Trace - Cornwell Patricia - Страница 28

"What does Browning think?"

"He's not particularly revved up about the case, thinks the girl probably had a seizure or something."

"He thinks wrong. What about the mother?"

"She's a little different. I'll get to that."

"And the father?"

"Divorced, lives in Charleston, South Carolina, a doctor. An irony, ain't it? A doctor would know damn well what a morgue is like, and here's his little girl inside a body bag in the morgue for two damn weeks because they can't decide on who's making the arrangements or where she's going to be buried and God knows what else they're fighting about."

"What I'd do pretty soon is take a right on Grace," Scarpetta says. "And we'll just follow it straight there."

"Thank you, Magellan. All those years I drove in the city. How'd I do it without you navigating?"

"I don't know how you function at all when I'm not around. Tell me more about Browning. What did he find when he got to the Paulsson house?"

"The girl was in bed, on her back, pajamas on. Mother was hysterical, as you might imagine."

"Was she under the covers?"

"The covers were thrown back, in fact they were mostly on the floor, and the mother told Browning they were like that when she got home from the drugstore. But she's having memory problems, as you probably know. I think she's lying."

"About what?"

"Not sure. I'm basing everything on what Browning told me over the phone, meaning as soon as I talk to her, I start all over again."

"What about evidence someone might have broken into the house?" Scarpetta asks. "Anything to make us think that?"

"Nothing to make Browning think that, apparently. Like I said, he's not revved up about it. Never a good thing. If the detective's not revved up about it, then the crime scene techs probably aren't revved up either. If you don't think anyone broke in, where the hell do you start dusting for prints, for example?"

"Don't tell me they didn't even do that."

"Like I said, when I get there, I start all over again."

They are now in an area called the Fan District, which was annexed by the city soon after the Civil War and was eventually dubbed the Fan because it is shaped like one. Narrow streets wind and wend and deadend without cause and have fruity names like Strawberry, Cherry, and Plum. Most homes and row houses have been restored to an earlier charmed state of generous verandas and classical columns and fancy ironwork. The Paulsson home is less eccentric and ornate than most, a modest-sized dwelling with simple lines, a flat brick facade, a full front porch, and a false mansard slate roof that reminds Scarpetta of a pillbox hat.

Marino pulls in front near a dark blue minivan and they get out. They follow a brick walkway that is old and worn smooth and slick in spots. The late morning is overcast and cold, and Scarpetta would not be surprised to see a little snow, but she hopes there will be no freezing rain. The city has never adapted to adverse winter weather, and at the mere mention of snow, Richmonders raid every grocery store and market in town. Power lines are above ground and don't last long when grand old trees get uprooted or snapped off by blasting winds and heavy sleeves of ice, so Scarpetta sincerely hopes there will be no freezing rain while she's in town.

The brass knocker on the black front door is shaped like a pineapple, and Marino raps it three times. The loud, sharp clank of it is startling and seems insensitive because of the reason for this visit. Footsteps sound, moving quickly, and the door swings open wide. The woman on the other side is small and thin, and her face is puffy, as if she doesn't eat enough but drinks plenty and has been crying a lot. On a better day, she might be pretty in a rough, dyed-blond,,way.

"Come in," she says, her nose stopped up. "I have a cold but I'm not contagious." Her bleary eyes touch Scarpetta. "Then who am I to tell a doctor that? I assume you're the doctor, the one I just talked to." It is a safe assumption since Marino is a man and is wearing black fatigues and an LAPD baseball cap.

"I'm Dr. Scarpetta." She offers her hand. "I'm so very sorry about Gilly."

Mrs. Paulsson's eyes brighten with tears. "Come in, won't you? I've not been much of a housekeeper of late. I just made some coffee."

"Sounds good," Marino says, and he introduces himself. "Detective Browning's talked to me. But I thought we'd start from square one, if that's all right."

"How do you take your coffee?"

Marino has the good sense not to offer his usual line: like my women, sweet and white.

"Black is fine," Scarpetta says, and they follow Mrs. Paulsson along a hallway of old pine planking, and off to their right is a comfortable small living room with dark green leather furniture and brass fireplace tools. To the left is a stiff formal parlor that doesn't look used, and the chill of it reaches out to Scarpetta as she walks past.

"May I take your coats?" Mrs. Paulsson asks. "There I go asking about coffee when you're at the front door and asking about your coats when we get to the kitchen. Don't mind me. I'm not right these days."

They slip out of their coats and she hangs them on wooden pegs in the kitchen. Scarpetta notices a bright red handknit scarf on one of the pegs and for some reason wonders if it might have been Gilly's. The kitchen has not been remodeled in recent decades and has an old-fashioned black and-white-checkered floor and old white appliances. Its windows overlook a narrow yard with a wooden fence, and behind the back fence is a low roof of slate that is missing tiles and piled with dead leaves in the eaves and patched with moss.

Mrs. Paulsson pours coffee and they sit at a wooden table by a window that offers a view of the back fence and the mossy slate roof beyond. Scarpetta notices how clean and orderly the kitchen is, with its rack of pots and pans hanging from iron hooks over a butcher's block and the drain board and sink empty and spotless. She notices a bottle of cough syrup on the counter near the paper-towel dispenser, a bottle of nonprescription cough syrup with an expectorant. Scarpetta sips her black coffee.

"I don't know where to start," Mrs. Paulsson says. "I don't really know who you are for that matter, except when Detective Browning called me this morning, he said you were experts from out of town and would I be home. Then you called." She looks at Dr. Scarpetta.

"So Browning called you," Marino says.

"He's been nice enough." She looks at Marino and seems to find something interesting about him. "I don't know why all these people are… Well, I guess I don't know much." Her eyes fill up again. "I should be grateful. I can't imagine having this happen and no one cares."

"People certainly care," Scarpetta says. "That's why we're here."

"Where do you live?" Her eyes are fixed on Marino, and she lifts her coffee, taking a sip, looking carefully at him.

"Based down in South Florida, a little north of Miami," Marino replies.

"Oh. I thought maybe you were from Los Angeles," she says, her eyes moving up to his cap.

"We got L.A. connections," Marino says.

"It's just amazing," she says, but she doesn't look amazed, and Scarpetta begins to see something else peek out from Mrs. Paulsson, some other creature that coils within. "My phone hardly stops ringing, a lot of reporters, a whole lot of those people. They were here the other days." She turns around in her chair, indicating the front of the house. "In a big TV truck with this tall antenna or whatever it is. It's indecent, really. Of course, this FBI agent was here the other day and she said it's because no one knows what happened to Gilly. She said it's not as bad as it might be, whatever that means. She said she's seen a whole lot worse, and I don't know what could be worse."

"Maybe she meant the publicity," Scarpetta says kindly.