I drove on toward a headquarters built of boring tan cinderblock, beyond which were long paved piers. At the guard gate, a young man in civilian clothes and hard hat stepped out of his booth. I rolled my window down as clouds churned in the windswept sky.
“This is a restricted area.” His face was completely devoid of expression.
“I’m Dr. Kay Scarpetta, the chief medical examiner,” I said as I displayed the brass shield that symbolized my jurisdiction over every sudden, unattended, unexplained or violent death in the Commonwealth of Virginia.
Leaning closer, he studied my credentials. Several times he glanced up at my face and stared at my car.
“You’re the chief medical examiner?” he asked. “So how come you’re not driving a hearse?”
I had heard this before and was patient when I replied, “People who work in funeral homes drive hearses. I don’t work in a funeral home. I am a medical examiner.”
“I’m going to need some other form of identification.”
I gave him my driver’s license, and had no doubt that this sort of interference wasn’t going to improve once he allowed me to drive through. He stepped back from my car, lifting a portable radio to his lips.
“Unit eleven to unit two.” He turned away from me as if about to tell secrets.
“Two,” floated back the reply.
I got a Dr. Scaylatta here.” He mispronounced my name worse than most people did.
“Ten-four. We’re standing by.”
“Ma’am,” the security guard said to me, “just drive through and you’ll find a parking lot on your right.” He pointed. “You need to leave your car there and walk to Pier Two, where you’ll find Captain Green. That’s who you need to see.”
“And where will I find Detective Roche?” I asked.
“Captain Green’s who you need to see,” he repeated.
I rolled my window up as he opened a gate posted with signs warning that I was about to enter an industrial area where spray painting was an imminent hazard, safety equipment was required and parking was at my own risk. In the distance, dull gray cargo and tank landing ships, and mine sweepers, frigates and hydrofoils intimidated the cold horizon. On the second pier, emergency vehicles, police cars and a small group of men had gathered.
Leaving my car as instructed, I briskly walked toward them as they stated. I had left my medical bag and dive gear in the car, so I was an empty-handed, middle-aged woman in hiking boots, wool slacks and pale army-green Schoffel coat. The instant I set foot on the pier, a distinguished, graying man in uniform intercepted me as if I were trespassing. Unsmiling, he stepped in my path.
“May I help you?” he asked in a tone that said halt, as the wind lifted his hair and colored his cheeks.
I again explained who I was.
“Oh, good.” He certainly did not sound as if he meant it. “I’m Captain Green with Navy Investigative Service.
We really do need to get on with this. Listen,” he turned away from me and spoke to someone else. “We gotta get those CPs off. . .
“Excuse me. You’re with NISI cut in, for I was going to get this cleared up now. “It was my belief that this shipyard is not Navy property. If it is Navy property, I shouldn’t be here. The case should be the Navy’s and autopsied by Navy pathologists.”
. “Ma’am,” he said as if I tried his patience, “this shipyard is a civilian contractor-operated facility, and therefore not naval property. But we have an obvious interest because it appears someone was diving unauthorized around our vessels.
“Do you have a theory as to why someone might have done that?” I looked around.
“Some treasure hunters think they’re going to find cannonballs, old ship bells and whatnot in waters around here.”
We were standing between the cargo ship El Paso and the submarine Exploiter, both of them lusterless and rigid in the river. The water looked like cappuccino, and I realized that visibility was going to be even worse than I had feared. Near the submarine, there was a dive platform. But I saw no sign of the victim or the rescuers and police supposedly working his death. I asked Green about this as wind blowing off the water numbed my face, and his reply was to give me his back again.