Unnatural Exposure

Chapter Six

My house was built of stone on the edge of Windsor Farms, an old Richmond neighborhood with English street names, and stately Georgian and Tudor homes that some would call mansions. Lights were on in windows I passed, and beyond glass I could see fine furniture and chandeliers, and people moving or watching TV. No one seemed to close their curtains in this city, except me. Leaves had begun to fall. It was cool and overcast, and when I pulled into my driveway, smoke was drifting from the chimney, my niece's ancient green Suburban parked in front.

'Lucy?' I called out as I shut the door and turned off the alarm.

'I'm in here,' she replied from the end of the house where she always stayed.

As I headed for my office to deposit my briefcase and the pile I had brought home to work on tonight, she emerged from her bedroom, pulling a bright orange UVA sweatshirt over her head.

'Hi.' Smiling, she gave me a hug, and there was very little that was soft about her. Holding her at arm's length, I took a good look at her, just like I always did.

'Uh oh,' she playfully said. 'Inspection time.' She held out her arms and turned around, as if about to be searched.

'Smarty,' I said.

In truth, I would have preferred it had she weighed a little more, but she was keenly pretty and healthy, with auburn hair that was short but softly styled. After all this time, I still could not look at her without envisioning a precocious, obnoxious ten-year-old who had no one, really, but me.

'You pass,' I said.

'Sorry I'm so late.'

'Tell me again what it was you were doing?' I asked, for she had called earlier in the day to say she could not get here until dinner.

'An assistant attorney general decided to drop in with an entourage. As usual, they wanted HRT to put on a show.'

We headed to the kitchen.

'I trotted out Toto and Tin Man,' she added. They were robots.

'Used fiber optics, virtual reality. The usual things, except it's pretty cool. We parachuted them out of a Huey, and I maneuvered them to burn through a metal door with lasers.'

'No stunts with the helicopters, I hope,' I said.

'The guys did that. I did my shit from the ground.' She wasn't happy about it.

The problem was, Lucy wanted to do stunts with helicopters. There were fifty agents on the HRT. She was the only woman and had a tendency to overreact when they wouldn't let her do dangerous things that, in my opinion, she had no business doing anyway. Of course, I wasn't the most objective judge.

'It suits me fine if you stick with robots,' I said, and we were in the kitchen now.

'Something smells good. What did you fix your tired, old aunt to eat?'

'Fresh spinach sauteed in a little garlic and olive oil, and filets that I'm going to throw on the grill. This is my one day a week to eat beef, so tough luck if it's not yours. I even sprung for a bottle of really nice wine, something Janet and I discovered.'

'Since when can FBI agents afford nice wine?'

'Hey,' she said, 'I don't do too bad. Besides, I'm too damn busy to spend money.' Certainly, she didn't spend it on clothes. Whenever I saw her, she was either in khaki fatigues or sweats. Now and then she wore jeans and a funky jacket or blazer, and

made fun of my offers of hand-me-downs. She would not wear my lawyerly suits and blouses with high collars, and frankly, my figure was fuller than her firm, athletic one. Probably nothing in my closet would fit.

The moon was huge and low in a cloudy, dark sky. We put on jackets and sat out on the deck drinking wine while Lucy cooked. She had started baked potatoes first, and they were taking a while, so we talked. Over recent years, our relationship had become less mother-daughter as we evolved into colleagues and friends. The transition was not an easy one, for often she taught me and even worked on some of my cases. I felt oddly lost, no longer certain of my role and power in her life.

'Wesley wants me to track this AOL thing,' she was saying. 'Sussex definitely wants

CASKU's help.'

'Do you know Percy Ring?' I asked as I thought of what he had said in my office, infuriated again.

'He was in one of my classes and was obnoxious, wouldn't shut up.' She reached for the bottle of wine. 'What a peacock.'

She began filling our glasses. Raising the hood of the grill, she poked potatoes with a fork.

'I believe we're ready,' she said, pleased.

Moments later, she was emerging from the house, carrying the filets. They sizzled as she placed them on the grill. 'Somehow he figured out you're my aunt.' She was talking about Ring again. 'Not that it's a secret, and he asked me about it after class once. You know, if you tutored me, helped me out with my cases, like I couldn't possibly do what I'm doing on my own, that sort of thing. I just think he picks on me because I'm a new agent and a woman.'

'That may be the biggest miscalculation he's ever made in his life,' I said.

'And he wanted to know if I was married.' Her eyes were shadowed as porch lights shone on one side of her face.

'I worry about what his interest really is,' I commented.

She glanced at me as she cooked. 'The usual.' She shrugged it off, for she was surrounded by men and paid no attention to their comments or their stares.

'Lucy, he made a reference to you in my office today,' I said. 'A veiled reference.'

'To what?'

'Your status. Your roommate.'

No matter how often or delicately we talked about this, she always got frustrated and impatient.

'Whether it's true or not,' she said, and the sizzling of the grill seemed to match her tone, 'there would still be rumors because I'm an agent. It's ridiculous. I know women married with kids, and the guys think all of them are gay, too, just because they're cops, agents, troopers, secret service. Some people even think it about you. For the same reason. Because of your position, your power.'

'This is not about accusations,' I reminded her, gently. 'This is about whether someone could hurt you. Ring is very smooth. He comes across as credible. I expect he resents that you're FBI, HRT and he's not.'

'I think he's already demonstrated that.' Her voice was hard.

'I just hope the jerk doesn't keep asking you out.'

'Oh, he already is. At least half a dozen times.' She sat down. 'He's even asked Janet out, if you can believe that.' She laughed. 'Talk about not getting it.'

'The problem is I think he does get it,' I said, ominously. 'It's like he's building a case against you, gathering evidence.'

'Well, gather away.' She abruptly ended our discussion. 'So tell me what else went on today.'

I told her what I had learned at the labs, and we talked about fibers embedded in bone and Koss's analysis of them as we carried steaks and wine inside. We sat at the kitchen table with a candle lit, digesting information few people would serve with food.

'A cheap motel curtain could have a backing like that,' Lucy said.

'That or something like a drop cloth, because of the paint-like substance,' I replied.

'The spinach is wonderful. Where did you get it?'

'Ukrops. I'd give anything to have a store like that in my neighborhood. So this person wrapped the victim in a drop cloth and then dismembered her through it?' she asked as she cut her meat.

'That's certainly the way it's looking.'

'What does Wesley say?' She met my eyes.

'I haven't had a chance to talk to him yet.' This wasn't quite true. I had not even called. For a moment, Lucy was silent. She got up and brought a bottle of Evian to the table.

'So how long do you plan to run from him?'

I pretended not to hear her, in hopes she would not start in.

'You know that's what you're doing. You're scared.'

'This is not something we should discuss,' I said. 'Especially when we're having such a pleasant evening.'

She reached for her wine.

'It's very good, by the way,' I said. 'I like pinot noir because it's light. Not heavy like a merlot. I'm not in the mood for anything heavy right now. So you made a good choice.'

She stabbed another bite of steak, getting my point.

'Tell me how things are going with Janet,' I went on. 'Mostly doing white-collar crime in D.C.? Or is she getting to spend more time at ERF these days?'

Lucy stared out the window at the moon as she slowly swirled wine in her glass. 'I

should get started on your computer.'

While I cleaned up, she disappeared into my office. I did not disturb her for a very long time, if for no other reason than I knew she was put out with me. She wanted complete openness, and I had never been good at that, not with anyone. I felt bad, as if I had let down everyone I loved. For a while, I sat at the kitchen desk, talking to Marino on the phone, and I called to catch up with my mother. I put on a pot of decaffeinated coffee and carried two mugs down the hall.

Lucy was busy at my keyboard, glasses on, a slight frown furrowing her young, smooth brow as she concentrated. I set her coffee down and looked over her head at what she was typing. It made no sense to me. It never did.

'How's it going?' I asked.

I could see my face reflected in the monitor as she struck the enter key again, executing another UNIX command.

'Good and not good,' she replied with an impatient sigh. 'The problem with applications like AOL is you can't track files unless you get into the original programming language. That's where I am now. And it's like following bread crumbs through a universe with more layers than an onion.'

I pulled up a chair and sat next to her. 'Lucy,' I said, 'how did someone send these photographs to me? Can you tell me, step by step?'

She stopped what she was doing, slipping off her glasses and setting them on the desk. She rubbed her face in her hands and massaged her temples as if she had a headache.

'You got any Tylenol?' she asked.

'No acetaminophen with alcohol.' I opened a drawer and got out a bottle of Motrin instead.

'For starters,' she said, taking two, 'this wouldn't have been easy if your screen name wasn't the same as your real one: KSCARPETTA.'

'I made it easy deliberately, for my colleagues to send me mail,' I explained one more time.

'You made it easy for anyone to send you mail.' She looked accusingly at me. 'Have you gotten crank mail before?'

'I think this goes beyond crank mail.'

'Please answer my question.'

'A few things. Nothing to worry about.' I paused, then went on, 'Generally after a lot of publicity because of some big case, a sensational trial, whatever.'

'You should change your user name.'

'No,' I said. 'Deadoc might want to send me something else. I can't change it now.'

'Oh great.' She put her glasses back on. 'So now you want him to be a pen pal.'

'Lucy, please,' I quietly said, and I was getting a headache, too. 'We both have a job to do.'

She was quiet for a moment. Then she apologized. 'I guess I'm just as overly protective of you as you've always been of me.'

'I still am.' I patted her knee. 'Okay, so he got my screen name from the AOL

directory of subscribers, right?'

She nodded. 'Let's talk about your AOL profile.'

'There's nothing in it but my professional title, my office phone number and address,' I said. 'I never entered personal details, such as marital status, date of birth, hobbies, et cetera. I have more sense than that.'

'Have you checked out his profile?' she asked. 'The one for deadoc?'

'Frankly, it never occurred to me that he would have one,' I said.

Depressed, I thought of saw marks I could not tell apart, and felt I had made yet one more mistake this day.

'Oh, he's got one, all right.' Lucy was typing again. 'He wants you to know who he is. That's why he wrote it.'

She clicked to the Member Directory, and when she opened deadoc's profile, I could not believe what was before my eyes. I scanned key words that could be searched by anyone interested in finding other users to whom they applied.

Attorney, autopsy, chief, Chief Medical Examiner, Cornell, corpse, death, dismemberment, FBI, forensic, Georgetown, Italian, Johns Hopkins, judicial, killer, lawyer, medical, pathologist, physician, Scuba, Virginia, woman.

The list went on, the professional and personal information, the hobbies, all describing me.

'It's like deadoc's saying he's you,' Lucy said.

I was dumbfounded and suddenly felt very cold. 'This is crazy.'

Lucy pushed back her chair and looked at me. 'He's got your profile. In cyberspace, on the World Wide Web, you're both the same person with two different screen names.'

'We are not the same person. I can't believe you said that.' I looked at her, shocked.

'The photographs are yours and you sent them to yourself. It was easy. You simply scanned them into your computer. No big deal. You can get portable color scanners

for four, five hundred bucks. Attach the file to the message ten, which you send to

KSCARPETTA, send to yourself, in other words…'

'Lucy,' I cut her off, 'for God's sake, that's enough.' She was silent, her face without expression.

'This is outrageous. I can't believe what you're saying.' I got up from the chair in disgust.

'If your fingerprints were on the murder weapon,' she replied, 'wouldn't you want me to tell you?'

'My fingerprints aren't on anything.'

'Aunt Kay, I'm just making the point that someone out there is stalking you, impersonating you, on the Internet. Of course you didn't do anything. But what I'm trying to impress upon you is every time someone does a search by subject because they need help from an expert like you, they're going to get deadoc's name, too.'

'How could he have known all this information about me?' I went on. 'It's not in my profile. I don't have anything in there about where I went to law school, medical school, that my heritage is Italian.'

'Maybe from things written about you over the years.'

'I suppose.' I felt as if I were coming down with something. 'Would you like a nightcap? I'm very tired.'

But she was lost again in the dark space of the UNIX environment with its strange symbols and commands like cat,:q! and vi.

'Aunt Kay, what's your password in AOL?' she asked.

'The same one I use for everything else,' I confessed, knowing she would be annoyed again.

'Shit. Don't tell me you're still using Sinbad.' She looked up at me.

'My mother's rotten cat has never been mentioned in anything ever written about me,' I defended myself.

I watched as she typed the command password and entered Sinbad.

'Do you do password aging?' she asked as if everyone should know what that meant.

'I have no idea what you're talking about.'

'Where you change your password at least once a month.'

'No,' I said.

'Who else knows your password?'

'Rose knows it. And of course, now you do,' I said. 'There's no way deadoc could.'

'There's always a way. He could use a UNIX password-encryption program to encrypt every word in a dictionary. Then compare every encrypted word to your password…'

'It wasn't that complicated,' I said with conviction. 'I bet whoever did this doesn't know a thing about UNIX.'

Lucy closed what she was doing, and looked curiously at me, swiveling the chair around. ' Why do you say that?'

'Because he could have washed the body first so trace evidence didn't adhere to blood. He shouldn't have given us a photo of her hands. Now we may have her prints.' I was leaning against the door frame, holding my aching head. 'He's not that smart.'

'Maybe he doesn't think her prints will ever matter,' she said, getting up. 'And by the way,' she said as she walked by. 'Almost any computer book's going to tell you it's stupid to choose a password that's the name of your significant other or your cat.'

'Sinbad's not my cat. I wouldn't have a miserable Siamese that always gives me the fisheye and stalks me whenever I walk into my mother's house.'

'Well, you must like him a little bit or you wouldn't have wanted to think of him every time you log on to your computer,' she said from down the hall.

'I don't like him in the least,' I said.

The next morning, the air was crisp and clean like a fall apple, stars were out, traffic mostly truckers in the midst of long hauls. I turned off on 64 East, just beyond the state fairgrounds, and minutes later was prowling rows in short-term parking at the Richmond International Airport. I chose a space in S because I knew it would be easy for me to remember, and was reminded of my password again, of other obvious acts of carelessness caused by overload.

As I was getting my bag out of the trunk, I heard footsteps behind me and instantly wheeled around.

'Don't shoot.' Marino held up his hands. It was cool enough out that I could see his breath.

'I wish you'd whistle or something when you walk up on me in the dark,' I said, slamming shut the trunk.

'Oh. And bad people don't whistle. Only good guys like me do.' He grabbed my suitcase. 'You want me to get that, too?'

He reached for the hard, black Pelican case I was taking with me to Memphis today, where it already had been numerous times before. Inside were human vertebrae and bone, evidence that could not leave me.

'This stays handcuffed to me,' I said, grabbing it and my briefcase. 'I'm really sorry to put you out like this, Marino. Are you sure it's necessary for you to come along?'

We had discussed this several times now, and I did not think he should accompany me. I did not see the point.

'Like I told you, some squirrel's playing games with you,' he said. 'Me, Wesley, Lucy, the entire friggin' Bureau think I should come along. For one thing, you've made this exact same trip in every case, so it's gotten predictable. And it's been in the papers that you use this guy at LTT.'

Parking lots were well lit and full of cars, and I could not help but notice people slowly driving past, looking for a place that wasn't miles from the terminal. I wondered what else deadoc knew about me, and wished I had worn more than a trench coat. I was cold and had forgotten my gloves.

'Besides,' Marino added, 'I've never been to Graceland.' At first, I thought he was joking.

'It's on my list,' he went on.

'What list?'

'The one I've had since I was a kid. Alaska, Las Vegas and the Grand Ole Opry,' he said as if the thought filled him with joy. 'Don't you have some place you would go if you could do anything you want?'

We were at the terminal now, and he held the door.

'Yes,' I said. 'My own bed in my own home.'

I headed for the Delta desk, picked up our tickets and went upstairs. Typical for this hour, nothing was open except security. When I placed my hard case on the X-ray belt, I knew what was going to happen.

'Ma'am, you're going to have to open that,' said the female guard.

I unlocked it and unsnapped the clasps. Inside, nestled in foam rubber, were labeled plastic bags containing the bones. The guard's eyes widened.

'I've been through here before with this,' I patiently explained. She started to reach for one of the plastic bags.

'Please don't touch anything,' I warned. 'This is evidence in a homicide.'

There were several other travelers behind me, now, and they were listening to every word I said.

'Well, I have to look at it.'

'You can't.' I got out my brass medical examiner's shield and showed it to her. 'You touch anything here, and I'll have to include you in the chain of evidence when this eventually goes to court. You'll be subpoenaed.'

That was as much of an explanation as she needed, and she let me go.

'Dumb as a bag of hammers,' Marino mumbled as we walked.

'She's just doing her job,' I replied.

'Look,' he said. 'We don't fly back until tomorrow morning, meaning unless you spend the whole damn day looking at bones, we should have some time.'

'You can go to Graceland by yourself. I've got plenty of work to do in my room. I'm also sitting in nonsmoking.' I chose a seat at our gate. 'So if you want to smoke, you'll have to go over there.' I pointed.

He scanned other passengers waiting, like us, to board. Then he looked at me.

'You know what, Doc?' he said. 'The problem is you hate to have fun.' I got the morning paper out of my briefcase, shook it open.

He sat next to me. 'I'll bet you've never even listened to Elvis.'

'How could I not listen to Elvis? He's on the radio, on TV, in elevators.'

'He's the king.'

I eyed Marino over the top of the paper.

'His voice, everything about him. There's never been anyone like him,' Marino went on as if he had a crush. 'I mean, it's like classical music and those painters you like so much. I think people like that only come along every couple hundred years.'

'So now you're comparing him with Mozart and Monet.' I turned a page, bored with local politics and business.

'Sometimes you're a friggin' snob.' He got up, grumpy. 'And maybe just once in your life you might think of going some place I want to go. You ever seen me bowl?' He glared down at me, getting out his cigarettes. 'You ever said anything nice about my truck? You ever gone fishing with me? You ever eat at my house? No, I gotta go to yours because you live in the right part of town.'

'You cook for me, I'll come over,' I said as I read.

He angrily stalked off, and I could feel the eyes of strangers on us. I supposed they assumed that Marino and I were an item, and had not gotten along in years. Smiling to myself, I turned a page. Not only would I go to Graceland with him, I planned to buy him barbecue tonight.

Since it seemed that one could not fly direct from Richmond to anywhere except Charlotte, we were routed to Cincinnati first, where we changed planes. We arrived in Memphis by noon and checked into the Peabody Hotel. I had gotten us a government rate of seventy-three dollars per night, and Marino looked around, gawking at a grand lobby of stained glass and a fountain of mallard ducks.

'Holy shit,' he said. 'I've never seen a joint that has live ducks. They're everywhere.' We were walking into the restaurant, which was appropriately named Mallards, and displayed behind glass were duck objets d'art. There were paintings of ducks on walls, and ducks were on the staff's green vests and ties.

'They have a duck palace on the roof,' I said. 'And roll out a red carpet for them twice a day when they come and go to John Philip Sousa.'

'No way.'

I told the hostess that we would like a table for two. 'In nonsmoking,' I added.

The restaurant was crowded with men and women wearing big name tags for some real estate convention they were attending at the hotel. We sat so close to other people that I could read reports they were perusing and hear their affairs. I ordered a fresh fruit plate and coffee, while Marino got his usual grilled hamburger platter.

'Medium rare,' he told the waiter.

'Medium.' I gave Marino a look.

'Yeah, yeah, okay.' He shrugged.

'Enterohemorrhagic E. coli,' I said to him as the waiter walked off. 'Trust me. Not worth it.'

'Don't you ever want to do things bad for you?' he said.

He looked depressed and suddenly old as he sat across from me in this beautiful place where people were well dressed and better paid than a police captain from Richmond. Marino's hair had thinned to an unruly fringe circling the top of his ears like a tarnished silver halo shoved low. He had not lost an ounce since I had known him, his belly rising from his belt and touching the edge of the table. Not a day went by that I did not fear for him. I could not imagine his not working with me forever.

At half past one, we left the hotel in the rental car. He drove because he would never have it any other way, and we got on Madison Avenue and followed it east, away

from the Mississippi River. The brick university was so close we could have walked it, the Regional Forensic Center across the street from a tire store and the Life Blood Donor Center. Marino parked in back, near the public entrance of the medical examiner's office.

The facility was funded by the county and about the size of my central district office in Richmond. There were three forensic pathologists, and also two forensic anthropologists, which was very unusual and enviable, for I would have loved to have someone like Dr David Canter on my staff. Memphis had yet another distinction which was decidedly not a happy one. The chief had been involved in perhaps two of the most infamous cases in the country. He had performed the autopsy of Martin Luther King and had witnessed the one of Elvis.

'If it's all the same to you,' Marino said as we got out of the car, 'I think I'll make phone calls while you do your thing.'

'Fine. I'm sure they can find an office for you to use.'

He squinted up at an autumn blue sky, then looked around as we walked. 'I can't believe I'm here,' he said. 'This is where he was posted.'

'No,' I said, because I knew exactly who he was talking about. 'Elvis Presley was posted at Baptist Memorial Hospital. He never came here, even though he should have.'

'How come?'

'He was treated like a natural death,' I replied.

'Well, he was. He died of a heart attack.'

'It's true his heart was terrible,' I said. 'But that's not what killed him. His death was due to his polydrug abuse.'

'His death was due to Colonel Parker,' Marino muttered as if he wanted to kill the man. I glanced at him as we entered the office. 'Elvis had ten drugs on board. He should

have been signed out an accident. It's sad.'

'And we know it was really him,' he then said.

'Oh for God's sake, Marino!'

'What? You've seen the photos? You know it for a fact?' he went on.

'I've seen them. And yes, I know,' I said as I stopped at the receptionist's desk.

'Then what's in them.' He would not stop.

A young woman named Shirley, who had taken care of me before, waited for Marino and me to quit disagreeing.

'That is none of your business,' I sweetly said to him. 'Shirley, how are you?'

'Back again?' She smiled.

'With no good news, I'm sorry to say,' I replied.

Marino began trimming his fingernails with a pocketknife, glancing around like Elvis might walk in any minute.

'Dr Canter's expecting you,' she said. 'Come on. I'll take you back.'

While Marino ambled off to make phone calls somewhere down the hall, I was shown into the modest office of a man I had known since his residency days at the University of Tennessee. Canter had been as young as Lucy when I had met him for the first time. A devotee of forensic anthropologist Dr Bass, who had begun the decay research facility in Knoxville known as The Body Farm, Canter had been mentored by most of the greats. He was considered the world's foremost expert in saw marks, and I wasn't quite sure what it was about this state famous for the Vols and Daniel Boone. Tennessee seemed to corner the market on experts in time of death and human bones.

'Kay.' Canter rose, extending his hand.

'Dave, you're always so good to see me on such short notice.' I took a chair across from his desk.

'Well, I hate what you're going through.'

He had dark hair combed straight back from his brow, so that whenever he looked down it fell in his way. He was constantly shoving it out of his way but did not seem aware of it. His face was youthful and interestingly angular, with closely set eyes and a strong jaw and nose.

'How are Jill and the kids?' I inquired.

'Great. We're expecting again.'

'Congratulations. That makes three?'

'Four.' His smile got bigger.

'I don't know how you do it,' I said sincerely.

'Doing it's the easy part. What goodies have you brought me?'

Setting the hard case on the edge of his desk, I opened it and got out the plastic- enclosed sections of bone. I handed them to him and he took out the left femur first. He studied it under a lamp with his lens, slowly turning it end over end.

'Hmmm,' he said. 'So you didn't notch the end you cut.' He glanced at me.

He wasn't chastising, just reminding, and I felt angry with myself again. Usually, I

was so careful. If anything, I was known for being cautious to the point of obsession.

'I made an assumption, and I was wrong,' I said. 'I did not expect to discover that the killer used a saw with characteristics very similar to mine.'

'They usually don't use autopsy saws.' He pushed back his chair and got up. 'I've never had a case, really, just studied that type of saw mark in theory, here in the lab.'

'Then that's what this is.' I had suspected as much.

'I can't say with certainty until I get it under the scope. But both ends look like they've been cut with a Stryker saw.'

He gathered the bags of bones, and I followed him out into the hall as my misgivings got worse. I did not know what we would do if he could not tell the saw marks apart. A mistake like this was enough to ruin a case in court.

'Now, I know you're probably not going to tell much about the vertebral bone,' I said, for it was trabecular, less dense than other bone and therefore not a good surface for tool marks.

'Never hurts to bring it anyway. We might get lucky,' he said as we entered his lab. There was not an inch of empty space. Thirty-five-gallon drums of degreaser and polyurethane varnish were parked wherever they would fit. Shelves from floor to ceiling were crammed with packaged bones, and in boxes and on carts were every type of saw known to man. Dismemberments were rare, and I knew of only three obvious motivations for taking a victim apart. Transporting the body was easier.

Identification was slowed, if not made impossible. Or simply, the killer was malicious. Canter pulled a stool close to an operating microscope equipped with a camera. He moved aside a tray of fractured ribs and thyroid cartilage that he must have been working on before I arrived.

'This guy was kicked in the throat, among other things,' he absently said as he pulled on surgical gloves.

'Such a nice world we live in,' I commented.

Canter opened the Ziploc bag containing the segment of right femur. Because he could not fit it on the microscope's stage without cutting a section that was thin enough to mount, he had me hold the two-inch length of bone against the table's edge. Then he bent a twenty-five-power fiber optics light close to one of the sawn surfaces.

'Definitely a Stryker saw,' he said as he peered into the lenses. 'You got to have a fast- moving, reciprocating motion to create a polish like this. It almost looks like polished stone. See?'

He moved aside and I looked. The bone was slightly beveled, like water frozen in gentle ripples, and it shone. Unlike other power saws, the Stryker had an oscillating blade that did not move very far. It did not cut skin, only the hard surface it was pressed against, like bone or a cast an orthopedist cut from a mending limb.

'Obviously,' I said, 'the transverse cuts across the midshaft are mine. From removing marrow for DNA.'

'But the knife marks aren't.'

'No. Absolutely not.'

'Well, we're probably not going to have much luck with them.'

Knives basically covered their own tracks, unless the victim's bone or cartilage was stabbed or hacked.

'But the good news is, we got a few false starts, a wider kerf and TPI,' he said, adjusting the microscope's focus as I continued holding the bone.

I had known nothing about saws until I began spending so much time with Canter. Bone is an excellent surface for tool marks, and when saw teeth cut into it, a groove

or kerf is formed. By microscopically examining the walls and floor of a kerf, one can determine exit chipping on the side where the saw exited bone. Determining the characteristics of the individual teeth, the number of teeth per inch (TPI), the spacing of them and the striae, can reveal the shape of the blade.

Canter angled the optic light to sharpen the striations and defects.

'You can see the curve of the blade.' He pointed to several false starts on the shaft, where someone had pushed the saw blade into the bone, and then tried again in another spot.

'Not mine,' I said. 'Or at least I hope I'm more adept than that.'

'Since this also is the end where most of the knife cuts are, I'm going to agree that it wasn't you. Whoever did this had to cut first with something else, since an oscillating blade won't cut flesh.'

'What about the saw blade?' I asked, for I knew what I used in the morgue.

'Teeth are large, seventeen per inch. So this is going to be a round autopsy blade. Let's turn it over.'

I did, and he directed the light at the other end, where there were no false starts. The surface was polished and beveled like the other one, but not identical to Canter's discerning eye.

'Power autopsy saw with a large, sectioning blade,' he said. 'Multidirectional cut since the radius of the blade's too small to cut through the whole bone in one stroke. So, whoever did this just changed directions, going as it from different angles, with a great deal of skill. We have slight bending of the kerfs. Minimal exit chipping. Again denoting great skill with a saw. I'm going to bump up the power some and see if we can accentuate the harmonics.'

He referred to the distance between saw teeth.

'Tooth distance is point-oh-six. Sixteen teeth per inch,' he counted. 'Direction is push- pull, tooth-type chisel. I'm voting this is yours.'

'You caught me,' I said with relief. 'Guilty as charged.'

'I would think so.' He was still looking. 'I wouldn't think you use a round blade for anything.'

The large, round autopsy blades were heavy and continuous rolling, and destroyed more bone. Generally, this was a utility blade used in labs or in doctors' offices to saw off casts.

'The rare occasion I might use a round blade is on animals,' I said.

'Of the two- or four-legged variety?'

'I've taken bullets out of dogs, birds, cats and, on one fine occasion, a python shot in a drug raid,' I replied.

Canter was looking at another bone. 'And I thought I was the one who had all the fun.'

'Do you find it unusual that someone would use a meat saw in four dismemberments, and then suddenly switch to an electric autopsy saw?' I asked.

'If your theory's correct about the cases in Ireland, then you're talking nine cases with a meat saw,' he said. 'How about holding this right here so I can get a picture.'

I held the section of left femur in the tips of my fingers, and he pressed a button on the camera.

'To answer your question,' he said. 'I would find it extremely unusual. You're talking two different profiles. The meat saw is manual, physical, usually ten teeth per inch. It will go through tissue and takes a lot of bone with each stroke, the saw marks

rougher-looking, more indicative of someone skilled and powerful. And it's also important to remember that in each of those earlier cases the perpetrator cut through joints, versus the shafts, which is also very rare.'

'It's not the same person.' I again voiced my growing belief.

Canter took the bone from my hand and looked at me. 'That's my vote.'

When I returned to the lobby of the M.E.'s office, Marino was still on the phone down the hall. I waited a little while, then stepped outside because I needed air. I needed sunshine and sights that weren't savage. Some twenty minutes passed before he finally walked out and joined me by the car.

'I didn't know you was here,' he said. 'If someone had told me, I would've got off the phone.'

'It's all right. What a gorgeous day.' He unlocked the car.

'How'd it go?' he asked, sliding into the driver's seat.

I briefly summarized as we sat in the parking lot, not going anywhere.

'You want to go back to the Peabody?' he asked, tapping the steering wheel with his thumb.

I knew exactly what he wanted to do.

'No,' I said. 'Graceland might be just what the doctor ordered.' He shoved the car in gear and could not suppress a big grin.

'We want the Fowler Expressway,' I said, for I had studied a map.

'I wish you could get me his autopsy report,' he started on that again. 'I want to see for myself what happened to him. Then I'll know and it won't eat at me anymore.'

'What do you want to know?' I looked at him.

'If it was like they said. Did he die on the toilet? That's always bothered the hell out of me. You know how many cases like that I've seen?' He glanced at me. 'Don't matter if you're some drone or the president of the United States. You end up dead with a ring around your butt. Hope to hell that don't happen to me.'

'Elvis was found on the floor of his bathroom. He was nude, and yes, it is believed that he slid off his black porcelain toilet.'

'Who found him?' Marino was entranced in an uneasy way.

'A girlfriend who was staying in the adjoining room. Or that's the story,' I said.

'You mean he walks in there, feels fine, sits down and boom? No warning signs or nothing?'

'All I know is he'd been playing racquetball in the early morning, and seemed fine,' I

said.

'You're kidding.' Marino's curiosity was insatiable. 'Now, I never heard that part. I

didn't know he played racquetball.'

We drove through an industrialized area, with trains and trucks, then past campers for sale. Graceland stood in the midst of cheap motels and stores, and it did not seem so grand given its surroundings. The white mansion with its columns was completely out of place, like a joke or a set for a bad movie.

'Holy shit,' Marino said, as he pulled into the parking lot. 'Will you look at that. Holy smoke.'

He went on as if it were Buckingham Palace as he parked beside a bus.

'You know, I wish I could've known him,' he wistfully said.

'Maybe you would have, had he taken better care of himself.' I opened my door as he lit a cigarette.

For the next two hours, we wandered through gilt and mirrors, shag carpeting and stained-glass peacocks as the voice of Elvis followed us through his world. Hundreds of fans had arrived on buses, and their passion for this man was on their faces as they walked around listening to the tour on cassette. Many of them placed flowers, cards and letters on his grave. Some wept as if they had known him well.

We wandered around his purple and pink Cadillacs, Stutz Blackhawk and museum of other cars. There were his planes and shooting range, and the Hall of Gold, with Grammy showcases of gold and platinum records, and trophies and other awards that amazed even me. The hall was at least eighty feet long. I could not take my eyes off splendid costumes of gold and sequins, and photographs of what was truly an extraordinarily and sensuously beautiful human being. Marino was blatantly gawking, an almost pained expression on his face that reminded me of puppy love as we inched our way through rooms.

'You know, they didn't want him to move here when he bought this place,' he announced, and we were outside now, the fall afternoon cool and bright. 'Some of the snobs in this city never did accept him. I think that hurt him, in a way, might be what got him in the end. You know, why he took painkillers.'

'He took more than that,' I made the point again as we walked.

'If you had been the medical examiner, could you have done his autopsy?' He got out cigarettes.

'Absolutely.'

'And you wouldn't have covered his face?' He looked indignant as he fired up his lighter.

'Of course not.'

'Not me.' He shook his head, sucking in smoke. 'No friggin' way I'd even want to be in the room.'

'I wish he had been my case,' I said. 'I wouldn't have signed him out as a natural death. The world should know the truth, so maybe somebody else would think twice about popping Percodan.'

We were in front of one of the gift shops now, and people were gathered around televisions inside, watching Elvis videos. Through outdoor speakers, he was singing

'Kentucky Rain,' his voice powerful and playful, unlike any other I had ever heard in my life. I started walking again and told the truth.

'I am a fan and have a rather extensive collection of his CDs, if you really must know,' I said to Marino.

He couldn't believe it. He was thrilled.

'And I'd appreciate it if you didn't spread that around.'

'All these years I've known you, and you never told me?' he exclaimed. 'You're not kidding me, right? I never would've thought that. Not in a million years. Hey, so maybe now you know I got taste.'

This went on as we waited for a shuttle to return us to the parking lot, and then it continued in the car.

'I remember watching him on TV once when I was a kid in New Jersey,' Marino was saying. 'My old man came in drunk, as usual, started yelling at me to switch the channel. I'll never forget it.'

He slowed and turned into the Peabody Hotel.

'Elvis was singing "Hound Dog," July 1956. I remember it was my birthday. My

father comes in, cussing, turns the TV off, and I get up and turn it back on. He smacks the side of my head, turns the TV off again. I turn it back on and walk toward him. First time in my life I ever laid a hand on him. I slam him against the wall, get in his face, tell the son of a bitch he ever touches me or my mother again, I'm going to kill him.'

'And did he?' I asked as the valet opened my door.

'Shit no.'

'Then Elvis should be thanked,' I said.