"I already told everybody that. Not to worry."
"Good. And no one has any idea why this individual might have been diving in the Inactive Ship Yard?" I asked.
"He might have been looking for Civil War stuff."
"You speculate that based on what?"
"A lot of people like to look in the rivers around here for cannonballs and things," he said. "Okay. So we'll go on and pull him in so he's not down there any longer than necessary."
"I do not want him touched, and leaving him in the water a little longer isn't going to change anything."
"What is it you're gonna do?" He sounded defensive again.
"I won't know until I get there."
"Well, I don't think it's necessary for you to come here…"
"Detective Roche," I interrupted him. "The necessity of my coming to the scene and what I do when I'm there is not for you to decide."
"Well, there's all these people I've got on hold, and this afternoon it's suppose to snow. Nobody wants to be standing around out there on the piers."
"According to the Code of Virginia, the body is my jurisdiction, not yours or any other police, fire, rescue or funeral person's. Nobody touches the body until I say so."
I spoke with just enough edge to let him know I could be sharp.
"Like I said, I'm going to have to tell all the rescue and shipyard people to just hang out, and they aren't going to be happy. The Navy's already leaning on me pretty hard to clear the area before the media shows up."
"This is not a Navy case."
"You tell them that. It's their ships."
"I'll be happy to tell them that. In the meantime, you just tell everyone that I'm on my way," I said to him before I hung up.
Realizing it could be many hours before I returned to the cottage, I left a note taped to the front door that cryptically instructed Lucy how to let herself in should I not be here.
I hid a key only she could find, then loaded medical bag and dive equipment into the trunk of my black Mercedes.
At quarter of ten the temperature had risen to thirty-eight degrees, and my attempts to reach Captain Pete Marino in Richmond were frustrating.
"Thank God," I muttered when my car phone finally rang.
I snatched it up. "Scarpetta."
"Yo."
"You've got your pager on. I'm shocked," I said to him.
"If you're so shocked, then why the hell'd you call it?"
He sounded pleased to hear from me. "What's up?"
"You know that reporter you dislike so much?" I was careful not to divulge details because we were on the air and could be monitored by scanners.
"As in which one?"
"As in the one who works for AP and is always dropping by my office."
He thought a moment, then said, "So what's the deal?
You have a run-in with him?"
"Unfortunately, I may be about to. I'm on my way to the Elizabeth River. Chesapeake just called."
"Wait a minute. Not that kind of run-in." His tone was ominous.
"I'm afraid so."
"Holy shit."
"We've got only a driver's license. So we can't be certain, yet. I'm going to go in and take a look before we move him."
"Now wait a damn minute," he said. "Why the hell do you need to do something like that? Can't other people take care of it?"
"I need to see him before he's moved," I repeated.
Marino was very displeased because he was overly protective. He didn't have to say another word for me to know that.
"I just thought you might want to check out his residence in Richmond," I told him.
"Yeah. I sure as hell will."
"I don't know what we're going to find."
"Well, I just wish you'd let them find it first."
In Chesapeake, I took the Elizabeth River exit, then turned left on High Street, passing brick churches, used-car lots and mobile homes. Beyond the city jail and police headquarters, naval barracks dissolved into the expansive, depressing landscape of a salvage yard surrounded by a rusty fence topped with barbed wire. In the midst of acres littered with metal and overrun by weeds was a power plant that appeared to burn trash and coal to supply the shipyard with energy to run its dismal, inert business. Smokestacks and train tracks were quiet today, all dry-dock cranes out of work. It was, after all, New Year's Eve.
I drove on toward a headquarters built of boring tan cinderblock, beyond which were long paved piers. At the guard gate, a young man in civilian clothes and hard hat stepped out of his booth. I rolled my window down as clouds churned in the windswept sky.
"This is a restricted area." His face was completely devoid of expression.
"I'm Dr. Kay Scarpetta, the chief medical examiner," I said as I displayed the brass shield that symbolized my jurisdiction over every sudden, unattended, unexplained or violent death in the Commonwealth of Virginia.
Leaning closer, he studied my credentials. Several times he glanced up at my face and stared at my car.
"You're the chief medical examiner?" he asked. "So how come you're not driving a hearse?"
I had heard this before and was patient when I replied, "People who work in funeral homes drive hearses. I don't work in a funeral home. I am a medical examiner."
"I'm going to need some other form of identification."
I gave him my driver's license, and had no doubt that this sort of interference wasn't going to improve once he allowed me to drive through. He stepped back from my car, lifting a portable radio to his lips.
"Unit eleven to unit two." He turned away from me as if about to tell secrets.
"Two," floated back the reply.
I got a Dr. Scaylatta here." He mispronounced my name worse than most people did.
"Ten-four. We're standing by."
"Ma'am," the security guard said to me, "just drive through and you'll find a parking lot on your right." He pointed. "You need to leave your car there and walk to Pier Two, where you'll find Captain Green. That's who you need to see."
"And where will I find Detective Roche?" I asked.
"Captain Green's who you need to see," he repeated.
I rolled my window up as he opened a gate posted with signs warning that I was about to enter an industrial area where spray painting was an imminent hazard, safety equipment was required and parking was at my own risk. In the distance, dull gray cargo and tank landing ships, and mine sweepers, frigates and hydrofoils intimidated the cold horizon. On the second pier, emergency vehicles, police cars and a small group of men had gathered.
Leaving my car as instructed, I briskly walked toward them as they stated. I had left my medical bag and dive gear in the car, so I was an empty-handed, middle-aged woman in hiking boots, wool slacks and pale army-green Schoffel coat. The instant I set foot on the pier, a distinguished, graying man in uniform intercepted me as if I were trespassing. Unsmiling, he stepped in my path.
"May I help you?" he asked in a tone that said halt, as the wind lifted his hair and colored his cheeks.
I again explained who I was.
"Oh, good." He certainly did not sound as if he meant it. "I'm Captain Green with Navy Investigative Service.
We really do need to get on with this. Listen," he turned away from me and spoke to someone else. "We gotta get those CPs off…
"Excuse me. You're with NISI cut in, for I was going to get this cleared up now. "It was my belief that this shipyard is not Navy property. If it is Navy property, I shouldn't be here. The case should be the Navy's and autopsied by Navy pathologists."
. "Ma'am," he said as if I tried his patience, "this shipyard is a civilian contractor-operated facility, and therefore not naval property. But we have an obvious interest because it appears someone was diving unauthorized around our vessels.
"Do you have a theory as to why someone might have done that?" I looked around.