Body of Evidence. Patricia D Cornwell

“Hi,” he said, looking disgustingly fresh and chipper. “You change your mind?”

“Yes,” I said. The familiar scent of his cologne rearranged my thoughts like bright shards of glass inside a kaleidoscope.

“I knew you would,” he said.

“And how did you know that?” I asked.

“Never knew you to duck a fight,” he said, watching me in the dresser mirror as he resumed knotting his tie.

Mark and I had agreed to meet at the Orndorff & Berger offices in the early afternoon. The firm’s lobby was a heartless, deep space. Rising from black carpet was a massive black console beneath polished-brass track lighting, with a solid block of brass serving as a table between two black acrylic chairs nearby. Remarkably, there was no other furniture, no plants or paintings, nothing else but a few pieces of twisted sculpture desposited like shrapnel to break the vast emptiness of the room.

“May I help you?” The receptionist gave me a practiced smile from the depths of her station.

Before I could respond, a door indistinguishable from the dark walls silently opened and Mark was taking my suit bag and ushering me inside a long, wide hallway. We passed doorway after doorway opening onto spacious offices with plate-glass windows offering a gray vista of Manhattan. I didn’t see a soul. I supposed everybody was at lunch.

“Who in God’s name designed your lobby?” I whispered.

“The person we’re going to see,” Mark said.

Sparacino’s office was twice the size of the others I had passed, his desk a beautiful block of ebony scattered with polished gemstone paperweights and surrounded by walls of books. No less intimidating than he had seemed last night, this lawyer to luminaries and the literati was dressed in what looked like an expensive John Gotti suit, the handkerchief in his breast pocket offering a contrasting touch of bloodred. He did not budge from his casual repose when we walked in and helped ourselves to chairs. For a chilly moment he did not even look at us.

“Understand you’re on your way to lunch,” he finally said as cool blue eyes lifted up and thick fingers shut a file folder. “I promise not to hold you up long, Dr. Scar-petta. Mark and 1 have been reviewing a few details pertaining to the case of my client, Beryl Madison. As her attorney and the executor of her estate, I have some fairly clear needs, and I’m confident you can assist me in complying with her wishes.”

I said nothing, my search for an ashtray fruitless.

“Robert needs her papers,” Mark said un-emphatically. “Specifically the manuscript of the book she was writing, Kay. I was explaining to him before you got here that the medical examiner’s office is not the custodian of these personal effects, at least not in this instance.”

We had rehearsed this meeting over breakfast. Mark was supposed to “handle” Sparacino before I arrived. Already I was getting the feeling that I was the one being handled.

I looked straight at Sparacino and said, “The items receipted to my office are of an evidentiary nature and do not include any papers you might need.”

“You’re telling me you don’t have the manuscript,” he said.

“That’s correct.”

“You don’t know where it is, either,” he said.

“I have no idea.”

“Well, now, I’ve got a few problems with what you’re saying.”

His face was expressionless as he opened the file folder and produced a photocopy I recognized as Beryl’s police report.

“According to the police, a manuscript was recovered at the scene,” he said. “Now I’m being told there isn’t a manuscript. Can you help me make sense of that?”

“Pages of a manuscript were recovered,” I answered. “But I don’t think they’re what you’re interested in, Mr. Sparacino. They do not appear to be part of a current work and, more to the point, they were never receipted to me.”

“How many pages?” he asked.

“I’ve not actually seen them,” I said.

“Who has?”

“Lieutenant Marino. He’s the one you really need to talk to,” I said.

“I already have, and he tells me he hand delivered this manuscript to you.”

I did not believe Marino had actually said such a thing. “A miscommumcation,” I replied. “I think Marino must have been referring to his receipting a partial manuscript to the forensic labs, pages of which may be an earlier work. The Bureau of Forensic Science is a separate division. It happens to be located in my building.”

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