BLACK NOTICE. PATRICIA CORNWELL

Pit shrugged and didn’t seem bothered in the least that I was questioning his art.

“See,” he said, “when you think about it, Doc, there’s nothing to fear but fear. So people want death tattoos so they won’t be afraid of death. It’s kind of like people who are terrified by snakes and then touch one in the zoo. In a way, you wear death every day, too,” he said to me. “Don’t you think you might fear it more if you didn’t look at it every day?”

I didn’t know how to answer that.

“See, you got a piece of a dead person’s skin in that jar and you’re not afraid of it,” he went on. “But someone else walking in here and seeing that would probably scream or puke. Now, I’m no psychologist”-he vigorously chewed gum-“but there’s something real important behind what someone chooses to have permanently drawn on his body. So you take this dead guy? That owl says something about him. What went on inside him. Most of all, .what he was scared of, which may have more to do with whatever’s under that owl.”

“It would seem that quite a lot of your clients are afraid of voluptuous naked women,” I commented.

Pit chewed his gum as if it were trying to get away, and he pondered what I’d said for a moment.

“Hadn’t thought about that one,” he said, “but it fits. Most of these guys with nudies all over them are really scared of women. Scared. of the emotional part.”

Chuck had turned on the TV and was watching Rosie O’Donnell, the volume low. I had seen thousands of tattoos on bodies, but I had never thought of them as a symbol of fear. Pit tapped the lid of the jar of formaliü.

“Ibis guy was afraid of something,” he said. “Looks like he might have had a good reason to be.”

23

I’d been home only long enough to hang up my coat and drop my briefcase by the door when the telephone rang. It was twenty minutes past eight, and my first thought was Lucy. The only update I’d gotten was that Jo would be transferred to MCV sometime this weekend.

I was frightened and becoming resentful. No matter what policies, protocols or judgment dictated, Lucy could contact me. She could let me know she and Jo were all right. She could tell me where she was.

I quickly grabbed the phone and was both surprised and uneasy when former Deputy Chief Al Carson’s voice came over the line. I knew he would not contact me, especially at home, unless it was very important, the news very bad.

“I’m not supposed to be doing this but someone has to,” he said right off. “There’s been a homicide at the Quik Cary. That convenience store off Cary, near Libbie. You know which one I mean? Kind of a neighborhood market?”

He was talking rapidly and nervously. He sounded scared.

“Yes,” I said. “It’s close to my house.”

I picked up a clipboard and began writing notes on a call sheet.

“An apparent robbery. Somebody came in, cleaned out the drawer and shot the clerk. A female.”

I thought of the videotape I had looked at yesterday.

“When did this happen?” I asked.

“We think she got shot not more than an hour ago. I’m calling you myself because your office doesn’t know yet.”

I paused, not quite sure what he meant. In fact, what he’d just said couldn’t possibly be right.

“I called Marino, too,” he went on. “I guess there’s nothing more they can do to me anymore.”

“What do you mean my office doesn’t know yet?” I asked.

“Police aren’t supposed to be calling the M.E. anymore until we finish with the scene. Until the crime techs do, and they’re just now getting there. So it could be hours . . .”

“Where the hell is this coming from?” I asked, although I knew.

“Dr. Scarpetta, I was pretty much forced to resign, but I would have anyway,” Carson told me. “There are changes I can’t live with. You know my guys have always gotten along really well with your office. But Bray’s put in all these new people-what she did to Marino, that was enough to make me quit right there. But what matters right now is this makes two convenience store killings in a month. I don’t want anything messed up. If it’s the same guy, he’s gonna do it again.”

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