"What time is Dorothy coming over?" Scarpetta forced herself to ask.
"She was supposed to be here fifteen minutes ago," her mother answered, rattling the paper loudly.
Her breathing was labored from a life of smoking that had eventually hospitalized her with emphysema.
"Mother, would you like me to get your oxygen?" Scarpetta asked.
"No."
Sinbad languidly strolled into the kitchen. He stopped and gave the chef a crooked stare. His tail twitched. Scarpetta began heating the skillet. She opened the refrigerator and found a Buckler she poured into a glass.
"Well, dinner will be ready in ten minutes," she said. "Take it or leave it. If we waited for Dorothy every time she was supposed to show up, we'd turn into skeletons."
Her mother sighed. Sinbad squeezed himself between Scarpetta's feet as she turned on the burner to heat the water.
"How about boiled cat over pasta," Scarpetta said, booting Sinbad out of the way yet one more time in life.
"YUCK!" Mrs. Scarpetta protested with disgust. "How can you say such a thing?"
Scarpetta began crushing cloves of garlic and sauteing them with the vegetables.
She stripped fresh basil from its stems and sprinkled it in, adding salt and ground pepper.
"This is going to be light and healthy," Scarpetta said, knowing full well how her mother would react to this.
Momentarily, Scarpetta felt no guilt about not pleasing her mother, who did not believe in healthy food and was offended by it and took it personally. Scarpetta had learned long ago to take care of herself, to alleviate pain, and not be victimized. With her family, she would take but so much. She had been down here for almost a week. Frankly, she'd had enough, her disk was full, her nerves overloaded, she could take no more.
"What about meatballs?" her mother complained. "I can't believe you aren't serving sausage, prosciutto, or something."
"Not tonight," Scarpetta said.
5
In Richmond, at the precise moment Scarpetta was placing pasta in boiling water many miles south, Pete Marino was looking out at the weather. He was grateful his Dodge Ram Quad Cab pickup truck was safely under the aluminum carport. Otherwise it would, by now, be covered with at least three inches of snow-the soft, wet sort that he hated most. It inspired the neighborhood brats to fashion snowballs and hurl them in the direction of his small house in its quiet neighborhood south of the James River, just off Midlothian Turnpike.
These assaults inevitably occurred at night, resulting in soft thuds against windows, doors, and aluminum siding. By the time Marino was out on the porch, the suspects had fled, vanishing in the deep shadows of trees and to various residences along his street. He was an experienced officer of the law, and following footprints in snow was about as easy as arresting a rapist who leaves his wallet on the floor of the crime scene, or the thief who records his driver's license information on the back of the stolen check he's cashing. Oh yes, this had happened more times than well-behaved citizens would believe, but tracking children through the dark, frigid night, slipping and sliding, was a different matter altogether.
Marino lit a Marlboro and opened another can of Budweiser as he waited, ready in coat and boots, the television turned down low, an ear to the front of his house, as big flakes fell thickly. When he was growing up in New Jersey, he had committed far worse offenses than throwing snowballs at people. But in his case, violence was always justified and appropriate, for there were bullies and vandals in the blue-collar community of his youth. He had beaten the hell out of others only when he was picked on first or was protecting someone weaker. Marino was certain he had done nothing in this instance to justify the rude and thoughtless acts perpetrated by his small neighbors.
He had not factored in the many times he had chased them away from his above-ground swimming pool, or scattered them when they had dared to play football in his yard without asking. The occasions he had yelled and smacked a newspaper at the SPCA puppy that belonged one block away had not gone over very well, either, nor had the occasion when he had stopped his unmarked car and ordered Jimmy Simpson, who was ten, to pick up the candy wrapper he had just tossed on the street.
"You're lucky you aren't getting fined," he had told the blue-eyed boy.
"I'm not lost," Jimmy indignantly had said.
Marino believed, with no evidence, that Jimmy Simpson was the leader of the pack, and soon enough Marino would catch the vandal in the act and snatch him up by the scruff of his neck. He would march the boy into his single-parent residence and enlighten him and his mother about detention homes and jail.
The first artillery fire hit at exactly 8 P.M., snowballs pelting the front of the house. Marino didn't wait for a second round. Instantly he was out the front door, the enemy in sight. Jimmy Simpson was alone and no more than twenty feet from where Marino stood on the porch. Caught in the act, the boy was too frightened to run. He froze, eyes wide with terror. Marino stomped down the steps, his heavy boots crunching through snow.
"Just what the hell do you think you're doing?" he bellowed.
Jimmy began to cry. He cowered, arms in front of his face, as if he had been hit before by people bigger than he was.
"I knew it was you!" Marino severely went on, and he had reached the boy by now. "I've known it all along, you little scum bucket! What if you broke a window, huh?"
Jimmy was shaking as he sobbed.
"I didn't throw any at a window," his small voice barely said.
Marino had no evidence to the contrary.
"Yeah? Well, how would you like it if I threw snowballs at your house?" he gruffly said, his voice not quite as loud.
"I wouldn't care."
"Yes, you would."
"Would not."
"Well, your mother would care."
"Not if you didn't hurt anything."
"You're full of crap," Marino said, peering through snow at the milky smudges of windows lit up in Jimmy's two-bedroom brick home.
"You're not nice to me," Jimmy said, lowering his arms as fear began to leave him. "That's why! You started it!"
Marino had to think about this for a minute, his balding head getting cold.
"You mean that time I told you to get away from my pool?" Marino tried to remember.
The boy vigorously nodded.
"More than once!" Jimmy exclaimed. "And you give me mean looks when you pass me on the street in your police car."
"No, I don't."
"Do too."
"Only when you litter."
"That was one time! And there was chocolate all over the wrapper, and if I got it on my clothes, my mom would have gotten mad. So I dropped it by the road. So what!"
"What's your mom doing now?" Marino asked, as he began to feel something deep inside that made it hard for him to hate this lousy little kid.
"Stuck at her sister's house."
"Where's that?"
"I don't know," Jimmy quietly said, staring down at his feet. "I know it's near the park."
"Byrd Park?"
"The one with the lake and little boats. They sell cotton candy."
"She's not coming home?"
»Jimmy shook his head. "She said her car's stuck," he said.
"So you're all by your scrawny-ass self out here throwing snowballs."