Black Notice

15

Rose was buttoning her coat and wrapping a long silk scarf around her neck when I walked into her office a few minutes before six o'clock. She had been working late as usual. Sometimes I had to make her go home at the end of the day, and although that had impressed and touched me in the past, now it made me uneasy.

"I'll walk you to your car;" I offered.

"Oh," she said. "Well, you certainly don't have to do that."

Her face got tight, her fingers suddenly fumbling with kid leather gloves. She knew I had something on my mind she didn't want to hear, and I suspected she knew exactly what it was. We said little to each other as we followed the hallway to the front office, our feet quiet on the carpet, the awkwardness between us palpable.

My heart was heavy. I wasn't sure if I was angry or crushed, and I began to wonder all sorts of things. What else had Rose kept from me and how long had it been going on? Was her fierce loyalty a possessiveness I hadn't recognized? Did she feel I belonged to her?

"I don't guess Lucy ever called," I said as we emerged into the empty marble lobby.

"No," Rose replied. "I tried her office several times, too.

"She got the flowers?"

"Oh, yes."

The night guard waved at us.

"It's cold out there! Where's your coat?" he said to me.

"I'll be all right," I answered him with a smile, and then to Rose I said, "We know that Lucy actually saw them?"

She looked confused.

"The flowers," I said. "Do we know if Lucy saw them?"

"Oh, yes," my secretary said again. "Her supervisor said she came in and saw them, read the card and everybody was teasing her, asking who'd sent them."

"I don't guess you know if she took them home with her."

Rose glanced over at me as we went out of the building into the dark, empty parking lot. She looked old and sad, and I didn't know if her eyes were tearing up because of me or the cold, sharp air.

"I don't know," she answered me.

"My scattered troops," I muttered.

She turned her collar up to her ears and tucked in her chin.

"It has come to this," I said. "When Carrie Gretten murdered Benton, she took out all the rest of us, too. Didn't she, Rose?"

"Of course it's had its horrendous effect. I've not known what I can do for you, but I've tried."

She glanced over at me as we walked, hunched against the cold.

"I've tried as hard as I can and still do," she went on.

"Everybody scattered," I muttered. "Lucy's angry with me, and when she gets that way, she always does the same thing. She shuts me out. Marino's not a detective anymore. And now I find out that you've been rolling my telephone calls over to Jack without asking me, Rose. Distraught families haven't been allowed to get through to me. Why would you do such a thing?"

We had reached her blue Honda Accord. Keys jingled as she dug for them in her big pocketbook.

"Isn't that funny," she said. "I was afraid you were going to ask me about your schedule. You're teaching at the Institute more than ever, and as I worked on next month's calendar, I realized you are terribly overcommitted. I should have picked upon it earlier and prevented it."

"That's the least of my worries at the moment," I replied, and I tried not to sound upset. "Why did you do this to me?" I said, and I wasn't talking about my commitments. "You shielded me from phone calls? You hurt me as a person and a professional."

Rose unlocked the door and started the engine, turning on the heat to warm up the car for her lonely ride home.

"I'm doing what you instructed me to do, Dr. Scarpetta," she finally answered me, her breath smoking out.

"I never instructed you to do such a thing, nor would I ever" I said, not believing what I was hearing. "And you know that. You know how I feel about being accessible to families:'

Of course she knew. I had gotten rid of two forensic pathologists in the -last five years because they had been so unavailable and indifferent to the grieving left behind.

"It wasn't with my blessing," Rose said, sounding like her mothering self again.

"When did I supposedly say this to you?"

"You didn't say it. You e-mailed it. This was back in late August."

"I never e-mailed such a thing to you," I told her. "Did you save it?"

"No," she said with regret. "I generally don't save e-mail. I have no reason to. I'm sorry I have to use it at all."

"What did this e-mail message allegedly from me say?"

"1 need you to redirect as many calls from families as you can. It's too hard for me right now. I know you understand Or words to that effect."

"And you didn't question this?" I said in disbelief.

She turned the heat down.

"Of course I did," she replied. "I e-mailed you right back and asked you about it. I voiced my concerns, and you replied that I was just to do it and not discuss it anymore:' "I never got an e-mail like that from you;" I told her.

"I don't know what to say," she replied, fastening her shoulder harness. "Except is it possible you just don't remember? I forget e-mails all the time. I'll say I didn't say something and then find out I did."

"No. It isn't possible."

"Then it would seem to me someone is pretending to be you.

"Is? Have there been more?"

"Not many," she replied. "Just one here and there, warm ones thanking me for being so supportive. And let's see…?"

She searched her memory. Lights in the parking lot made her car look dark green instead of blue. Her face was in shadows and I could not read her eyes. She tapped her gloved fingers on the steering wheel while I stood looking down at her. I was freezing.

"I know what it was," she suddenly said. "Secretary Wagner wanted you to meet with him and you told me to let him know you couldn't at that time."

"What?" I exclaimed.

"This was early last week;' she added.

"E-mail again?"

"Sometimes it's the only way to get hold of people these days. His assistant e-mailed me and I e-mailed you-you were in court somewhere. Then you e-mailed me back that evening, I guess from home."

"This is crazy;' I said, my mind running after possibilities and catching nothing.

Everyone in my office had my e-mail address. But no one except me should have my password, and obviously, no one could sign on as me without it. Rose was thinking the same thing.

"I don't know how this could happen," she said, then exclaimed, "Wait a minute. Ruth sets up AOL on each person's computer."

Ruth Wilson was my computer analyst.

"Of course. And she had to have my password in'order to do that," I carried out the thought. "But Rose, she would never do anything like this."

"Never in a million years;" Rose agreed. "But she must have the passwords written down somewhere. She couldn't possibly remember all of them."

"One would think so."

"Why don't you get inside the car before you die of exposure;" she said.

"You go on home and get some rest," I replied. "I'm going to do the same thing."

"Of course you won't;" she chided me. "You'll go right back into your office and try to figure everything out."

She was right. I walked back to the building as she drove off, and I wondered how I could be so foolish as to have gone out the door without a coat. I was stiff and numb. The night guard shook his head.

"Dr. Scarpetta, you need to dress warmer than that!"

"You're absolutely right," I said.

I passed the magnetic key over the lock and the first set of glass doors clicked free, then I unlocked the one to my wing of the building. It was absolutely silent inside, and when I turned into Ruth's office, I stood for a moment, just looking around at upright microcomputers and printers, and a map on a screen that showed if the connections to our other offices were trouble-free.

The floor behind her desk was a thick hank of cables, and printouts of software programming that made no sense to me were stacked all over the place. I scanned crammed bookshelves. I walked over to filing cabinets and tried to open a drawer. Every one of them was locked.

Good for you, Ruth, I thought.

I returned to my office and tried her home number.

"Hello?" she answered.

She sounded harried. There was a baby screaming in the background, and her husband was saying something about a frying pan.

"I'm sorry to bother you at home," I said.

"Dr. Scarpetta," she was very surprised. "You're not bothering me. Frank, can you take her in the other room?"

"I've got just one quick question," I said. "Is there a place you keep all our AOL passwords?"

"Is there a problem?" she quickly replied.

"It appears someone knows my password and is signing on to AOL as me." I didn't mince words. "I want to know how someone could possibly have gotten hold of my password. Is there any way?"

"Oh, no," she said, dismayed. "Are you sure?"

"Yes:' "Obviously, you haven't told anybody what it is," she suggested.

I thought hard for a moment. Not even Lucy knew my password. Nor would she care.

"Other than you," I said to Ruth, "I can't imagine who."

"You know I wouldn't give it to anyone!"

"I believe that," I replied, and I did.

For one thing, Ruth would never jeopardize her job that way.

"I keep everyone's addresses and passwords in a computer file that no one can access," she said.

"What about a hard copy?"

"In a file in a filing cabinet, which I keep locked."

"At all times?"

She hesitated, then said, "Well, not all the time. Certainly after hours, but they're unlocked much of the day, unless I'm in and out a lot. But I'm in my office most of the time. Really, it's only when I get coffee and eat lunch in the break room."

"What's the file's name?" I asked as paranoia towered like storm clouds.

"E-mail," she replied, knowing how I was going to feel about that. "Dr. Scarpetta, I've got thousands of files filled with programming codes and updates, patches, bugs, new things coming out, you name it. If I don't label them fairly precisely, I can never find anything."

"I understand," I said. "I have the same problem:' "I can change your password first thing in the morning."

"That's a good idea. And Ruth, let's not put it anywhere that anyone can find it this time. Not in that file, okay?"

"I hope I'm not in trouble," she uneasily said as her baby continued to scream.

"You aren't, but someone is," I told her. "And maybe you can help me figure out who that is."

It didn't take much intuition on my part to immediately think of Ruffin. He was clever. It was obvious he didn't like me. Ruth routinely kept her door shut so she could concentrate. I didn't suppose it would have been hard for Ruffin to slip inside her office and shut the door while she was in the break room.

"This conversation is absolutely confidential," I said to Ruth. "You can't even tell friends or family."

"You have my word on that."

"What's Chuck's password?"

"R-O-O-S-T R. I remember because it irritated me when he wanted it assigned to him. As if he's the rooster in the henhouse," she said. "His address, as you probably know, is C-H-U-K-O-C-M-E, as in Chuck, Office of the-Chief Medical Examiner."

"And what if I were signed on and someone else tried at the same time?" I then asked.

"The person trying would be kicked off and told someone was already signed on. There would be an error message and an alert. Now the reverse isn't true. If, let's say, the bad guy's already signed on and you try, although you get the error message, he isn't alerted at all."

"So someone could try to do it while I'm already logged on, and I'm not going to know it."

"Exactly.".

"Does Chuck have a home computer?"

"He asked me one time what to get that was affordable, and I told him to try a consignment shop. I gave him the name of one."

"The name?"

"Disk Thrift. It's owned by a friend of mine."

"Any way you could call this person at home and find out if Chuck bought anything from them?"

"I can try."

"I'll be at the office for a while;" I said.

I brought up the menu on my computer and looked at the icon for AOL. I logged on without a problem, meaning no one else had done so first. I was tempted to sign on as Ruffin to see who he might be corresponding with and if it,might tell me more about what he was up to, but I was afraid. I was chilled by the thought of breaking into someone's mailbox.

I paged Marino, and when I got him on the phone, I explained the situation to him and asked his opinion about what I should do.

"Hell," he said without pause. "I'd do it. I always told you I didn't trust that little shit. And you know what else, Doc? How do you know he hadn't gone into your mail and deleted things, or even sent things to people other than Rose?"

"You're right," I said, infuriated by the idea. "I'll let you know what I find."

Ruth called back minutes later and sounded excited.

"He bought a computer and printer last month," she reported. "For about six hundred dollars. And the computer came with a modem."

"And we have AOL software here."

"Tons of it. If he didn't buy his own, he certainly could have gotten his hands on it:"

"We may have a very serious situation on our hands. It's vital you don't say a word," I reminded her again.

"I've never liked Chuck."

"And you can't say that to people either," I said.

I hung up and put my coat on and felt bad about Rose. I was certain she was upset. It wouldn't have surprised me if she had cried all the way home. She was stoical and rarely conveyed how she felt, and I knew if she thought she had hurt me, she would be undone. I went out to my car. I wanted to make her feel better and I needed her help. Chuck's e-mail would have to wait.,„ Rose had gotten weary of running a house and had moved into an apartment in the near West End, off Grove Avenue, several blocks from a cafй called Du Jour, where I now and then ate Sunday brunch. Rose lived ir~ an old three-story dark red brick building shaded by big oaks. It was a relatively safe area of town, but I always scanned my surroundings before I got out of my car. As I parked next to Rose's Honda, I noticed what looked like a dark-colored Taurus several cars away.

Someone was sitting inside it, engine and lights off. I knew that most unmarked Richmond police cars were Tauiuses these days, and I wondered if there was a reason a cop might be waiting out here in the dark, cold air. It was also possible the person was waiting for someone to come down to go somewhere, but again, one generally didn't do that with headlights and engine off.

I felt I was being watched and got my seven-shot Smith amp; Wesson revolver out of my satchel and slipped it into my coat pocket. I followed the sidewalk and caught the car's tag number on the front bumper. I committed it to memory. I felt eyes on my back.

The only way to get to Rose's third-floor apartment was to take stairs illuminated wanly by a single light overhead at each landing. I was anxious. I paused every few steps to see if anyone might be coming up behind me. No one was. Rose had hung a fresh Christmas wreath on her door, and its fragrance stirred powerful feelings inside me. I could hear Handel's music playing inside. I dug into my satchel, pulled out a pen and writing pad and jotted the tag number on it. Then I rang the bell.

"Goodness!" Rose exclaimed. "What brings you here? Do come in. What a nice surprise."

"Did you look through the peephole before you opened the door?" I quizzed her. "At least you could ask who it is."

She laughed. She was always teasing me about my security worries, which were extreme in the minds of most people because they did not live my life.

"Did you come here to test me?" she teased me once more.

"Maybe I should start doing that."

Rose's furniture was warm and perfectly polished, and although I would not call her taste formal, it was very proper and exactly arranged. Floors were the beautiful hardwood one didn't find anymore, and small Oriental rugs were spots of color on them. A gas fire was burning, and electric candles glowed in windows overlooking a grassy area where people used their Hibachis and charcoal grills in warmer weather.

Rose sat in a wing chair and I settled on the couch. I had been to her apartment only twice before, and it seemed so sad and strange to see no sign of her beloved animals. The last two of her adopted greyhounds had gone to her daughter, and her cat had died. All she had left was an aquarium with a modest number of guppies, goldflsh and mollies constantly moving around, because pets were not allowed in the building.

"I know you miss your dogs," I said, not mentioning the cat, because cats and I didn't get along. "One of these days I'm going to get a greyhound. My problem is I would want to save all of them."

I remembered hers. The poor dogs would not let you stroke their ears because they had been yanked by trainers, one of the many cruelties they suffered at dog tracks. Rose's eyes got bright with tears, and she turned her face from me and rubbed her knees.

"This cold is hard on my joints," she commented, clearing her throat. "They were getting so old. It's just as well Laurel has them now. I couldn't bear another thing dying on me. I wish you would get one. If every nice person would just get one."

The dogs were put to death by the hundreds every year when they could no longer perform up to speed. I shifted on the couch. There was so much in life that angered me.

"Can I get you hot ginseng tea that dear Simon gets for me?" She mentioned the hairstylist she adored. "Maybe something a little stronger? I've been meaning to stop and pick up shortbread cookies."

"I can't stay long," I said. "But I just wanted to drop by and make certain you're all right."

"Why, of course," she replied as if there were no reason in the world she wouldn't be.

I paused, and Rose looked at me, waiting for me to explain why I really had dropped by.

"I talked to Ruth," I began. "We're following a couple of leads and have our suspicions…"

"Which I'm sure lead right to Chuck," she announced, nodding her head. "I've always thought he's. a bad apple. And he avoids me like the plague because he knows I see right through him. It will be a cold day in hell before the likes of him will charm me."

"No one could charm you," I said. Handel's Messiah began, and intense sadness tucked itself into my heart.

Her eyes searched my face. She knew how hard last Christmas had been for me. I had spent it in Miami, where I could avoid it as much as I could. But it wasn't possible for me to get away from music and lights, not even if I fled to Cuba.

"What are you going to do this year?" she asked.

"Maybe go out west," I replied. "If it would snow here, that would be easier, but I can't stand gray skies. Rain and ice storms, Richmond weather. You know, when I first moved here, we always got at least one or two good snows every winter."

I envisioned snow piled on tree branches and blowing against my windshield, the world whited out as I drove to work even though all state offices were closed. Snow and tropical sunshine were antidepressants for me.

"It was very nice of you to check on me," my secretary said, getting up from the deep blue wing chair. "You've always worried too much about me, though."

She went into the kitchen and I heard her digging around in the freezer. When she returned to the living room, she handed me a Tupperware container with something frozen inside it.

"My vegetable soup," she said. "Just what you need tonight:' "You can't know how much," I told her with heartfelt appreciation. "I'll go home and warm it up now."

"Now, what will you do about Chuck?" she asked with a very serious expression on her face.

I hesitated. I didn't want to ask her this.

"Rose, he says you're my office snitch:' "Well, I am."

"I need you to be;" I went on. "I'd like you to do whatever it takes to find out what he's up to."

"What the little son of a bitch is up to is sabotage," said Rose, who almost never swore.

"We've got to get the evidence," I said. "You know how the state is. It's harder to fire somebody than walk on water. But he's not going to win."

She didn't respond right away. Then she said, "To start with, we mustn't underestimate him. He's not as smart as he thinks he is, but he's clever. And he has too much time to think and move about unnoticed. What's unfortunate is he knows your patterns better than anyone, better even than me, because I don't help you in the morgue-for which I'm grateful. And that's your center stage. That's where he could really ruin you."

She was right, although I couldn't bear to admit the power he had. He could swap labels or toe tags or contaminate something. He could leak lies to reporters who would forever protect his identity. I could scarcely imagine the breadth of what he could do.

"By the way," I said, getting up from the couch, "I'm fairly sure he has a computer at home, so he lied about that."

She walked me to the door, and I remembered the car parked near mine.

"Do you know anybody in the building who drives a dark Taurus?" I asked.

She frowned, perplexed. "Well, they're rather much all over the place. But no, I can't think of anyone around me who drives one."

"Possibly there's a police officer who lives in your building and might drive such a car home now and then?"

"I know nothing about it if there is. Don't get too carried away by all those little goblins that will rise up in your head if you let them. I have a firm belief about not giving a life to things, you know. The old bit about a self-fulfilled prophecy:"

"Well, it's probably nothing, but I just had an odd feel-ing when I saw this person sitting inside a dark car, engine off, lights off," I said. "I got the tag number."

"Good for you." Rose patted my back. "Why am I not surprised?"