Cornwell, Patricia_From Potter's Field

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Kay Scarpetta Series

Volume 6

FROM POTTER’S FIELD

Patricia Cornwell

And he said, What hast thou done? the voice of thy brother's blood crieth unto me

from the ground.

-Genesis 4:10

'TWAS THE NIGHT BEFORE CHRISTMAS

He walked with sure steps through snow, which was deep in Central Park, and it was

late now, but he was not certain how late. Toward the Ramble rocks were black

beneath stars, and he could hear and see his breathing because he was not like

anybody else. Temple Gault had always been magical, a god who wore a human body.

He did not slip as he walked, for example, when he was quite certain others would,

and he did not know fear. Beneath the bill of a baseball cap, his eyes scanned.

In the spot - and he knew precisely where it was - he squatted, moving the skirt of a

long black coat out of the way. He set an old army knapsack in the snow and held his

bare bloody hands in front of him, and though they were cold, they weren't impossibly

cold. Gault did not like gloves unless they were made of latex, which was not warm,

either. He washed his hands and face in soft new snow, then patted the used snow into

a bloody snowball. This he placed next to the knapsack because he could not leave

them.

He smiled his thin smile. He was a happy dog digging on the beach as he disrupted

snow in the park, eradicating footprints, looking for the emergency door. Yes, it was

where he thought, and he brushed aside more snow until he found the folded

aluminum foil he had placed between the door and the frame. He gripped the ring that

was the handle and opened the lid in the ground. Below were the dark bowels of the

subway and the screaming of a train. He dropped the knapsack and snowball inside.

His boots rang on a metal ladder as he went down.

Chapter One

Christmas Eve was cold and treacherous with black ice, and crime crackling on

scanners. It was rare I was driven through Richmond's housing projects after dark.

Usually, I drove. Usually, I was the lone pilot of the blue morgue van I took to scenes

of violent and inexplicable death. But tonight I was in the passenger seat of a Crown

Victoria, Christmas music drifting in and out of dispatchers and cops talking in codes.

'Sheriff Santa just took a right up there.' I pointed ahead. 'I think he's lost.'

'Yeah, well, I think he's fried,' said Captain Pete Marino, the commander of the

violent precinct we were riding through. 'Next time we stop, take a look at his eyes.'

I wasn't surprised. Sheriff Lament Brown drove a Cadillac for his personal car, wore

heavy gold jewelry, and was beloved by the community for the role he was playing

right now. Those of us who knew the truth did not dare say a word. After all, it is

sacrilege to say that Santa doesn't exist, and in this case, Santa truly did not. Sheriff

Brown snorted cocaine and probably stole half of what was donated to be delivered by

him to the poor each year. He was a scumbag who recently had made certain I was

summoned for jury duty because our dislike of each other was mutual.

Windshield wipers dragged across glass. Snow-flakes brushed and swirled against

Marino's car like dancing maidens, shy in white. They swarmed in sodium vapor

lights and turned as black as the ice coating the streets. It was very cold. Most of the

city was home with family, illuminated trees filling windows and fires lit. Karen

Carpenter was dreaming of a white Christmas until Marino rudely changed the radio

station.

'I got no respect for a woman who plays the drums.' He punched in the cigarette

lighter.

'Karen Carpenter's dead,' I said, as if that granted her immunity from further slights.

'And she wasn't playing the drums just now.'

'Oh yeah.' He got out a cigarette. 'That's right. She had one of those eating problems. I

forget what you call it.'

The Mormon Tabernacle Choir soared into the 'Hallelujah' chorus. I was supposed to

fly to Miami in the morning to see my mother, sister and Lucy, my niece. Mother had

been in the hospital for weeks. Once she had smoked as much as Marino did. I opened

my window a little.

He was saying, 'Then her heart quit - in fact, that's really what got her in the end.'

'That's really what gets everybody in the end,' I said.

'Not around here. In this damn neighborhood it's lead poisoning.'

We were between two Richmond police cruisers with lights flashing red and blue in a

motorcade carrying cops, reporters and television crews. At every stop, the media

manifested its Christmas spirit by shoving past with notepads, microphones and

cameras. Frenzied, they fought for sentimental coverage of Sheriff Santa beaming as

he handed out presents and food to forgotten children of the projects and their shell-

shocked mothers. Marino and I were in charge of blankets, for they had been my

donation this year.

Around a corner, car doors opened along Magnolia Street in Whitcomb Court. Ahead,

I caught a glimpse of blazing red as Santa passed through headlights, Richmond's

chief of police and other top brass not far behind. Television cameras lit up and

hovered in the air like UFOs, and flashguns flashed.

Marino complained beneath his stack of blankets, 'These things smell cheap. Where'd

you get them, a pet store?'

'They're warm, washable, and won't give off toxic gases like cyanide in the event of a

fire,' I said.

'Jesus. If that don't put you in a holiday mood.'

I wondered where we were as I looked out the window.

'I wouldn't use one in my doghouse,' he went on.

'You don't have a dog or a doghouse, and I didn't offer to give you one to use for

anything.

Why are we going into this apartment? It's not on the list.'

'That's a damn good question.'

Reporters and people from law enforcement agencies and social services were outside

the front door of an apartment that looked like all the others in a complex reminiscent

of cement barracks. Marino and I squeezed through as camera lights floated in the

dark, headlights burned and Sheriff Santa bellowed, 'HO! HO! HO!'

We pushed our way inside as Santa sat a small black boy on his knee and gave him

several wrapped toys. The boy's name, I overheard, was Trevi, and he wore a blue cap

with a marijuana leaf over the bill. His eyes were huge and he looked bewildered on

this man's red velvet knee near a silver tree strung with lights. The overheated small

room was airless and smelled of old grease.

'Coming through, ma'am.' A television cameraman nudged me out of the way- "

'You can just put it over here.'

'Who's got the rest of the toys?'

'Look, ma'am, you're going to have to step back.' The cameraman practically knocked

me over. I felt my blood pressure going up.

'We need another box . . .'

'No we don't. Over there.'

'. . . of food? Oh, right. Gotcha.'

'If you're with social services,' the cameraman said to me, 'then how 'bout standing

over there?'

'If you had half a brain you'd know she ain't with social services.' Marino glared at

him.

An old woman in a baggy dress had started crying on the couch, and a major in white

shirt and brass sat beside her to offer comfort. Marino moved close to me so he could

whisper.

'Her daughter was whacked last month, last name King. You remember the case?' he

said in my ear.

I shook my head. I did not remember. There were so many cases.

'The drone we think whacked her is a badass drug dealer named Jones,' he continued,

to prod my memory.

I shook my head again. There were so many badass drug dealers, and Jones was not

an uncommon name.

The cameraman was filming and I averted my face as Sheriff Santa gave me a

contemptuous, glassy stare. The cameraman bumped hard into me again.

'I wouldn't do that one more time,' I warned him in a tone that made him know I

meant it.

The press had turned their attention to the grandmother because this was the story of

the night. Someone had been murdered, the victim's mother was crying, and Trevi

was an orphan. Sheriff Santa, out of the limelight now, set the boy down.

'Captain Marino, I'll take one of those blankets,' a social worker said.

'I don't know why we're in this crib,' he said, handing her the stack. 'I wish someone

would tell me.'

'There's just one child here,' the social worker went on. 'So we don't need all of these.'

She acted as if Marino hadn't followed instructions as she took one folded blanket and

handed the rest back.

'There's supposed to be four kids here. I'm telling you, this crib ain't on the list.'

Marino grumbled.

A reporter came up to me. 'Excuse me, Dr. Scarpetta? So what brings you out this

night? You waiting for someone to die?'

He was with the city newspaper, which had never treated me kindly. I pretended not

to hear him. Sheriff Santa disappeared into the kitchen, and I thought this odd since he

did not live here and had not asked permission. But the grandmother on the couch was

in no frame of mind to see or care where he had gone.

I knelt beside Trevi, alone on the floor, lost in the wonder of new toys. 'That's quite a

fire truck you've got there,' I said.

'It lights up.' He showed me a red light on the toy truck's roof that flashed when he

turned a switch.

Marino got down beside him, too. 'They give you any extra batteries for that thing?'

He tried to sound gruff, but couldn't disguise the smile in his voice. 'You gotta get the

size right. See this little compartment here? They go in there, okay? And you got to

use size C . . .'

The first gunshot sounded like a car backfire coming from the kitchen. Marino's eyes

froze as he yanked his pistol from its holster and Trevi curled up on the floor like a

centipede. I folded my body over the boy, gunshots exploding in rapid succession as

the magazine of a semiautomatic was emptied somewhere near the back door.

'Get downl GET DOWN!'

'Oh my God!'

'Oh Jesus!'

Cameras, microphones crashed and fell as people screamed and fought for the door

and got flat on the floor.

'EVERYBODY GET DOWN!'

Marino headed toward the kitchen in combat stance, nine-millimeter drawn. The

gunfire stopped and the room fell completely still.

I scooped up Trevi, my heart hammering. I began shaking. Grandmother remained on

the couch, bent over, arms covering her head as if her plane were about to crash. I sat

next to her, holding the boy close. He was rigid, his grandmother sobbing in terror.

'Oh Jesus. Please no Jesus.' She moaned and rocked.

'It's all right,' I firmly told her.

'Not no more of this! I can't stand no more of this. Sweet Jesusl'

I held her hand. 'It's going to be all right. Listen to me. It's quiet now. It's stopped.'

She rocked and wept, Trevi hugging her neck.

Marino reappeared in the doorway between the living room and kitchen, face tense,

eyes darting. 'Doc.' He motioned to me.

I followed him out to a paltry backyard strung with sagging clotheslines, where snow

swirled around a dark heap on the frosted grass. The victim was young, black and on

his back, eyes barely open as they stared blindly at the milky sky. His blue down vest

bore tiny rips. One bullet had entered through his right cheek, and as I compressed his

chest and blew air into his mouth, blood covered my hands and instantly turned cold

on my face. I could not save him. Sirens wailed and whelped in the night like a posse

of wild spirits protesting another death.

I sat up, breathing hard. Marino helped me to my feet as shapes moved in the corner

of my eye. I turned to see three officers leading Sheriff Santa away in handcuffs. His

stocking cap had come off and I spotted it not far from me in the yard where shell

casings gleamed in the beam of Marino's flashlight.

'What in God's name?' I said, shocked.

'Seems Old Saint Nick pissed off Old Saint Crack and they had a little tussle out here

in the yard,' Marino said, very agitated and out of breath. 'That's why the parade got

diverted to this particular crib. The only schedule it was on was the sheriff's.'

I was numb. I tasted blood and thought of AIDS.

The chief of police appeared and asked questions.

Marino began to explain. 'It appears the sheriff thought he'd deliver more than

Christmas in this neighborhood.'

'Drugs?'

'We're assuming.'

'I wondered why we stopped here,' said the chief. 'This address isn't on the list.'

'Well, that's why.' Marino stared blankly at the body.

'Do we have an identity?'

'Anthony Jones of the Jones Brothers fame. Seventeen years old, been in jail more'n

the Doc there's been to the opera. His older brother got whacked last year by a Tec 9.

That was in Fairfield Court, on Phaup Street. And last month we think Anthony

murdered Trevi's mother, but you know how it goes around here. Nobody saw nothing.

We had no case. Maybe now we can clear it.'

'Trevi? You mean the little boy in there?' The chief's expression did not change.

'Yo. Anthony's probably the kid's father. Or was.'

'What about a weapon?'

'In which case?'

'In this case.'

'Smith and Wesson thirty-eight, all five rounds fired. Jones hadn't dumped his brass

yet and we found a speedloader in the grass.'

'He fired five times and missed,' said the chief, resplendent in dress uniform, snow

dusting the top of his cap.

'Hard to say. Sheriff Brown's got on a vest.'

'He's got on a bulletproof vest beneath his Santa suit.' The chief continued repeating

the facts as if he notes.

'Yo.' Marino bent close to a tilting clothesline pole, the beam of light licking over

rusting metal. With a gloved thumb, he rubbed a dimple made by a bullet. 'Well, well,'

he said, 'looks like we got one black and one Pole shot tonight.'

The chief was silent for a moment, then said, 'My wife is Polish, Captain.'

Marino looked baffled as I inwardly cringed. 'Your last name ain't Polish,' he said.

'She took my name and I am not Polish,' said the chief, who was black. 'I suggest you

refrain from ethnic and racial jokes, Captain,' he warned, jaw muscles bunching.

The ambulance arrived. I began to shiver.

'Look, I didn't mean . . .' Marino started to say.

The chief cut him off. 'I believe you are the perfect candidate for cultural diversity

class.'

'I've already been.'

'You've already been, sir, and you'll go again, Captain.'

'I've been three times. It's not necessary to send me again,' said Marino, who would

rather go to the proctologist than another cultural diversity class.

Doors slammed and a metal stretcher clanked.

'Marino, there's nothing more I can do here.' I wanted to shut him up before he talked

himself into deeper trouble. 'And I need to get to the office.'

'What? You're posting him tonight?' Marino looked deflated.

I think it's a good idea in light of the circumstances,' I said seriously. 'And I'm leaving

town in the morning.'

'Christmas with the family?' said Chief Tucker, who was young to be ranked so high.

'Yes.'

'That's nice,' he said without smiling. 'Come with me, Dr. Scarpetta, I'll give you a lift

to the morgue.'

Marino eyed me as he lit a cigarette. 'I'll stop by as soon as I clear up here,' he said.

Chapter Two

Paul Tucker had been appointed Richmond's chief of police several months ago, but

we had encountered each other only briefly at a social function. Tonight was the first

time we had met at a crime scene, and what I knew about him I could fit on an index

card.

He had been a basketball star at the University of Maryland and a finalist for a Rhodes

scholarship. He was supremely fit, exceptionally bright and a graduate of the FBI's

National Academy. I thought I liked him but wasn't sure.

'Marino doesn't mean any harm,' I said as we passed through a yellow light on East

Broad Street.

I could feel Tucker's dark eyes on my face and sense their curiosity. The world is full

of people who mean no harm and cause a great deal of it.' He had a rich, deep voice

that reminded me of bronze and polished wood.

'I can't argue with that, Colonel Tucker.'

'You can call me Paul.'

I did not tell him he could call me Kay, because after many years of being a woman in

a world such as this, I had learned.

'It will do no good to send him to another cultural diversity class,' I went on.

'Marino needs to learn discipline and respect.' He was staring ahead again.

'He has both in his own way.'

'He needs to have both in the proper way.'

'You will not change him, Colonel,' I said. 'He's difficult, aggravating, ill-mannered,

and the best homicide detective I've ever worked with.'

Tucker was silent until we got to the outer limits of the Medical College of Virginia

and turned right on Fourteenth Street.

'Tell me, Dr. Scarpetta,' he said. 'Do you think your friend Marino is a good precinct

commander?'

The question startled me. I had been surprised when Marino had advanced to

lieutenant and was stunned when he had become a captain. He had always hated the

brass, and then he had become the thing he hated, and he still hated them as if he were

not them.

'I think Marino is an excellent police officer. He's unimpeachably honest and has a

good heart,' I said.

'Do you intend to answer my question or not?' Tucker's tone hinted of amusement.

'He is not a politician.'

'Clearly.'

The clock tower of Main Street Station announced the time from its lofty position

high above the old domed train station with its terra-cotta roof and network of railroad

tracks. Behind the Consolidated Laboratory building, we parked in a slot designated

Chief Medical Examiner, an unimpressive slip of blacktop where my car spent most

of its life.

'He gives too much time to the FBI,' Tucker then said.

'He gives an invaluable service,' I said.

'Yes, yes, I know, and you do, too. But in his case, it poses a serious difficulty. He is

supposed to be commanding First Precinct, not working other cities' crimes, and I am

trying to run a police department.'

'When violence occurs anywhere, it is everybody's problem,' I said. 'No matter where

your precinct or department is.'

Tucker stared thoughtfully ahead at the shut steel bay door. He said, 'I sure as hell

couldn't do what you do when it's this late at night and there's nobody around except

the people in the refrigerator.'

'It isn't them I fear,' I matter-of-factly stated.

'Irrational as it may be, I would fear them a great deal.'

Headlights bored into dingy stucco and steel all painted the same insipid beige. A red

sign on a side door announced to visitors that whatever was inside was considered a

biological hazard and went on to give instruction about the handling of dead bodies.

'I've got to ask you something,' Colonel Tucker said.

The wool fabric of his uniform whispered against upholstery as he shifted positions,

leaning closer to me. I smelled Hermes cologne. He was handsome, with high

cheekbones and strong white teeth, his body powerful beneath his skin as if its

darkness were the markings of a leopard or a tiger.

'Why do you do it?' he asked.

'Why do I do what, Colonel?'

He leaned back in the seat. 'Look,' he said as lights danced across the scanner. 'You're

a lawyer. You're a doctor. You're a chief and I'm a chief. That's why I'm asking. I

don't mean disrespect.'

I could tell he didn't. 'I don't know why,' I confessed.

He was silent for a moment. Then he spoke again. 'My father was a yardman and my

mother cleaned houses for rich people in Baltimore.' He paused. 'When I go to

Baltimore now I stay in fine hotels and eat in restaurants at the harbor. I am saluted. I

am addressed "The Honorable" in some mail I get. I have a house in Windsor Farms.

'I command more than six hundred people who wear guns in this violent town of

yours. I know why I do what I do, Dr. Scarpetta. I do it because I had no power when

I was a boy. I lived with people who had no power and learned that all the evil I heard

preached about in church was rooted in the abuse of this one thing I did not have.'

The tempo and choreography of the snow had not changed. I watched it slowly cover

the hood of his car.

'Colonel Tucker,' I said, 'it is Christmas Eve and Sheriff Santa has allegedly just shot

someone to death in Whitcomb Court. The media must be going crazy. What do you

advise?'

'I will be up all night at headquarters. I will make sure your building is patrolled.

Would you like an escort home?'

'I would imagine that Marino will give me a ride, but certainly I will call if I think an

additional escort is necessary. You should be aware that this predicament is further

complicated by the fact that Brown hates me, and now I will be an expert witness in

his case.'

'If only all of us could be so lucky.'

'I do not feel lucky.'

'You're right.' He sighed. 'You shouldn't feel lucky, for luck has nothing to do with it.'

'My case is here,' I said as the ambulance pulled into the lot, lights and sirens silent,

for there is no need to rush when transporting the dead.

'Merry Christmas, Chief Scarpetta,' Tucker said as I got out of his car.

I entered through a side door and pressed a button on the wall. The bay door slowly

screeched open, and the ambulance rumbled inside. Paramedics flung open the

tailgate. They lifted the stretcher and wheeled the body up a ramp as I unlocked a

door that led inside the morgue.

Fluorescent lighting, pale cinder block and floors gave the corridor an antiseptic

ambience that was deceptive. Nothing was sterile in this place. By normal medical

standards, nothing was even clean.

'Do you want him in the fridge?' one of the squad members said to me.

'No. You can wheel him into the X-ray room.' I unlocked more doors, the stretcher

clattering after me, leaving drips of blood on tile.

'You going solo tonight?' asked a paramedic who looked Latin.

'I'm afraid so.'

I opened a plastic apron and slipped it over my head, hoping Marino would show up

soon. In the locker room, I fetched a green surgical gown off a shelf. I pulled on shoe

covers and two pairs of gloves.

'Can we help you get him on the table?' a paramedic asked.

'That would be terrific.'

'Hey, guys, let's get him on the table for the Doc.'

'Sure thing.'

'Shoot, this pouch is leaking, too. We gotta get some new ones.'

'Which way do you want his head to go?'

'This end for the head.'

'On his back?'

'Yes,' I said. 'Thank you.'

'Okay. One-two-three heave.'

We lifted Anthony Jones from the stretcher to the table, and one of the paramedics

started to unzip the pouch.

'No, no, leave him in,' I said. 'I'll X-ray him through it.'

'How long will it take?'

'Not long.'

'You're going to need some help moving him again.'

'I'll take all the help I can get,' I told them.

'We can hang around a few more minutes. Were you really going to do all this alone?'

'I'm expecting someone else.'

A little later, we moved the body into the autopsy suite and I undressed it on top of

the first steel table. The paramedics left, returning the morgue to its usual sounds of

water running into sinks and steel instruments clattering against steel. I attached the

victim's films to light boxes where the shadows and shapes of his organs and bones

brightly bared their souls to me. Bullets and their multitude of ragged pieces were

lethal snowstorms in liver, lungs, heart and brain. He had an old bullet in his left

buttock and a healed fracture of his right humerus. Mr. Jones, like so many of my

patients, had died the way he had lived.

I was making the Y-incision when the buzzer sounded in the bay. I did not pause. The

security guard would take care of whoever it was. Moments later I heard heavy

footsteps in the corridor, and Marino walked in.

'I would've got here sooner but all the neighbors decided to come out and watch the

fun.'

'What neighbors?' I looked quizzically at him, scalpel poised midair.

'This drone's neighbors in Whitcomb Court. We were afraid there was going to be a

friggin' riot. Word went down he was shot by a cop, and then it was Santa who

whacked him, and next thing there's people crawling out of cracks in the sidewalk.'

Marino, still in dress uniform, took off his coat and draped it over a chair. 'They're all

gathered around with their two-liter bottles of Pepsi, smiling at the television cameras.

Friggin' unbelievable.' He slid a pack of Marlboros out of his shirt pocket.

'I thought you were doing better with your smoking,' I said.

'I am. I get better at it all the time.'

'Marino, it isn't something to joke about.' I thought of my mother and her tracheotomy.

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KayScarpettaSeriesVolume6FROMPOTTER’SFIELDPatriciaCornwellAndhesaid,Whathastthoudone?thevoiceofthybrother'sbloodcriethuntomefromtheground.-Genesis4:10'TWASTHENIGHTBEFORECHRISTMASHewalkedwithsurestepsthroughsnow,whichwasdeepinCentralPark,anditwaslatenow,buthewasnotcertainhowlate.TowardtheRamblerocksw...

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