From Potter's Field ks-6 Read online

  'Nuts.' Marino was in my ear again. 'Do you need a loan?'

  We watched the video and I learned much about my important civic duty and its privileges. I watched Sheriff Brown on tape as he thanked me again for performing this important service. He told me I had been called up to decide the fate of another person and then showed the computer he had used to select me.

  'Names called are then drawn from a jury ballot box,' he recited with a smile. 'Our system of justice depends on our careful consideration of the evidence. Our system depends on us.'

  He gave a phone number I could call and reminded all of us that coffee was twenty-five cents a cup and no change was available.

  After the video, the jury officer, a handsome black woman, came over to me.

  'Are you police?' she whispered.

  'No,' I said, explaining who I was as she looked at Marino and the other two officers.

  'We need to excuse you now,' she whispered. 'You shouldn't be here. You should have called and told us. I don't know why you're here at all.'

  The other draftees were staring. They had been, staring since we walked in, and the reason crystallized. They were ignorant of the judicial system, and I was surrounded by police. Now the jury officer was over here, too. I was the defendant. They probably did not know that defendants don't read magazines in the same room with the jury pool.

  By lunchtime I was gone and wondering if I would ever be allowed to serve on a jury even once in my life. Marino let me out at the front door of my building and I went into my office. I called New York again and Dr. Horowitz got on the phone.

  'She was buried yesterday,' he said of Jane.

  I felt a great sadness. 'I thought you usually wait a little longer than that,' I said.

  'Ten days. It's been about that, Kay. You know the problem we have with storage space.'

  'We can identify her with DNA,' I said.

  'Why not dental records?'

  I explained the problem.

  'That's a real shame.' Dr. Horowitz paused and was reluctant when he spoke next. 'I'm very sorry to tell you that we've had a terrible snafu here.' He paused again. 'Frankly, I wish we hadn't buried her. But we have.'

  'What happened?'

  'No one seems to know. We saved a blood sample on filter paper for DNA purposes, just like we typically do. And of course we kept a stock jar with sections of all major organs, et cetera. The blood sample seems to have been misplaced, and it appears the stock jar was accidentally thrown out.'

  'That can't have happened,' I said.

  Dr. Horowitz was quiet.

  'What about tissue in paraffin blocks for histology?' I then asked, for fixed tissue could also be tested for DNA, if all else failed.

  'We don't take tissue for micros when the cause of death is clear,' he said.

  I did not know what to say. Either Dr. Horowitz ran a frighteningly inept office, or these mistakes were not mistakes. I had always believed the chief was an impeccably scrupulous man. Maybe I had been wrong. I knew how it was in New York City. The politicians could not stay out of the morgue.

  'She needs to be brought back up,' I said to him. 'I see no other way. Was she embalmed?'

  'We rarely embalm bodies destined for Hart Island,' he said of the island in the East River where Potter's Field was located. 'Her identification number needs to be located and then she'll be dug up and brought back by ferry. We can do that. That's all we can do, really. It might take a few days.'

  'Dr. Horowitz?' I carefully said. 'What is going on here?'

  His voice was steady but disappointed when he answered, 'I have no earthly idea.'

  I sat at my desk for a while, trying to figure out what to do. The more I thought, the less sense anything made. Why would the army care if Jane was identified? If she was General Gault's niece and the army knew she was dead, one would think they would want her identified and buried in a proper grave.

  'Dr. Scarpetta.' Rose was in the doorway adjoining her office to mine. 'It's Brent from the Amex.'

  She transferred the call.

  'I've got another charge,' Brent said.

  'Okay.' I tensed.

  'Yesterday. A place called Fino in New York. I checked it out. It's on East Thirty-sixth Street. The amount is $104.13.'

  Fino had wonderful northern Italian food. My ancestors were from northern Italy, and Gault had posed as a northern Italian named Benelli. I tried Wesley, but he was not in. Then I tried Lucy, and she was not at ERF, nor was she in her room. Marino was the only person I could tell that Gault was in New York again.

  'He's just playing more games,' Marino said in disgust. 'He knows you're monitoring his charges, Doc. He's not doing anything he doesn't want you to know about.'

  'I realize that.'

  'We're not going to catch him through American Express. You ought to just cancel your card.'

  But I couldn't. My card was like the modem Lucy knew was under the floor. Both were tenuous lines leading to Gault. He was playing games, but one day he might overstep himself. He might get too reckless and high on cocaine and make a mistake.

  'Doc,' Marino went on, 'you're getting too wound up with this. You need to chill out.'

  Gault might want me to find him, I thought. Every time he used my card he was sending a message to me. He was telling me more about himself. I knew what he liked to eat and that he did not drink red wine. I knew about the cigarettes he smoked, the clothes he wore, and I thought of his boots.

  'Are you listening to me?' Marino was asking.

  We had always assumed that the jungle boots were Gault's.

  'The boots belonged to his sister,' I thought out loud.

  'What are you talking about?' Marino said impatiently.

  'She must have gotten them from her uncle years ago, and then Gault took them from her.'

  'When? He didn't do it at Cherry Hill in the snow.'

  'I don't know when. It may have been shortly before she died. It could have been inside the Museum of Natural History. They basically wore the same shoe size. They could have traded boots. It could be anything. But I doubt she gave them up willingly.

  For one thing, the jungle boots would be very good in snow. She would have been better off with them than the ones we found in Benny's hobo camp.'

  Marino was silent a moment longer. Then he said, 'Why would he take her boots?'

  'That's easy,' I said. 'Because he wanted them.'

  That afternoon, I drove to the Richmond airport with a briefcase packed full and an overnight bag. I had not called my travel agent because I did not want anyone to know where I was going. At the USAir desk, I purchased a ticket to Hilton Head, South Carolina.

  'I hear it's nice down there,' said the gregarious attendant. 'A lot of people play golf and tennis down there.' She checked my one small bag.

  'You need to tag it.' I lowered my voice. 'It has a firearm in it.'

  She nodded and handed me a blaze orange tag that proclaimed I was carrying an unloaded firearm.

  I'll let you put it inside,' the woman said to me. 'Does your bag lock?'

  I locked the zipper and watched her set the bag on the conveyor belt. She handed me my ticket and I headed upstairs to the gate, which was very crowded with people who did not look happy to be going home or back to work after the holidays.

  The flight to Charlotte seemed longer than an hour because I could not use my cellular phone and my pager went off twice. I went through the Wall Street Journal and the Washington Post while my thoughts slalomed through a treacherous course. I contemplated what I would say to the parents of Temple Gault and the slain woman we called Jane.

  I could not even be sure the Gaults would see me because I had not called. Their number and address were unlisted. But I believed it could not be so hard to find the place they had bought near Beaufort. Live Oaks Plantation was one of the oldest in South Carolina, and the local people would know about this couple whose homestead in Albany had recently washed away in a flood.

  There was enough tim
e in the Charlotte airport for me to return my calls. Both were from Rose, who wanted me to verify void dates because several subpoenas had just come in.

  'And Lucy tried to get you,' she said.

  'She has my pager number,' I puzzled.

  'I asked her if she had that,' my secretary said. 'She said she'd try you another time.'

  'Did she say where she was calling from?'

  'No. I assume she was calling from Quantico.'

  I had no time to question further because Terminal D was a long walk, and the plane to Hilton Head left in fifteen minutes. I ran the entire way and had time for a soft pretzel without salt. I grabbed several packages of mustard and carried on board the only meal I'd had this day. The businessman I sat beside stared at my snack as if it told him I were a rude housewife who knew nothing about traveling on planes.

  When we were in the air, I got into the mustard and ordered Scotch on the rocks.

  'Would you by chance have change for a twenty?'

  I asked the man next to me, because I had overheard the flight attendant complaining about not having adequate change.

  He got his wallet out as I opened the New York Times. He gave me a ten and two fives, so I paid for his drink. 'Quid pro quo,' I said.

  'That's mighty nice,' he said in a syrupy southern accent. 'I guess you must be from New York.'

  'Yes,' I lied.

  'You by chance going to Hilton Head for the Carolina Convenience Store convention? It's at the Hyatt.'

  'No. The funeral home convention,' I lied again. 'It's at the Holiday Inn.'

  'Oh.' He shut up.

  The Hilton Head airport was parked with private planes and Learjets belonging to the very wealthy who had homes on the island. The terminal was not much more than a hut, and baggage was stacked outside on a wooden deck. The weather was cool with volatile dark skies, and as passengers hurried to awaiting cars and shuttles, I overheard their complaints.

  'Oh shit,' exclaimed the man who had been seated beside me. He was hauling golf clubs when thunder crashed and lightning lit up parts of the sky as if a war had begun.

  I rented a silver Lincoln and spent some time ensconced inside it at the airport parking lot. Rain drummed the roof, and I could not see out the windshield as I studied the map Hertz had given to me. Anna Zenner's house was in Palmetto Dunes, not far from the Hyatt, where the man on the plane was headed. I looked in vain to see if his car might still be in the parking lot, but as far as I could tell, he and his golf clubs were gone.

  The rain eased and I followed the airport exits to the William Hilton Parkway, which took me to Queens Folly Road. I just wandered for a while after that until I found the house. I had expected something smaller. Anna's hideaway was not a bungalow. It was a splendid rustic manor of weathered wood and glass. The yard in back where I parked was dense with tall palmettos and water oaks draped in Spanish moss. A squirrel ran down a tree as I climbed steps leading to the porch. He came close and stood on his hind legs, cheeks going fast as if he had a lot to say to me.

  'I bet she feeds you, doesn't she?' I said to him as I got out the key.

  He stood with his front paws up, as if protesting something.

  'Well, I don't have a thing except memories of a pretzel,' I said. 'I'm really very sorry.' I paused as he hopped a little closer. 'And if you're rabid I'll have to shoot you.'

  I went inside, disappointed there was no burglar alarm.

  'Too bad,' I said, but I wasn't going to move.

  I locked the door and turned the dead bolt. No one knew I was here. I should be fine. Anna had been coming to Hilton Head for years and saw no need for a security system. Gault was in New York and I did not see how he could have followed me. I walked into the living room, with its rustic wood and windows from floor to sky. Hardwood was covered in a bright Indian rug, and furniture was bleached mahogany upholstered in practical fabrics in lovely bright shades.

  I wandered from room to room, getting hungrier as the ocean turned to molten lead and a determined army of dark clouds marched in from the north. A long boardwalk led from the house, over dunes, and I carried coffee to its end. I watched people walking and riding bicycles, and an occasional jogger. Sand was hard and gray, and squadrons of brown pelicans flew in formation as if mounting an air attack on a country of unfriendly fish or perhaps the weather.

  A porpoise surfaced as men drove golf balls into the sea, and then a small boy's Styrofoam surfboard blew out of his hands. It cartwheeled across the beach while he madly ran. I watched the chase for a quarter of a mile, until his prize tumbled through sea oats up my dune and leapt over my fence. I ran down steps and grabbed it before the wind could abduct it again, and the boy's gait faltered as he watched me watching him.

  He could not have been older than eight or nine, dressed in jeans and sweatshirt. Down the beach his mother was trying to catch up with him.

  'May I have my surfboard, please?' he said, staring at the sand.

  'Would you like me to help you get it back to your mother?' I asked kindly. 'In this wind it will be hard for one person to carry.'

  'No, thank you,' he shyly mumbled with outstretched hands.

  I felt rejected as I stood on Anna's boardwalk, watching him fight the wind. He finally flattened the surfboard against himself like an ironing board and trudged across damp sand. I watched him with his mother until they were scratches on a horizon I eventually could not see. I tried to imagine where they went. Was it a hotel or a house? Where did little boys and mothers stay on stormy nights out here?

  I had not taken one vacation when I was growing up because we had no money, and now I had no children. I thought of Wesley and wanted to call him as I listened to the loud wash of surf rushing to shore. Stars showed through cloudy veils and voices carried on the wind and I could not decipher a word. I may as well have been hearing frogs scream or birds crying. I carried my empty coffee cup inside and did not feel afraid for once.

  It occurred to me that there was probably nothing to eat in this house and all I'd had today was that pretzel.

  'Thank you, Anna,' I said when I found a stack of Lean Cuisines.

  I heated turkey and mixed vegetables, turned on the gas fire and fell asleep on a white couch, my Browning not too far away. I was too tired to dream. The sun and I rose together, and the reality of my mission did not seem real until I spied my briefcase and thought about what was in it. It was too early to leave, and I put on sweater and jeans and went out for a walk.

  The sand was firm and flat toward Sea Pines, the sun white gold on water. Birds embroidered the noisy surf with their songs. Willets wandered for mole crabs and worms, gulls glided on the wind, and crows loitered like black-hooded highwaymen.

  Older people were out now while the sun was weak, and as I walked I concentrated on the sea air blowing through me. I felt I could breathe. I warmed to the smiles of strangers strolling past, hand in hand, and I waved if they did. Lovers had arms around each other, and solitary people drank coffee on boardwalks and looked out at the water.

  Back in Anna's house, I toasted a bagel I found in the freezer and took a long shower. Then I put on my same black blazer and slacks. I packed and closed up the house as if I would not be back. I had no sense of being watched until the squirrel reappeared.

  'Oh no,' I said, unlocking the car door. 'Not you again.'

  He stood on his hind legs, giving me a lecture.

  'Listen, Anna said I could stay here. I am her very good friend.'

  His whiskers twitched as he showed me his small white belly.

  'If you're telling me your problems, don't bother.' I threw my bag in the backseat. 'Anna's the psychiatrist. Not me.'

  I opened the driver's door. He hopped a few steps closer. I couldn't stand it any longer and dug inside my briefcase, where I found a pack of peanuts from the plane. The squirrel was on his hind legs chewing furiously as I backed out of the drive beneath the shade of trees. He watched me leave.

  I took 278 West and drove through a landsc
ape lush with cattails, marsh lace, spartina grass and rushes. Ponds were tiled in lotus and lily pads, and at almost every turn, hawks hovered. Away from the islands it seemed most people were poor except in land. Narrow roads offered tiny white painted churches and mobile homes still strung with Christmas lights. Closer to Beaufort, I found auto repairs, small motels on barren plots, and a barbershop flying a Confederate flag. Twice I stopped to read my map.

  On St. Helena Island I crept around a tractor on the roadside stirring up dust and began looking for a place to stop for directions. I found abandoned cinder block buildings that once had been stores. There were tomato packers, farmhouses and funeral homes along streets lined with dense live oaks and gardens guarded by scarecrows. I did not stop until I was on Tripp Island and found a place where I could have lunch.

  The restaurant was the Gullah House, the woman who seated me big and dark black. She was brilliant in a flowing dress of tropical colors, and when she spoke over a counter to a waiter their language was musical and filled with strange words. The Gullah dialect is supposed to be a blend of West Indian and Elizabethan English. It was the spoken language of slaves.

  I waited at my wooden table for iced tea and worried that no one who worked here could communicate to me where the Gaults lived.

  'What else I get for you, honey?' My waitress returned with a glass jar of tea full of ice and lemons.

  I pointed to Biddy een de Fiel because I could not say it. The translation promised a grilled chicken breast on Romaine lettuce.

  'You want sweet-potato chips or maybe some crab frittas to start?' Her eyes roamed around the restaurant as she talked.

  'No, thank you.'

  Determined her customer would have more than a diet lunch, she showed me fried low-country shrimp on the back of the menu. 'We also got fresh fried shrimp today. It so good it'll make you tongue slap you brains out.'

  I looked at her. 'Well, then I guess I'd better try a small side dish.'

  'So you want all two of 'em.'

  'Please.'

  The service maintained its languid pace, and it was almost one o'clock when I paid my bill. The lady in the bright dress, who I decided was the manager, was outside in the parking lot talking to another dark woman who drove a van. The side of it read Gullah Tours.