I drove swiftly along West Cary Street, passing huge brick homes with roof-, of copper and slate, and entrances barricaded by tall black wrought-iron gates. It seemed surreal to be speeding in the morgue wagon through this elegant part of the city while one of my employees lay dead, and I fretted over leaving Lucy alone again. I could not remember if I had armed the alarm system and turned the motion sensors off on my way out. My hands were shaking and I wished I could smoke.
Libby Hill Park was on one of Richmond’s seven hills in an area where real estate was now considered prime.
Century-old row houses and Greek Revival homes had been brilliantly restored by people hold enough to reclaim a historic section of the city from the clutches of decay and crime. For most residents, the chance they took had turned out fine, but I knew I could not live near housing projects and depressed areas where the major industry was drugs. I did not want to work cases in my neighborhood.
Police cruisers with lights throbbing red and blue lined both sides of Franklin Street. The night was very dark, and I could barely make out the octagonal bandstand or bronze soldier on his tall granite pedestal facing the James. My Mercedes was surrounded by officers and a television crew, and people had emerged on wide porches to watch. As I slowly drove past, I could not tell if my car had been damaged, but the driver’s door was open, the interior light on.
East past 29th Street, the road sloped down to a section known as Sugar Bottom, named for prostitutes once kept in business by Virginia gentlemen, or maybe it was for moonshine. I wasn’t sure of the lore. Restored homes abruptly turned into slumlord apartments and leaning tarpaper shacks, and off the pavement, midway down the steep hill, were woods thick and dense where the C&O tunnel had collapsed in the twenties.
I remembered flying over this area in a state police helicopter once, and the tunnel’s black opening had peeked out of trees at me, its railroad bed a muddy scar leading to the river. I thought of the train cars and laborers supposedly still sealed inside, and again, I could not imagine why Danny would have come here willingly. If nothing else, he would have worried about his injured knee. Pulling over, I parked as close to Marino’s Ford as I could, and instantly was spotted by reporters.
“Dr. Scarpetta, is it true that’s your car up the hill?”
asked a woman journalist as she hurried to my side. “I understand the Mercedes is registered to you. What color is it? Is it black?” she persisted when I did not reply.
“Can you explain how it got there?” A man pushed a microphone close to my face.
“Did you drive it there?” asked someone else.
“Was it stolen from you? Did the victim steal it from you’? Do you think this is about drugs?”
Voices folded into each other because no one would wait his turn and I would not speak. When several uniformed officers realized I had arrived, they loudly intervened.
“Hey, get back.”
“Now. You heard me.”
“Let the lady through.”
“Come on. We got a crime scene to work here. I hope that’s all right with you.”
Marino was suddenly holding on to my arm. “Bunch of squirrels,” he said as he glared at them. “Be real careful where you step. We got to go through the woods almost all the way to where the tunnel is. What kind of shoes you got on””
“I’ll be all right.”
There was a path, and it was long and led steeply down from the street. Lights had been set up to illuminate the way, and they cut a swath like the moon on a dangerous bay. On the margins, woods dissolved into blackness stirred by a subtle wind.
“Be real careful,” he said again. “It’s muddy and there’s shit all over the place.”
“What shit?” I asked.
I turned on my flashlight and directed it straight down at the narrow muddy path of broken glass, rotting paper, and discarded shoes that glinted and glowed a washed-out white amid brambles and winter trees.