Gray shirts with black fatigues tucked into spit-polished boots were new DBA agents, with the veterans dressed ominously in solid black. New FBI agents wore blue and khaki, while members of the elitist Hostage Teams wore solid white. Men and women were impeccably groomed and remarkably fit. They carried with them a mien of militaristic reserve as tangible as the odor of the gun-cleaning solvent they left in their wake.
We boarded a service elevator and Marino punched the button designated LL (for Low Low, so the joke goes). Hoover’s secret bomb shelter is sixty feet under ground, two stories below the indoor firing range. It has always seemed appropriate to me that the Academy decided to locate its Behavioral Science Unit closer to hell than heaven. Titles change. The last I heard, the Bureau was calling profilers Criminal Investigative Agents, or CIAs (an acronym destined for confusion). The work doesn’t change. There will always be psychopaths, sociopaths, lust murderers — whatever one chooses to call evil people who find pleasure in causing unthinkable pain.
We got off the elevator and followed a drab hallway to a drab outer office. Wesley emerged and showed us into a small conference room, where Roy Hanowell was sitting at a long polished table.
The fibers expert never seemed to remember me on sight from one meeting to the next. I always made a point of introducing myself when he offered his hand.
“Of course, of course, Dr. Scarpetta. How are you?” he inquired, just as he always did.
Wesley shut the door and Marino looked around, scowling when he couldn’t find an ashtray. An empty Diet Coke can in a trash basket would have to do. I resisted the impulse to dig out my own pack. The Academy was about as smokeless as an intensive care unit.
Wesley’s white shirt was wrinkled in back, his eyes tired and preoccupied as he began perusing paperwork inside a folder. He immediately got down to business.
“Anything new on Sterling Harper?” he asked.
I had reviewed her histology slides yesterday and wasn’t unduly surprised by what I had found. Nor was I any closer to understanding her cause of sudden death.
“She had chronic myelocytic leukemia,” I replied.
Wesley glanced up. “Cause of death?”
“No. In fact, I can’t even be sure she knew she had it,” I said.
“That’s interesting,” Hanowell commented. “You can have leukemia and not know it?”
“The onset of chronic leukemia is insidious,” I explained. “Her symptoms could have been as mild as night sweats, fatigue, weight loss. On the other hand, it could have been diagnosed some time ago and was in remission. She wasn’t in a blast crisis. There were no progressive leukemic infiltrations, and she wasn’t suffering from any significant infections.”
Hanowell looked perplexed. “Then what killed her?”
“I don’t know,” I admitted.
“Drugs?” Wesley asked, making notes.
“The tox lab is beginning its second round of testing,” I answered. “Her preliminary report shows a blood alcohol of point zero-three. In addition, she had dextro-methorphan on board, which is an antitussive found in numerous over-the-counter cough suppressants. At the scene we found a bottle of Robitussin on top of the sink inside her upstairs bathroom. It was more than half full.”
“So that didn’t do it,” Wesley muttered to himself.
“The entire bottle wouldn’t do it,” I told him, adding, “It’s puzzling, I agree.”
“You’ll keep me posted? Let me know what turns up on her,” Wesley said. More pages turned, and he went to the next item on his agenda. “Roy’s examined the fibers from Beryl Madison’s case. We want to talk to you about that. And then, Pete, Kay”–he glanced up at us–“I have another matter to take up with both of you.”
Wesley looked anything but happy, and I had the feeling that his reason for summoning us here wasn’t going to make me happy, either. Hanowell, in contrast, was his usual unperturbed self. His hair, eyebrows, and eyes were gray. Even his suit was gray. Whenever I saw him, he always looked half asleep and gray, so colorless and calm I was tempted to wonder if he had a blood pressure.
“With one exception,” Hanowell laconically began, “the fibers I was asked to look at, Dr. Scarpetta, reveal few surprises–no unusual dyes or shapes at cross sections to speak of. I have concluded that the six nylon fibers most likely came from six different origins, just as your examiner in Richmond and I discussed. Four of them are consistent with the fabrics used in automobile carpeting.”