Unnatural Exposure

Chapter Thirteen

Sheriff Rob Roy was a legend in Sussex County and ran uncontested every election year. He had been to my morgue many times, and I thought he was one of the finest law enforcement officers I knew. At half-past six, I found him at the Virginia Diner, where he was sitting at the local table, which literally was where the locals gathered. This was in a long room of red-checked cloths and white chairs, and he was eating a fried ham sandwich and drinking coffee, black, his portable radio upright on the table and full of chatter.

'Can't do that, no sir. Then what? They just keep selling crack, that's what,' he was saying to a gaunt weathered man in a John Deere cap.

'Let 'em.'

'Let 'em?' Roy reached for his coffee, as wiry and bald as he ever was. 'You can't mean that.'

'I sure as hell can.'

'Might I interrupt?' I said, pulling out a chair.

Roy's mouth fell open, and for an instant he did not believe whom he was looking at.

'Well, I'll be damned.' He stood and shook my hand. 'What in tarnation are you doing out in these parts?'

'Looking for you.'

'If you'll excuse me.' The other man tipped his hat to me and got up to leave.

'Don't you tell me you're out here on business,' the sheriff said.

'What else would it be?'

He was sobered by my mood. 'Something I don't know about?'

'You know,' I said.

'Well, what then? What do you want to eat? I recommend the fried chicken sandwich,'

he said as a waitress appeared.

'Hot tea.' I wondered if I would ever eat again.

'You don't look like you're feeling too good.'

'I feel like shit.'

'There's this bug going around.'

'You don't even know the half of it,' I said.

'What can I do?' He leaned closer to me, his attention completely focused.

'I'm posting bond for Keith Pleasants,' I said. 'Now this obviously won't happen before tomorrow, I'm sorry to say. But I think you need to understand, Rob, that this is an innocent man who has been set up. He's being persecuted because Investigator Ring is on a witch hunt and wants to make a name for himself.'

Roy looked baffled. 'Since when are you defending inmates?'

'Since whenever they aren't guilty,' I said. 'And this guy is no more a serial killer than you or I. He didn't try to elude the police and probably wasn't even speeding. Ring's hassling him and lying. Look how high the bond was set for a traffic violation.'

He was silent, listening.

'Pleasants has an old, infirm mother who has no one to take care of her. He's about to lose his job. Now I know Ring's uncle is the secretary of public safety, and he's also a former sheriff,' I said. 'And I know how that goes, Rob. I need you to help me out here. Ring has got to be stopped.'

Roy pushed his plate away as his radio called him. 'You really believe that.'

'Yes, I do.'

'This is fifty-one,' he said into the radio, adjusting his belt and the revolver on it.

'We got anything on that robbery yet?' a voice came back.

'Still waiting for it.'

He signed off and said to me, 'You got no doubt in your mind that this boy didn't commit any crime.'

I nodded again. 'No doubt. The killer who dismembered that lady communicates with me on the Internet. Pleasants doesn't even know what that is. There's a very big picture that I can't get into now. But believe me, what's going on has nothing to do with this kid.'

'You're sure about Ring. I mean, you got to be if I'm going to do this.' His eyes were steady on mine.

'How many times do I have to say it?'

He slammed his napkin down on the table. 'Now, this really makes me mad.' He scooted back his chair. 'I don't like it when an innocent person's locked up in my jail and some cop's out there making the rest of us look bad.'

'Do you know Kitchen, the man who owns the landfill?' I said.

'Oh sure. We're in the same lodge.' He pulled out his wallet.

'Someone needs to talk to him so Keith doesn't lose his job. We have to make this thing right,' I said.

'Believe me, I'm going to.'

He left money on the table and strode angrily out the door. I sat long enough to finish my tea, looking around at displays of striped candy, barbecue sauce and peanuts of every description. My head hurt and my skin was hot when I found a grocery store on

460 and stopped for milk, Hershey's syrup, fresh vegetables and soup.

I charged up and down aisles, and next thing I knew my cart was full of everything from toilet paper to deli meats. Then I got out a map and the address Pleasants had given to me. His mother was not too far off the main route, and when I arrived she was asleep.

'Oh dear,' I said from the porch. 'I didn't mean to get you up.'

'Who is it?' She peered blindly into the night as she unhooked the door.

'Dr Kay Scarpetta. You have no reason…'

' What kind of doctor?'

Mrs Pleasants was wizened and stooped, her face wrinkled like crepe paper. Long gray hair floated like gossamer, and I thought of the landfill and the old woman deadoc had killed.

'You can come on in.' She shoved open the door and looked frightened. 'Is Keith all right? Nothing happened to him, did it?'

'I saw him earlier, and he's fine,' I assured her. 'I brought groceries.' I had the bags in my hands.

'That boy.' She shook her head, motioning me into her small, tidy home. 'What would I do? You know, he's all I've got in this world. When he was born I said, "Keith, it's just you."'

She was scared and upset and didn't want me to know.

'Do you know where he is?' I gently said.

We entered her kitchen with its old, squat refrigerator and gas stove, and she did not answer me. She started putting groceries away, fumbling with cans and dropping celery and carrots to the floor.

'Here. Let me help,' I tried.

'He didn't do anything wrong.' She began to cry. 'I know he didn't. And that policeman won't leave him be, always coming over, banging on the door.'

She stood in the middle of her kitchen, wiping her face with her hands.

'Keith says you like chocolate milk, and I'm going to make you one. It's just what the doctor ordered.'

I fetched a glass and a spoon from the drain board.

'He'll be home tomorrow,' I said. 'And I don't imagine you'll be hearing from

Investigator Ring anymore.'

She stared at me as if I were a miracle.

'I just wanted to make sure you have everything you need until your son gets here,' I

said, handing her the glass of chocolate milk mixed medium dark.

'I'm just trying to figure out who you are,' she finally said. 'This is mighty good. Nothing in life any better.' She sipped and smiled and took her time.

I briefly explained how I knew Keith and what I did professionally, but she did not understand. She assumed I was sweet on him and issued medical licenses for a living. On my way home, I played CDs loudly to keep me awake as I drove through thick darkness, where for long stretches there was not a single light except stars. I reached for the phone.

Wingo's mother answered and told me he was sick in bed. But she got him on the line.

'Wingo, I'm worried about you,' I said with feeling.

'I feel terrible.' He sounded like it. 'I guess you can't do anything for the flu.'

'You're immunosuppressed. When I talked to Dr Riley last, your CD4 cell count was not good.' I wanted him to face reality. 'Describe your symptoms to me.'

'My head's killing me, my neck and back are killing me. Last time my temperature was taken it was a hundred and four. I'm so thirsty all the time.'

Everything he said was setting off alarms in my head, for the symptoms also described the early stages of smallpox. But if his exposure was the torso, I was surprised he hadn't gotten sick before now, especially in light of his compromised condition.

'You haven't touched one of those sprays we got at the office,' I said.

'What sprays?'

'The Vita facial sprays.'

He was clueless, and then I remembered that he was out of the office much of today. I

explained what had happened.

'Oh my God,' he said suddenly, as fear shot through both of us. 'One came in the mail. Mom had it on the kitchen counter.'

'When?' I said in alarm.

'I don't know. A few days ago. When was that? I don't know. We' d never seen anything so fancy. Imagine, something sweet to cool your face.'

That made twelve canisters deadoc had delivered to my staff, and twelve had been his message to me. It was the number of full-time people in my central office, if I included myself. How could he know such trivia as the size of my staff, and even some of their names and where they lived, if he were far away and anonymous?

I dreaded my next question because I already thought I knew. 'Wingo, did you touch it in any way?'

'I tried it. Just to see.' His voice was shaking badly and he was choking from coughing fits. 'When it was sitting there. I picked it up one time, just to see. It smelled like roses.'

'Who else in your house has tried it?'

'I don't know.'

'I want you to make certain no one touches that canister. Do you understand?'

'Yes.' He was sobbing.

'I'm going to send some people to your house to pick it up and take care of you and your family, okay?'

He was crying too hard to answer.

When I got home, it was minutes past midnight, and I was so out of sorts and sick that I did not know what to do first. I called Marino and Wesley, and Fujitsubo. I told everybody what was happening and that Wingo and his family needed a team at their home immediately. My bad news was returned by theirs. The girl on Tangier who had gotten sick had died, and now a fisherman had the disease. Depressed and feeling like hell, I checked my e-mail, and deadoc was there in his small, mean way. I was glad. His message had been sent while Keith Pleasants was in jail.

mirror mirror on the wall where have you been

'You bastard,' I screamed at him.

The day was too much. All of it was too much, and I was achy and woozy and completely fed up. So I should not have gone into that chat room, where I waited for him as if this were the O.K. Corral. I should have left it for another time. But I made my presence known and paced in my mind as I waited for the monster to appear. He did.

DEADOC: toil and trouble SCARPETTA: What do you want? DEADOC: we are angry tonight SCARPETTA: Yes, we are.

DEADOC: why should you care about ignorant fishermen and their ignorant families and those inept people who work for you

SCARPETTA: Stop it. Tell me what you want to make this stop. DEADOC: it s too late the damage is done it was done long before this SCARPETTA: What was done to you?

But he did not answer. Oddly, he did not leave the room, but he did not respond to any further questions from me. I thought of Squad 19 and prayed they were listening and following from trunk to trunk, tracing him to his lair. Half an hour passed. I finally logged off as my telephone rang.

'You're a genius!' Lucy was so excited she was hurting my ears. 'How the hell have you managed to keep him on that long?'

'What do you mean?' I asked, amazed. 'Eleven minutes so far. You win the prize.'

'I was only on with him maybe two minutes.' I tried to cool my forehead with the back of my hand. 'I don't know what you're talking about.'

But she didn't care. 'We nailed the son of a bitch!' She was ecstatic. 'A campground in

Maryland, agents from Salisbury already en route. Janet and I gotta plane to catch.' Before I got up the next morning, the World Health Organization put out another international alert about Vita aromatic facial spray. WHO reassured people that this virus would be eliminated, that we were working on the vaccine around the clock and would have it soon. But the panic began anyway.

The virus, dubbed by the press Mutantpox, was on the cover of Newsweek and Time, and the Senate was forming a subcommittee as the White House contemplated emergency measures. Vita was distributed in New York, but the manufacturer was actually French. The obvious concern was that deadoc was making good on his threat. Although there were yet no reports of the disease in France, economic and diplomatic

relations were strained as a large plant was forced to shut down, and accusations about where the tampering was done were volleyed back and forth between countries. Watermen were trying to flee Tangier in their fishing vessels, and the Coast Guard

had called in more backups from stations as far south as Florida. I did not know all the details, but based on what I had heard, there was a standoff between law enforcement and Tangiermen in the Tangier Sound, boats anchored and going nowhere as winter winds howled.

Meanwhile, CDC had deployed an isolation team of doctors and nurses to Wingo's house, and word was out. Headlines screamed and people were evacuating a city that would be difficult, if not impossible, to quarantine. I was as distressed and sick as I'd ever been in my life, drinking hot tea in a bathrobe early Friday morning.

My fever had peaked at a hundred and two, and Robitussin DM didn't do a thing except make me vomit. Muscles in my neck and back hurt as if I had been playing football against people with clubs. But I could not go to bed. There was far too much to do. I called a bondsman and received the bad news that the only way to get Keith Pleasants out of jail was for me to drive downtown and pay in person. So I went out to my car, only to have to turn around ten minutes later because I' d left my checkbook on the table.

'God, help me please,' I muttered as I sped up.

Rubber squealed as I drove too fast through my neighborhood, and then moments later, back out, flying around corners in Windsor Farms. I wondered what had happened in Maryland during the night as I worried about Lucy, for whom every

event was an adventure. She wanted to use guns and go on foot pursuit, fly helicopters and planes. I feared such a spirit would be crushed in its prime, because I knew too much about life and how it ended. I wondered if deadoc had been caught, but believed if he had, I would have been told.

I had never needed a bondsman in my life, and this one, Vince Peeler, worked out of a shoe repair shop on Broad Street, along a strip of abandoned stores with nothing in their windows but graffiti and dust. He was a short, slight man with waxed black hair and a leather apron. Seated at an industrial-sized Singer sewing machine, he was stitching a new sole on a shoe. As I shut the door he gave me the piercing look of one accustomed to recognizing trouble.

'You Dr Scarpetta?' he asked as he sewed.

'Yes.'

I got out my checkbook and a pen, not feeling the least bit friendly as I wondered how many violent people this man had helped back out on the streets.

'That will be five hundred and thirty dollars,' he said. 'If you want to use a credit card, add three percent.'

He got up and came to his scarred counter piled with shoes and tins of Kiwi paste. I

could feel his eyes crawling over me.

'Funny, I thought you'd be a lot older,' he considered. 'You know, you read about people in the news and sometimes get flat-out wrong impressions.'

'He'll be freed today.' It was an order as I tore out the check and handed it to him.

'Oh, sure.' His eyes darted and he looked at his watch.

'When?'

'When?' he echoed rhetorically.

'Yes,' I said. 'When will he be freed?' He snapped his fingers. 'Like that.'

'Good,' I said as I blew my nose. 'I'm going to be watching for him to be freed like that.' I snapped my fingers, too. 'And if he isn't? Guess what? I'm also a lawyer and in a really, really shitty mood. And I'll come after you. Okay?'

He smiled at me and swallowed.

'What kind of lawyer?' he asked.

'The kind you don't want to know,' I said as I went out the door.

I got to the office maybe fifteen minutes later, and my pager vibrated and the phone rang as I sat behind my desk. Before I could do anything, Rose suddenly appeared and looked unusually stressed.

'Everybody's looking for you,' she said.

'They always are.' I frowned at the number on my pager's display. 'Now who the hell is that?'

'Marino's on his way here,' she went on. 'They're sending a helicopter. To the helipad at MCV. USAMRIID's in the air right now, heading here. They've let the Baltimore Medical Examiner's office know a special team's going to have to handle this, that the body will have to be autopsied in Frederick.'

I gave her my eyes as my blood seemed to freeze. 'Body?'

'Apparently there's some campground where the FBI traced a call.'

'I know about that.' I had no patience. 'In Maryland.'

'They think they've found the killer's camper. I'm not clear on all the details. But it has what might be a lab of some type. And there's a body inside.'

I couldn't believe what I was hearing. 'Whose body?'

'They think, his. A possible suicide. Shot.' She peered at me over the top of her glasses, and shook her head. 'You should be home in bed with a cup of my chicken soup.'

Marino picked me up in front of my office as wind gusted through downtown and whipped state flags on tops of buildings. I knew instantly that he was angry when he pulled out before I' d barely shut the door. Then he had nothing to say.

'Thanks,' I said, unwrapping a cough drop.

'You're still sick.' He turned onto Franklin Street.

'I certainly am. Thank you for asking.'

'I don't know why I'm doing this,' he said, and he was not in uniform. 'Last thing I

want to do is get near some goddamn lab where someone's been making viruses.'

'You'll have special protection,' I replied.

'I should probably have it now, being around you.'

'I have the flu and am no longer infectious. Trust me. I know these things. And don't be mad at me, because I have no intention of putting up with it.'

'You'd better hope the flu's what you got.'

'If I had something worse, I would be getting worse and my fever would be higher. I

would have a rash.'

'Yeah, but if you're already sick, don't that mean you're more likely to catch something else? Like, I don't know why you want to be making this trip. 'Cause I sure the fuck don't. And I don't appreciate being dragged into it.'

'Then drop me off and be on your way,' I said. 'Don't even think about whining to me right now. Not when the entire world's going to hell.'

'How's Wingo?' he asked in a more conciliatory tone.

'I'm frankly scared to death for him,' I replied.

We drove through MCV, turning into a helipad behind a fence where patients and organs arrived when they were medflighted to the hospital. USAMRIID had not arrived yet, but in moments we could hear the powerful Blackhawk, and people in

cars and walking along sidewalks stopped and stared. Several drivers pulled off the road to watch the magnificent machine darken the sky as it hammered in, blasting grass and debris as it landed.

The door slid open and Marino and I climbed inside, where crew seats were already occupied by scientists from USAMRIID. We were surrounded by rescue gear, and another portable isolator that was collapsed like an accordion. I was handed a helmet with a microphone, and I put this on and fastened my five-point harness. Then I helped Marino with his as he perched primly on a fold-down seat not built for people his size.

'God knows I hope reporters don't get wind of this,' someone said as the heavy door shut.

I plugged the cord of my microphone into a port in the ceiling. 'They will. Probably already have.'

Deadoc liked attention. I could not believe he would leave this world silently, or without his presidential apology. No, there was something else in store for us, and I did not want to imagine what that might be. The trip to Janes Island State Park was less than an hour, but complicated by the fact that the campground was densely wooded with pines. There was nowhere to land.

Our pilots set us down at the Coast Guard station in Crisfield, in a marina called Somer's Cove, where sailboats and yachts battened down for winter bobbed on the dark blue ruffled water of the Little Annemessex River. We went inside the tidy brick station long enough to put on exposure suits and life vests while Chief Martinez briefed us.

'We got a lot of problems going at the same time,' he was saying as he paced the carpet inside the communication room, where all of us were gathered. 'For one thing, Tangier folk have kin here, and we've had to station armed guards at roads leading out of town because now CDC is concerned about Crisfield people going anywhere.'

'No one's gotten sick here,' Marino said, as he struggled to get cuffs over his boots.

'No, but I'm worried that at the very start of this thing, some people snuck through the cracks, got out of Tangier and came here. Point being, don't expect much friendliness in these parts.'

'Who's at the campground?' someone else asked.

'Right now, the FBI agents that found the body.'

'What about other campers?' Marino said.

'Here's what I've been told,' Martinez said. 'When the agents went in, they found maybe half a dozen campers and only one with a phone hookup. That was campsite sixteen, and they banged on the door. Nothing, so they look in a window and see the body on the floor.'

'The agents didn't go inside?' I said.

'No. Realizing it might be the perp's, they worried it could be contaminated and didn't. But I'm afraid one of the rangers did.'

'Why?' I asked.

'You know what they say. Curiosity killed the cat. Apparently one of the agents had gone to the airstrip where you landed to pick up two other agents. Whatever. At some point, no one was looking and the ranger went inside, came right back out like a ball of fire. Said there was some kind of monster in there straight out of Stephen King. Don't ask me.' He shrugged and rolled his eyes.

I looked at the USAMRIID team.

'We'll take the ranger back with us,' said a young man whose Army pins identified him as a captain. 'By the way, my name is Clark. This is my crew,' he said to me.

'They'll take good care of him, put him in quarantine, keep an eye on him.'

'Campsite sixteen,' Marino said. 'We know anything about who rented that?'

'We don't have those details yet,' Martinez said. 'Everybody suited up?' He scanned us and it was time to go.

The Coast Guard took us in two Boston Whalers because where we were going was too shallow for a cutter or patrol boat. Martinez was piloting mine, standing up and calm as if racing forty miles an hour on choppy waters was a very normal thing to do. I honestly thought I might sail overboard at any moment as I held hard to the rail, sitting on the side. It was like riding a mechanical bull, air rushing so fast into my nose and mouth, I could barely breathe.

Marino was across the boat from me and looked like he might get sick. I tried to mouth a reassurance to him, but he stared blankly at me as he held on with all his strength. We eventually slowed in a cove called Flat Cat, thick with cat-tails and spartina grass, where there were NO WAKE signs as the park got near. I could see nothing but pines. Then as we got closer, there were paths and bathrooms, a small ranger station, and only one camper peeking through. Martinez glided us into the pier, and another Guardsman tied us to a piling as the engine quit.

'I'm gonna puke,' Marino said in my ear as we clumsily climbed out.

'No you're not.' I gripped his arm.

'I ain't going inside that trailer.'

I turned around and looked at his wan face.

'You're right. You're not,' I said. 'That's my job, but first we need to locate the ranger.' Marino stalked off before the second boat had docked, and I looked through the woods toward the camper that was deadoc's. Rather old and missing whatever had towed it, it was parked as far from the rangers' station as was possible, tucked in the shadow of loblolly pines. When all of us were ashore, the USAMRIID team passed out the familiar orange suits, air packs and extra four-hour batteries

'Here's what we're doing.' It was the USAMRIID team leader named Clark who spoke.

'We suit up and get the body out.'

'I would like to go in first,' I said. 'Alone.'

'Right.' He nodded. 'Then we see if there's anything hazardous in there, which hopefully there's not. We get the body out, and the camper's hauled out of here.'

'It's evidence,' I said, looking at him. 'We can't just haul it out of here.'

I knew what he was thinking by the look on his face. The killer may be dead, the case closed. The camper was a biological hazard and should be burned.

'No,' I said to him. 'We don't close this so quickly. We can't.'

He hesitated, blowing out in frustration as he stared off at the camper.

'I'll go in,' I said. 'Then I'll tell you what we need to do.'

'Fair enough.' He raised his voice again. 'Guys? Let's go. No one inside but the M.E. until you hear otherwise.'

They followed us through the forest, the portable isolator in our wake, an eerie caisson not meant for this world. Pine needles were crisp beneath my feet, like shredded wheat, and the air was sharp and clean as the camper got closer. It was a Dutchman travel trailer, maybe eighteen feet long, with a fold-out orange-striped awning.

'That's old. Eight years, I bet,' said Marino, who knew about such things.

'What would it take to tow it?' I asked as we put on our suits.

'A pickup,' he said. 'Maybe a van. This doesn't need nothing with a lot of horsepower. What are we supposed to do? Put these over everything else we already got on?'

'Yes,' I said, zipping up. 'What I'd like to know is what happened to the vehicle that hauled this thing here.'

'Good question,' he said, huffing as he struggled. 'And where's the license plate?'

I had just turned on my air when a young man emerged from trees in a green uniform and smoky hat. He seemed rather dazed as he looked at all of us in our orange hoods and suits, and I sensed his fear. He did not get close to us as he introduced himself as the night shift park ranger.

Marino spoke to him first. 'You ever see the person staying in there?'

'No,' the ranger said.

'What about guys on the other shifts?'

'No one remembers seeing anyone, just lights on at night sometimes. Hard to say. As you can see it's parked pretty far from the station. You could go out to the showers or whatever and not necessarily be noticed.'

'No other campers here?' I asked over the rush of air inside my hood.

'Not now. There were maybe three other people when I found the body, but I

encouraged them to leave because there might be some kind of disease.'

'Did you question them first?' Marino asked, and I could see he was irritated by this young ranger who had just chased off all of our witnesses.

'Nobody knew a thing, except one person did think he ran into him.' He nodded at the camper. 'Evening before last. In the bathroom. Big grubby guy with dark hair and a beard.'

'Taking a shower?' I asked.

'No, ma'am.' He hesitated. 'Taking a leak.'

'Doesn't the camper have a bathroom?'

'I really don't know.' He hesitated again. 'To tell you the truth, I didn't stay in there. Minute I saw that. Well, whatever it was. I was gone like a second.'

'And you don't know what towed this thing?' Marino then asked.

The ranger was looking very uncomfortable now. 'This time of year it's usually quiet out here, and dark. I had no reason to notice what vehicle it was hooked up to, and in fact don't recall there even being one.'

'But you got a plate number.' Marino's stare was unfriendly through his hood.

'Sure do.' Relieved, the ranger pulled a folded piece of paper from his pocket. 'Got his registration right here.' He opened it. 'Ken A. Perley, Norfolk, Virginia.'

He handed the paper to Marino, who sarcastically said, 'Oh good. The name the asshole stole off a credit card. So I'm sure the plate number you got is accurate, too. How did he pay?'

'Cashier's check.'

'He gave this to someone in person?' Marino asked.

'No. He made the reservation by mail. No one ever saw anything except the paperwork in your hand. Like I said, we never saw him.'

'What about the envelope this thing came in?' Marino said. 'Did you save it so maybe we got a postmark?'

The ranger shook his head. He nervously glanced at suited scientists, who were listening to his every word. He stared at the trailer and wet his lips.

'You mind my asking what's in there. And what's going to happen to me 'cause I went in?' His voice cracked and he looked like he might cry.

'It could be contaminated with a virus.' I said to him. 'But we don't know that for sure. Everybody here is going to take care of you.'

'They said they were going to lock me up in some room, like solitary confinement.' Fear erupted, his eyes wild, voice loud. 'I want to know exactly what's in there that I might have got!'

'You'll be in exactly the same thing I was last week,' I assured him. 'A nice room with nice nurses. For a few days of observation. That's all.'

'Think of it as a vacation. It really ain't that big of a deal. Just because people are in these suits, don't go getting hinky,' Marino said as if he were one to talk.

He went on as if he were the great expert in infectious diseases, and I left the two of them and approached the camper alone. For a moment, I stood within feet of it and looked around. To my left were acres of trees, then the river where our boats were moored. Right of me, through more trees, I could hear the sounds of a highway. The camper was parked on a soft floor of pine needles, and what I noticed first was the scraped area on the white-painted tongue.

Getting close, I squatted and rubbed gloved fingers over deep gouges and scrapes in aluminum in an area where the Vehicle Identification Number, or VIN, should have been. Near the roof, I noticed a patch of vinyl had been scorched, and decided someone had taken a propane torch to the second VIN. I walked around to the other side.

The door was unlocked and not quite shut because it had been pried open by some sort of tool, and my nerves began to sing. My head cleared and I became completely focused, the way I got when evidence was screaming a different story than witnesses

claimed. Mounting metal steps, I walked inside and stood very still as I looked around at a scene that might mean nothing to most, but to me confirmed a nightmare. This was deadoc's factory.

First, the heat was up as high as it would go, and I turned it off, startled when a pathetic white creature suddenly hopped across my feet. I jumped and gasped as it stupidly ran into a wall, and then sat, quivering and panting. The pitiful laboratory rabbit had been shaved in patches and scarified with infection, his eruptions horrible and dark. I noticed his wire cage, and that it seemed to have been knocked off a table, the door wide open.

'Come here.' Squatting, I held out my hand as he watched me with pink-rimmed eyes, long ears twitching.

Carefully, I inched my way closer because I could not leave him out. He was a living source of propagating disease.

'Come on, you poor little thing,' I said to the ranger's monster. 'I promise I won't hurt you.'

Then I gently had him in my hands, his heart beating staccato as he violently trembled. I returned him to his cage, then went to the rear of the camper. The doorway I stepped through was small, the body inside practically filling the bedroom. The man was facedown on gold shag carpet that was stained dark from blood. His hair was curly

and dark, and when I turned him over, rigor mortis had come and already passed. He reminded me of a lumberjack in a filthy pea coat and trousers. His hands were huge with dirty nails, his beard and mustache unkempt.

I undressed him from the waist up to check the pattern of livormortis, or blood settling by gravity after death. Face and chest were reddish purple, with areas of blanching where his body had been against the floor. I saw no indication that he had been moved after death. He had been shot once in the chest at close range, possibly with the Remington double-barreled shotgun by his side, next to his left hand.

The spread of pellets was tight, forming a large hole with scalloped edges in the center of his chest. White plastic filler from the shotgun clung to clothing and skin,

which again did not indicate a contact wound. Measuring the gun and his arms, I did not see how he could have reached the trigger. I saw nothing to indicate that he had rigged up anything to help him. Checking pockets, I found no wallet, no identification, only a Buck knife. The blade was scratched and bent.

I spent no more time with him but came outside, and the team from USAMRIID was restless, like people waiting to go somewhere and afraid they're going to miss their flight. They stared as I came down the steps, and Marino hung back. He was almost lost in trees, orange arms folded across his chest, the ranger standing beside him.

'This is a completely contaminated crime scene,' I announced. 'We have a dead white male with no identification. I need someone to help me get the body out. It needs to be contained.' I looked at the captain.

'It goes back with us,' he said.

I nodded. 'Your guys can do the autopsy and maybe get someone from the Baltimore Medical Examiner's office to witness. The camper's another problem. It's got to go somewhere it can be worked up safely. Evidence needs to be collected and decontaminated. This, frankly, is out of my range. Unless you have a containment facility that can accommodate something this big, maybe we'd better get this to Utah.'

'To Dugway?' he said, dubiously.

'Yes,' I said. 'Maybe Colonel Fujitsubo can help with that.'

Dugway Proving Ground was the Army's major range and test facility for chemical and biological defense. Unlike USAMRIID, which was in the heart of urban America,

Dugway had the vast land of the Great Salt Lake desert for testing lasers, smart bombs, smoke obscurance or illumination. More to the point, it had the only test chamber in the United States capable of processing a vehicle as large as a battle tank.

The captain thought for a moment, his eyes going from me to the camper as he made up his mind and formalized a plan.

'Frank, get on the phone and let's get this mobilized ASAP,' he said to one of the scientists. 'The colonel will have to work with the Air Force on transport, get something here fast because I don't want this thing sitting out here all night. And we're going to need a flatbed truck, a pickup truck.'

'Should be able to get that around here, with all the seafood they ship,' Marino said.

'I'll get on it.'

'Good,' the captain went on. 'Somebody get me three body bags and the isolator.' Then he said to me, 'I'll bet you need a hand.'

'I certainly do,' I said, and both of us began walking toward the camper.

I pulled open the bent aluminum door, and he followed me inside, and we did not linger as we passed through to the back. I could tell by Clark's eyes that he had never seen anything like this, but with his hood and air pack, at least he did not have to deal with the stench of decomposing human flesh. He knelt at one end and I at the other, the body heavy and the space impossibly cramped.

'Is it hot in here or is it just me?' he said loudly as we struggled with rubbery limbs.

'Someone turned the heat up as high as it would go.' I was already out of breath. 'To hasten viral contamination, decomposition. A popular way to screw up a crime scene. All right. Let's zip him in. This is going to be tight, but I think we can do it.'

We started working him into a second pouch, our hands and suits slippery with blood. It took us almost thirty minutes to get the body inside the isolator, and my muscles were trembling as we carried it out. My heart was pounding and I was dripping sweat. Outside, we were thoroughly doused with a chemical rinse, as was the isolaton which was transported by truck back to Crisfield. Then the team started work on the camper.

All of it, except for the wheels, was to be wrapped in heavy blue tinted vinyl that had a HEPA filter layer. I took off my suit with great relief, and retreated into the warm, well-lit rangers' station, where I scrubbed my hands and face. My nerves were jangled and I would have given anything to crawl into bed, down shots of NyQuil and sleep.

'If this ain't a mess,' Marino said as he came in with a lot of cold air.

'Please shut the door,' I said, shivering.

'What's eating you?' He sat on the other side of the room.

'Life.'

'I can't believe you're out here when you're sick. I think you've lost your friggin'

mind.'

'Thank you for the words of comfort.' I said.

'Well, this ain't exactly a holiday for me, either. Stuck out here with people to interview, and I got no wheels.' He looked frayed.

'What are you going to do?'

'I'll find something. Rumor has it Lucy and Janet are in the area and have a ride.'

'Where?' I started to get up.

'Don't get excited. They're out trying to find people to interview, like I gotta do. God, I gotta smoke. It's been almost all day.'

'Not in here.' I pointed to a sign.

'People are dying of smallpox and you're bitching about cigarettes.' I got out Motrin and popped three without water.

'So what will all these space cadets do now?' he asked.

'Some of them will stay in the area, tracking down any other people who may have been exposed either on Tangier or in the campground. They'll work in shifts with other team members. I guess you'll be in contact with them, too, in case you come across anyone who might have been exposed.'

'What? I'm supposed to walk around in an orange suit all week?' He yawned and cracked his neck. 'Man, aren't they a bitch? Hot as hell except up in the hood.' He was secretly proud that he had worn one.

'No, you won't be wearing a plastic suit,' I said.

'And what happens if I find out someone I'm interviewing was exposed?'

'Just don't kiss him.'

'I don't think this is funny.' He stared at me.

'It's anything but that.'

'What about the dead guy? They going to cremate him when we don't know who he is?'

'He'll be autopsied in the morning,' I said. 'I imagine they'll store his body for as long as they can.'

'The whole thing's just weird.' Marino rubbed his face in his hands. 'And you saw a computer in there.'

'Yes, a laptop. But no printer or scanner. I'm suspicious this is someone's getaway. The printer, the scanner, at home.'

'What about a phone?'

I thought for a minute. 'Don't remember seeing one.'

'Well, the phone line runs from the camper to the utility box. We'll see what we can find out about that, like whose account it is. I'll also tell Wesley what's going on.'

'If the phone line was used only for AOL,' Lucy said as she walked in and shut the door, 'there won't be any telephone account. The only account will be AOL, which will still come back to Perley, the guy whose credit card number got pinched.'

She looked alert but a little tousled in jeans and a leather jacket. Sitting next to me, she examined the whites of my eyes, and felt the glands in my neck.

'Stick out your tongue,' she seriously said.

'Stop it!' I pushed her away, coughing and laughing at the same time.

'How are you feeling?'

'Better. Where's Janet?' I said.

'Talking. Out somewhere. What kind of computer's in there?'

'I didn't take time to study it,' I replied. 'I didn't notice any of the particulars.

'Was it on?'

'Don't know. I didn't check'

'I need to get in it.'

'What do you want to do?' I asked, looking at her.

'I think I need to go with you.'

'Will they let you do that?' Marino asked.

'Who the hell is they?'

'The drones you work for,' he replied.

'They put me on the case. They expect me to break it.'

Her eyes never stopped moving to windows and the door. Lucy had been infected and would succumb from her exposure to law enforcement. Beneath her jacket she wore a Sig Sauer nine-millimeter pistol in a leather holster with extra magazines. She probably had brass knuckles in her pocket. She tensed as the door opened and another ranger hurried in, his hair still wet from the shower, eyes nervous and excited.

'Can I help you?' he asked us, taking off his coat.

'Yeah,' Marino said, getting up from his chair. 'What kind of car you got?'