Cruel and Unusual

7

I woke up the next morning to church bells chiming and draperies glowing with the sun. Though I'd had very little to drink the night before, I felt hung over. Lingering in bed, I fell back to sleep and saw Mark in my dreams.

When I finally got up, the kitchen was fragrant with vanilla and oranges. Lucy was grinding coffee beans.

“You're going to spoil me, and then what will I do? Merry Christmas.”

I kissed the top of her head, noticing an unusual bag of cereal on the counter. “What's this?”

“Cheshire muesli. A special treat. I brought my own supply. It's best with plain yogurt if you've got it, which you don't. So we'll have to settle for skim milk and bananas. Plus, we have fresh orange juice and decaffeinated French vanilla coffee. I guess we should call Mom and Grans.”

While I dialed my mother's number from the kitchen, Lucy went into my study to use that extension. My sister was already at my mother's, and soon the four of us were on the line, my mother complaining at great length about the weather. It was storming fiercely in Miami, she said. Torrential rains accompanied by punishing winds had begun late Christmas Eve, the morning celebrated by a grand illumination of lightning.

“You shouldn't be on the phone during an electrical storm,” I said to them. “We'll call back later.”

“You're so paranoid, Kay,” Dorothy chided. “You look at everything in terms of how it might kill somebody.”

“Lucy, tell me about your presents,” my mother interjected.

“Grans, we haven't opened them yet.”

“Wow. That was really close,” Dorothy exclaimed above crackling static. “The lights just flickered.”

“Mom, I hope you don't have a file open on your computer,” Lucy said. “Because if you do, you probably just lost whatever you were working on.”

“Dorothy, did you remember to bring butter?” my mother asked.

“Damn. I knew there was something…”

“I must have reminded you three times last night.”

“I've told you I can't remember things when you call me while I'm writing, Mother.”

“Can you imagine? Christmas Eve and would you go to mass with me? No. You stay home working on that book and then forget to bring the butter.”

“Well go out and get some.”

“And just what do you think will be open on Christmas morning?”

“Something will be.”

I looked up as Lucy walked into the kitchen.

“I don't believe it,” she whispered to me as my mother and sister continued to argue with each other.

After I hung up, Lucy and I went into my living room, where we were returned to a quiet winter morning in Virginia, bare trees still and patches of snow pristine in the shade. I did not think I could ever live in Miami again. The change of seasons was like the phases of the moon, a force that pulled me and shifted my point of view. I needed the full with the new and the nuances in between, days to be short and cold in order to appreciate spring mornings.

Lucy's present from her grandmother was a check for fifty dollars. Dorothy gave money as well, and I felt rather ashamed when Lucy opened the envelope from me and added my check to the others.

“Money seems so impersonal,” I apologized.

“It's not impersonal to me because it's what I want. You just bought another meg of memory for my computer.”

She handed me a small, heavy gift wrapped in red-and-silver paper, and could not suppress her joy when she saw the look on my face as I opened the box and parted layers of tissue paper.

“I thought you could keep your court schedule in it,” she said. “It matches your motorcycle jacket.”

“Lucy, it's gorgeous.”

I touched the black lambskin binding of the appointment book and smoothed open its creamy pages. I thought of the Sunday she had come to town, of how late she had stayed out when I'd let her take my car to the club. I bet the sneak had gone shopping.

“And this other present here is just refills for the address section and the next calendar year.”

She set a smaller gift in my lap as the telephone rang.

Marino wished me a Merry Christmas and said he wanted to drop by with my present.”

“Tell Lucy she'd better dress warmly and not to wear anything tight,” he said irritably.

“What are you talking about?”

I puzzled.

“No tight jeans or she won't be able to get cartridges in and out of her pockets. You said she wanted to learn how to shoot. Lesson one is this morning before lunch. If she misses class, it's her damn problem. What time are we eating?”

“Between one-thirty and two. I thought you were tied up”

“Yeah, well, I untied myself. I'll be over in about twenty minutes. Tell the brat it's cold as hell outside. You want to come with us?”

“Not this time. I'll stay here and cook.”

Marino's disposition was no more pleasant when he arrived at my door, and he made a great production of checking my spare revolver, a Ruger.38 with rubber grips. Depressing the thumb latch, he pushed open the cylinder and slowly spun it around, peering into each chamber. He pulled back the hammer, looked down the barrel, and then tried the trigger. While Lucy watched him in curious silence, he pontificated on the residue buildup left by the solvent I used and informed me that my Ruger probably had “spurs” that needed filing. Then he drove Lucy away in his Ford.

When they returned several hours later, their faces were rosy from the cold and Lucy proudly sported a blood blister on her trigger finger.

“How did she do?”

I asked, drying my hands on my apron.

“Not bad,” Marino said, looking past me. “I smell fried chicken.”

“No, you don't.”

I took their coats. “You smell cotoletta di tacchino alla bolognese.”

“I did better than 'not bad,'“ Lucy said. “I only missed the target twice.”

“Just keep dry firing until you stop slapping the trigger. Remember, crawl the hammer back.”

“I've got more soot on me than Santa after he's come down the chimney,” Lucy said cheerfully. “I'm going to take a shower.”

In the kitchen I poured coffee as Marino inspected a counter crowded with Marsala, fresh-grated Parmesan, prosciutto, white truffles, sauteed turkey fillets, and other assorted ingredients that were going into our meal. We went into the living room, where the fire was blazing.

“What you did was very kind,” I said. “I appreciate it more than you'll ever know.”

“One lesson's not enough. Maybe I can work with her a couple more times before she goes back to Florida.”

“Thank you, Marino. I hope you didn't go to a lot of bother and sacrifice to change your plans.”

“It was no big deal,” he said curtly.

“Apparently, you decided against dinner at the Sheraton,” I probed. “Your friend could have joined us.”

“Something came up.”

“Does she have a name?”

“Tanda.”

“That's an interesting name.”

Marino's face was turning crimson.

“What's Tanda like?”

I asked.

“You want to know the truth, she ain't worth talking about.”

Abruptly, he got up and headed down the hall to the bathroom.

I'd always been careful not to quiz Marino about his personal life unless he invited me to do so. But I could not resist this time.

“How did you and Tanda meet?”

I asked when he returned.

“The FOP dance.”

“I think it's terrific that you're getting out and meeting new people.”

“It sucks, if you really want to know. I haven't dated nobody in more than thirty years. It's like Rip Van Wrinkle waking up in another century. Women are different from what they used to be.”

“How so?”

I tried not to smile. Clearly, Marino did not think any of this was amusing.

“They're not simple anymore.”

“Simple?”

“Yeah, like Doris. What we had wasn't complicated.

Then after thirty years she suddenly splits and I have to start over. I go to this friggin' dance at the FOP because some of the guys talk me into it. I’m minding my own business when Tanda comes up to my table. Two beers later, she asks me for my phone number, if you can believe that.”

“Did you give it to her?”

“I say, 'Hey, if you want to get together, you give me your number. I'll do the calling.'

She asks me which zoo I escaped from, then invites me bowling. That's how it started. How it ended is her telling me she rear-ended somebody a couple weeks back and was charged with reckless driving. She wanted me to fix it.”

“I'm sorry.”

I fetched his present from under the tree and handed it to him. “I don't know if this will help your social life or not.”

He unwrapped a pair of Christmas-red suspenders and compatible silk tie.

“That's mighty nice, Doc. Geez.”

Getting up, he muttered in disgust, “Damn water pills,” and headed to the bathroom again. Several minutes later, he returned to the hearth.

“When was your last checkup?”

I asked.

“A couple weeks ago.”

“And?”

“And what do you think?” he said.

“You have high blood pressure, that's what I think.”

“No shit.”

“What, specifically, did your doctor tell you?”

I asked.

“It's one-fifty over one-ten, and my damn prostate's enlarged. So I'm taking these water pills. Up and down all the time feeling like I gotta go and half the time I can't. If things don't get better, he says he's gonna turp me.”

A turp was a transurethral resection of the prostate. That wasn't serious, though it wasn't much fun. Marino's blood pressure worried me. He was a prime candidate for a stroke or a heart attack.

“Plus, my ankles swell,” he went on. “My feet hurt and I get these damn headaches. I've gotta quit smoking, give up coffee, lose forty pounds, cut down on stress.”

“Yes, you've got to do all of those things,” I said firmly. “And it doesn't look to me like you're doing any of them.”

“We're only talking about changing my whole life. And you're one to talk.”

“I don't have high blood pressure and I quit smoking exactly two months and five days ago. Not to mention, if I lost forty pounds I wouldn't be here.”

He glared into the fire.

“Listen,” I said. “Why don't we work on this together? We'll both cut back on coffee and get into exercise routines.”

“I can just see you doing aerobics,” he said sourly.

“I'll play tennis. You can do aerobics.”

“If anyone so much as waves a pair of tights near me, they're dead.”

“You're not being very cooperative, Marino.”

He impatiently changed the subject. “You got a copy of the fax you told me about?”

I went to my study and returned with my briefcase. Snapping it open, I handed him the printout of the message Vander had discovered with the image enhancer.

“This was on the blank sheet of paper we found on Jennifer Deighton's bed, right?” he asked.

“That's correct.”

“I still can’t figure out why she had a blank sheet of paper on her bed with a crystal on top of it. What were they doing there?”

“I don't know,” I said. “What about the messages on her answering machine? Anything?”

“We're still running them down… We've got a lot of people to interview.”

He slipped a pack of Marlboros out of his shirt pocket and blew out a loud breath of air. “Damn.” He slapped the pack on top of the coffee table. “You're going to nag me every time I light up one of these now, aren't you?”

“No, I'll just stare at it. But I won't say a word.”

“You remember that interview of you that was on PBS a couple months back?”

“Vaguely.”

“Jennifer Deighton taped it. The tape was in her VCR and we started playing it and there you were.”

“What?” I asked, amazed.

“Of course, you weren't the only thing featured on that particular program. There was also some crap about an archaeology dig and a Hollywood movie they filmed around here.”

“Why would she tape me?”

“It's just another piece that's not fitting with anything else yet. Except the calls made from her phone the hang ups. It looks like Deighton was thinking about you before she was whacked.”

“What else have you found out about her?”

“I gotta smoke. You want me to go outside?”

“Of course not.”

“It gets weirder,” he said. “While going through her office, we came across a divorce decree. Appears she was married in 1961, got divorced two years later, and changed her name back to Deighton. Then she moved from Florida to Richmond. The name of her ex is Willie Travers, and he's one of these health nut types - you know, into whole health. Hell, I can't think of the name.”

“Holistic medicine?”

“That's it Still lives in Florida, Fort Myers Beach. I got him on the phone. Hard as hell to get much out of him, but I managed to find out a few things. He says he and Miss Deighton continued feeling friendly toward each other after they split and, in fact, continued seeing each other.”

“He came up here?”

“Travers said she'd go down there to see him, in Florida. They'd get together, as he put it, 'for old times' sake.' Last time she was down there was this past November, around Thanksgiving. I also pried out of him a little bit about Deighton's brother and sister. The sister's a lot younger, married, lives out West. The brother's the eldest, in his mid-fifties, and manages a grocery store. He had throat cancer a couple years back and his voice box was cutout”

“Wait a minute,” I said.

“Yeah. You know what that sounds like. You'd know it if you heard it. No way the guy who called you at the office was John Deighton. It was somebody else who had personal reasons for being interested in Jennifer Deighton's autopsy findings. He knew enough to get the name right. He knew enough to get it straight that he's supposed to be from Columbia, South Carolina. But he didn't know about the real John Deighton's health problems, didn't know he should sound like he's talking through a machine.”

“Does Travers know his ex-wife's death is a homicide?” I asked.

“I told him the medical examiner is still running tests.”

“And he was in Florida when she died?”

“Allegedly. I'd like to know where your friend Nicholas Grueman was when she died.”

“He has never been a friend,” I said. “How will you approach him?”

“I won’t for a while. You only get one shot with someone like Grueman. How old is he?”

“Somewhere in his sixties,” I said.

“He a big guy?”

“I haven't seen him since I was in law school.”

I got up to stir the fire.

“Back then Grueman's build was trim bordering on thin. I would describe his height as average.”

Marino did not say anything.

“Jennifer Deighton weighed one-eighty,” I reminded him. “It appears her killer yoked her and then carried her body out to her car.”

“All right. So maybe Grueman had help. You want a far out scenario? Try this one on for size. Grueman represented Ronnie Waddell, who wasn't exactly a pencil-neck. Or maybe we should say, isn't exactly a pencil-neck. Waddell's print was found inside Jennifer Deighton's house. Maybe Grueman did go to see her and he didn't go alone.”

I stared into the fire.

“By the way, I didn't see nothing in Jennifer Deighton's house that could have been the source of the feather you found,” he added. “You asked me to check.”

Just then, his pager sounded. Snapping it off his belt, he squinted at the narrow screen.

“Damn,” he complained, heading into the kitchen the phone.

“What's going… What?”

I heard him say. “Oh, Christ. You sure?”

He was silent for a moment. He sounded very tense when he said, “Don't bother. I'm standing fifteen feet from her.”

Marino ran a red light at West Cary and Windsor Way, and headed east. Grille lights flashed and scanner lights danced in the white Ford LTD. Ten-codes crackled over the radio as I envisioned Susan curled up in the wing chair, her terry cloth robe pulled tightly around her to ward off a chill that had nothing to do with the temperature in the room. I remembered the expression on her face shifting constantly like clouds, her eyes revealing no secrets to me.

I was shivering and could not seem to catch my breath. My heart beat hard in my throat. Police had found Susan's car in an alleyway off Strawberry Street. She was in the driver's seat, dead. It was unknown what she had been doing in that part of town or what might have motivated her assailant.

“What else did she say when you talked with her last night?”

Marino asked.

Nothing significant would come to mind.

“She was tense,” I said. “Something was bothering her.”

“What? You got any guesses?”

“I don't know what.”

My hands shook as I fumbled with my medical bag and checked the contents again. Camera, gloves, and everything else were accounted for. I remembered Susan once saying that if anyone tried to abduct or rape her, they'd have to kill her first.

There had been a number of late afternoons when it was just the two of us cleaning up and filling out paperwork. We had had many personal conversations about being a woman and loving men, and what it would be like to be a like to be a mother. Once we had talked about death and Susan confessed she was afraid of it.

"I'm not talking about hell, either, the fire and brimstone my father preaches about. I'm not afraid of that," she said adamantly. "I'm just afraid of this being all there is.”

"This isn't all there is," I said.

"How do you know?”

"Something's gone. You look at their faces and you can tell: Their energy has departed. The spirit didn't die. Just the body did.”

"But how do you know?” she asked again.

Easing, up on the accelerator, Marino turned onto Strawberry Street. I glanced in my side mirror. Another police car was behind us, light bar flashing red and blue. We passed restaurants and a small grocery store. Nothing was open, and the few cars out pulled over to let us pass. Near the Strawberry StreetCafe, the narrow street was lined with cruisers and marked units, and an ambulance was blocking the entrance of an alleyway. Two television trucks had parked a little farther down. Reporters moved restlessly along the perimeter cordoned off in yellow tape. Marino parked and our, doors opened at the same time. Instantly, cameras pointed our way.

I watched where Marino stepped and was right behind him. Shutters whirred, film advanced, and microphones were raised Marino's long strides did not pause and he did not answer anyone. I averted my face.

Rounding the ambulance, we ducked under the tape. The old burgundy Toyota was parked head-in midway along a narrow stretch of cobblestone covered with churned-up, dirty snow. Ugly brick walls pressed in from either side and blocked out the low sun's slanted rays. Police were taking photographs, talking, and looking around. Water slowly dripped from roofs and rusting fire escapes. The smell of garbage wafted on the damp, stirring air.

it barely registered that the young Latin-looking officer talking on a portable radio was someone I had recently met. Tom Lucero watched us as he mumbled something and got off the air. From where I stood, all I could see through the Toyota's open driver's door was a left hip and arm. A shock went through me as I recognized the black wool coat, the brush-gold wedding band, Wind black plastic watch. Wedged between the windshield and the dash was her red medical examiner's Plate.

"Tags come back to Jason Story. I guess that's her husband.” Lucero said to Marino. "She's got identification on her in her purse. The name on the driver's license is Susan Dawson Story, a twenty-eight-year-old white female.”

"What about money?”

'"Eleven dollars in her billfold and a couple of credit cards. Nothing so far to suggest robbery. You recognize her?”

Marino leaned forward to get a better look His jaw muscles bunched. "Yeah. I recognize her. This how the car was found?”

"We opened the driver's door. That's it," Lucero said, stuffing the portable radio in a pocket.

"The engine was off, doors unlocked?”

They were. Like I told you on the phone, Fritz spotted the car while on routine patrol. Uh, around fifteen hundred hours, and he noticed the M.E.’s tag in the window.”

He glanced at me. "If you go around to the passenger's side and look in, you can see blood in the area of her right ear. Someone did a real neat job.”

Marino backed away and scanned the messy snow. Don't look like we'll have much luck with footprints.”

"You got that right. It's melting like ice cream. Was when we got here.”

"And cartridge cases?”

“Zip.”

"Her family know?”

"Not yet: I thought you might want to handle this one," Lucero said.

"Just make damn sure who she is and where she worked don't leak out to the media before the family knows. Jesus.”

Marino turned his attention to me: "What do you want to do here?”

"I don't want to touch anything inside the car," I muttered, surveying the surroundings as I got out my camera. I was alert and thinking clearly but my hands would not stop shaking. "Give me a minute to look, then let's get her on a stretcher.”

"You guys ready for the doc?”

Marino asked Lucero. "We're ready.”

Susan was dressed in faded blue jeans and scuffed lace-up boots, her black wool coat buttoned to her chin. My heart constricted as I noticed the red silk scarf peeking out of her collar. She wore sunglasses and leaned back in the driver's seat as if she had gotten comfortable and dozed off: On the light gray upholstery behind her neck was a reddish stain. I moved around to the other side of the car and saw the blood Lucero had mentioned. As I began taking photographs, I paused then leaned closer to her face, detecting the faint fragrance of a distinctive masculine cologne. Her seat belt, I noted, was unfastened.

I did not touch her head until the squad had arrived and Susan's body was on a stretcher inside the back of an ambulance. I climbed in and spent several minutes looking for bullet wounds. I found one in the right temple, another in the hollow at the back of the neck, just below the hairline. I ran my gloved fingers through her chestnut hair, looking for more blood and not finding it.

Marino climbed into the back of the ambulance. "How many times was she shot?”

he asked me.

"I've found two entrances. No exits; though I can feel one bullet beneath the skin over her left temporal bone.”

He glanced tensely at his watch. "The Dawsons don't live too far from here. In Glenburnie.”

"The Dawsons?”

I peeled off my gloves.

"Her parents. I've got to talk to them. Now. Before some toad leaks something and they end up hearing about this on the damn radio or TV. I'll get a marked unit to take you home.”

“No,” I said.”

I'll go with you. I think I should.”

Streetlights were coming on as we drove away. Marino stared hard at the road, his face dangerously red.

“Damn!” he blurted, pounding his fit on the steering wheel. “Goddam! Shooting her in the head. Shooting a pregnant woman.”

I stared out the side window, my shattered thoughts filled with fragmented images and distortion.

I cleared my throat. “Has her husband been located?”

“No answer at their crib. Maybe he's with her parents. God, I hate this job. Christ, I don't want to do this. Merry friggin' Christmas. I knock on your door and you're screwed because I'm going to tell you something that will ruin your life.”

“You have not ruined anybody's life”

“Yeah, well, get ready, 'cause I'm about to.”

He turned onto Albemarle. Supercans had been rolled to the edge of the street and were surrounded by leaf bags bulging with Christmas trash. Windows glowed warmly, multi-colored tree lights filling some of them. A young father was pulling his small son along the sidewalk on a fishtailing sled. They smiled and waved at us as we passed. Glenburnie was the neighborhood of middle-class families, of young professionals, single, married, and gay. In the warm months, people sat on their porches and cooked out in their yards. They had parries and hailed each other from the sheet.

The Dawsons' modest house was Tudor style, comfortably weathered with neatly pruned evergreens in front. Windows upstairs and down were lit up, an old station wagon parked by the curb.

The bell was answered by a woman's voice on the other side of the door. “Who is it?”

“Mrs. Dawson?”

“Yes?”

“Detective Marino, Richmond RD. I need to talk with you,” he said loudly, holding his badge up to the peephole.

Locks clicked free as my pulse raced. During my various medical rotations, I had experienced patients screaming in pain as they begged me not to let them die. I had reassured them falsely, “You're going to be just fine,” as they died gripping my hand. I had said “I'm sorry” to loved ones desperate in small, airless rooms where even chaplains felt lost. But I had never delivered death to someone's door on Christmas Day.

The only resemblance I could see between Mrs. Dawson and her daughter was the strong curve of their jaws. Mrs. Dawson was sharp-featured, with short, frosted hair. She could not have weighed more than a hundred pounds and reminded me of a frightened bird. When Marino introduced me, panic filled her eyes.

“What's happened?” she barely said.

“I'm afraid I have very bad news for you, Mrs. Dawson,” Marino said. “It's your daughter, Susan. I'm afraid she's been killed.”

Small feet sounded in a nearby room, and a little girl appeared in a doorway to the right of us. She stopped and regarded us with wide blue eyes.

“Hailey, where's Grandpa?” Mrs. Dawson's voice quavered, her face ashen now.

“Upstairs.”

Hailey was a tiny tomboy in blue jeans and leather sneakers that looked brand-new. Her blond hair shone like gold and she wore glasses to straighten a lazy left eye. I guessed she was, at the most, eight.

“You go tell him to come downstairs,” Mrs. Dawson said. “And you and Charlie stay up there until I come get you.”

The child hesitated in the doorway, inserting two fingers into her mouth. She stared wary at Marino and me.

“Hailey, go on now!”

Hailey left with an abrupt burst of energy.

We sat in the kitchen with Susan's mother. Her back did not touch the chair. She did not weep until her husband walked in minutes later.

“Oh, Mack,” she said in a weak voice. “Oh, Mack.” She began to sob.

He put his arm around her, pulling her close. His face blanched and he pressed his lips together as Marino explained what had happened.

“Yes, I know where Strawberry Street is,” Susan's father said. “I don't know why she would have gone there. To my knowledge, it's not an area where she normally went. Nothing would have been open today. I don't know.”

“Do you know where her husband, Jason Story, is?” Marino asked.

“He's here.”

“Here?”

Marino glanced around.

“Upstairs, asleep Jason's not feeling well.”

“The children are whose?”

“Tom and Marie's. Tom's our son. They're visiting for the holidays and left early this afternoon. For Tidewater. To visit friends. They should be home anytime.”

He reached for his wife's hand. “Millie, these people have a lot of questions to ask. You'd better get Jason.”

“I tell you what,” Marino said. “I'd rather talk to him alone for a minute. Maybe you could take me to him?”

Mrs. Dawson nodded, hiding her face in her hands.

“I think you best check on Charlie and Hailey,” her husband said to her. “See if you can get your sister on the phone. Maybe she can come.”

His pale blue eyes followed his wife and Marino out of the kitchen. Susan's father was tall, with fine bones, his dark brown hair thick, with very little gray. His gestures were economical, his emotions well contained. Susan had gotten her looks from him and perhaps her disposition.

“Her car is old. She has nothing of value to steal, and I know she would not have been involved. Not in drugs or anything.” He searched my face.

“We don't know why this happened, Reverend Dawson.”

“She was pregnant” he said, the words catching in his throat. “How could anyone?”

“I don't know”' I said. “I don't know how.”

He coughed. “She did not own a gun.”

For a moment, I did not know what he meant. Then I realized, and reassured him, “No. The police did not find a gun. There's no evidence she did this to herself.”

“The police? You aren't the police?”

“No. I'm the chief medical examiner. Kay Scarpetta.”

He stared numbly at me.

“Your daughter worked for me.”

“Oh. Of course. I'm sorry.”

“I don't know how to comfort you,” I said with difficulty.

“I haven't begun to deal with this myself. But I'm going to do everything possible to find out what happened. I want you to know that.”

“Susan spoke of you. She always wanted to be a doctor.”

He averted his gaze, blinking back tears.

“I saw her last night. Briefly, at her home.”

I hesitated, reluctant to probe the soft places of their lives. “Susan seemed troubled. And she has not been herself at work of late.”

He swallowed, fingers laced tightly on top of the table. His knuckles were white.

“We need to pray. Would you pray with me, Dr. Scarpetta?”

He held out his hand. “Please.”

“As his fingers wrapped firmly around mine, I could not help but think of Susan's obvious disregard for her father and distrust for what he represented. Fundamentalists frightened me, too. I felt anxious shutting my eyes holding hands with the Reverend Mack Dawson as he thanked God for a mercy I saw no evidence of and claimed promises too late for God to keep. Opening my eyes, I withdrew my hand. For an uneasy moment I feared that Susan's father sensed my skepticism and wou1d question my beliefs. But the fate of my soul was foremost on his mind.

A loud voice sounded from upstairs, a muffled protest could not make out A chair scraped across the floor. The telephone rang and rang, and the voice rose again in a primal outcry of rage and pain. Dawson closed his eyes. He muttered something under his breath that rather strange. I thought he said, “Stay in your room.”

“Jason has been here the whole time.” he said. I could see his pulse pounding in his temples. “I realize he can speak for himself. But I just want you to know this from me.”

“You mentioned he's not feeling well.”

“He woke up with a cold, the beginning of one. Susan took his temperature after lunch and encouraged him to go to bed. He would never hurt… Well.” He coughed “I know the police have to ask, have to consider domestic situations. But that's not the case here.”

“Reverend Dawson, what time did Susan leave the house today, and where did she say she was going?”

"She left after dinner; after Jason went to bed. I think that would have been around one-thirty or two: She said she was going. over to a friend's house.”

"Which friend?” He stared past me. "A friend she went to high school with. Dianne Lee.”

“Where does Dianne live?”

“Northside, near the seminary.”

"Dianne’s car was found off Strawberry Street, not in Northside.”

"I suppose if somebody… She could have ended up anywhere.”

"It would be helpful to know if she ever made it to Dianne's house, and whose idea the visit was," I said.

He got up and started opening kitchen drawers. It took him three tries to find the telephone directory. His hands trembled as he turned pages and dialed a number. Clearing his throat several times, he asked to speak to Dianne. "I see. What was that?” He listened for a moment. "No, no.” His voice shook. "Things are not all right.”

I sat quietly as he explained, and I imagined him many years earlier praying and talking on the phone as he dealt with the death of his other daughter, Judy. When he returned to the table, he confirmed what I feared. Susan had not visited her friend that afternoon, nor had there been any plan for her to do so. Her friend was not in town.

"She's with her husband's family in North Carolina," Susan's father said. "She's been there several days. Why would Susan lie? She didn't have to. I've always told her no matter what, she didn't have to lie.”

"It would seem she did not want anyone to know where she was going or who she was going to see. I know that raises unhappy speculations, but we need to face them," I said gently.

He stared down at his hands.

"Were she and Jason getting along all right?”

"I don't know.”

He fought to regain his composure.

"Dear Lord, not again.”

Again he whispered curiously.

"Go to your room. Please go.”

Then he looked up at me with bloodshot eyes. "She had a twin sister. Judy died when they were in high school. "

"In a car accident, yes. Susan told me. I'm so sorry.”

"She's never gotten over it. She blamed God. She blamed me.”

"I did not get that impression," I said.’

"If she blamed anyone, it seemed to be a girl named Doreen.”

Dawson slipped out a handkerchief and quietly blew his nose. "Who?” he asked.

"The girl in high school who allegedly was a witch" He shook his head.

"She supposedly put a curse on Judy?”

But it was pointless to explain further. I could tell that Dawson did not know what I was talking about. We both turned as Hailey walked into the kitchen. She was cradling a baseball glove, her eyes frightened.

"What have you got there, darling?”

I asked, trying to smile.

She came close to me. I could smell the new leather. The glove was tied with string; a softball in the sweet spot like a large pearl inside an oyster.

"Aunt Susan gave it to me," she said in a small voice. "You got to break it in. I have to put it under my mattress. Aunt Susan says I have to for a week.”

Her grandfather reached for her arid lifted her onto his lap. He buried his nose in her hair, holding her tight. "I need for you to go to your room for a little while, sugar. Will you do that for me so I can take care of things? Just for a while?”

She nodded, her eyes not leaving me.

"What are Grandma and Charlie doing?”

"Don't know.”

She slid off his lap and reluctantly left us.

"You said that before," I said to him.

He looked lost.

"You told her to go to her room," I said. "I heard you say that earlier, mutter something about going to your room. Who were you talking to?’

He dropped his eyes. "The child is self. Self feels intensely, cries, cannot control emotions. Sometimes it is best to send self to his room as I just did Hailey. To hold together. A trick I learned. When I was a boy I learned I had to; my father did not react well if I cried.”

"It is all right to cry, Reverend Dawson.”

His eyes filled with tears. I heard Marino's footsteps on the stairs. Then he strode into the kitchen and Dawson said the phrase again, in anguish, under his breath.

Marino looked at him, baffled. "I think your son's home," he said.

Susan's father began to weep uncontrollably as car doors slammed shut out front in the wintry darkness and laugher sounded from the porch.

Christmas dinner went into the trash, the evening spent pacing about the house and talking on the phone while Lucy stayed inside my study with the door shut. Arrangements had to be made. Susan's homicide had thrown the office into a state of crisis. Her case would have to be sealed, photographs kept away from those who had known her. The police would have to go through her office and her locker. They would want to interview members of my staff.

"I can't be down there," Fielding, my deputy chief, told me over the phone. "I realize that," I said, a lump forming in my throat. "I neither expect nor want anyone down there.”

„And you?„ "I have to be.”

"Christ. I can't believe this has happened. I just can't believe it.”

Dr. Wright, my deputy chief in Norfolk, kindly agreed to drive to Richmond early the next morning. Because it was Sunday, no one else was in the building except for Vander, who had come to assist with the Luma-Lite. Had I been emotionally capable of doing Susan's autopsy, I would have refused. The worst thing I could do for her was to jeopardize her case by having the defense question the objectivity and judgment of an expert witness who also happened to be her boss. So I sat at a desk in the morgue while Wright worked. From time to time he commented to me above the clatter of steel instruments and running water as I stared at the cinderblock wall. I did not touch any of her paperwork of label a single test tube. I did not turn around to look.

Once I asked him, "Did you smell anything on her or her clothes? A cologne of some sort?”

He stopped what he was doing and I heard him walk several steps. "Yes. Definitely around the collar of her coat and on the scarf.”

"Does it smell like men's cologne to you?”

"Hmm. I think so. Yes, I'd say the fragrance is masculine. Perhaps her husband wears cologne?”

Wright was near retirement age, a balding, potbellied man with a West Virginian accent. He was a very capable forensic pathologist and knew exactly what I was contemplating.

"Good question," I said. "I'll ask Marino to check it, but her husband was ill yesterday and went to bed after lunch. That doesn't mean he didn't have on cologne. It doesn't mean her brother or father didn't have on cologne that got on her collar when they hugged her.”

"This looks small-caiiber. No exit wounds.”

I dosed my eyes and listened. "The wound in her right temple is three-sixteenths of an inch with half an inch of smoke - an incomplete pattern. A little bit of stippling and some powder but most will be lost in her hair. There's some powder in the temporalis muscle. Nothing much in bone or dura. "

"Trajectory?” I asked.

"The bullet goes through the posterior aspect of the right frontal lobe, travels across anterior to basal ganglia and strikes the left temporal bone, and gets hung up in muscle under the skin. And we're talking about a plain lead bullet, uh, copper coated but not jacketed.”

"And it didn't fragment?” I asked.

"No. Then we've got this second wound here at the nape of the neck. Black, burned abraded margin with muzzle mark. A little laceration about one-sixteenth of an inch at the edges. Lots of powder in the occipital muscles.”

"Tight contact?”

"Yes. Looks to, me like he pressed the barrel hard against her neck. The bullet enters at the junction of the foramen magnum and C-one and takes out the cervicalmedullary junction. Travels right up into the pons.”

"What about the angle?” I asked.

"It's angled up quite a bit. I'd say that if she was sitting in the car at the time she received this wound, she was slumped forward or had her head bowed.”

"That's not the way she was found," I said. "She was leaning back in the seat.”

"Then I guess he positioned her that way;" Wright commented. "After he shot her. And I'd say that this shot that went through the pons was fired last. I would speculate she was already incapacitated, maybe slumped over when she was shot the second time.”

At intervals I could handle it, as if we were not referring to anyone I knew. Then a tremor would go through me, tears fighting to break free. Twice I had to walk outside and stand in the parking lot in the cold. When he got to the ten week-old fetus in her womb, a girl, I retreated to my office upstairs. According to Virginia law, the unborn child was not a person and therefore could not have been murdered because you cannot murder a non person.

"Two for the price of one," Marino said bitterly over the phone later in the day.

"I know," I said, digging a bottle of aspirin out of my pocketbook.

"In court the damn jurors won't be told she was pregnant. It won't be admissible, don't count he murdered a pregnant woman.”

"I know," I said again. 'Wright's about done. Nothing significant turned up during her external exam. No trace to speak of, nothing that jumped out. What's going on at your end?”

"Susan was definitely going through something, Marino said.

"Problems with her husband?”

"According to him, her problem was with you. He claims you were doing weird shit like calling her a lot at home, hassling her. And sometimes she'd come home from work acting half crazy, like. she was scared shitless about something.”

"Susan and I did not have a problem.”

I swallowed three aspirin with a mouthful of cold coffee.

"I'm just telling you what the guy's saying. Other thing is - and I think you'll find this interesting - looks like we got us another feather. Not that I'm saying it links Deighton and this one, Doc, or that I'm necessarily thinking that way. But damn. Maybe we're dealing with some squirrel who wears down-filled gloves, a jacket. I don't know. It's just not typical. Only other time I've ever found feathers was when this drone broke into a crib by smashing out a window and cut his down jacket on broken glass.”

My head hurt so much I felt sick to my stomach.

"What we found in Susan's car is real small - a little piece of white down," he went on. "It was clinging to the upholstery of the passenger's door. On the inside, near the floor, a couple inches below the armrest"

"Can you get that to me?” I asked.

"Yeah. What are you going to do?”

"Call Benton.”

"I've been trying, dammit. I think he and the wife went out of town.”

"I need to ask him if Minor Downey can help us.”

"You talking about a person or a fabric softener?”

"Minor Downey with hairs and fibers at the FBI labs. His specialty is feather analysis.”

"And his name's Downey, it really is?” Marino was incredulous.

"It really is," I said.