Four Scarpetta Novels (156 page)

D
r. Self sits
at her desk, staring at the pool and getting anxious about the time. Every Wednesday morning she is supposed to be at the studio by ten to get ready for her live radio show. “I absolutely can't confirm that,” she says on the phone, and were she not in such a hurry, she would enjoy this conversation for all the wrong reasons.

“There's no question you prescribed Ritalin hydrochloride to David Luck,” Dr. Kay Scarpetta replies.

Dr. Self can't help but think of Marino and everything he has said about Scarpetta. Dr. Self isn't intimidated. At the moment, she has the advantage over this woman she has met only once and hears about incessantly every single week.

“Ten milligrams three times daily,” Dr. Scarpetta's voice comes over the line.

She sounds tired, maybe depressed. Dr. Self could help her. She told her so when they met last June at the Academy, at the dinner in honor of Dr. Self.

Highly motivated, successful professional women like us must be careful not to neglect our emotional landscapes,
she said to Scarpetta when they happened to be in the ladies' room at the same time.

Thank you for your lectures. I know the students are enjoying them,
Scarpetta replied, and Dr. Self saw right through her.

The Scarpettas of the world are masters at evading personal scrutiny or anything that might expose their secret vulnerability.

I'm sure the students are quite inspired,
Scarpetta said, washing her hands in the sink, washing them as if she were scrubbing for surgery.
Everyone appreciates your finding time in your busy schedule to come here.

I can tell you really don't mean that,
Dr. Self replied quite candidly.
The vast majority of my colleagues in the medical profession look down on anyone who takes their practice beyond closed doors, walks out in the wide open arena of radio and television. The truth, of course, is usually jealousy. I suspect half the people who criticize me would ransom their souls to be on the air.

You're probably right,
Scarpetta replied, drying her hands.

It was a comment that lent itself to several very different interpretations: Dr. Self is right, the vast majority of people in the medical profession do look down on her; or half the people who criticize her are jealous; or it is true that she suspects half the people who criticize her are jealous, meaning they may not be jealous at all. No matter how many times she has replayed their conversation in the ladies' room and analyzed that particular remark, she can't decide what it meant and whether she was subtly and cleverly insulted.

“You sound as if something is bothering you,” she says to Scarpetta over the phone.

“It is. I want to know what happened to your patient David.” She dodges the personal comment. “One hundred tablets were refilled a little over three weeks ago,” Scarpetta says.

“I can't verify that.”

“I don't need you to verify it. I collected the prescription bottle from his house. I know you prescribed the Ritalin hydrochloride, and I know exactly when it was filled and where. The pharmacy is in the same strip mall as Ev and Kristin's church.”

Dr. Self doesn't confirm this, but it's true.

What she says is, “Certainly, of all people, you understand confidentiality.”

“I would hope you might understand that we're greatly concerned about the welfare of David and his brother and the two women they live with.”

“Has anyone considered the possibility that the boys might have been homesick for South Africa? I'm not saying they were,” she adds. “I'm simply posing a hypothetical.”

“Their parents died last year in Capetown,” Scarpetta says. “I spoke to the medical examiner who…”

“Yes, yes,” she interrupts. “It's terribly tragic.”

“Were both boys your patients?”

“Can you imagine how traumatizing that was? As I understand it from comments I heard outside of any sessions I might have had with either of them, their foster home was temporary. I believe it was always a given that at an appropriate time, they would return to Capetown and move in with relatives who had to move to a larger house or something like that before they could take the boys.”

She probably shouldn't offer any further details but is enjoying the conversation too much to abort it.

“How were they referred to you?” Scarpetta asks.

“Ev Christian contacted me, was familiar with me, of course, because of my shows.”

“That must happen quite a lot. People listen to you and want to become your patient.”

“It certainly does.”

“Meaning you must turn down most.”

“I have no choice.”

“So what made you decide to take on David and perhaps his brother?”

Dr. Self notices two people out by her pool. Two men in white shirts, black baseball caps and dark glasses are looking at her fruit trees, at the red stripes around them.

“It looks like I have trespassers,” she says, annoyed.

“I beg your pardon?”

“Those damn inspectors. I'm doing a show on the very subject tomorrow, my new TV show. Well, now I really will be armed and dangerous on the air. Look at them just helping themselves to my property. I really do have to go.”

“This is extremely important, Dr. Self. I wouldn't be calling you were there not reason for…”

“I'm in a terrible rush and now this. Now these idiots are back, probably to kill off all my beautiful trees. Well, we'll see. I'll be damned if they're coming in here with a crew of dunces and stump grinders and wood chippers. We'll see,” she says in a threatening way. “If you want any further information from me, you'll have to get a court order or permission from the patient.”

“Rather difficult to get permission from someone who's vanished.”

Dr. Self hangs up and walks out into the bright, hot morning, heading with purpose toward the men in white shirts that on closer inspection have a logo on the front, the same logo that is on their caps. In bold black print on the back of the shirts is Florida Department of Agriculture and Consumer Services. One inspector holds a PDA, and is doing something with it while the other inspector talks on his cell phone.

“Excuse me,” Dr. Self says aggressively. “May I help you?”

“Good morning. We're Department of Agriculture citrus inspectors,” the man with the PDA says.

“I can see who you are,” Dr. Self says, unsmiling.

Each of them wears a green badge with his photograph, but Dr. Self doesn't have her glasses on and can't read their names.

“We rang the bell and didn't think anyone was home.”

“So you just walk on my property and help yourselves?” Dr. Self says.

“We're allowed to enter open yards, and, like I said, we didn't think anyone was home. We rang the bell several times.”

“I can't hear the bell from my office,” she says, as if it's their fault.

“We apologize. But we need to inspect your trees and didn't realize inspectors have already been here….”

“You've already been here. So you admit you've trespassed before.”

“Not us specifically. What I mean is we've not inspected your property before, but someone has. Even if there's no record of it,” the inspector with the PDA says to Dr. Self.

“Ma'am, did you paint these stripes?”

Dr. Self looks blankly at the stripes on her trees.

“Why would I do that? I assumed you put them there.”

“No, ma'am. They were already here. You mean you haven't noticed them before now?”

“Of course I've noticed them.”

“If you don't mind my asking, when?”

“Several days ago. I'm not sure.”

“What it indicates is your trees are infected with citrus canker and will have to be removed. That they've been infected for years.”

“For years?”

“They should have been removed long before now,” the other inspector explains.

“What on earth are you talking about?”

“We stopped painting red stripes a couple years ago. Use orange tape now. So someone marked your trees for eradication and it looks like no one ever got around to it. I don't understand that, but in fact, these trees do show signs of canker.”

“Not old canker, though.”

“Ma'am, you didn't get a notice, a green notice that indicates we found symptoms and instructs you to call a one-eight-hundred number? No one showed you something like a specimen report?”

“I've got no idea what you're talking about,” Dr. Self says, and she thinks of the anonymous phone call she got yesterday evening right after Marino left. “And it really does look like my trees are infected?”

She steps closer to a grapefruit tree. It is heavy with fruit and looks healthy to her. She leans close to a branch as an inspector's gloved finger points out several leaves that have pale lesions on them, scarcely noticeable ones shaped like fans.

“See these areas?” he explains. “They indicate recent infection. Maybe just a few weeks. But they're peculiar.”

“I don't get it,” the other inspector says. “If the red stripes are to be believed, you should be seeing dieback and fruit drop, should be able to count the rings to see how long ago. You know, there's four or five flushes a year, so you count rings….”

“I really don't give a damn about counting rings and fruit drop! What are you saying?” she exclaims.

“I was just thinking that. If the stripes were painted a couple years ago…?”

“Man, I'm stumped.”

“You trying to be funny?” Dr. Self yells at him. “Be-cause I don't think any of this is funny.” She looks at the pale, fan-shaped lesions and keeps thinking of yesterday's anonymous phone call. “Why did you come here today?”

“Well, that's what's kind of strange about this,” the inspector with the PDA replies. “We've got no record of your trees already being inspected and quarantined and scheduled for eradication. I don't understand. Everything's supposed to be registered in the computer. The lesions on your leaves are peculiar. See?”

He holds one out, shows her, and she looks at the odd fan-shaped lesion again.

“They don't normally look like that. We need to get a pathologist out here.”

“Why my damn yard today?” she demands to know.

“We received a phone tip that your trees might be infected, but…”

“A phone tip? From whom?”

“Someone doing yard work in the area.”

“This is crazy. I have a yard man. He's never said anything to me about something being wrong with my trees. None of this is making any sense. No wonder the public is infuriated. You people don't know what the hell you're doing, just barge into people's private property and can't even keep it straight which damn trees to cut down.”

“Ma'am, I know how you feel. But the canker's not a joke. If we don't deal with it, there won't be any citrus trees left….”

“I want to know who called.”

“We don't know that, ma'am. We'll get it straightened out, and we certainly apologize for the inconvenience. We'd like to explain your options. When's a good time to come back? Will you be around later in the day? We'll get a pathologist to look.”

“You can tell your damn pathologists and supervisors and whoever that they've not heard the last from me about this. Do you know who I am?”

“No, ma'am.”

“Turn on your damn radio today at noon.
Talk It Out
with Dr. Self.”

“You're kidding. That's you?” one of the inspectors, the one with the PDA, asks, impressed, as he ought to be. “I listen to you all the time.”

“I also have a new TV show. ABC, tomorrow at one-thirty. Every Thursday,” she says, suddenly pleased and feeling a bit more charitable toward them.

 

T
he scraping
sound beyond the broken window sounds like someone digging. Ev breathes shallowly, rapidly, her arms raised above her head. She breathes shallow, rapid breaths and listens.

It seems she heard the same noise days ago. She doesn't remember when. Maybe it was at night. She listens to a shovel, someone plunging a shovel into the dirt behind the house. She shifts her position on the mattress, and her ankles and wrists throb as if someone is beating them and her shoulders burn. She is hot and thirsty. She can barely think and probably has a fever. The infections are bad and every tender place burns unbearably, and she can't lower her arms, not unless she stands.

She will die. If he doesn't kill her first, she will die anyway. The house is silent, and she knows the rest of them are gone.

Whatever he did to them, they aren't here anymore.

She knows it now.

“Water,” she tries to call out.

Words well up inside her and disintegrate in the air like bubbles. She talks in bubbles. They float up and vanish without a sound in the hot, foul air.

“Please, oh please,” and her words go nowhere and she begins to cry.

She sobs and tears fall on the ruined green robe in her lap. She sobs as if something has happened, something final, like a destiny she never could have imagined, and she stares at the dark spots her tears make on her ruined green robe, the splendid robe she wore when she preached. Beneath it is the small pink shoe, a left shoe, Keds. She feels the little girl's pink shoe against her thigh, but her arms are raised and she can't hold it or hide it better, and her sorrow deepens.

She listens to the digging beyond her window and begins to smell the stench.

The longer the digging goes on, the worse the stench gets inside her room, but it is a different stench, a dreadful stench, the acrid, putrid stench of something dead.

Take me home,
she prays to God.
Please take me home. Show me.