eyes fixed back on me. "She doesn't have a lock box in a bank, no other place she might have kept it-not that she would have, anyway. She had it with her while she was out of town, was working on it. Obviously, when she came back to Richmond she would have had the manuscript with her."
"She'd been out of town for quite a while," I repeated. "You're sure of that?"
Mark wouldn't look at me.
Sparacino leaned back in his chair and laced his fingers over his big belly.
He said to me, "I knew Beryl wasn't home. I had been trying to call her for weeks. Then she called me about a month ago. She wouldn't tell me where she was but said she was, quote, safe, and proceeded to give me a progress report on her book, said she was hard at work on it. To make a long story short, I didn't pry. Beryl was running scared because of this psycho threatening her. It didn't really matter to me where she was, just that she was well and working hard at meeting her deadline. Might sound insensitive, but I had to be pragmatic."
"We don't know where Beryl was," Mark informed me. "Apparently, Marino wouldn't say."
His choice of pronouns bit into me. "We" as in he and Sparacino.
"If you're asking me to answer that question-"
"That's exactly what I'm asking," Sparacino cut in. "It's going to come out eventually that for the past few months she was staying in North Carolina, Washington, Texas-hell, wherever it was. I need to know now. You're telling me your office doesn't have the manuscript. The police are telling me they don't have it. One sure way for me to get to the bottom of this is to find out where she was last, begin tracking the manuscript that way. Maybe someone drove her to the airport. Maybe she made friends wherever she was. Maybe someone has an inkling as to what happened to her book. For example, did she have it in hand when she boarded the plane?"
"You'll have to get that information from Lieutenant Marino," I replied. "I'm not at liberty to discuss the details of her case with you."
"I didn't expect you to be," Sparacino said. "Probably because you know she had it with her when she got on that plane to come home to Richmond. Probably because it came into your office with her body and now it's gone."
He paused, his eyes cold on mine. "How much did Gary Harper or his sister or both pay you to turn it over to them?"
Mark was tuned out, his face without expression.
"How much? Ten, twenty, fifty thousand?"
"I believe this terminates our conversation, Mr. Sparacino," I said, reaching for my pocketbook.
"No. I don't believe it does, Dr. Scarpetta," Sparacino answered.
He casually shuffled through the file folder. Just as casually, he tossed several sheets of paper across the desk in my direction.
I felt the blood drain from my face as I picked up what I recognized as photocopies of articles the Richmond newspapers had published more than a year ago. The story on top was depressingly familiar:
MEDICAL EXAMINER ACCUSED OF STEALING FROM BODY
When Timothy Smathers was shot to death last month in front of his residence, he was wearing a gold wristwatch, a gold ring, and had $83 cash in his pants pockets, according to his wife, who was witness to the homicide allegedly committed by a disgruntled former employee. Police and members of the rescue squad responding to Smathers' residence after the shooting claim that these valuables accompanied Smathers' body when it was sent in to the Medical Examiner's Office for an autopsy…
There was more, and I didn't have to read on to know what the other clippings said. The Smathers case had precipitated some of the worst publicity my office had ever received.
I passed the photocopies to Mark's outstretched hand. Sparacino had me on a hook and I was determined not to squirm.
"As you'll note if you've read the stories," I said, "there was a full investigation of that situation, and my office was cleared of any wrongdoing."
"Yes, indeed," Sparacino said. "You personally receipted the valuables in question to the funeral home. It was after this that the items disappeared. The problem was proving it. Mrs. Smathers is still of the opinion the OCME stole her husband's jewelry and money. I've talked to her."
"Her office was cleared, Robert," Mark offered in a monotone as he looked over the articles. "Even so, it says here that Mrs. Smathers was issued a check for an amount commensurate with what the items were worth."
"That's correct," I said coldly.
"There's no price tag on sentimental value," Sparacino remarked. "You could have issued her a check for ten times the amount, and she's going to be unhappy."
That was definitely a joke. Mrs. Smathers, whom the police still suspected was behind her husband's murder, married a wealthy widower before the grass had even started growing on her husband's grave.
"And as the news stories point out," Sparacino was saying, "your office was unable to produce the evidence receipt that would verify you did indeed turn over Mr. Smathers's personal effects to the funeral home. Now, I know the details. The receipt was supposedly misplaced by your administrator, who has since gone to work elsewhere. It boiled down to your word against the funeral home's, and though the matter was never resolved, at least not to my satisfaction, by now nobody remembers or cares."
"What's your point?" Mark asked in the same flat tone.
Sparacino glanced at Mark, then returned his attention to me. "The Smathers situation, unfortunately, isn't the end of this sort of accusation. Last July your office received the body of an elderly man named Henry Jackson, who died of natural causes. His body came into your office with fifty-two dollars cash in a pocket. Again, it seems, the money disappeared and you were forced to issue a check to the dead man's son. The son complained to a local television news station. I've got a videotape of what went out over the air if you'd like to see it."
"Jackson came in with fifty-two dollars cash in his pockets," I responded, about to lose my temper. "He was badly decomposed, the money so putrid not even the most desperate thief would have touched it. I don't know what happened to it, but it seems likely the money inadvertently got incinerated along with Jackson's equally putrid and maggot-infested clothing."
"Jesus," Mark muttered under his breath.
'Your office has got a problem, Dr. Scarpetta." Sparacino smiled.