Four Scarpetta Novels (31 page)

“Was this door locked when you got here?” Scarpetta asks of the carved teak door that leads outside.

“No, and Mrs. Dooley says it was unlocked, which is why she was able to walk right in. What I'm thinking is he removed the pane of glass and reached his hand inside. You can see”—Becky walks over to the paper-covered space where the window used to be—“if you removed the glass here, it's easy to reach the deadbolt inside. That's why we tell people not to have keyless deadbolts near glass. Of course, if the burglar alarm was on…”

“Do we know it wasn't?”

“It wasn't when Mrs. Dooley walked in.”

“But we don't know if it was on or off when he did?”

“I've thought about that. Seems if it was on, the glass breakers,” Becky starts to say, then thinks again. “Well, I don't guess cutting the glass would set them off. They're noise-sensitive.”

“Suggesting the alarm wasn't on when the other pane of glass was broken. Suggesting he was inside the house at that point. Unless the glass was broken at an earlier time. And I doubt it.”

“Me, too,” Becky agrees. “Seems like you'd get that fixed to keep the rain and bugs out. Or at least pick up the broken glass. Especially since she kept the dog in there. I'm wondering if maybe she struggled with him. Tried to run for the door to get away. Night before last, she set off her alarm. Don't know if you knew that. This was a fairly regular occurrence, because she'd get so drunk and forget the alarm was on and open the slider, which instantly set it off. Then she couldn't remember her password when the service called her. So we'd get dispatched.”

“No record of her alarm going off since then?” Scarpetta says. “Have you had a chance to get the history from the alarm company? For example, when did it go off last? When was it armed and disarmed last?”

“The false alarm I mentioned is the last time it went off.”

Scarpetta says, “When the police responded, do they remember seeing her white Cadillac?”

Becky says no. The officers don't remember the car being there. But it could have been in the garage. She adds, “It appears she set the alarm about the time it got dark on Monday, and then it was unset later on at nine or so, then reset it. Then unset it again at four-fourteen the next morning. Meaning yesterday.”

“And not reset after that?” Scarpetta says.

“It wasn't. This is just my opinion, but when people are drinking and drugging, they don't keep normal hours. Sleep during the day on and off. Get up at strange hours. So maybe she unset the alarm at four-fourteen to take the dog out, maybe to smoke, and the guy was watching her, maybe had been watching her for a while. Stalking her, I'm saying. For all we know, he may already have cut out the glass and was just waiting back here in the dark. There's bamboo and bushes along this side of the house and no neighbors home, so even with the floodlights on, he could hide back here and no one was going to see him. It's weird about the dog. Where is he?”

“I've got someone checking on that,” Scarpetta says.

“Maybe he can talk and solve the case.” Joking.

“We need to find him. You never know what might solve a case.”

“If he ran off, someone would have found him,” Becky says. “It's not like you see basset hounds every day, and people notice loose dogs around here. The other thing is, if Mrs. Dooley was telling the truth, then he must have stayed with Mrs. Webster for a while, maybe kept her alive for hours. The alarm was unset at four-fourteen yesterday, and Mrs. Dooley found the blood and everything around lunchtime—about eight hours later, and he was probably still inside the house.”

Scarpetta examines the dirty clothes inside the laundry basket. On top is a T-shirt that is loosely folded, and with a gloved hand, she picks it up and lets it fall open. It's damp and streaked with dirt. She gets up and looks inside the sink. The stainless steel is spotted from splashing water, and a small amount of water is pooled around the drain.

“I'm wondering if he used this to clean the window,” Scarpetta says. “It still feels damp, and it's dirty, as if someone used it as a cleaning rag. I'd like to seal it in a paper bag, submit it to the labs.”

“To look for what?” Becky asks that question again.

“If he held this, we might get his DNA. Could be trace evidence. I guess we'd better decide which labs.”

“SLED's fine and dandy but will take forever. If you can help us with your labs?”

“That's why we've got them.” Scarpetta looks at the alarm keypad near the door that leads into the hallway. “Maybe he disarmed the alarm when he came in. I don't think we should assume he didn't. An LCD touchpad instead of buttons. A good surface for prints. And maybe DNA.”

“That would mean he knew her if he unset the alarm. Makes sense when you think about how long he was in the house.”

“It would mean he's familiar with this place. It doesn't mean he knew her,” Scarpetta says. “What's the code?”

“What we call the ‘one, two, three, four, walk right in my door' code. Probably preset, and she never bothered to change it. Let me make sure about the labs before we start receipting everything to you. I need to ask Tommy.”

He's in the foyer with Lucy, and Becky asks him about the labs, and he says it's amazing what's going private these days. Some departments are even hiring private cops.

“We will be,” Lucy says, handing Scarpetta a pair of yellow-tinted goggles. “We had them in Florida.”

Becky gets interested in the hard case open on the floor. She looks at the five flashlight-shaped forensic high-intensity light sources, the nickel nine-volt batteries, the goggles, and multiport charger. “I've been begging the sheriff to get us one of these portable Crime-lites. Each one of them's a different bandwidth, right?”

“Violet, blue, blue-green, and green spectra,” Lucy says. “And this handy broad-bandwidth white light”—she picks it up—“with interchangeable filters in blue, green, and red for contrast enhancement.”

“Works good?”

“Body fluids, fingerprints, drug residues, fibers, or trace evidence. Yup. Works good.”

She selects a violet light in the 400-to 430-nanometer range and she, Becky, and Scarpetta walk into the living room. All the shades are open, and beyond them is the black-bottom pool where Holly Webster drowned, and beyond that dunes, sea oats, the beach. The ocean is calm, and sunlight flashes in the tide like small silver fish.

“There's plenty of footprints in here, too,” Becky offers as they look around. “Bare footprints, shoe prints, all of them small, probably hers. It's strange, because there's no evidence he wiped down the floors before he left—like he must have done to the window. So you would think there'd be shoe prints. This shiny stone, what is it? I've never seen blue tiles like this. It looks like the ocean.”

“That's probably what it's supposed to look like,” Scarpetta says. “Sodalite blue marble, maybe lapis.”

“No shit. I had a ring made out of lapis once. I can't believe someone's got a whole floor of it. Hides the dirt pretty good,” she says, “but it sure as hell hasn't been cleaned in recent memory. A lot of dust and stuff, the entire house is like that. You shine a flashlight at an angle and you see what I mean. I just don't understand why it doesn't appear he left a single shoe print, not even in the laundry room where he came in.”

“I'm going to wander around,” Lucy says. “What about upstairs?”

“I don't think she was using the upstairs. Doubt he went up there. It's undisturbed. Just guest rooms, an art gallery, and game room up there. Never seen a house like this. Must be nice.”

“Not for her,” Scarpetta says, looking at the long, dark hair all over the floor, at the empty glasses and bottle of vodka on the table in front of the couch. “I don't think this place gave her a moment's happiness.”

 

Madelisa hasn't been home an hour when the doorbell rings.

In the past, she wouldn't have bothered to ask who's there.

“Who is it?” she calls out from behind the locked door.

“Investigator Pete Marino from the medical examiner's office,” a voice says, a deep voice with an accent that reminds her of the North, of Yankees.

Madelisa suspects what she feared. The lady in Hilton Head is dead. Why else would someone from the medical examiner's office show up here? She wishes Ashley hadn't decided to run errands the minute they got home, leaving her alone after what she'd been through. She listens for the basset hound. Thank goodness he's quiet in the spare bedroom. She opens the front door and is terrified. The huge man is dressed like a motorcycle thug. He's the monster who killed that poor woman, and he followed Madelisa home to kill her next.

“I don't know anything,” she says, trying to shut the door.

The thug blocks the door with his foot, walks right into the house. “Easy does it,” he says to her, and he opens his wallet, shows her his badge. “Like I said. I'm Pete Marino from the ME's office.”

She doesn't know what to do. If she tries to call the police, he'll kill her on the spot. Anybody can buy a badge these days.

“Let's sit down and have us a little talk,” he says. “I just got word about your visit to the Beaufort County Sheriff's Department in Hilton Head.”

“Who told you about that?” She feels a little better. “Did that investigator get hold of you, and why would he? I told him everything I know. He didn't believe me, anyhow. Who told you where I live? Now, that concerns me. I cooperate with the authorities, and they give out my home address.”

“We got a little problem with your story,” Pete Marino says.

 

Lucy's yellow goggles look at Scarpetta.

They are in the master bedroom, and the shades are down. On top of the brown silk bedspread, several stains and smears fluoresce neon green in the high-intensity violet light.

“Could be seminal fluid,” Lucy says. “Could also be something else.” She scans the bed with the light.

“Saliva, urine, sebaceous oils, sweat,” Scarpetta says. She leans close to a large luminescent spot. “I don't smell anything,” she adds. “Hold the light right here. Problem is, no telling when the spread was cleaned last. I don't think housekeeping was a priority. Typical of people who are depressed. Bedspread goes to the labs. What we need is her toothbrush, hairbrush. Of course, the tumblers on the coffee table.”

“On the back steps, there's an ashtray full of cigarette butts,” Lucy says. “I don't think her DNA's going to be a problem. Or her footprints, fingerprints. The problem's him. He knows what he's doing. These days, everybody's an expert.”

“No,” Scarpetta says. “They just think they are.”

She takes off her goggles, and the green fluorescence on the bedspread disappears. Lucy turns off the Crime-lite and takes off her goggles, too.

“What are we doing?” she says.

Scarpetta is studying a photograph she noticed when they first came into the bedroom. Dr. Self sits on a living-room set, and across from her is a pretty woman with long, dark hair. Television cameras are rolled in close. People in the audience are clapping and smiling.

“When she was on Dr. Self's show,” Scarpetta says to Lucy. “But what I wasn't expecting is this other one.”

Lydia with Drew Martin and a dark, swarthy man Scarpetta assumes is Drew's coach, Gianni Lupano. The three of them smile and squint in the sun on center court of the
Family Circle
Cup Tennis Center on Daniel Island, a few miles from downtown Charleston.

“So, what's the common denominator?” Lucy says. “Let me guess. Dr. Self-ish.”

“Not this past tournament,” Scarpetta says. “Look at the difference in the pictures.” She points to the photograph of Lydia with Drew. She points to the photograph of Lydia with Dr. Self. “The marked deterioration. Look at her eyes.”

Lucy turns on the bedroom light.

“When this picture was taken at the
Family Circle
Cup stadium, Lydia certainly didn't look like someone chronically abusing alcohol and prescription drugs,” she says.

“And pulling out her hair,” Lucy says. “I don't understand why anybody does that. Head hair, pubic hair. Everywhere. That picture of her in the tub? She looks like she's missing half her hair. Eyebrows, eyelashes.”

“Trichotillomania,” Scarpetta says. “Obsessive-compulsive disorder. Anxiety. Depression. Her life was a living hell.”

“If Dr. Self's the common denominator, then what about the lady murdered in Bari? The Canadian tourist. There's no indication she was ever on Dr. Self's show or knew her.”

“I think that might be when he got his first taste of it.”

“Taste of what?” Lucy asks.

“Taste of killing civilians,” Scarpetta says.

“That doesn't explain the Dr. Self connection.”

“Sending photographs to her indicates he's created a psychological landscape and a ritual for his crimes. And it also becomes a game, serves a purpose. Removes him from the horror of what he's doing, because to face the fact that he's sadistically inflicting pain and death might be more than he can bear. So he has to give it a meaning. He has to make it cunning.” She retrieves a very unscientific but practical packet of Post-its from her crime scene case. “Rather much like religion. If you do something in the name of God, that makes it okay. Stoning people to death. Burning them at the stake. The Inquisition. The Crusades. Oppressing people who aren't just like you. He's given a meaning to what he does. My opinion, anyway.”

She probes the bed with a bright white light, and uses the sticky side of Post-its to collect any fibers, hairs, dirt, or sand she sees.

“Then you don't think Dr. Self is personally significant to this guy? That she's just a prop in his drama? That he just latched on to her because she's there. On the air. A household name.”