Текст книги "Postmortem"

Автор книги: Патрисия Корнуэлл

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Another pause, this one longer.

Marino: "She was the kind of lady people notice."

"Absolutely. All the time. Whenever we went places together, or if my friends were around. She'd upstage me, really. I didn't mind. In fact, I liked it. I enjoyed sitting back and watching it happen. I'd analyze it, try to figure out what it was that drew people to her. Charisma is something you have or you don't have. You can't manufacture it. You can't. She didn't try. It just was."

Marino: "You said when you used to see her on campus, she seemed to keep to herself. What about at other times? What I'm wondering is if it was her habit to be friendly with strangers. You know, like if she was in a store or at a gas station, did she talk to people she didn't know? Or if someone came by the house, a deliveryman, for example, was she the type to invite the person in, be friendly?"

"No. She rarely talked to strangers, and I know she didn't invite strangers into the house. Never. Especially when I wasn't here. She'd lived in Boston, was acclimated to the dangers of the city. And she worked in the ER, was familiar with violence, the bad things that happen to people. She wouldn't have invited a stranger in or been what I consider particularly vulnerable to that sort of thing. In fact, when the murders started happening around here, it frightened her. When I'd come home on the weekends, she hated it when I'd leave… hated it more than ever. Because she didn't like being alone at night. It bothered her more than it used to."

Marino: "Seems like she would have been careful about keeping all the windows locked if she was nervous because of the murders around here."

"I told you. She probably thought it was locked."

"But you accidentally left it, the bathroom window, unlocked last weekend when you was replacing the screen."

"I'm not sure. But that's the only thing I can figure…"

Becker's voice: "Did she mention anybody coming by the house, or an encounter somewhere, with someone who made her nervous? Anything at all? Maybe a strange car she noticed in your neighborhood, or the suspicion at some point that maybe she was being followed or observed? Maybe she meets some guy and he puts the move on her."

"Nothing like that."

Becker: "Would she have been likely to tell you if something like that had happened?"

"Definitely. She told me everything. A week, maybe two weeks ago, she thought she heard something in the backyard. She called the police. A patrol car came by. It was just a cat messing with the garbage cans. The point is, she told me everything."

Marino: "What other activities was she involved in besides work?"

"She had a few friends, a couple of other women doctors at the hospital. Sometimes she went out to dinner with them or shopping, maybe a movie. That was about it. She was so busy. In the main, she worked her shift and came home. She'd study, sometimes practice the violin. During the week, she generally worked, came home and slept. The weekends she kept open for me. That was our time. We were together on the weekends."

Marino: "Last weekend was the last time you saw her?"

"Sunday afternoon, around three. Right before I drove back to Charlottesville. We didn't go out that day. It was raining, raw. We stayed in, drank coffee, talked… " Marino: "How often did you talk to her during the week?"

"Several times. Whenever we could."

Marino: "The last time was last night, Thursday night?"

"I called to tell her I'd be in after play practice, that I might be a few minutes later than usual because of dress rehearsal. She was supposed to be off this weekend. If it was nice, we were thinking of driving to the beach."

Silence.

Petersen was struggling. I could hear him taking a deep breath, trying to steady himself.

Marino: "When you talked to her last night, did she have anything to report, any problems, any mention of anybody coming by the house? Anyone bothering her at work, maybe weird phone calls, anything?"

Silence.

"Nothing. Nothing at all like that. She was in good spirits, laughing… looking forward, uh, looking forward to the weekend."

Marino: "Tell us a little more about her, Matt. Every little thing you can think of might help. Her background, her personality, what was important to her."

Mechanically, "She's from Philadelphia, her dad's an insurance salesman, and she has two brothers, both younger. Medicine was the most important thing to her. It was her calling."

Marino: "What kind of doctor was she studying to be?"

"A plastic surgeon."

Becker: "Interesting. Why did she decide on that?"

"When she was ten, eleven, her mother got breast cancer, underwent two radical mastectomies. She survived but her self-esteem was destroyed. I think she felt deformed, worthless, untouchable. Lori talked about it sometimes. I think she wanted to help people. Help people who have been through things like that."

Marino: "And she played the violin."

"Yes."

Marino: "Did she ever give concerts, play in the symphony, anything public like that?"

"She could have, I think. But she didn't have time."

Marino: "What else? For example, you're big on acting, in a play right now. Was she interested in that kind of thing?"

"Very much so. That's one of the things that fascinated me about her when we first met. We left the party, the party where we met, and walked the campus for hours. When I started telling her about some of the courses I was taking, I realized she knew a lot about the theater, and we started talking about plays and such. I was into Ibsen then. We got into that, got into reality and illusion, what's genuine and what's ugly in people and society. One of his strongest themes is the feeling of alienation from home. Uh, of separation. We talked about that.

"And she surprised me. I'll never forget it. She laughed and said, 'You artists think you're the only ones who can relate to these things. Many of us have the same feelings, the same emptiness, the same loneliness. But we don't have the tools to verbalize them. So we carry on, we struggle. Feelings are feelings. I think people's feelings are pretty much the same all over the world.'

"We got into an argument, a friendly debate. I disagreed. Some people feel things more deeply than others, and some people feel things the rest of us don't. This is what causes isolation, the sense of being apart, different…"

Marino: "This is something you relate to?"

"It is something I understand. I may not feel everything other people feel, but I understand the feelings. Nothing surprises me. If you study literature, drama, you get in touch with a vast spectrum of human emotions, needs and impulses, good and bad. It's my nature to step into other characters, to feel what they feel, to act as they do, but it doesn't mean these manifestations are genuinely my own. I think if anything makes me feel different from others, it's my need to experience these things, my need to analyze and understand the vast spectrum of human emotions I just mentioned."

Marino: "Can you understand the emotions of the person who did this to your wife?"

Silence.

Almost inaudibly, "Good God, no."

Marino: "You sure about that?"

"No. I mean, yes, I'm sure! I don't want to understand it!"

Marino: "I know it's a hard thing for you to think about, Matt. But you could help us a lot if you had any ideas. For example, if you was designing the role for a killer like this, what would he be like-"

"I don't know! The filthy son of a bitch!" His voice was breaking, exploding with rage. "I don't know why you're asking me! You're the fucking cops! You're supposed to be the ones figuring it out!"

He abruptly fell silent, as if a needle had been lifted off a record.

The tape played a long stretch in which nothing was heard except Marino clearing his throat and a chair scraping back.

Then Marino asked Becker, "You wouldn't by chance have an extra tape in your car?"

It was Petersen who mumbled, and I think he was crying, "I've got a couple of them back in the bedroom."

"Well, now," Marino's voice coolly drawled, "that's mighty nice of you, Matt."

Twenty minutes later, Matt Petersen got to the subject of finding his wife's body.

It was awful to hear and not see. There were no distractions. I drifted on the current on his images and recollections. His words were taking me into dark areas where I did not want to go.

The tape played on.

"… Uh, I'm sure of it. I didn't call first. I never did, just left. Didn't hang around or anything. As I was saying, uh, I left Charlottesville as soon as rehearsal was over and the props and costumes were put away. I guess this was close to twelve-thirty. I was in a hurry to get home. I hadn't seen Lori all week.

"It was close to two when I parked in front of the house, and my first reaction was to notice the lights out and realize she'd already gone to bed. Her schedule was very demanding. On twelve hours and off twenty-four, the shift out of sync with human biological clocks and never the same. She worked Friday until midnight, was to be off Saturday, uh, today. And tomorrow she would be on from midnight to noon Monday. Off Tuesday, and on Wednesday from noon to midnight again. That's how it went.

"I unlocked the front door and flipped on the living room light. Everything looked normal. Retrospectively, I can say that even though I had no reason to be looking for anything out of the ordinary. I do remember the hall light was off. I noticed because usually she left it on for me. It was my routine to go straight to the bedroom. If she wasn't too exhausted, and she almost never was, we would sit up in bed and drink wine and talk. Uh, stay up, and then sleep very late.

"I was confused. Uh. Something was confusing me. The bedroom. I couldn't see anything much at first because the lights… the lights, of course, were out. But something felt wrong immediately. It's almost as if I sensed it before I saw it. Like an animal senses things. And I thought I was smelling something but I wasn't sure and it only added to my confusion."

Marino: "What sort of smell?"

Silence.

"I'm trying to remember. I was only vaguely aware of it. But aware enough to be puzzled. It was an unpleasant smell. Sort of sweet but putrid. Weird."

Marino: "You mean a body-odor-type smell?"

"Similar, but not exactly. It was sweetish. Unpleasant. Rather pungent and sweaty."

Becker: "Something you've smelled before?"

A pause. "No, it wasn't quite like anything I've ever smelled before, I don't think. It was faint, but maybe I was more aware of it because I couldn't see anything, couldn't hear anything the instant I walked into the bedroom. It was so quiet inside. The first thing that struck my senses was this peculiar odor. And it flickered in my mind, oddly, it flickered in my mind-maybe Lori had been eating something in bed. I don't know. It was, uh, it was like waffles, maybe syrupy. Pancakes. I thought maybe she was sick, had been eating junk and gotten sick. Uh, sometimes she went on binges. Uh, ate fattening things when she was stressed or anxious. She gained a lot of weight after I started commuting to Charlottesville…"

His voice was trembling very badly now.

"Uh, the smell was sick, unhealthy, as if maybe she was sick and had been in bed all day. Explaining why all the lights were out, why she hadn't waited up for me."

Silence.

Marino: "Then what happened, Matt?"

"Then my eyes began to adjust and I didn't understand what I was seeing. The bed materialized in the dimness. I didn't understand the covers, the way they were hanging off. And her. Lying on top in this strange position and not having anything on. God. My heart was coming out of my chest before it even registered. And when I flipped on the light, and saw her… I was screaming, but I couldn't hear my own voice. Like I was screaming inside my head. Like my brain was floating out of my skull. I saw the stain on the sheet, the red, the blood coming out of her nose and mouth. Her face. I didn't think it was her. It wasn't her. It didn't even look like her. It was somebody else. A prank, a terrible trick. It wasn't her."

Marino: "What did you do next, Matt? Did you touch her or disturb anything inside the bedroom?"

A long pause and the sound of Petersen's shallow, rapid breathing: "No. I mean, yes. I touched her. I didn't think. I just touched her. Her shoulder, her arm. I don't remember. She was warm. But when I started to feel for a pulse, I couldn't find her wrists. Because she was on top of them, they were behind her back, tied. And I started to touch her neck and saw the cord embedded in her skin. I think I tried to feel her heart beating or hear it but I don't remember. I knew it. I knew she was dead. The way she looked. She had to be dead. I ran into the kitchen. I don't remember what I said or even remember dialing the phone. But I know I called the police and then I paced. Just paced. I paced in and out of the bedroom. I leaned against the wall and cried and talked to her. I talked to her. I talked to her until the police got here. I told her not to let it be real. I kept going over to her and backing off and begging her not to let it be real. I kept listening for someone to get here. It seemed to take forever… " Marino: "The electrical cords, the way she was tied. Did you disturb anything, touch the cords or do anything else? Can you remember?"

"No. I mean, I don't remember if I did. Uh, but I don't think I did. Something stopped me. I wanted to cover her. But something stopped me. Something told me not to touch anything."

Marino: "Do you own a knife?"

Silence.

Marino: "A knife, Matt. We found a knife, a survival knife with a whetstone in the sheath and a compass in the handle."

Confused: "Oh. Uh-huh. I got it several years ago. One of those mail-order knives you could get for five-ninety-five or something. Uh, I used to take it with me when I went hiking. It's got fishing line, matches inside the handle."

Marino: "Where did you see it last?"

"On the desk. It's been on the desk. I think Lori was using it as a letter opener. I don't know. It's just been sitting there for months. Maybe it made her feel better to have it out. Being alone at night and all. I told her we could get a dog. But she's allergic."

Marino: "If I hear what you're saying, Matt, you're telling me the knife was on the desk last time you saw it. That would have been when? Last Saturday, Sunday, when you was home, the weekend when you replaced the screen in the bathroom window?"

No response.

Marino: "You know any reason your wife might've had to move the knife, like maybe tuck it in a drawer or something? She ever done that in the past?"

"I don't think so. It's been on the desk, near the lamp for months."

Marino: "Can you explain why we found this knife in the bottom dresser drawer, underneath some sweaters and beside a box of condoms? Your dresser drawer, I'm guessing?"

Silence.

"No. I can't explain it. That's where you found it?"

Marino: "Yes."

"The condoms. They've been in there a long time." A hollow laugh that was almost a gasp. "From before Lori went on the pill."

Marino: "You sure about that? About the condoms?"

"Of course I'm sure. She went on the pill about three months after we got married. We got married just before we moved here. Less than two years ago."

Marino: "Now, Matt, I've got to ask you several questions of a personal nature, and I want you to understand I'm not picking on you or trying to embarrass you. But I have reasons. There's things we got to know, for your own good, too. Okay?"

Silence.

I could hear Marino lighting a cigarette. "All right then. The condoms. Did you have any relations outside your marriage, with anybody else, I'm saying?"

"Absolutely not."

Marino: "You was living out of town during the week. Now me, I would have been tempted-"

"Well, I'm not you. Lori was everything to me. I had nothing with anybody else."

Marino: "No one in the play with you, maybe?"

"No."

Marino: "See, the point is, we do these little things. I mean, they're human nature, okay? A good-looking guy like you. Hey, the women probably throw themselves at you. Who could blame you? But if you was seeing someone, we need to know. There could possibly be a connection."

Almost inaudibly, "No. I've told you, no. There could be no connection unless you're accusing me of something."

Becker: "No one's accusing you of anything, Matt."

There was the sound of something sliding across the table. The ashtray, perhaps.

And Marino was asking, "When was the last time you had sex with your wife?"

Silence.

Petersen's voice was shaking. "Jesus Christ."

Marino: "I know it's your business, personal. But you need to tell us. We got our reasons."

"Sunday morning. Last Sunday."

Marino: "You know there will be tests run, Matt. Scientists will be examining everything so we can get blood types, make other comparisons. We need samples from you just like we needed your prints. So we can sort things out and know what's yours, what's hers, and what maybe's from-"

The tape abruptly ended. I blinked and my eyes focused for what seemed the first time in hours.

Marino reached for the recorder, turned it off and retrieved his tapes.

He concluded, "After that we took him down to Richmond General and got the suspect kit. Betty's examining his blood even as we speak to see how it compares."

I nodded, glancing at the wall clock. It was noon. I felt sick.

"Something, huh?"

Marino stifled a yawn. "You see it, don't you? I'm telling you, the guy's off. I mean there's something off about any guy who can sit there after finding his wife like that and talk the way he does. Most of 'em, they don't talk much. He would have rattled on till Christmas if I'd let 'im. A lot of pretty words and poetry, you ask me. He's slick. You want my opinion, that's it. He's so slick it gives me the willies."

I slipped off my glasses and kneaded my temples. My brain was heated up, the muscles in my neck on fire. The silk blouse beneath my lab coat was damp. My circuits were so overloaded that what I wanted to do was place my head on my arms and sleep.

"His world is words, Marino," I heard myself say. "An artist would have painted the picture for you. Matt painted it with words. This is how he exists, how he expresses himself, through words and more words. To think a thought is to express it verbally for people like him."

I put my glasses back on and looked at Marino. He was perplexed, his meaty, shopworn face flushed.

"Well, take the bit about the knife, Doc. It's got his prints on it, even though he says his wife's the one who's been using it for months. It's got that sparkle crap on the handle, just like he had on his hands. And the knife was in his dresser drawer, like maybe someone was hiding it. Now that gives you a pause, don't you think?"

"I think it is possible the knife was on top of Lori's desk just as it had been, that she rarely used it and had no reason to touch the blade when she did if she simply opened letters with it, occasionally."

I was seeing this in my head, so vividly I almost believed the images were memories of an event that had actually occurred. "I think it's possible the killer saw the knife too. Perhaps he took it out of the sheath to look at it. Perhaps he used it-"

"Why?"

"Why not?" I asked.

A shrug.

"To jerk everyone around, perhaps," I suggested. "Perversity, if nothing else. We have no idea what went on, for God's sake.

He may have asked her about the knife, tormented her with her own-or her husband's own-weapon. And if she talked with him as I suspect she did, then he may have learned the knife belongs to her husband. He thinks, 'I'll use it. I'll put it in a drawer where the cops are sure to find it.'

Or maybe he doesn't think much about it at all. Maybe his reason was utilitarian. In other words, maybe it was a bigger knife than the one he'd brought in with him, it caught his eye, appealed to him, he used it, didn't want to take it out with him, stuck it in a drawer hoping we wouldn't know he'd used it and it was that simple."

"Or maybe Matt did it all," Marino flatly said.

"Matt? Think about it. Could a husband rape and bind his wife? Could he fracture her ribs and break her fingers? Could he slowly strangle her to death? This is someone he loves or once loved. Someone he sleeps with, eats with, talks to, lives with. A person, Sergeant. Not a stranger or depersonalized object of lust and violence. How are you going to connect a husband murdering his wife with the first three stranglings?"

Clearly, he'd already thought about this. "They occurred after midnight, on early Saturday mornings. Right about the time Matt was getting home from Charlottesville. Maybe his wife got suspicious about him for some reason and he decides he's got to whack her. Maybe he does her like the others to make us think the serial killer did her. Or maybe the wife's who he was after all along, and he does the other three first to make it look like his wife was done by this anonymous and same killer."

"A wonderful plot for Agatha Christie."

I was pushing back my chair and getting up. "But as you know in real life murder is usually depressingly simple. I think these murders are simple. They are exactly what they appear to be, impersonal random murders committed by someone who stalks his victims long enough to figure out when to strike."

Marino got up, too. "Yeah, well in real life, Doctor Scarpetta, bodies don't have freaky little sparkles all over 'em that match the same freaky sparkles found on the hands of the husband who discovers the body and leaves his prints all over the damn place. And the victims don't have pretty-boy actors for husbands, squirrels writing dissertations on sex and violence and cannibals and faggots."

I calmly asked him, "The odor Petersen mentioned. Did you smell anything like that when you arrived on the scene?"

"Naw. Didn't smell a damn thing. So maybe he was smelling seminal fluid, if he's telling the truth."

"I should think he would know what that smells like."

"But he wouldn't be expecting to smell it. No reason it should come to mind at first. Now me, when I went in the bedroom, I didn't smell nothing like he was describing."

"Do you recall smelling anything peculiar at the other strangling scenes?"

"No, ma'am. Which just further corroborates my suspicion that either Matt imagined it or is making it up, to throw us off track."

Then it came to me. "In the three previous cases, the women weren't found until the next day, after they'd been dead at least twelve hours."

Marino paused in the doorway, his face incredulous. "You suggesting Matt got home just after the killer left, that the killer's got some weird case of B.O.?"

"I'm suggesting it's possible."

His face tightened with anger, and as he stalked down the hall I heard him mutter, "Goddam women…"

Chapter 5

The Sixth Street Marketplace is a Bayside without the water, one of these open, sunny malls built of steel and glass, on the north edge of the banking district in the heart of downtown. It wasn't often I went out for lunch, and I certainly didn't have time for the luxury this afternoon. I had an appointment in less than an hour, and there were two sudden deaths and one suicide in transport, but I needed to unwind.

Marino bothered me. His attitude toward me reminded me of medical school.

I was one of four women in my class at Hopkins. I was too naive in the beginning to realize what was happening. The sudden creaking of chairs and loud shuffling of paper when a professor would call on me were not coincidence. It was not chance when old tests made the rounds but were never available to me. The excuses – "You wouldn't be able to read my writing" or "Someone else is borrowing them right now" – were too universal when I went from student to student on the few occasions I missed a lecture and needed to copy someone else's notes. I was a small insect faced with a formidable male network web in which I might be ensnared but never a part.

Isolation is the cruelest of punishments, and it had never occurred to me that I was something less than human because I wasn't a man. One of my female classmates eventually quit, another suffered a complete nervous breakdown. Survival was my only hope, success my only revenge.

I'd thought those days were behind me, but Marino brought all of it back. I was more vulnerable now because these murders were affecting me in a way others had not. I did not want to be alone in this, but Marino seemed to have his mind made up, not only about Matt Petersen, but also about me.

The midday stroll was soothing, the sun bright and winking on windshields of the passing traffic. The double glass doors leading inside the Marketplace were open to let the spring breeze in, and the food court was as crowded as I knew it would be. Waiting my turn at the carry-out salad counter, I watched people go by, young couples laughing and talking and lounging at small tables. I was aware of women who seemed alone, preoccupied professional women wearing expensive suits and sipping diet colas or nibbling on pita bread sandwiches.

It could have been in a place like this he first spotted his victims, some large public place where the only thing the four women had in common was that he took their orders at one of the counters.

But the overwhelming and seemingly enigmatic problem was that the murdered women did not work or live in the same areas of the city. It was unlikely they shopped or dined out or did their banking or anything else in the same places. Richmond has a large land area with thriving malls and business areas in the four major quadrants. People who live Northside are catered to by the Northside merchants, the people south of the river patronize the Southside businesses, and the same is true in the eastern part of the city. I mainly restricted myself to the malls and restaurants in the West End, for example, except when I was at work.

The woman at the counter who took my order for a Greek salad paused for a moment, her eyes lingering on my face as if I looked familiar to her. I uncomfortably wondered if she'd seen my picture in the Saturday evening paper. Or she could have seen me in the television footage and court sketches the local television stations were constantly pulling out of their files whenever murder was big news in central Virginia.

It has always been my wish to be unnoticed, to blend. But I was at a disadvantage for several reasons. There were few women chief medical examiners in the country, and this prompted reporters to be unduly tenacious when it came to pointing cameras in my direction or excavating for quotes. I was easily recognized because I am "distinctive" in appearance, "blond" and "handsome" and Lord knows what else I've been called in print. My ancestors are from northern Italy where there is a segment of blue-eyed, fair natives who share blood with the people of Savoy, Switzerland and Austria.

The Scarpettas are a traditionally ethnocentric group, Italians who have married other Italians in this country to keep the bloodline pure. My mother's greatest failure, so she has told me numerous times, is that she bore no son and her two-daughters have turned out to be genetic dead ends. Dorothy sullied the lineage with Lucy, who is half Latin, and at my age and marital status it wasn't likely I would be sullying anything.

My mother is prone to weeping as she bemoans the fact that her immediate family is at the end of its line. "All that good blood," she would sob, especially during the holidays, when she should have been surrounded by a bevy of adorable and adoring grandchildren. "Such a shame. All that good blood! Our ancestors! Architects, painters! Kay, Kay, to let that go to waste, like fine grapes on the vine."

We are traced back to Verona, the province of Romeo of Montague and Juliet Capulet, of Dante, Pisano, Titian, Bellini and Paolo Cagliari, according to my mother. She persists in believing we are somehow related to these luminaries, despite my reminders that Bellini, Pisano and Titian, at any rate, influenced the Veronese School but were really native to Venice, and the poet Dante was Florentine, exiled after the Black, Guelf triumph and relegated to wandering from city to city, his stay in Verona but a pit stop along the way to Ravenna. Our direct ancestors, in truth, were with the railways or were farmers, a humble people who immigrated to this country two generations ago.

A white bag in hand, I eagerly embraced the warm afternoon again. Sidewalks were crowded with people wandering to and from lunch, and as I waited on a corner for the light to change, I instinctively turned toward the two figures emerging from the Chinese restaurant across the street. The familiar blond hair had caught my eye. Bill Boltz, the Commonwealth's attorney for Richmond City, was slipping on a pair of sunglasses and seemed in the midst of an intense discussion with Norman Tanner, the director of public safety. For a moment, Boltz was staring straight at me, but he didn't return my wave. Maybe he really didn't see me. I didn't wave again. Then the two men were gone, swept up in the congested flow of anonymous faces and scuffling feet.

When the light turned green after an interminably long time, I crossed the street, and Lucy came to mind as I approached a computer software store. Ducking in, I found something she was sure to like, not a video game but a history tutorial complete with art, music and quizzes. Yesterday we had rented a paddleboat in the park and drifted around the small lake. She ran us into the fountain to give me a tepid shower, and I found myself childishly paying her back. We fed bread to the geese and sucked on grape snow cones until our tongues turned blue. Thursday morning she would fly home to Miami, and I would not see her again until Christmas, if I saw her again at all this year.

It was quarter of one when I walked into the lobby of the Office of the Chief Medical Examiner, or OCME, as it was called. Benton Wesley was fifteen minutes early and sitting on the couch reading the Wall Street Journal.