The Body Farm

9

Dr. Jenrette was doing paperwork in the morgue when I arrived as the hearse did shortly before ten. He smiled nervously at me as I took off my suit jacket and put a plastic apron over my clothes.

"Would you have a guess as to how the press found out about the exhumation?" I asked, unfolding a surgical gown. He looked startled.

"What happened?"

"About a dozen reporters showed up at the cemetery."

"That's a real shame."

"We need to make sure nothing more gets out," I said, tying the gown in back and doing my best to sound patient.

"What happens here needs to remain here. Dr. Jenrette." He said nothing.

"I know I am a visitor and I wouldn't blame you if you resented the hell out of my presence. So please don't think I'm insensitive to the situation or indifferent to your authority. But you can rest assured that whoever murdered this little girl keeps up with the news. Whenever something gets leaked, he finds out about it, too."

Dr. Jenrette, pleasant person that he was, did not look the least bit offended as he listened carefully.

"I'm just trying to think of who all knew," he said.

"The problem is by the time word got around that could have been a lot of people."

"Let's make sure word doesn't get around about anything we might find in here today," I said as I heard our case arrive. Lucias Ray walked in first, the man in the porkpie hat right behind him pulling the church cart bearing the white casket. They maneuvered their cargo through the doorway and parked close to the autopsy table. Ray slipped a metal crank out of his coat pocket and inserted it in a small hole at the casket's head. He began cranking loose the seal as if he were starting a Model-T.

"That should do it," he said, dropping the crank back into his pocket.

"Hope you don't mind my waiting around to check on my work. It's an opportunity I don't usually get, since we're not in the habit of digging up people after we bury'em." He started to open the lid, and if Dr. Jenrette hadn't placed his hands on top of it to stop him, I would have.

"Ordinarily that wouldn't be a problem, Lucias," Dr. Jenrette said.

"But it's really not a good idea for anyone else to be here right now."

"I think that's being a might bit touchy." Ray's smile got tight.

"It's not like I haven't seen this child before. Why I know her inside and out better than her own mama."

"Lucias, we need you to go on now so Dr. Scarpetta and I can get this done," Dr. Jenrette spoke in his same sad soft tone.

"I'll call you when we're finished."

"Dr. Scarpetta" -Ray fixed his eyes on me"-I must say it does appear folks are a little less friendly since the Feds came to town."

"This is a homicide investigation, Mr. Ray," I said.

"Perhaps it would be best not to take things personally since nothing has been intended that way."

"Come on. Billy Joe," the funeral director said to the man in the porkpie hat.

"Let's go get something to eat."

They went out. Dr. Jenrette locked the door.

"I'm sorry," he said, pulling on gloves.

"Lucias can be overbearing sometimes, but he really is a good person."

I was suspicious we would find that Emily had not been properly embalmed or had been buried in a fashion that did not reflect what her mother had paid.

But when Jenrette and I opened the casket's lid, I saw nothing that immediately struck me as out of order. The white satin lining had been folded over her body, and on top of it I found a package wrapped in white tissue paper and pink ribbon. I started taking photographs.

"Did Ray mention anything about this?" I handed the package to Jenrette.

"No." He looked perplexed as he turned it this way and that. The smell of embalming fluid wafted up strongly as I opened the lining. Beneath it Emily Steiner was well preserved in a long-sleeve, high-collar dress of pale blue velveteen, her braided hair in bows of the same material.

A fuzzy whitish mold typically found on bodies that have been exhumed covered her face like a mask and had started on the tops of her hands, which were on her waist, clasped around a white New Testament. She wore white knee socks and black patent leather shoes. Nothing she had been dressed in looked new.

I took more photographs; then Jenrette and I lifted her out of the casket and placed her on top of the stainless steel table, where we began to undress her. Beneath her sweet, little girl clothes hid the awful secret of her death, for people who die gracefully do not bear the wounds she had. Any honest forensic pathologist will admit that autopsy artifacts are ghastly. There is nothing quite like the Y incision in any pre mortem surgical procedure, for it looks like its name. The scalpel goes from each clavicle to sternum, runs the length of the torso, and ends at the pubis after a small detour around the navel. The incision made from ear to ear at the back of the head before sawing open the skull is not attractive, either.

Of course, injuries to the dead do not heal. They can only be covered with high lacy collars and strategically coiffed hair. With heavy makeup from the funeral home and a wide seam running the length of her small body, Emily looked like a sad rag doll stripped of its frilly clothes and abandoned by its heartless owner. Water drummed into a steel sink as Dr. Jenrette and I scrubbed away mold, makeup, and the flesh-colored putty filling the gunshot wound to the back of the head and the areas of the thighs, upper chest, and shoulders where skin had been excised by her killer. We removed eye caps beneath eyelids and took out sutures. Our eyes watered and noses began to run as sharp fumes rose from the chest cavity. Organs were breaded with embalming powder, and we quickly lifted them out and rinsed some more. I checked the neck, finding nothing that my colleague hadn't already documented. Then I wedged a long thin chisel between molars to open the mouth.

"It's stubborn," I said in frustration.

"We're going to have to cut the masseters. I want to look at the tongue in its anatomical position before getting at it through the posterior pharynx. But I don't know. We may not be able to. " Dr. Jenrette fitted a new blade into his scalpel.

"What are we looking for?"

"I want to make certain she didn't bite her tongue." Minutes later I discovered that she had.

"She's got marks right there at the margin," I pointed out.

"Can you get a measurement?"

"An eighth of an inch by a quarter."

"And the hemorrhages are about a quarter of an inch deep. It looks like she might have bitten herself more than once. What do you think?"

"It looks to me like maybe she did."

"So we know she had a seizure associated with her terminal episode."

"The head injury could do that," he said, fetching the camera.

"It could, but then why doesn't the brain show that she survived long enough to have a seizure?"

"I guess we've got the same unanswered question."

"Yes," I said.

"It's still very confusing." When we turned the body, I absorbed myself in studying the peculiar mark that was the point of this grim exercise as the forensic photographer arrived and set up his equipment. For the better part of the afternoon we took rolls of infrared, ultraviolet, color, high-contrast, and black-and-white film, with many special filters and lenses.

Then I went into my medical bag and got out half a dozen black rings made of acrylonitrile-butadiene- styrene plastic, or more simply, the material that commonly composes pipes used for water and sewage lines. Every year or two I got a forensic dentist I knew to cut the three-eighth-inch-thick rings with a band saw and sand them smooth for me. Fortunately, it wasn't often I needed to pull such an odd trick out of my bag, for rarely was it necessary to remove a human bite mark or other impression from the body of someone murdered. Deciding on a ring three inches in diameter, I used a machinist's die punch to stamp Emily Steiner's case number and location markers on each side.

Skin, like a painter's canvas, is on a stretch, and in order to support the exact anatomical configuration of the mark on Emily's left buttock during and after its removal, I needed to provide a stable matrix.

"Have you got Super Glue?" I asked Dr. Jenrette. |j "Sure." He brought me a tube.

"Keep taking photographs of every step, if you don't mind," I instructed the photographer, a slight Japanese man who never stood still. Positioning the ring over the mark, I fixed it to the skin with the glue and further secured it with sutures. Next I dissected the tissue around the ring and placed it en bloc in formalin. All the while I tried to figure out what the mark meant. It was an irregular circle incompletely filled with a strange brownish discoloration that I believed was the imprint of a pattern.

But I could not make out what, no matter how many Polaroids we looked at from how many different angles. We did not think about the package wrapped in white tissue paper until the photographer had left and Dr. Jenrette and I had notified the funeral home that we were ready for their return.

"What do we do about this?" Dr. Jenrette asked.

"We have to open it." He spread dry towels on a cart and set the gift on top of them.

Carefully slicing the paper with a scalpel, he exposed an old box from a pair of size-six women's loafers. He cut through many layers of Scotch tape and removed the top.

"Oh my," he said under his breath as he stared in bewilderment at what someone had intended for a little girl's grave. Shrouded in two sealed freezer bags inside the box was a dead kitten that could not have been but a few months old. It was as stiff as plyboard when I lifted it out, its delicate ribs protruding. The cat was a female, black with white feet, and she wore no collar. I saw no evidence of what had killed her until I took her into the X-ray room, and a little later was mounting her films on a light box.

"Her cervical spine is fractured," I said as a chill pricked up the hair on the back of my neck. Dr. Jenrette frowned as he moved closer to the light box.

"It looks like the spine's been moved out of the usual position here." He touched the film with a knuckle.

"That's weird. It's displaced laterally? I don't think that could happen if she got hit by a car."

"She wasn't hit by a car," I told him.

"Her head's been twisted clockwise by ninety degrees."

I found Marino eating a cheeseburger in his room when I returned to the Travel-Eze at almost seven p. m. His gun, wallet, and car keys were on top of one bed and he was on the other, shoes and socks scattered across the floor as if he had walked out of them. I could tell he had probably gotten back here not too long before I did. His eyes followed me as I went to the television and turned it off.

"Come on," I said.

"We have to go out." The "gospel truth" according to Lucias Ray was that Denesa Steiner had placed the package in Emily's casket. He had simply assumed that beneath the gift wrapping was a favorite toy or doll.

"When did she do this?" Marino asked as we walked briskly through the motel's parking lot.

"Right before the funeral," I replied.

"Have you got your car keys?"

"Yeah."

"Then why don't you drive."

I had a nasty headache I blamed on formalin fumes and lack of food and sleep.

"Have you heard from Benton?" I asked as casually as possible.

"There should have been a bunch of messages at the desk for you."

"I came straight to your room. And how would you know if I had a lot of messages?"

"The clerk tried to give'em to me. He figured between the two of us I look like the doctor."

"That's because you look like a man." I rubbed my temples.

"It's mighty white of you to notice."

"Marino, I wish you wouldn't talk like such a racist, because I really don't think you are one."

"How do you like my ride?" His car was a maroon Chevrolet Caprice, fully loaded with flashing lights, a radio, telephone, scanner. It had even come equipped with a mounted video camera and a Winchester stainless steel Marine twelve-gauge shotgun. Pump action, it held seven rounds and was the same model the FBI used.

"My God," I said in disbelief as I got into the car.

"Since when do they need riot guns in Black Mountain, North Carolina?"

"Since now." He cranked the engine.

"Did you request all this?"

"Nope."

"Would you like to explain to me how a ten-person police force can be better equipped than the DEA?"

"Because maybe the people who live around here really understand what community policing's all about. This community's got a bad problem right now, and what's happening is area merchants and concerned citizens are donating shit to help. Like the cars, phones, the shotgun. One of the cops told me some old lady called up just this morning and wanted to know if the federal agents that had come to town to help would like to have Sunday dinner with her."

"Well, that's very nice," I said, baffled.

"Plus, the town council's thinking about making the police department bigger, and I have a suspicion that helps explain some things."

"What things?"

"Black Mountain's gonna need a new chief."

"What happened to the old one?"

"Mote was about as close to a chief as they had."

"I'm still not clear on where you're going with this."

"Hey, maybe where I'm going is right here in this town. Doc. They're looking for an experienced chief and treating me like I'm 007 or something. It don't take a rocket scientist to figure it out."

"Marino, what in God's name is going on with you?" I asked very calmly. He lit a cigarette.

"What? First you don't think I look like a doctor? Now I don't look like a chief, either? I guess to you I don't look like nothing but a Dogtown slob who still talks like he's eating spaghetti with the mob back in Jersey and only takes out women in tight sweaters who tease their hair. " He blew out smoke furiously.

"Hey, just because I like to bowl don't mean I'm some tattooed redneck. And just because I didn't go to all these Ivy League schools like you did don't mean I'm a dumb shit."

"Are you finished?"

"And another thing," he railed on, "there's a lot of really good places to fish around here. They got Bee Tree and Lake James, and except for Montreal and Biltmore, the real estate's pretty cheap. Maybe I'm just sick as shit of drones shooting drones and serial killers costing more to keep alive in the pen than I friggin' get paid to lock their asses up. J/the assholes even stay in the pen, and that's the biggest'if of all. " We had been parked in the Steiner driveway for five minutes now. I stared out at the house lit up wondering if she knew we were here and why.

"Now are you finished?" I asked him.

"No, I ain't finished. I'm just sick of talking."

"In the first place, I didn't go to Ivy League schools…"

"Well, what do you call Johns Hopkins and Georgetown?"

"Marino, goddam it, shut up." He glared out the windshield and lit another cigarette.

"I was a poor Italian brought up in a poor Italian neighborhood just like you were," I said.

"The difference is that I was in Miami and you were in New Jersey. I've never pretended to be better than you, nor have I ever called you stupid. In fact, you're anything but stupid, even if you butcher the English language and have never been to the opera.

"My list of complaints about you all go back to one thing. You're stubborn, and when you're at your worst, you're bigoted and intolerant. In other words, you act toward others the way you suspect they're acting toward you." Marino jerked up the door handle.

"Not only do I not got time for a lecture from you, I ain't interested in one." He threw down his cigarette and stamped it out. We walked in silence to Denesa Steiner's front door, and I had a feeling when she opened it she could sense Marino and I had been fighting. He would not look my way or acknowledge me in any way as she led us to a living room that was unnervingly familiar because I had seen photographs of it before. The decor was country, with an abundance of ruffles, plump pillows, hanging plants, and macrame. Behind glass doors, a gas fire glowed, and numerous clocks did not argue time. Mrs. Steiner was in the midst of watching an old Bob Hope movie on cable. She seemed very tired as she turned off the television and sat in a rocking chair.

"This hasn't been a very good day," she said.

"Well, now, Denesa, there's no way it could have been." Marino sat in a wing chair and gave her his full attention.

"Did you come here to tell me what you found?" she asked, and I realized she was referring to the exhumation.

"We still have a lot of tests to conduct," I told her.

"Then you didn't find anything that will catch that man." She spoke with quiet despair.

"Doctors always talk about tests when they don't know anything. I've learned that much after all I've been through."

"These things take time, Mrs. Steiner."

"Listen," Marino said to her.

"I really am sorry to bother you, Denesa, but we've got to ask you a few more questions. The Doc here wants to ask you some." She looked at me and rocked.

"Mrs. Steiner, there was a gift-wrapped package in Emily's casket that the funeral director says you wanted buried with her," I said.

"Oh, you're talking about Socks," she said matter- of-factly.

"Socks?" I asked.

"She was a stray kitten who started coming around here. I guess that would have been a month or so ago. And of course Emily was such a sensitive thing she started feeding it and that was it. She did love that little cat." She smiled as her eyes teared up.

"She called her Socks because she was pure black except for these perfect white paws." She held out her hands, splaying her fingers.

"It looked like she had socks on."

"How did Socks die?" I carefully asked.

"I don't really know." She pulled tissues from a pocket and dabbed her eyes.

"I found her one morning out in front. This was right after Emily… I just assumed the poor little thing died of a broken heart." She covered her mouth with the tissues and sobbed.

"I'm going to get you something to drink." Marino got up and left the room. His obvious familiarity with both the house and its owner struck me as extremely unusual, and my uneasiness grew.

"Mrs. Steiner," I said gently, leaning forward on the couch.

"Emily's kitten did not die of a broken heart. It died of a broken neck." She lowered her hands and took a deep, shaky breath. Her eyes were red-rimmed and wide as they fixed on me.

"What do you mean?"

"The cat died violently."

"Well, I guess it got hit by a car. That's such a pity. I told Emily I was afraid of that."

"It wasn't hit by a car."

"Do you suppose one of the dogs around here got it?"

"No," I said as Marino returned with what looked like a glass of white wine.

"The kitten was killed by a person. Deliberately."

"How could you know such a thing as that?" She looked terrified, and her hands trembled as she took the wine and set it on the table next to her chair.

"There were physical findings that make it clear the cat's neck was wrung," I continued to explain very calmly.

"And I know it's awful for you to hear details like this, Mrs. Steiner, but you must know the truth if you are to help us find the person responsible."

"You got any idea who might have done something like that to your little girl's kitten?" Marino sat back down and leaned forward again, forearms resting on his knees, as if he wanted to assure her that she could depend on and feel safe with him. She silently struggled for composure. Reaching for her wine, she took several unsteady sips.

"I do know I've gotten some calls." She took a deep breath.

"You know, my fingernails are blue. I'm such a wreck." She held out a hand.

"I can't settle down. I can't sleep. I don't know what to do." She dissolved into tears again.

"Denesa, it's all right," Marino said kindly.

"You just take your time. We're not going anywhere. Now tell me about the phone calls." She wiped her eyes and went on.

"It's been men mostly. Maybe one woman who said if I'd kept my eye on my little girl like a good mother, this wouldn't have… But one sounded young, like a boy playing pranks. He said something. You know. Like he'd seen Emily riding her bike. This was after. So it couldn't have been. But this other one, he was older. He said he wasn't finished. " She drank more wine.

"He wasn't finished?" I asked.

"Did he say anything else?"

"I don't remember." She shut her eyes.

"When was this?" Marino asked.

"Right after she was found. Found by the lake." She reached for her wine again and knocked it over.

"I'll get that." Marino abruptly got up.

"I need to smoke."

"Do you know what he meant?" I asked her.

"I knew he was referring to what happened. To who did this to her. I felt he was saying it wasn't the end of bad things. And I guess it was a day later I found Socks."

"Captain, maybe you could fix me some toast with peanut butter or cheese. I feel like my blood sugar's getting low," said Mrs. Steiner, who seemed oblivious to the glass on its side and the puddle of wine on the table by her chair. He left the room again.

"When the man broke into your house and abducted your daughter," I said, "did he speak to you at all?"

"He said if I didn't do exactly what he said, he'd kill me."

"So you heard his voice." She nodded as she rocked, her eyes not leaving me.

"Did it sound like the voice on the phone that you were just telling us about?"

"I don't know. It might have. But it's hard to say."

"Mrs. Steiner…?"

"You can call me Denesa." Her stare was intense.

"What else do you remember about him, the man who came into your house and taped you up?"

"You're wondering if he might be that man in Virginia who killed the little boy." I said nothing.

"I remember seeing pictures of the little boy and his family in People magazine. I remember thinking back then how awful it was, that I couldn't imagine being his mother. It was bad enough when Mary Jo died. I never thought I'd get past that."

"Is Mary Jo the child you lost to SIDS?" Interest sparked beneath her dark pain, as if she were impressed or curious that I would know this detail.

"She died in my bed. I woke up and she was next to Chuck, dead."

"Chuck was your husband?"

"At first I was afraid he might have accidentally rolled on top of her during the night and smothered her. But they said no. They said it was SIDS."

"How old was Mary Jo?" I asked.

"She'd just had her first birthday." She blinked back tears.

"Had Emily been born yet?"

"She came a year later, and I just knew the same thing was going to happen to her. She was so colicky. So frail. And the doctors were afraid she might have apnea, so I had to constantly check on her in her sleep. To make sure she was breathing. I remember walking around like a zombie because I never had a night's sleep. Up and down all night, night after night. Living with that horrible fear." She closed her eyes for a moment and rocked, brow furrowed by grief, hands clenching armrests. It occurred to me that Marino did not want to hear me question Mrs. Steiner because of his anger, and that was why he was out of the room so much. I knew then his emotions had wrestled him into the ropes. I feared he would no longer be effective in this case. Mrs. Steiner opened her eyes and they went straight to mine.

"He's killed a lot of people and now he's here," she said.

"Who?" I was confused by what I had been thinking.

"Temple Gault."

"We don't know for a fact he's here," I said.

"I know he is."

"How do you know that?"

"Because of what was done to my Emily. It's the same thing." A tear slid down her cheek.

"You know, I guess I should be afraid he'll get me next. But I don't care. What do I have left?"

"I'm very sorry," I said as kindly as I could.

"Can you tell me anything more about that Sunday? The Sunday of October first?"

"We went to church in the morning like we always did. And Sunday school. We ate lunch, then Emily was in her room. She was practicing guitar some of the time. I didn't see her much, really." She stared the wide stare of remembering.

"Do you recall her leaving the house early for her youth group meeting?"

"She came into the kitchen. I was making banana bread. She said she had to go early to practice guitar and I gave her some change for the collection like I always did."

"What about when she came home?"

"We ate." She was not blinking.

"She was unhappy. And wanted Socks in the house and I said no."

"What makes you think she was unhappy?"

"She was difficult. You know how children can get when they're in moods. Then she was in her room awhile and went to bed."

"Tell me about her eating habits," I said, recalling that Ferguson had intended to ask Mrs. Steiner this after he returned from Quantico. I supposed he'd never had the chance.

"She was picky. Finicky."

"Did she finish her dinner Sunday night after her meeting?"

"That was part of what we got into a fuss about. She was just pushing her food around. Pouting." Her voice caught.

"It was always a struggle… It was always hard for me to get her to eat."

"Did she have a problem with diarrhea or nausea?" Her eyes focused on me.

"She was sick a lot."

"Sick can mean a lot of different things, Mrs. Steiner," I said patiently.

"Did she have frequent diarrhea or nausea?"

"Yes. I already told Max Ferguson that." Tears flowed freely again.

"And I don't understand why I have to keep answering these same questions. It just opens up things. Opens up wounds."

"I'm sorry," I said with a gentleness that belied my surprise. When had she told Ferguson this? Did he call her after he left Quantico? If so, she must have been one of the last people to talk to him before he died.

"This didn't happen to her because she was sickly," Mrs. Steiner said, crying harder.

"It seems people should be asking questions that would help catch him."

"Mrs. Steiner-and I know this is difficult-but where were you living when Mary Jo died?"

"Oh God, please help me." She buried her face in her hands. I watched her try to compose herself, shoulders heaving as she wept. I sat numbly as she got still, little by little, her feet, her arms, her hands. She slowly lifted her eyes to me. Through their bleariness gleamed a strange cold light that oddly made me think of the lake at night, of water so dark it seemed another element. And I felt fretful the way I did in my dreams. She spoke in a low voice.

"What I want to know. Dr. Scarpetta, is do you know that man?"

"What man?" I asked, and then Marino walked back in with a peanut butter and jelly sandwich on toast, a dish towel, and a bottle of chablis.

"The man who killed the little boy. Did you ever talk to Temple Gault?" she asked as Marino set her glass upright and refilled it, and placed the sandwich nearby.

"Here, let me help with that." I took the dish towel from him and wiped up spilled wine.

"Tell me what he looks like." She shut her eyes again.

I saw Gault in my mind, his piercing eyes and light blond hair. He was sharp featured, small and quick. But it was the eyes. I would never forget them.

I knew he could slit a throat without flinching. I knew he had killed all of them with that same blue stare.

"Excuse me," I said, realizing Mrs. Steiner was still talking to me.

"Why did you let him get away?" she repeated her question as if it were an accusation, and began crying again. Marino told her to get some rest, that we were leaving. When we got into the car, his mood was horrible.

"Gault killed her cat," he said.

"We don't know that for a fact."

"I ain't interested in hearing you talk like a lawyer right now."

"I am a lawyer," I said.

"Oh yeah. Excuse me for forgetting you got that degree, too. It just slips my mind that you really are a doctor-lawyer-Indian chief."

"Do you know if Ferguson called Mrs. Steiner after he left Quantico?"

"Hell, no, I don't know."

"He mentioned in the consultation he intended to ask her several medical questions. Based on what Mrs. Steiner said to me, it sounds like he did, meaning he must have talked to her shortly before his death."

"So maybe he called her as soon as he got home from the airport."

"And then he goes straight upstairs and puts a noose around his neck?"

"No, Doc. He goes straight upstairs to beat off. Maybe talking to her on the phone put him in the mood." That was possible.

"Marino, what's the last name of the little boy Emily liked? I know his first name was Wren."

"Why?"

"I want to go see him."

"In case you don't know much about kids, it's almost nine o'clock on a school night."

"Marino," I said evenly, "answer my question."

"I know he don't live too far from the Steiners' crib." He pulled off on the side of the road and turned on his interior light.

"His last name's Maxwell."

"I want to go to his house." He flipped through his notepad, then glanced over at me. Behind his tired eyes I saw more than resentment. Marino was in terrific pain. The Maxwells lived in a modern log cabin that was probably prefabricated and had been built on a wooded lot in view of the lake. We pulled into a gravel drive lit by floodlights the color of pollen. It was cool enough for rhododendron leaves to begin to curl, and our breath turned to smoke as we waited on the porch for someone to answer the bell. When the door opened, we faced a young, lean man with a thin face and black-rimmed glasses. He was dressed in a dark wool robe and slippers. I wondered if anyone stayed up past ten o'clock in this town.

"I'm Captain Marino and this is Dr. Scarpetta," Marino said in a serious police tone that would fill any citizen with dread.

"We're working with the local authorities on the Emily Steiner case."

"You're the ones from out of town," the man said.

"Are you Mr. Maxwell?" Marino asked.

"Lee Maxwell. Please come-in. I guess you want to talk about Wren." We entered the house as an overweight woman in a pink sweatsuit came downstairs. She looked at us as if she knew exactly why we were there.

"He's up in his room. I was reading to him," she said.

"I wonder if I might speak to him," I said in as nonthreatening a voice as possible, for I could tell the Maxwells were upset.

"I can get him," the father said.

"I'd rather go on up, if I might," I said. Mrs. Maxwell absently fiddled with a seam coming loose on a cuff of her sweatshirt. She was wearing small silver earrings shaped like crosses that matched a necklace she had on.

"Maybe while the doc does that," Marino spoke up, "I can talk to the two of you?"

"That policeman who died already talked to Wren," said the father.

"I know." Marino spoke in a manner that told them he didn't care who had talked to their son.

"We promise not to take up too much of your time," he added.

"Well, all right," Mrs. Maxwell said to me.

I followed her slow, heavy progress up uncarpeted stairs to a second floor that had few rooms but was so well lit my eyes hurt. There didn't seem to be a corner inside or out of the Maxwells' property that wasn't flooded with light. We walked into Wren's bedroom and the boy was in pajamas and standing in the middle of the floor. He stared at us as if we'd caught him in the middle of something we weren't supposed to see.

"Why aren't you in bed, son?" Mrs. Maxwell sounded more weary than stern.

"} was thirsty."

"Would you like me to get you another glass of water?"

"No, that's okay."

I could see why Emily would have found Wren Maxwell cute. He had been growing in height faster than his muscles could keep up, and his sunny blond hair wouldn't stay out of his dark blue eyes. Lanky and shaggy, with a perfect complexion and mouth, he had chewed his fingernails to the quick. He wore several bracelets of woven rawhide that could not be taken off without cutting, and they somehow told me he was very popular in school, especially with girls, whom I expected he treated quite rudely.

"Wren, this is Dr." -she looked at me"-I'm sorry, but you're going to have say your last name again."

"I'm Dr. Scarpetta." I smiled at Wren, whose expression turned to bewilderment.

"I'm not sick," he quickly said.

"She's not that kind of doctor," Mrs. Maxwell told her son.

"What kind are you?" By now his curiosity had overcome his shyness.

"Well, she's a doctor sort of like Lucias Ray is one."

"He ain't a doctor." Wren scowled at his mother.

"He's an undertaker."

"Now you go on and get in bed, son, so you don't catch cold. Dr. Scarletti, you can pull up that chair and I'll be downstairs."

"Her name's Scarpetta," the boy fired at his mother, who was already out the door. He climbed into his twin bed and covered himself with a wool blanket the color of bubble gum. I noticed the baseball theme of the curtains drawn across his window, and the silhouettes of trophies behind them. On pine walls were posters of several sports heroes, and I recognized none of them except Michael Jordan, who was typically airborne in Nikes like some magnificent god. I pulled a chair close to the bed and suddenly felt old.

"What sport do you play?" I asked him.

"I play for the Yellow Jackets," he answered brightly, for he had found a co-conspirator in his quest to stay up past bedtime.

"The Yellow Jackets?"

"That's my Little League team. You know, we beat everybody around here. I'm surprised you haven't heard of us."

"I'm certain I would have heard of your team if I lived here. Wren. But I don't. " He regarded me as if I were some exotic creature behind glass in the zoo. "} play basketball, too. I can dribble between my legs. I bet you can't do that."

"You're absolutely right. I can't. I'd like you to tell me about your friendship with Emily Steiner." His eyes dropped to his hands, which were nervously fiddling with the edge of the blanket.

"Had you known her a long time?" I continued.

"I've seen her around. We're in the same youth group at church." He looked at me.

"Plus, we're both in the sixth grade but we have different homeroom teachers.

I have Mrs. Winters."

"Did you get to know Emily right after her family moved here?"

"I guess so. They came from California. Mom says they have earth shakes out there because the people don't believe in Jesus."

"It seems Emily liked you a great deal," I said.

"In fact, I'd say she had a big crush on you. Were you aware of that?" He nodded, eyes cast down again.

"Wren, can you tell me about the last time you saw her?"

"It was at church. She came in with her guitar because it was her turn."

"Her turn for what?"

"For music. Usually Owen or Phil plays the piano, but sometimes Emily would play guitar. She wasn't very good."

"Were you supposed to meet her at church that afternoon?" Color mounted his cheeks and he sucked in his lower lip to keep it from trembling.

"It's all right. Wren. You didn't do anything wrong."

"I asked her to meet me there early," he quietly said.

"What was her reaction?"

"She said she would but not to tell anybody."

"Why did you want her to meet you early?" I continued to probe.

"I wanted to see if she would."

"Why?" Now his face was very red and he was working hard to hold back tears.

"I don't know," he barely said.

"Wren, tell me what happened."

"I rode my bike to the church just to see if she was there."

"What time would this have been?"

"I don't know. But it was at least an hour before the meeting was supposed to start," he said.

"And I saw her through the window. She was inside sitting on the floor practicing guitar."

"Then what?"

"I left and came back with Paul and Will at five. They live over there." He pointed.

"Did you say anything to Emily?" I asked. Tears spilled down his cheeks, and he impatiently wiped them away.

"I didn't say nothing. She kept staring at me but I pretended not to see her. She was upset. Jack asked her what was wrong. "

"Who's Jack?"

"The youth leader. He goes to Montreat Anderson College. He's real fat and's got a beard."

"What was her reply when Jack asked what was wrong?"

"She said she felt like she was getting the flu. Then she left."

"How long before the meeting was over?"

"When I was getting the basket off the top of the piano.

"Cause it was my turn to take up the collection."

"This would have been at the very end of the meeting?"

"That's when she ran out. She took the shortcut." He bit his lower lip and gripped the blanket so hard that the small bones of his hands were clearly defined.

"How do you know she took a shortcut?" I asked. He looked up at me and sniffed loudly. I handed him several tissues, and he blew his nose.

"Wren," I persisted, "did you actually see Emily take the shortcut?"

"No, ma'am," he meekly said.

"Did anybody see her take the shortcut?" He shrugged.

"Then why do you think she took it?"

"Everybody says so," he replied simply.

"Just as everybody has said where her body was found?" I was gentle. When he did not respond, I added more forcefully, "And you know exactly where that is, don't you. Wren?"

"Yes, ma'am," he said almost in a whisper.

"Will you tell me about that place?" Still staring at his hands, he answered, "It's just this place where lots of colored people fish. There's a bunch of weeds and slime, and huge bullfrogs and snakes hanging out of the trees, and that's where she was. A colored man found her, and all she had on was her socks, and it scared him so bad he turned white as you are. After that Dad put in all the lights."

"Lights?"

"He put all these lights in the trees and everywhere. It makes it harder for me to sleep, and then Mom gets mad. "

"Was it your father who told you about the place at the lake?" Wren shook his head.

"Then who did?" I asked.

"Creed."

"Creed?"

"He's one of the janitors at school. He makes toothpicks, and we buy them for a dollar. Ten for a dollar. He soaks them in peppermint and cinnamon.

I like the cinnamon best'cause they're real hot like Fireballs. Sometimes I trade him candy when I run out of lunch money. But you can't tell anybody. " He looked worried.

"What does Creed look like?" I asked as a quiet alarm began to sound in the back of my brain.

"I don't know," Wren said.

"He's a greaser'cause he's always wearing white socks with boots. I guess he's pretty old." He sighed.

"Do you know his last name?" Wren shook his head.

"Has he always worked at your school?" He shook his head again.

"He took Albert's place. Albert got sick from smoking, and they had to cut his lung out."

"Wren," I asked, "did Creed and Emily know each other?" He was talking faster and faster.

"We used to make her mad by saying Creed was her boyfriend'cause one time he gave her some flowers he picked. And he would give her candy'cause she didn't like toothpicks. You know, a lot of girls would rather have candy than toothpicks."

"Yes," I answered with a grim smile, "I suspect a lot of girls would."

The last thing I asked Wren was if he had visited the place at the lake where Emily's body had been found. He claimed he had not.

"I believe him," I said to Marino as we drove away from the Maxwells' well-lit house.

"Not me. I think he's lying his little ass off so his old man don't whip the shit out of him." He turned down the heat.

"This ride heats up better than any one I've ever had. All it's missing is heaters in the seats like you got in your Benz."

"The way he described the scene at the lake," I went on, "tells me he's never been there. I don't think he left the candy there, Marino."

"Then who did?"

"What do you know about a custodian named Creed?"

"Not a damn thing."

"Well," I said, "I think you'd better find him. And I'll tell you something else. I don't think Emily took the shortcut around the lake on her way home from the church."

"Shit," he complained.

"I hate it when you get like this. Just when pieces start to fall in place you shake the hell out of them like a damn puzzle in a box."

"Marino, I took the path around the lake myself. There's no way an eleven-year-old girl-or anybody else, for that matter-would do that when it's getting dark. And it would have been almost completely dark by six p.m." which was the time Emily headed home. "

"Then she lied to her mother," Marino said.

"It would appear so. But why?"

"Maybe because Emily was up to something."

"Such as?"

"I don't know. You got any Scotch in the room? I mean, there's no point in asking if you got bourbon."

"You're right," I said.

"I don't have bourbon."

I found five messages awaiting me when I returned to the Travel-Eze. Three were from Benton Wesley. The Bureau was sending the helicopter to pick me up at dawn. When I got hold of Wesley he cryptically said, "Among other things, we've got rather a crisis situation with your niece. We're bringing you straight back to Quantico."

"What's happened?" I asked as my stomach closed like a fist.

"Is Lucy all right?"

"Kay, this is not a secured line."

"But is she all right?"

"Physically," he said, "she's fine."