I took several minutes to look through my in-basket, which was full of red-bordered death certificates for medical examiner cases and green-bordered ones for those that were not. Other reports also awaited my initialing, and a message on my computer screen told me I needed to check my electronic mail. All that could wait, I thought, and I walked back out into the hall to see who else was here.
Only Cleta was, I discovered, when I reached the front office, but she was just who I needed to see.
“Dr. Scarpetta,” she said, startled. “I didn’t know you were here.”
“I thought it was a good idea for me to return to Richmond right now,” I said, pulling a chair close to her desk.
“Dr. Fielding and I are going to try to cover Tidewater from here.”
Cleta was from Florence, South Carolina, and wore a lot of makeup and her skirts too short because she believed that happiness was being pretty, which was something she would never be. In the midst of sorting grim photographs by case number, she sat straight in her chair, a magnifying glass in hand, bifocals on. Nearby was a sausage biscuit on a napkin that she probably had gotten from the cafeteria next door, and she was drinking Tab.
“Well, I think the roads are starting to melt,” she let me know.
“Good.” I smiled. “I’m glad you’re here.”
She seemed very pleased as she plucked more photographs out of the shallow box.
“Cleta,” I said, “you remember Ted Eddings, don’t you?”
“Oh yes, ma’am.” She suddenly looked as if she might cry. “He was always so nice when he would come in here. I still can’t believe it.” She bit her lower lip.
“Dr. Fielding says Eddings called down here the end of last week,” I said. “I’m wondering if you might remember that.”
She nodded. “Yes, ma’am, I sure do. In fact, I can’t stop thinking about it.”
“Did he talk to you?”
“Yes.”
“Can you remember what he said?”
“Well, he wanted to speak to Dr. Fielding, but his line was busy. So I asked if I could take a message, and we kidded around some. You know how he was.” Her eyes got bright and her voice wavered. “He asked me if I was still eating so much maple syrup because I had to be eating plenty of it to talk like this. And he asked me out.”
I listened as her cheeks turned red.
“Of course, he didn’t mean it. He was always saying, you know. “When are we going out on that date? He didn’t mean it,” she said again.
“It’s all right if he did,” I kindly told her.
“Well, he already had a girlfriend.”
“How do you know that?” I asked.
“He said he was going to bring her by sometime, and I got the impression he was pretty serious about her. I believe her name is Loren, but I don’t know anything else about her.”
I thought of Eddings engaging in personal conversations like this with my staff, and was even less surprised that he had seemed to gain access to me more easily than most reporters who called. I could not help but wonder if this same talent had led to his death, and I suspected it had.
“Did he ever mention to you what he wanted to talk to Dr. Fielding about?” I said as I got up.
She thought hard for a moment, absently rummaging through pictures the world should never see. “Wait a minute. Oh, I know. It was something about radiation. About hat the findings would be if someone died from that.”
“What kind of radiations” I said.
“Well, I was thinking he was doing some sort of story on X-ray machines. You know, there’s been a lot in the news lately because of all the people afraid of things like letter bombs.”
I did not recall seeing anything in Eddings’ house that might indicate he was researching such a story. I returned to my office and started on paperwork and began returning telephone calls. Hours later, I was eating a late lunch at my desk when Marino walked in.