“Coming up.”
The woman with the black hooded coat gets interested in the colorful tequila bottle that Buddy lifts from a shelf. She keenly watches the pale amber liquor pour in a delicate stream, filling the bottom of the brandy snifter. Lucy slowly swirls the tequila, and the smell of it fills her nose all the way up to her brain.
“That stuff will give you the headache from Hades,” the woman with the black hooded coat says in a husky voice that is seductive and full of secrets.
“It’s much purer than regular liquor,” Lucy says. “Haven’t heard the word Hades in a while. Most people I know say hell.”
“The worst headaches I ever got were from margaritas,” the woman offers, sipping a Cosmopolitan that is pink and lethal-looking in a champagne glass. “And I don’t believe in hell.”
“You’ll believe in it if you keep drinking that shit,” Lucy replies, and in the mirror behind the bar, she watches the front door open again and more snow blow intoLorraine’s.
Wind gusting in from the bay sounds like silk whipping, reminding her of silk stockings whipping on a clothesline, although she has never seen silk stockings on a clothesline or heard what they sound like in the wind. She is aware of the woman’s black stockings because tall stools and short, slitted skirts are not a safe combination unless a woman is in a bar where the men are interested only in one another, and inProvincetown, this is usually the case.
“Another Cosmo, Stevie?” Buddy asks, and now Lucy knows her name.
“No,” Lucy answers for her. “Let Stevie try what I’m having.”
“I’ll try anything,” Stevie says. “I think I’ve seen you at the Pied and the Vixen, dancing with different people.”
“I don’t dance.”
“I’ve seen you. You’re hard to miss.”
“You come here a lot?” Lucy asks, and she has never seen Stevie before, not at the Pied or the Vixen or any other club or restaurant in Ptown.
Stevie watches Buddy pour more tequila. He leaves the bottle on the bar, steps away and busies himself with another customer.
“This is my first time,” Stevie says to Lucy. “A Valentine’s Day present to myself, a week in Ptown.”
“In the dead of winter?”
“Last I checked, Valentine’s Day was always in the winter. It happens to be my favorite holiday.”
“It’s not a holiday. I’ve been here every night this week and never seen you.”
“What are you? The bar police?” Stevie smiles and looks into Lucy’s eyes so intensely it has an effect.
Lucy feels something. No, she thinks. Not again.
“Maybe I don’t come in here only at night like you do,” Stevie says, reaching for the tequila bottle, brushing Lucy’s arm.
The feeling gets stronger. Stevie studies the colorful label, sets the bottle back on the bar, taking her time, her body touching Lucy. The feeling intensifies.
“Cuervo? What’s so special about Cuervo?” Stevie asks.
“How would you know what I do?” Lucy says.
She tries to make the feeling go away.
“Just guessing. You look like a night person,” Stevie says. “Your hair is naturally red, isn’t it. Maybe mahogany mixed with deep red. Dyed hair can’t look like that. You haven’t always worn it long, as long as it is now.”
“Are you some kind of psychic?”
The feeling is awful now. It won’t go away.
“Just guessing,” Stevie’s seductive voice says. “So, you haven’t told me. What’s so special about Cuervo?”
“Cuervo Reserva de la Familia. It’s special enough.”
“Well, that’s something. It looks like this is my night for first times,” Stevie says, touching Lucy’s arm, her hand resting on it for a minute. “First time in Ptown. First time for one hundred percent a gave tequila that costs thirty dollars a shot.”
Lucy wonders how Stevie can know it costs thirty dollars a shot. For someone unfamiliar with tequila, she seems to know a lot.
“I believe I’ll have another,” Stevie calls out to Buddy, “and you really could pour a little more in the glass. Be sweet to me.”
Buddy smiles as he pours her another, and two shots later, Stevie leans against Lucy and whispers in her ear, “You got anything?”
“Like what?” Lucy asks, and she gives herself up to it.
The feeling is fueled by tequila and plans to stay for the night.
“You know what,” Stevie’s voice says quietly, her breath touching Lucy’s ear, her breast pressed again her arm. “Something to smoke. Something that’s worth it.”
“What makes you think I’d have something?”
“Just guessing.”
“You’re remarkably good at it.”
“You can get it anywhere here. I’ve seen you.”
Lucy made a transaction last night, knows just where to do it, at the Vixen, where she doesn’t dance. She doesn’t remember seeing Stevie. There weren’t that many people, never are this time of year. She would have noticed Stevie. She would notice her in a huge crowd, on a busy street, anywhere.
“Maybe you’re the one who’s the bar police,” Lucy says.
“You have no idea how funny that is,” Stevie’s seductive voice says. “Where you staying?”
“Not far from here.”
6
The state Medical Examiner’s Office is located where most are, on the fringe of a nicer part of town, usually at the outer limits of a medical school. The red-brick-and-concrete complex backs up to the Massachusetts Turnpike, and on the other side of it is the Suffolk County House of Corrections. There is no view and the noise of traffic never stops.
Bentonparks at the back door and notes only two other cars in the lot. The dark-blue CrownVictoriabelongs to Detective Thrush. The Honda SUV probably belongs to a forensic pathologist who doesn’t get paid enough and probably wasn’t happy when Thrush persuaded him to come in at this hour.Bentonrings the bell and scans the empty back parking lot, never assuming he is safe or alone, and then the door opens and Thrush is motioning him inside.
“Jeez, I hate this place at night,” Thrush says.
“There’s not much to like about it any time of day,”Bentonremarks.
“I’m glad you came. Can’t believe you’re out in that,” he says, looking out at the black Porsche as he shuts the door behind them. “In this weather? You crazy?”
“All-wheel drive. It wasn’t snowing when I went to work this morning.”
“These other psychologists I’ve worked with, they never come out, snow, rain or shine,” Thrush says. “Not the profilers, either. Most FBI I’ve met have never seen a dead body.”
“Except for the ones at headquarters.”
“No shit. We got plenty of them at state police headquarters, too. Here.”
He handsBentonan envelope as they follow a corridor.
“Got everything on a disk for you. All the scene and autopsy pictures, whatever’s written up so far. It’s all there. It’s supposed to snow like a bitch.”
Bentonthinks of Scarpetta again. Tomorrow is Valentine’s Day, and they’re supposed to spend the evening together, have a romantic dinner on the harbor. She’s supposed to stay through Presidents’ Day weekend. They haven’t seen each other in almost a month. She may not be able to get here.
“I heard light snow showers are predicted,”Bentonsays.
“A storm’s moving in from theCape. Hope you got something to drive other than that million-dollar sports car.”
Thrush is a big man who has spent his life inMassachusettsand talks like it. There isn’t a single R in his vocabulary. In his fifties, he has military-short gray hair and is dressed in a rumpled brown suit, has probably worked nonstop all day. He and Benton follow the well-lit corridor. It is spotless and scented with air deodorizer and lined with storage and evidence rooms, all of them requiring electronic passes. There is even a crash cart-Bentoncan’t imagine why-and a scanning electron microscope, the facility the most spacious and best equipped of any morgue he has ever seen. Staffing is another story.