“Let me guess;” I said to Marino. “Bray:”
5
The air was filled with the static of greedy flies, their volume turned up high by warm weather and time. The removal service attendants had carried the stretcher into the warehouse and were waiting for me.
“Whooo,” one of the attendants said, shaking his head, a bad expression on his face. “Lordy, lordy.”
“I know, I know,” I said as I pulled on clean gloves and booties. “I’ll go in first. This won’t take long. I promise.”
“Fine by me, you want to go first.”
I went back inside the container and they came after me, choosing their steps carefully, stretcher held tight at their waists like a sedan chair. Their breathing was labored behind their surgical masks. Both were old and overweight and should not have been lifting heavy bodies anymore.
“Get it by the lower legs and feet,” I directed. “Real careful, because the skin’s going to slip and come off. Let’s get him by his clothing as best we can.”
They set down the stretcher and bent over the dead man’s feet.
“Lordy,” one of them muttered again.
I hooked my arms under the armpits. They took hold of the ankles.
“Okay. Let’s lift together on the count of three,” I said. “One, two, three.”
The men struggled to maintain their balance. They huffed and backed up. The body was limp because rigor mortis.had come and left, and we centered it onto the stretcher and wrapped it in the sheet. I zipped up the body bag and the attendants carried their client away. They would drive him to the morgue, and there I would do all I could to make him talk to me.
“Damn!” I heard one of them say. “They don’t pay me enough for this.”
“Tell me.”
I followed them out of the warehouse into sunlight that was dazzling and air that was clean. Marino was still in his filthy undershirt, talking to Anderson and Bray on the dock. I gathered from the way he was gesturing that the presence of Bray had restrained him somewhat. Her eyes landed on me as I got close. She did not introduce herself, so I went first without offering my hand.
“I’m Dr. Scarpetta,” I said to her.
She returned my greeting with vague regard, as if she had not a clue as to who I was or why I was there.
“I think it would be a good idea for the two of us to talk;” I added.
“Who did you say you are?” Bray asked.
“Oh, for Chrissake!” Marino erupted. “She knows damn well who you are.”
“Captain.” Bray’s tone had the effect of a riding whip cracking.
Marino got quiet. Anderson, did, too.
“I’m the chief medical examiner.” I told Bray what she already knew. “Kay Scarpetta.”
Marino rolled his eyes. Anderson’s expression puckered with resentment and jealousy when Bray motioned for me to step away from them. We moved to the edge of the dock,
where the Sirius towered above us and barely stirred in the ruffled muddy-blue current.
“I’m so sorry I didn’t recognize your name at first,” she began.
I didn’t say a word.
“That’s very ungracious of me,” she went on.
I remained silent.
“I should have gotten around to meeting you before now. I’ve been so busy. So here we are. And it’s a good thing, really. Perfect timing, you might say”-she smiled-“that we should meet like this.”
Diane Bray was a haughty beauty with black hair and perfect features. Her -figure was stunning. Dockworkers could not take their eyes off her.
“You see,” she went on in her same cool tone, “I have this little problem. I supervise Captain Marino, yet he seems to think he works for you.”
“Nonsense.” I finally spoke.
She sighed.
“You have just robbed the city of the most experienced, decent homicide detective it’s ever known, Chief Bray,” I told her. “And I should know.”
“I’m sure you should.”
“Just what is it you’re trying to accomplish?” I asked.
“It’s time for young blood, for detectives who don’t mind turning on a computer, using e-mail. Are you aware that Marino doesn’t even know how to use word processing? Still hammers on a typewriter with two fingers?”