"And you know what? It's nobody's business."
"Well, it is, and you know that. Were you in your bed the night of the break-in?"
"It's my business what bed I'm in, when, and where, and nobody else's," she said. We were silent as I thought of Lucy sitting on top of the picnic table in the dark, her face illuminated by the match cupped in another woman's hands. I heard her speaking to her friend and understood the emotions carrying her words, for I knew the language of intimacy well.
I knew when love was in someone's voice, and I knew when it was not.
"Exactly where were you when ERF was broken into?" I asked her again.
"Or should I ask you instead who you were with?"
"} don't ask you who you're with."
"You would if it might save me from being in a lot of trouble."
"My private life is irrelevant," she went on.
"No, I think it is rejection you fear," I said.
"I don't know what you're talking about."
"I saw you in the picnic area the other night. You were with a friend." She looked away.
"So now you're spying on me, too." Her voice trembled.
"Well, don't waste any sermons on me, and you can forget Catholic guilt because I don't believe in Catholic guilt."
"Lucy, I'm not judging you," I said, but in a way I was.
"Help me understand."
"You imply I'm unnatural or abnormal, otherwise I would not need understanding. I would simply be accepted without a second thought. "
"Can your friend vouch for your whereabouts at three o'clock Tuesday morning?" I asked.
"No," she answered.
"I see" was all I said, and my acceptance of her position was a concession that the girl I knew was gone. I did not know this Lucy, and I wondered what I had done wrong.
"What are you going to do now?" she asked me as the evening tensely wore on.
"I've got this case in North Carolina. I have a feeling I'm going to be there a lot for a while," I said.
"What about your office here?"
"Fielding's holding down the fort. I do have court in the morning, I think. In fact, I need to call Rose to verify the time."
"What kind of case?"
"A homicide."
"I figured that much. Can I come with you?"
"If you'd like."
"Well, maybe I'll just go back to Charlottesville."
"And do what?" I asked. Lucy looked frightened.
"I don't know. I don't know how I'd get there, either."
"You're welcome to my car when I'm not using it. Or you could go to Miami until the semester's over, then back to UVA." She downed the last mouthful of beer and got up, her eyes bright with tears again.
"Go ahead and admit it. Aunt Kay. You think I did it, don't you?"
"Lucy," I said honestly, "I don't know what to think. You and the evidence are saying two different things."
"I have never doubted you." She looked at me as if I had broken her heart.
"You're welcome to stay here through Christmas," I said.
11
The member of the North Richmond Gang on trial the next morning wore a double-breasted navy suit and an Italian silk tie with a perfect Windsor knot. His white shirt looked crisp; he was cleanly shaven and minus his earring. Trial lawyer Tod Coldwell had dressed his client well because he knew that jurors have an exceedingly difficult time resisting the notion that what you see is what you get. Of course, I believed that axiom, too, which was why I introduced into evidence as many color photographs from the victim's autopsy as possible. It was safe to say that Coldwell, who drove a red Ferrari, did not like me much.
"Isn't it true, Mrs. Scarpetta," Coldwell pontificated in court this cool autumn day, "that people under the influence of cocaine can become very violent and even demonstrate superhuman strength?"
"Certainly cocaine can cause the user to become delusional and excited," I continued directing my answers to the jury.
"Superhuman strength, as you call it, is often associated with cocaine or PCP-which is a horse tranquilizer."
"And the victim had both cocaine and benzoylecgonine in his blood," Coldwell went on as if I had just agreed with him.
"Yes, he did."
"Mrs. Scarpetta, I wonder if you would explain to the jury what that means?"
"I would first like to explain to the jury that I am a medical doctor with a law degree. I have a specialty in pathology and a subspecialty in forensic pathology, as you've already stipulated, Mr. Coldwell. Therefore, I would appreciate being addressed as Dr. Scarpetta instead of Mrs. Scarpetta. "
"Yes, ma'am."
"Would you please repeat the question?"
"Would you explain to the jury what it means if someone has cocaine" -he glanced at his notes"-and benzoylecgonine in his blood?"
"Benzoylecgonine is the metabolite of cocaine. To say that someone had both on board means some of the cocaine the victim had taken had already metabolized and some had not," I replied, aware of Lucy in a back corner, her face partially hidden by a column. She looked miserable.
"Which would indicate he was a chronic abuser, especially since he had many old needle tracks. And this may also suggest that when my client was confronted by him on the night of July third, my client had a very excited, agitated, and violent person on his hands, and had no choice but to defend himself." Coldwell was pacing, his dapper client watching me like a twitchy cat.
"Mr. Coldwell," I said, "the victim-Jonah Jones-was shot sixteen times with a Tee-Nine nine-millimeter gun that holds thirty-six rounds. Seven of those shots were to his back, and three of them were close or contact shots to the back of Mr. Jones's head.
"In my opinion, this is inconsistent with a shooting in which the shooter was defending himself, especially since Mr. Jones had a blood alcohol of point two-nine, which is almost three times the legal limit in Virginia. In other words, the victim's motor skills and judgment were substantially impaired when he was assaulted. Frankly, I'm amazed that Mr. Jones could even stand up." Coldwell swung around to face Judge Poe, who had been nicknamed "the Raven" for as long as I had been in Richmond. He was weary to his ancient soul of drug dealers killing each other, of children carrying guns to school and shooting each other on the bus.
"Your Honor," Coldwell said dramatically, "I would ask that Mrs. Scarpetta's last statement be struck from the record since it is both speculative and inflammatory, and without a doubt beyond her area of expertise. "
"Well, now, I don't know that what the doctor has to say is beyond her expertise, Mr. Coldwell, and she's already asked you politely to refer to her properly as Dr. Scarpetta, and I'm losing patience with your antics and ploys…"
"But, Your Honor"
"The fact is that I've had Dr. Scarpetta in my courtroom on many occasions and I'm well aware of her level of expertise," the judge went on in his Southern way of speaking that reminded me of pulling warm taffy.
"Your Honor…?"
"Seems to me she deals with this sort of thing every day…"
"Your Honor?"
"Mr. Coldwell," the Raven thundered, his balding pate turning red, "if you interrupt me one more goddam time I'm going to hold you in contempt of court and let you spend a few nights in the goddam city jail! Are we clear?"
"Yes, sir." Lucy was craning her neck to see, and every juror was alert.
"I'm going to allow the record to reflect exactly what Dr. Scarpetta said," the judge went on.
"No further questions," Coldwell said tersely. Judge Poe concluded with a violent bang of the gavel that woke up an old woman toward the back who had been fast asleep beneath a black straw hat for most of the morning. Startled, she sat straight up and blurted, "Who is it?" Then she remembered where she was and began to cry.
"It's all right. Mama," I heard another woman say as we adjourned for lunch. Before leaving downtown, I stopped by the Health Department's Division of Vital Records, where an old friend and colleague of mine was the state registrar. In Virginia, one could not legally be born or buried without Gloria Loving's signature, and though she was as local as shad roe, she knew her counterpart in every state in the union. Over the years, I had relied on Gloria many times to verify that people had been on this planet or had not, that they had been married, divorced, or were adopted.