Trace (30 page)

    
"I'm afraid he did. He told me your opinion," he says, savoring the words "your opinion" and wishing he could see her reaction, because the words "your opinion" are ones a calculating defense attorney would say. A prosecutor, on the other hand, would say "your conclusion" because that is a validation of experience and expertise, whereas to say "your opinion" is a veiled insult.

    
"I'm wondering if you've heard about the trace evidence," he then says, thinking of the e-mail he got yesterday from the ever inappropriate Junius Eise.

    
"No," she says.

    
"It's quite extraordinary," he says ominously. "That's why we're having a meeting," Dr. Marcus says, and he set up the meeting yesterday but is telling her about it only now. "I'd like you to come by my office this morning at nine-thirty." He watches the old blue Impala pull into a driveway two houses down, and he wonders why it is stopping there and who it belongs to.

    
Scarpetta hesitates as if his last-minute suggestion doesn't suit her, then she replies, "Of course. I'll be there in half an hour."

    
"May I ask what you did yesterday afternoon? I didn't see you at my office," he inquires, watching an old black woman get out of the old blue Impala.

    
"Paperwork, a lot of phone calls. Why, did you need something?"

    
Dr. Marcus feels slightly giddy and dizzy as he watches the old black woman and the old blue Impala. The great Scarpetta is asking him if he needed something, as if she works for him. But she does work for him. Right now she does. This he finds hard to believe.

    
"I don't need anything from you at the moment," he says. "I'll see you at the meeting," and he hangs up, and it gives him great pleasure to hang up on Scarpetta.

    
The heels of his lace-up old-fashioned brown shoes click against the oak floors as he walks into the kitchen and puts on a second pot of decaffeinated coffee. Most of the first pot went to waste because he was too worried about the garbage truck and the men on it to remember the coffee, and it began to smell cooked and he poured it down the sink. So he puts on the coffee and walks back into the living room to check on the Impala.

    
Through the same window he usually looks out, the one across from his favorite big leather chair, he watches the old black woman pull bags of groceries from the back of the Impala. She must be the housekeeper, he thinks, and it irks him that a black housekeeper would drive the same car his mother did when he was growing up. That was a nice car once. Not everybody had a white Impala with a blue stripe down the side, and he was proud of that car except when it got stuck in the snow at the bottom of the hill. His mother wasn't a good driver. She shouldn't have been allowed to drive that Impala. An Impala is named for a male African antelope that can leap great distances and is easily startled, and his mother was nervous enough when she was just on her own two feet. She didn't need to be behind the wheel of anything named after a male African antelope that was powerful and easily spooked.

    
The old housekeeper moves slowly, gathering up plastic bags of groceries from the back of the Impala, and moving in an old tired waddle from the car to a side door of the house, then back to the car, gathering up more bags, then closing the car door with her hip. That was a fine car once, Dr. Marcus thinks, staring out his window. The housekeeper's Impala must be forty years old and it seems to be in good shape, and he can't remember the last time he's seen a '63 or '64 Impala. That he should see one today strikes him as significant but he doesn't know what the significance is, and he returns to the kitchen to get his coffee. If he waits another twenty minutes, his doctors will be busy with autopsies and he won't have to talk to anyone, and his pulse picks up speed again as he waits. His nerves start firing again.

    
At first he blames his racing heart and shakiness and twitching on the trace of caffeine in decaffeinated coffee, but he's had only a few sips, and he realizes something else is happening. He thinks of the Impala across the street and becomes more agitated and out of sorts, and he wishes the housekeeper had never driven up, today of all days, when he was home because of garbage collection. He returns to the living room and sits down in his big leather chair and leans back, trying to relax, and his heart is pounding so violently he can see the front of his white shirt moving, and he takes deep breaths and closes his eyes.

    
He's lived here four months and never seen that Impala before. He imagines the thin blue steering wheel that has no airbag, and the blue dash on the passenger's side that isn't padded and has no airbag, and old blue seat belts that go around the lap because there aren't shoulder harnesses. He imagines the interior of the Impala, and it isn't the Impala across the street he imagines, but the white one with the blue stripe down the side that his mother drove. His coffee is forgotten and cold on the table by his big leather chair, and he sits back with his eyes shut. Several times Dr. Marcus gets up and looks out the window, and when he doesn't see the blue Impala anymore, he sets the alarm, locks his house, and walks into the garage, and it occurs to him with a stab of fear that maybe the Impala doesn't exist and was never there at all, but it was. Of course it was.

    
A few minutes later he drives slowly down his street and stops in front of the house several doors down and stares at the empty driveway where he saw the blue Impala and the old black housekeeper carrying in groceries. He sits in his Volvo, which has the highest safety rating of just about any car made, and he stares at the empty driveway, then finally turns into it and gets out. He is old-fashioned but neat in the long gray coat and gray hat and black pigskin gloves that he has worn in cold weather since before he lived in St. Louis, and he knows he looks respectable enough as he rings the front doorbell. He pauses, then rings it again, and the door opens.

    
"May I help you?" says the woman who answers the door, a woman who might be in her fifties and is wearing a tennis warm-up suit and tennis shoes. She looks familiar and is gracious but not overly friendly.

    
"I'm Joel Marcus," he says in his pleasant-enough voice. "I live across the street and happened to notice a very old blue Impala in your driveway a little while ago." He is prepared to suggest that he might have her house mixed up with another one should she say she doesn't know anything about a very old blue Impala.

    
"Oh, Mrs. Walker. She's had that car forever. Wouldn't trade it for a brand new Cadillac," the somewhat familiar neighbor says with a smile, to his vast relief.

    
"I see," he says. "I was just curious. I collect old cars." He doesn't collect cars, old or otherwise, but he wasn't imagining things, thank the Lord. Of course not.

    
"Well, you won't be collecting that one," she says cheerfully. "Mrs. Walker sure does love that car. I don't believe we've formally met, but I do know who you are. You're the new coroner. You took the place of that famous woman coroner, oh what was her name? I was shocked and disappointed when she left Virginia. Whatever happened to her, anyway? Here you are, standing out in the cold. Where are my manners? Would you like to come in? She was such an attractive woman too. Oh, what was her name?"

    
"I really must be on my way," Dr. Marcus replies in a different voice, this one stiff and tight. "I'm afraid I'm quite late for a meeting with the governor," he lies rather coldly.

Chapter 25

    
The sun is weak
in the pale gray sky and the light is thin and cold. Scarpetta walks through the parking lot, her long dark coat flapping around her legs. She walks quickly and with purpose toward the front door of her former building and is annoyed that the number-one parking place, the parking place reserved for the chief medical examiner, is empty. Dr. Marcus isn't here yet. As usual, he is late.

    
"Good morning, Bruce," she says to the security officer at the desk.

    
He smiles at her and waves her on. "I'll sign you in," he says, pushing a button that unlocks the next door, the one that leads into the medical examiner's wing of the building.

    
"Has Marino gotten here?" she asks as she walks.

    
"Haven't seen him," Bruce replies.

    
When Fielding didn't answer his door last night, she stood on his front porch trying to call him on the phone, but the old home number she had for him didn't work anymore, and then she tried Marino and could barely hear him because of loud voices and laughter in the background. He might have been in a bar, but she didn't ask and simply told him that Fielding didn't seem to be home and if he didn't show up soon, she was going back to the hotel. All Marino had to say about it was, okay, Doc, and see you later, Doc, and call if you need me, Doc.

    
Then Scarpetta tried to open Fielding's front and back doors, but they were locked. She rang the bell and knocked, getting increasingly uneasy. Her former assistant chief and right-hand helper and friend had a car under a tarp in the carport, and she had little doubt that the car under the tarp was his beloved old red Mustang but she pulled up an edge of the tarp to make sure, and she was right. She had noticed the Mustang in the number 6 parking place behind the building that morning, so he was still driving it, but just because his Mustang was home under the tarp didn't mean he was inside the house and refusing to come to the door. He might have a second vehicle, perhaps an SUV. It would make sense for him to have a backup, more rugged vehicle, and he might be out somewhere in his SUV or whatever else he was driving these days, and was on his way and running a little late or had forgotten he had invited her to dinner.

    
She went through all these convolutions as she waited for him to come to the door, and then she began to worry that something had happened to Fielding. Maybe he had hurt himself. Maybe he was suffering a violent allergic reaction and had broken out in hives or was going into anaphylactic shock. Maybe he had committed suicide. Maybe he timed his suicide with her coming to his house because he would think she could handle it. If you kill yourself, somebody has to handle it. Everybody always assumes she can handle anything, so it would be her terrible lot in life to be the one to find him in bed with a bullet in his head or a stomach full of pills and handle the situation. Only Lucy seems to know that Scarpetta has her limitations, and Lucy rarely tells her anything. She hasn't seen Lucy since September. Something is going on, and Lucy doesn't think Scarpetta can handle it.

    
"Well, I can't seem to find Marino," Scarpetta says to Bruce. "So if you hear from him, please tell him I'm looking for him, that there's a meeting."

    
"Junius Eise may know where he is," Bruce replies. "You know, from Trace? Eise was going to hook up with him last night. Maybe go to the FOP lounge."

    
Scarpetta thinks of what Dr. Marcus said when he called her barely an hour ago, something about the trace evidence, which apparently is the reason for this meeting, and she can't find Marino. He was at his old Fraternal Order of Police watering hole hangout last night, probably drinking with Mr. Trace Evidence himself, and she has no idea what is going on and Marino isn't answering the phone. She pushes open the opaque glass door and steps inside her former waiting area.

    
She is shocked to see Mrs. Paulsson sitting on the couch, staring vacantly, her hands clutching the pocketbook in her lap. "Mrs. Paulsson?" Scarpetta says with concern, walking over to her. "Is someone helping you?"

    
"They told me to be here when they opened," Mrs. Paulsson says. "Then I was told to wait because the chief hasn't gotten here yet."

    
Scarpetta was not informed that Mrs. Paulsson would be present at the meeting with Dr. Marcus. "Come on," she says to her. "I'll take you inside. You're meeting with Dr. Marcus?"

    
"I think so."

    
"I'm meeting with him too," Scarpetta says. "1 guess we're going to the same meeting. Come on. You can come with me."

    
Mrs. Paulsson slowly gets up from the couch, as if she is tired and in pain. Scarpetta wishes there were real plants in the waiting area, just a few real plants to add warmth and life. Real plants make people feel less alone and there is no lonelier place on earth than a morgue, and no one should ever have to visit a morgue, much less wait to visit one. She presses a buzzer next to a window. On the other side of the glass is a countertop, then a stretch of gray-blue carpet, then a doorway leading to the administrative offices.