'I love you, Kay.'
As I followed the hallway to my office, I wondered why I bothered saying the same old words to him. I knew his behavior almost as well as I knew my own, and the idea that he wouldn't be doing exactly what he was right now was about as unthinkable as my letting another forensic pathologist take over the Warrenton case because it was my right to take it easy at this stage in my life.
I turned on the light in my spacious paneled office, and opened the blinds to let the morning in. My work space adjoined my bedroom, and not even my housekeeper knew that all of the windows in my private quarters, like those in my downtown office, were bulletproof glass. It wasn't just the Carries of the world who worried me. Unfortunately, there were the countless convicted killers who blamed me for their convictions, and most of them did not stay locked up forever. I had gotten my share of letters from violent offenders who promised to come see me when they got out. They liked the way I looked or talked or dressed. They would do something about it.
The depressing truth, though, was that one did not have to be a detective or profiler or chief medical examiner to be a potential target of predators. Most victims were vulnerable. They were in their cars or carrying groceries into their homes or walking through a parking lot, simply, as the saying goes, in the wrong place at the wrong time. I logged onto America Online and found Lucy's ATF repository research files in my mailbox. I executed a print command and returned to the kitchen for more coffee.
Marino walked in as I was contemplating something to eat. He was dressed, his shirttail hanging out, his face dirty with stubble.
'I'm outta here,' he said, yawning.
'Would you like coffee?'
'Nope. Something on the road. Probably stop at Liberty Valance,' he said as if we'd never had our discussion about his eating habits.
'Thanks for staying over,' I said.
'No problem.'
He waved at me as he walked out, and I set the alarm after him. I returned to my study, and the growing stack of paper was rather disheartening. After five hundred pages, I had to refill the paper tray, and the printer ran another thirty minutes. The information included the expected names, dates, and locations, and narratives from investigators. In addition, there were scene drawings and laboratory results, and in some instances, photographs that had been scanned in. I knew it would take me the rest of the day, at the very least, to get through the stack. I was already feeling that this had probably been a Pollyanna idea that would prove a waste of time.
I had gone through no more than a dozen cases when I was startled by my doorbell. I was not expecting anyone, and I almost never had unannounced visitors in my private, gated neighborhood. I suspected it might be one of the local children selling raffle tickets or magazine subscriptions or candy, but when I looked into the video screen of my camera system, I was stunned to see Kenneth Sparkes standing outside my door.
'Kenneth?' I said into the Aiphone, and I could not keep the surprise out of my voice.
'Dr Scarpetta, I apologize,' he said into the camera. 'But I really need to speak to you.'
'I'll be right there.'
I hurried across the house, and opened the front door. Sparkes looked weary in wrinkled khaki slacks and a green polo shirt spotted with sweat. He wore a portable phone and a pager on his belt, and carried a zip-up alligator portfolio.
'Please come in,' I said.
'I know most of your neighbors,' he said. 'In case you're wondering how I got past the guard booth.'
'I've got coffee made.'
I caught the scent of his cologne as we entered the kitchen.
'Again, I hope you'll forgive me for just showing up like this,' he said, and his concern seemed genuine. 'I just don't know who else to talk to, Dr Scarpetta, and I was afraid if I asked you first, you would say no.'
'I probably would have.'
I got two mugs out of a cabinet.
'How do you take it?'
'The way it comes out of the pot,' said he.
'Would you like some toast or anything?'
'Oh no. But thank you.'
We sat at the table before the window, and I opened the door leading outside because my house suddenly seemed warm and stuffy. Misgivings raced through my mind as I was reminded that Sparkes was a suspect in a homicide, and that I was deeply involved in the case, and here I was alone with him in my house on a Saturday morning. He set the portfolio on the table and unzipped it.
'I suppose you know everything about what goes on in an investigation,' he said.
'I never know everything about anything, really.' I sipped my coffee.
'I'm not naive, Kenneth,' I said. 'For example, if you didn't have clout, you wouldn't have gotten inside my neighborhood, and you wouldn't be sitting here now.'
He withdrew a manila envelope from the portfolio and slid it across the table to me.
'Photographs,' he said quietly. 'Of Claire.'
I hesitated.
'I spent the last few nights in my beach house,' he went on to explain.
'In Wrightsville Beach?' I said.
'Yes. And I remembered these were in a filing cabinet drawer. I hadn't looked at them or even thought of them since we broke up. They were from some photo shoot. I don't recall the details, but she gave me copies when we first started seeing each other. I guess I told you she did some photographic modeling.'
I slid what must have been about twenty eight-by-ten color prints from the envelope, and the one on top was startling. It was true what the governor had said to me at Hootowl Farm. Claire Rawley was physically magnificent. Her hair was to the middle of her back, perfectly straight, and seemed spun of gold as she stood on the beach in running shorts and a skimpy tank top that barely covered her breasts. On her right wrist she wore what appeared to be a large diving watch with a black plastic band and an orange face. Claire Rawley looked like a Nordic goddess, her features striking and sharp, her tan body athletic and sensual. Behind her on the sand was a yellow surfboard, and in the distance a sparkling ocean.
Other photographs had been taken in other dramatic settings. In some she was sitting on the porch of a decaying Gothic southern mansion, or on a stone bench in an overgrown cemetery or garden, or playing the part of hardworking mate surrounded by weathered fishermen on one of Wilmington's trawlers. Some of the poses were rather slick and contrived, but it made no difference. In all, Claire Rawley was a masterpiece of human flesh, a work of art whose eyes revealed fathomless sadness.
'I didn't know if these might be of any use to you,' Sparkes said after a long silence. 'After all, I don't know what you saw, I mean what was… Well.'
He tapped the table nervously with his index finger.
'In cases such as these,' I told him calmly, 'a visual identification simply isn't possible. But you never know when something like this might help. At the very least, there's nothing in these photos that might tell me the body isn't Claire Rawley.'
I scanned the photographs again, to see if I noted any jewelry.
'She's wearing an interesting watch,' I said, shuffling through the photographs again.
He smiled and stared. Then he sighed.
'I gave that to her. One of these trendy sports watches that's very popular with surfers. It had an off-the-wall name. Animal? Does that sound right?'
'My niece may have had one of those once,' I recalled. 'Relatively inexpensive? Eighty, ninety dollars?'
'I don't remember what I paid. But I bought it at the surf shop where she liked to hang out. Sweetwater Surf Shop on South Lumina, where Vito's, Reddog's, and Buddy's Crab are. She lived near there with several other women. An old not-so-nice condo on Stone Street.'
I was writing this down.