Point of Origin

'Did she own an old Mercedes?' Marino asked.

Sparkes shook his head. He covered his face with his hands as he struggled for composure.

'A Volkswagen thing. Light blue,' he managed to say. 'She didn't have any money. I gave her some in the end, before she left. A thousand dollars cash. I told her to go back to school and finish. Her name is Claire Rawley, and I suppose she could have taken one of my extra keys without my knowing while she was staying on the farm. Maybe she saw the alarm code when I punched it in.'

'And you've had no contact with Claire Rawley for more than a year?' I said.

'Not one word,' he replied. 'That seems so far in my past. It was a foolish fling, really. I saw her surfing and started talking to her on the beach, in Wrightsville. I have to say, she was the most splendid-looking woman I have ever seen. For a while, I was out of my mind, then I came to my senses. There were many, many complications and problems. Claire needed a caretaker, and I couldn't be that.'

'I need to know everything about her that you can tell me,' I said to him with feeling. 'Anything about where she was from, her family. Anything that might help me identify the body or rule Claire Rawley out. Of course, I will contact the university, as well.'

'I've got to tell you the sad truth, Dr Scarpetta,' my former boss said to me. 'I never knew anything about her, really. Our relationship was mainly sexual, with me helping her out with money and her problems as best I could. I did care about her.' He paused. 'But it was never serious, at least not on my side. I mean, marriage was never in the offing.'

He did not need to explain further. Sparkes had power. He exuded it and had always enjoyed almost any woman he wanted. But I felt no judgment now.

'I'm sorry,' he said, getting up. 'I can only tell you that she was rather much a failed artist. A want-to-be actor who spent most of her time surfing or wandering the beach: And after I'd been around her for a while, I began to see that something wasn't right about her. The way she seemed so lacking in motivation, and would act so erratic and glazed sometimes.'

'Did she abuse alcohol?' I asked.

'Not chronically. It has too many calories.'

'Drugs?'

'That's what I began to suspect, and it was something I could have no association with. I don't know.'

'I need for you to spell her name for me,' I said.

'Before you go walking off,' Marino jumped in, and I recognized the bad-cop edge to his tone, 'you sure this couldn't be some sort of a murder-suicide? Only she kills everything you own and goes up in flames along with it? You sure there's no reason she might have done that, Mr Sparkes?'

'At this point, I can't be sure of anything,' Sparkes answered him as he paused near the barn's open door.

Marino got up, too.

'Well, this ain't adding up, no disrespect intended,' Marino said. 'And I do need to see any receipts you have for your London trip. And for Dulles airport. And I know ATF's hot to know about your basement full of bourbon and automatic weapons.'

'I collect World War II weapons, and all of them are registered and legal,' he said with restraint. 'I bought the bourbon from a Kentucky distillery that went out of business five years ago. They shouldn't have sold it to me and I shouldn't have bought it. But so be it.'

'I think ATF's got bigger fish to fry than your barrels of bourbon,' Marino said. 'So if you got any of those receipts with you now, I'd appreciate your handing them over to me.'

'Will you strip search me next, Captain?' Sparkes fixed hard eyes on him.

Marino stared back as guinea hens kicked past again like breakdancers.

'You can deal with my lawyer,' Sparkes said. 'And then I'll be happy to cooperate.'

'Marino,' it was my turn to speak, 'if you'd give me just a minute alone with Mr Sparkes.'

Marino was taken aback and very annoyed. Without a word, he stalked off into the barn, several hens trotting after him. Sparkes and I stood, facing each other. He was a strikingly handsome man, tall and lean, with thick gray hair. His eyes were amber, his features aristocratic, with a straight Jeffersonian nose and skin dark and as smooth as a man half his age. The way he tightly gripped his riding crop seemed to fit his mood. Kenneth Sparkes was capable of violence but had never given in to it, as best I knew.

'All right. What's on your mind?' he asked me suspiciously.

'I just wanted to make sure you understand that our differences of the past…'

He shook his head and would not let me finish.

'The past is past,' he said curtly.

'No, Kenneth, it isn't. And it's important for you to know that I don't harbor bad feelings about you,' I replied. 'That what's going on now is not related.'

When he had been more actively involved with the publishing of his newspapers, he had basically accused me of racism when I had released statistics about black on black homicides. I had shown citizens how many deaths were drug-related or involved prostitution or were just plain hate of one black for another.

His own reporters had taken several of my quotes out of context and had distorted the rest, and by the end of the day, Sparkes had summoned me to his posh downtown office. I would never forget being shown into his mahogany space of fresh flowers and colonial furniture and lighting. He had ordered me, as if he could, to demonstrate more sensitivity to African-Americans and publicly retract my bigoted professional assessments. As I looked at him now, with sweat on his face and manure on his boots, it did not seem I was talking to the same arrogant man. His hands were trembling, his strong demeanor about to break.

'Will you let me know what you find out?' he asked as tears filled his eyes, his head held high.

'I'll tell you what I can,' I promised evasively.

'I just want to know if it's her, and that she didn't suffer,' he said.

'Most people in fires don't. The carbon monoxide renders them unconscious long before the flames get close. Usually, death is quiet and painless.'

'Oh, thank God.'

He looked up at the sky.

'Oh, thank you, God,' he muttered.

5

I GOT HOME that night in time for a dinner I did not feel like cooking. Benton had left me three messages, and I had not returned any one of them. I felt strange. I felt an odd sensation of doom, and yet I felt a lightness around my heart that spurred me into working in my garden until dark, pulling weeds and clipping roses for the kitchen. The ones I chose were pink and yellow, tightly furled like flags before glory. At dusk, I went out to walk and wished I had a dog. For a while I fantasized about that, wondering just what sort of dog I would have, were it possible and practical.

I decided on a retired greyhound rescued from the track and from certain extermination. Of course, my life was too unkind for a pet. I pondered this as one of my neighbors came out of his grand stone home to walk his small white dog.

'Good evening, Dr Scarpetta,' the neighbor said grimly. 'How long are you in town for?'

'I never know,' I said, still imagining my greyhound.

'Heard about the fire.'

He was a retired surgeon, and he shook his head.

'Poor Kenneth.'

'I suppose you know him,' I said.

'Oh yes.'

'It is too bad. What kind of dog do you have?'

'He's a salad bar dog. Little bit of everything,' my neighbor said.

He walked on, taking out a pipe and lighting up, because his wife, no doubt, would not let him smoke in the house. I walked past the homes of my neighbors, all different but the same because they were brick or stucco and not very old. It seemed fitting that the sluggish stretch of the river in the back of the neighborhood made its way over rocks the same way it had two hundred years before. Richmond was not known for change.