Each body was found in a northern Virginia or southern Maryland public park, and I continue to quickly skim through what Benton sent to me the end of November, knowing I’ve got to hurry up and I can’t tell Marino what’s on my mind. Three different parks, two with a lake, another with a golf course, all of them very close to railroad tracks and within twenty miles of Washington, D.C. In the scene photographs the victims were clad only in panties that were identified as belonging to a previous victim except in the case of the former Cambridge resident Klara Hembree. A DNA profile recovered from the panties she had on is the unknown female of European descent — in other words, white.
I click through photographs of dead faces staring through plastic bags from the bath and body boutique called Octopus near Lafayette Square, mere blocks from the White House. There’s no evidence of sexual assault, nothing significant recovered from the bodies except two types of Lycra fibers, one blue-dyed and the other white. The morphology of the fibers in each of the three cases is slightly different. It’s been speculated they might be from athletic clothing the killer wears or possibly from furniture upholstery in his residence.
I sit down on the sofa to dress, conserving strength, before venturing out to MIT’s playing fields where I will examine a dead human being whose truth must be coaxed and cut out of her, as I have done thousands of times in my career. Sock jumps up and rests his grizzled muzzle on my lap. I stroke his head and velvety long snout, careful with his ears, tattered and scarred from his former cruel life at the racetrack.
“You need to get up,” I tell him. “I have to take you out, then I’ve got work to do. I don’t want you to get into a state about it. Promise?” I reassure him our housekeeper Rosa will be here soon and will keep him company. “Come on. Then you’ll eat breakfast and take a nap. I’ll be home before you know it.”
I hope dogs don’t know when we lie. Rosa won’t be here soon and I won’t be home before Sock knows it. It’s very early and will be a very long day. The message alert dings on my phone.
“You coming or what?” Marino texts me.
“Ready,” I reply.
I clip the fanny pack’s nylon strap around my waist, tightening it as I move a curtain aside.
5
Veils of rain billow past streetlights in front of our Federal-style antique home in central Cambridge, close to Harvard’s Divinity School and the Academy of Arts and Sciences.
I watch Marino climb out of an SUV that doesn’t belong to him personally. The Ford Explorer is black or dark blue, parked in my puddled driveway, the old brick boiling with heavy rain. He opens a passenger door, unaware that I’m staring down at him from a second-floor window, oblivious to what I feel when I see him, indifferent to how anything might affect me.
He never announced his news and of course he didn’t need to because I already knew. The Cambridge Police Department wouldn’t have cared about his petition for exemption, and no number of glowing advisory letters was going to matter if I didn’t personally recommend him for a lateral transfer into their investigative unit. I got him his damn new job. That’s the truth of it and the irony.
I lobbied on his behalf to the Cambridge police commissioner and the local district attorney, telling them with authority that Marino is the perfect candidate. With his vast experience and training he shouldn’t be obliged to go through the academy with rookies, and the hell with age limitations. He’s gold, a treasure. I made my case for him because I want him to be happy. I don’t want him to resent me anymore. I don’t want him to blame me.
I feel a twinge of sadness and anger as he unlatches the dog crate in the backseat to let out his German shepherd, a rescue he named Quincy. He snaps a leash on the harness and I hear the muffled thud of the car door shutting in the hard rain. Through the bare branches of the big oak tree on the other side of the glass I watch this man I’ve known most of my professional life lead his dog, still a puppy, to shrubbery.
They follow the brick walk, and motion-sensor lights blink on as if saluting Cambridge police detective Pete Marino’s approach. His large stature is exaggerated by the shadow he casts, on the front porch steps now in the glow of old iron gas lamps. Sock’s nails click on the hardwood floor, following me to the stairs.
“My opinion is it won’t work out the way he thinks,” I continue talking to a dog as silent as a mime. “He’s doing it for the wrong reason.”
Of course Marino doesn’t see it. He has it in his head that he left policing ten years ago because it was my idea and completely against his will. Were he asked “Is your every disappointment Kay Scarpetta’s fault?” he’d say yes and pass a polygraph.
I turn on lights that fill the French stained-glass windows over the landings, wildlife scenes in rich, brilliant hues.
In the entryway I disarm the alarm system and open the front door, and Marino looms large on the front porch mat, his dog all legs and paws tugging desperately to give Sock and me a playful, sloppy hello.
“Come in. I’ve got to let Sock out and feed him.” In the entryway closet I begin collecting my gear.
“You look like hell.” Marino pushes back the hood of his dripping rain slicker, his dog wearing a working vest, in training on one side and do not pet on the other in big white letters.
I drag out my field case, a large, heavy-duty plastic toolbox I picked up for a bargain like a lot of medicolegal necessities I find at Walmart, Home Depot, wherever I can. There’s no point in paying hundreds of dollars for a surgical chisel or rib cutters if I can pick up tools for a song that do the job just fine.
“I don’t want to get your floor wet.” Marino watches me from the porch, staring the same unblinking stare as he did in my dream.
“Don’t worry about it. Rosa’s coming. The place is a mess. I haven’t even gotten a tree yet.”
“Looks like Scrooge lives here.”
“Maybe he does. Come in out of the weather.”
“It’s supposed to clear off pretty soon.” Marino wipes his feet on the mat, his leather boots thudding and scraping.
I sit down on the rug as he steps inside and shuts the door. Quincy pulls toward me, his tail wagging furiously, loudly thumping the umbrella stand. Marino the dog handler, or what Lucy calls “the dog chauffeur,” chokes up on the lead and commands Quincy to sit. He doesn’t.
“Sit,” Marino repeats firmly. “Down,” he adds hopelessly.
“What else do we know about this case beyond what you described to me on the phone?” Sock is in my lap, trembling because he knows I’m leaving. “Anything further about Gail Shipton, if that’s who we’re dealing with?”
“There’s an alley in back of the bar with a small parking area, deserted, some of the lights burned out,” Marino describes. “Obviously it’s where she went to use her phone. I located it and a shoe that are hers.”
“Are we sure they’re hers?” I begin putting on ankle-high boots, black nylon, insulated and waterproof.
“The phone definitely.” He digs in a pocket for a biscuit, breaks off a piece, and Quincy sits in what I call his lunging position. Ready to pounce.
“What about those treats I gave you? Sweet-potato ones, a case of them.”
“I ran out.”
“Then you’re giving him too many.”
“He’s still growing.”
“Well, if you keep it up he will but not the way you want.”
“Plus they clean his teeth.”
“What about the dog toothpaste I made for you?”
“He doesn’t like it.”