“Please give me your fax number again,” I said quietly.
He recited it for me. The number matched the one on my list.
“Is the fax machine in your office or do you share it with other attorneys, Mr. Grueman?”
“It’s right next to my desk. No need to mark anything for my attention. Just send it on – and do put a rush on it please, Dr. Scarpetta. I was thinking of going home soon.”
I left the office a little later, frustration having driven me out the door. I could not get Marino. There was nothing more I could do. I felt caught in a web of bizarre connections, clueless as to the point in common they shared.
On impulse I pulled into a lot of West Cary where an old man was selling wreaths and Christmas trees. He looked like a lumberjack from a fable as he sat on a stool in the midst of his small forest, the cold air fragrant with evergreen. Perhaps my shunning of the Christmas spirit finally had gotten to me. Or maybe I simply wanted a distraction. At this late date, there wasn’t much of a selection, those trees passed over, misshapen or dying, each destined to sit out the season, I suspected, except for the one I chose. It would have been lovely were it not scoliotic. Decorating it proved more an orthopedic challenge than a festive ritual, but with ornaments and strands of lights strategically hung and wire straightening the problem places, it stood proudly in my living room.
“There,” I said to Lucy as I stepped back to admire my work. “What do you think?”
“I think it’s weird that you suddenly decided to get a tree on Christmas Eve. When was the last time you had one? “I suppose when I was married.”
“Is that where the ornaments came from?”
“Back then I went to a lot of trouble at Christmas.”
“Which is why you don’t anymore.”
“I’m much busier than I was back then,” I said.
Lucy opened the fireplace screen and rearranged logs with the poker. “Did you and Mark ever spend Christmas together?”
“Don’t you remember? We came down to see you last Christmas.”
“No, you didn’t. You came for three days after Christmas and flew home on New Year’s Day.”
“He was with his family on Christmas Day.”
“You weren’t invited?”
“No.”
“Why not?”
“Mark came from an old Boston family. They had certain ways of doing things. What did you decide about this evening? Did my jacket with the black velvet collar fit?”
“I haven’t tried anything. Why do we have to go to all these places?”
Lucy sail. “I won’t know anybody.”
“It’s not that bad. I simply have to drop off a present to someone who’s pregnant and probably not coming back to work. And I need to show the flag at a neighborhood party. I accepted the invitation before I knew you were going to be visiting. You certainly don’t have to come with me.”
“I’d rather stay here,” she said. “I wish I could get started on AFIS.”
“Patience,” I told her, though I did not feel patient at all.
In the late afternoon, I left another message with the dispatcher and decided that either Marino’s pager wasn’t working or he was too busy to find a pay phone. Candles glowed in my neighbors’ windows, an oblong moon shining high above trees. I played that Christmas music of Pavarotti and the New York Philharmonic, doing what I could to get into the proper frame of mind as I showered and dressed. The party I was to attend did not begin until seven. That gave me enough time to drop off Susan’s gift and have a word with her.
She surprised me by answering the phone, and sounded reluctant and tense when I asked if I could drop by.
“Jason’s out,” she said, as if that mattered somehow. “He went to the mall.”
“Well, I have a few things for you,” I explained.
“What things?”
“Christmas things. I’m supposed to go to a party, so I won’t stay long. Is that all right?”
“I guess. I mean, that’s nice.”
I had forgotten she lived in Southside, where I rarely went and was inclined to get lost. Traffic was worse than I had feared, the Midlothian Turnpike choked with last minute shoppers prepared to run you off the road as they ran their Happy Holidays errands. Parking lots swarmed with cars, stores and malls so garishly lit up it was enough to make you blind. Susan’s neighborhood was very dark and twice I had to pull over and turn on the interior light to read her directions. After much riding around, I finally found her tiny ranch-style house sandwiched between two others that looked exactly like it.