Book of the Dead (37 page)

    
“You know how rare it is when prints are even rolled properly?” Lucy rants on. Her tone bites. “You get some Deputy Bubba in a jail taking all these ten-print cards, still doing centuries-old shitty ink-and-roll, and they’re all dumped into IAFIS and are crap, when they wouldn’t be if we were using biometric optical live scanning. But no jail’s got money. No money for anything in this fucking country.”

    
Scarpetta leaves the gold coin inside its transparent plastic envelope and looks at it under a lens. “You want to tell me why you’re in such an awful mood?” She’s afraid of the answer.

    
“Where’s the serial number so I can enter the gun into NCIC?”

    
“That piece of paper over there on the counter. Have you been talking to Rose?”

    
Lucy gets it, sits before a computer terminal. Keys start clicking. “Called to check on her. She said you need checking on.”

    
“A U.S. one-dollar piece,” Scarpetta says of the magnified coin so she doesn’t have to say anything else. “Eighteen seventy-three.” And she notices something she’s never seen before in unprocessed evidence.

    
Lucy says, “I’d like to test-fire this in the water tank and run ballistics on it through NIBIN.”

    
The National Integrated Ballistic Identification Network.

    
“See if the revolver’s been used in any other crime,” Lucy says. “Although you’re not considering what happened a crime yet and don’t want to involve the police.”

    
“As I’ve explained” – Scarpetta doesn’t want to sound defensive – “Bull struggled with him and knocked the gun out of his hands.” She studies the coin, adjusting the magnification. “I can’t prove the man in question on the chopper was there to harm me. He never trespassed, just tried.”

    
“So Bull says.”

    
“If I didn’t know better, I’d think this coin has already been superglued for prints.” Through the lens, Scarpetta examines what looks like pale white ridge detail on front and back.

    
“What do you mean, if you didn’t know better? You don’t know better. You don’t know anything about it or where it’s been or anything except Bull found it behind your house. Who lost it’s another story.”

    
“Sure looks like a polymer residue. Like superglue. I don’t understand,” Scarpetta says, carrying the plastic-protected coin to the copy stand. “A lot of things I don’t understand.” She glances up at Lucy. “I guess when you’re ready to talk to me, you will.” She takes off her gloves, puts on new ones and a face mask.

    
“Sounds like all we need to do is photograph them. No gun blue or RTX.” Lucy refers to the ridge detail on the coin.

    
“At most, maybe black powder. But I suspect we won’t need even that.” Scarpetta adjusts the camera mounted on the copy stand’s column. She manipulates the arms of the four lights. “I’ll photograph it. Then everything can go to DNA.”

    
She tears off a section of brown paper for the copy stand’s base, removes the coin from its envelope, and sets it down heads up. She cuts a foam cup in half, places one funnel-shaped half over the coin. Homemade tent lighting to minimize glare, and the ridge detail is much more visible. She reaches for the remote shutter release and starts taking pictures.

    
“Superglue,” Lucy says. “So maybe it’s evidence from a crime and somehow ended up in circulation again, so to speak.”

    
“That certainly would explain it. Don’t know if it’s right, but it would explain it.”

    
Keys rapidly click. “Gold one-dollar piece.” Lucy says. “American, eighteen seventy-three. See what I can find about that.” Hits more keys. “Why would someone take Fiorinal with codeine? And what is it, exactly?”

    
“Butalbital plus codeine phosphate, aspirin, caffeine,” Scarpetta says, carefully turning the coin so she can photograph the other side. “A strong narcotic pain reliever. Often prescribed for severe tension headaches.” The camera’s shutter shuts. “Why?”

    
“What about Testroderm?”

    
“A testosterone gel you rub into your skin.”

    
“You ever heard of a Stephen Siegel?”

    
Scarpetta thinks for a moment, can’t come up with anyone, the name completely unfamiliar. “Not that I recall.”

    
“The Testroderm was prescribed by him, and it just so happens he’s a slimeball proctologist in Charlotte, where Shandy Snook is from. And it just so happens that her father was a patient of this proctologist, which would suggest Shandy knows him and is able to get prescriptions when she wants them.”

    
“Where was this prescription filled?”

    
“A pharmacy on Sullivan’s Island, where it just so happens Shandy has a two-million-dollar house in the name of an LLC,” Lucy says, typing again. “Maybe it would be a good idea for you to ask Marino what the hell’s going on. I think all of us ought to be worried.”

    
“What worries me most is how angry you are.”

    
“I think you don’t know what I’m like when I’m really angry.” Lucy taps on the keyboard, rapid, hard, angry taps. “So Marino’s all nice and doped up. Illegally. Probably slathering on testosterone gel like it’s suntan lotion and popping pills like crazy to help with his hangovers because he’s suddenly turned into a raging drunk King Kong.” Loudly tapping keys. “Probably suffering priapism and could have a fucking heart attack. Or become so aggressive he’s out of control when he’s already out of control because of the booze. Amazing the effect one person can have on another in one short week.”

    
“Clearly this new girlfriend is very bad news.”

    
“I don’t mean her. You had to tell him your news.”

    
“Yes, I did. I had to tell him. And you and Rose,” Scarpetta quietly says.

    
“Your gold coin’s worth about six hundred dollars,” Lucy says, closing a file on the computer. “Not including the chain.”

    
Dr. Maroni sits before the fire in his apartment south of San Marco, the domes of the basilica dreary in the rain. People, mostly the locals, have on green rubber boots, while the tourists wear cheap yellow ones. In no time, the water rises above the streets of Venice.

    
“I simply heard about the body.” He talks on the phone to Benton.

    
“How? At first the case wasn’t important. Why would you hear of it?”

    
“Otto told me.”

    
“You mean Captain Poma.”

    
Benton is determined to distance himself from the captain, can’t even bring himself to use his first name.

    
Dr. Maroni says, “Otto called about something else and mentioned it.”

    
“Why would he know? There wasn’t much in the news at first.”

    
“He knew because he’s Carabiniere.”

    
“And that makes him omniscient?” Benton says.

    
“You’re resentful of him.”

    
“What I am is puzzled,” Benton says. “He’s a medico legale with the Carabinieri. And it was the national police, not the Carabinieri, that had jurisdiction in the case. And as usual, this is because the national police got to the scene first. When I was a kid, that was called having dibs. In law enforcement, it’s called unheard-of.”

    
“What can I say? It’s the way things are done in Italy. Jurisdiction depends on who arrives at the scene first, or who’s called. But that’s not what’s making you so irritable.”

    
“I’m not irritable.”

    
“You’re telling a psychiatrist you’re not irritable.” Dr. Maroni lights his pipe. “I’m not there to see your affect, but I don’t need to. You’re irritable. Tell me why it matters how I found out about the dead woman near Bari?”

    
“Now you’re implying I’m not objective.”

    
“What I’m implying is you feel threatened by Otto. Let me try to explain the sequence of events more clearly. The body was found on the side of the Autostrade outside Bari, and I thought nothing of it at first when I heard about it. No one knew who she was, and it was believed she was a prostitute. The police speculated the killing was connected to Sacra Corona Unita – the Puglia mafia. Otto said he was quite happy the Carabinieri wasn’t involved, because he wasn’t fond of dealing with gangsters. In his words, there’s nothing redeeming about victims who are as corrupt as their killers. I believe it was a day later when he informed me he’d spoken to the forensic pathologist at the Sezione di Medicina Legale in Bari. It appeared the victim was a missing Canadian tourist last seen at a discotheque in Ostuni. She was quite drunk. She left with a man. A young woman fitting the same description was seen the next day at Grotta Bianca in Puglia. The White Cave.”

    
“Again, Captain Poma is omniscient, and it seems the entire world reports to him.”

    
“Again, you sound resentful of him.”

    
“Let’s talk about the White Cave. We have to assume this killer makes symbolic associations,” Benton says.

    
“The deeper levels of consciousness,” Dr. Maroni says. “Buried childhood memories. Suppressed memories of trauma and pain. We might interpret the exploration of a cave as his mythological journey into the secrets of his own neuroses and psychoses, his fears. Something terrible happened to him, and it probably predates what he thinks is the terrible thing that happened to him.”

    
“What do you remember about his physical description? Did people who claimed to have seen him with the victim in the disco, the cave, or elsewhere give a physical description?”

    
“Young, wearing a cap,” Dr. Maroni tells him. “That’s it.”

    
“That’s it? Race?”

    
“In both the disco and the cave, it was very dark.”

    
“In your patient notes – right here, I’m looking at them – your patient mentioned meeting a Canadian woman in a disco. He said this the day after her body was found. Then you never heard from him again. What was his race?”

    
“He’s white.”

    
“You say in your notes he indicated he had, and I quote, ‘left the girl on the roadside in Bari.’”

    
“At that time, it wasn’t known that she was Canadian. She was unidentified. It was assumed she was a prostitute, as I said.”

    
“When you found out she was a Canadian tourist, you didn’t make a connection?”

    
“Naturally, I was worried. But I had no proof.”

    
“Yes, Paulo, protect the patient. Nobody gave a shit about protecting the Canadian tourist, whose only crime was to have a little too much fun at a disco and meet someone she obviously liked and thought she could trust. Her vacation in southern Italy ends with an autopsy in a cemetery. She’s lucky she wasn’t buried in a pauper’s grave.”

    
“You are very impatient and upset,” Dr. Maroni says to him.

    
“Maybe now that you have your notes in front of you, Paulo, your memory will be jogged.”

    
“I didn’t release these notes to you. I can’t imagine how you got them.” He has to say that repeatedly, and Benton has to play along.

    
“If you store patient notes in an electronic format on the hospital server, you might want to leave the file-sharing function off,” Benton says over the line. “Because if someone figures out what hard disk these very confidential files are on, they can be accessed.”

    
“The Internet is a treacherous place.”

    
“The Canadian tourist was murdered almost a year ago,” Benton says. “Same type of mutilation. Tell me how it is you didn’t think of that case – didn’t think of your patient – after what was done to Drew Martin? Chunks of flesh cut from the same area of the body. Nude, dumped in a place where it will be discovered quickly and shockingly. And no evidence.”