Cruel and Unusual - Cornwell Patricia - Страница 8

“True.”

“Let's take photographs and then I'm going to collect this adhesive residue and let Trace see what they find.”

“His body was outside next to a Dumpster. Seems like that would be a Trace nightmare.”

“It depends on whether this residue on his wrists was in contact with the pavement.”

I began gently scraping the residue off with a scalpel.

“I don't guess they did a vacuuming out there.”

“No, I'm sure they wouldn't have. But I think we can still get sweepings if we ask nicely. It can't hurt to try.”

I continued examining Eddie Heath's thin forearms and wrists, looking for contusions or abrasions I might have missed. But I did not find any.

“His ankles look okay,” Susan said from the far end of the table. “I don't see any adhesive or areas where the hair is gone. No injuries. It doesn't look like he was taped around his ankles. just his wrists.”

I could recall only a few cases in which a victim's tight bindings had left no mark on skin. Clearly, the strapping tape, had been in direct contact with Eddies skin. He should have moved his hands, wriggled as his discomfort had grown and his circulation had been restricted. But he had not resisted. He had not tugged or squirmed or tried to get away.

I thought of the blood drips on the shoulder of his jacket and the soot and stippling on the collar. I again checked around his mouth, looked at his tongue, and glanced over his charts. If he had been gagged, there was no evidence of it now, no abrasions or bruises, no traces of adhesive. I imagined him propped against the Dumpster, naked and in the bitter cold, his clothing piled by his side, not neatly, not sloppily, but casually from the way it had been described to me. When I tried to sense the emotion of the crime, I did not detect anger, panic, or fear.

“He shot him first, didn't he?”

Susan's eyes were alert like those of a wary stranger you pass on a desolate, dark street. “Whoever did this taped his wrist, together after he shot him.”

“I'm thinking that.”

“But that's so weird,” she said. “You don't need to bind someone you've just shot in the head.”

“We don't know what this individual fantasizes about.”

The sinus headache had arrived and I had fallen like a city under siege. My eyes were watering; my skull was two sizes too small.

Susan pulled the thick electrical cord down from its reel and plugged in the Stryker saw. She snapped new blades in scalpels and checked the knives on the surgical cart. She disappeared into the X-ray room and returned with Eddies films, which she fixed to light boxes. She scurried about frenetically and then did something she had never done before. She bumped hard against the surgical cart she had been arranging and sent two quart jars of formalin crashing to the floor.

I ran to her as she jumped back, gasping, waving fumes from her face and sending broken glass skittering across the floor as her feet almost went out from under her.

“Did it get your face?”

I grabbed her arm and hurried her toward the locker room.

“I don't think so. No. Oh, God. It's on my feet and legs. I think on my arm, too.”

“You're sure it's not in your eyes or mouth?”

I helped her strip off her greens.

“I'm sure.”

I ducked inside the shower and turned on the water as she practically tore off the rest of her clothes.

I made her stand beneath a blast of tepid water for a very long time as I donned mask, safety glasses, and thick rubber gloves. I soaked up the hazardous chemical with formalin pillows, supplied by the state for biochemical emergencies like this. I swept up glass and tied everything inside double plastic bags. Then I hosed down the floor, washed myself, and changed into fresh greens. Susan eventually emerged from the shower, bright pink and scared.

“Dr. Scarpetta, I'm so sorry,” she said.

“My only concern is you. Are you all right?”

“I feel weak and a little dizzy. I can still smell the fumes.”

“I'll finish up here,” I said. “Why don't you go home.”

“I think I'll just rest for a while first. Maybe I'd better go upstairs.”

My lab coat was draped over the back of a chair, and I reached inside a pocket and got out my keys. “Here,” I said, handing them to her. “You can lie down on the couch in my office. Get on the intercom immediately if the dizziness doesn't go away or you start feeling worse.”

She reappeared about an hour later, her winter coat on and buttoned up to her chin.

“How do you feel?” I asked as I sutured the Y incision.

“A little shaky but okay.”

She watched me in silence for a moment, then added, “I thought of something while I was upstairs. I don't think you should list me as a witness in this case.”

I glanced up at her in surprise. It was routine for anyone present during an autopsy to be listed as a witness on the official report. Susan's request wasn't of great importance, but it was peculiar.

“I didn't participate in the autopsy,” she went on. “I mean, I helped with the external exam but wasn't present when you did the post. And I know this is going to be a big case - if they ever catch anyone. If it ever goes to court. And I just think it's better if I'm not listed, since, like I said, I really wasn't present.”

“Fine,” I said. “I have no problem with that.”

She placed my keys on a counter and left.

Marino was home when I tried him from my car phone as I slowed at a tollbooth about an hour later.

“Do you know the warden at Spring Street?” I asked him.

“Frank Donahue. Where are you?”

“In my car.”

“I thought so. Probably half the truckers in Virginia are listening to us on their CBs.”

“They won't hear much.”

“I heard about the kid,” he said. “You finished with him?”

“Yes. I'll call you from home. There's something you can do for me in the meantime. I need to look over a few things at the pen right away.”

“The problem with looking over the pen is it looks back.”

“That's why you're going with me,” I said.

If nothing else, after two miserable semesters of my former professor's tutelage I had learned to be prepared. So it was on Saturday afternoon that Marino and I were en route to the state penitentiary. Skies were leaden, wind thrashing trees along the roadsides, the universe in a state of cold agitation, as if reflecting my mood.

“You want my private opinion,” Marino said to me as we drove, “I think you're letting Grueman jerk you around.”

“Not at all.”

“Then why is it every time there's an execution and he's involved, you act jerked around?”

“And how would you handle the situation?”

He pushed in the cigarette lighter. “Same way you are. I'd take a damn look at death row and the chair, document everything, and then tell him he's fall of shit. Or better yet, tell the press he's full of shit.”

In this morning's paper Grueman was quoted as saying that Waddell had not been receiving proper nourishment and his body bore bruises I could not adequately explain.

“What's the deal, anyway?” Marino went on. “Was he defending these squirrels when you was in law school?”

“No. Several years ago he was asked to run Georgetown's Criminal Justice Clinic. That's when he began taking on death penalty cases pro bono.”

“The guy must have a screw loose.”

“He's very opposed to capital punishment and has managed to turn whoever he represents into a cause celebre. Waddell in particular.”

“Yo. Saint Nick, the patron saint of dirtbags. Ain't that sweet,” Marino said. “Why don't you send him color photos of Eddie Heath and ask if he wants to talk to the boy's family? See how he feels about the pig who committed that crime.”

“Nothing will change Grueman's opinions.”

“He got kids? A wife? Anybody he cares about?”

“It doesn't make any difference, Marino. I don't guess you've got anything new on Eddie.”