“Precisely. So we’ll assume the item in question is filled with pure eiderdown, and that is extremely curious. Usually what I’m going to see in cases that come through here are your Kmart-variety jackets, gloves, or comforters filled with chicken feathers or maybe goose. Eider is a specialty item, a very exclusive shop item. A vest, jacket, comforter, or sleeping bag filled with eiderdown is going to have very low leakage, be very well made – and prohibitively expensive.”
“Have you ever had eiderdown submitted as evidence before?”
“This is the first.”
“Why is it so valuable?”
“The insulating qualities I’ve already described. But aesthetic appeal also has a lot to do with it. The common eider’s down is snow-white. Most down is dingy.”
“And if I purchased a specialty item filled with eiderdown, would I be aware that it’s filled with this snow-white down or would the label simply say ‘duck down’?’
“I’m quite sure you’d be aware of it,” he said. “The label would probably say something like ‘one hundred percent eiderdown.’
There would have to be something that would justify the price.”
“Can you run a computer check on down distributors?”
“Sure. But to state the obvious, no distributor is going to be able to tell you the eiderdown you’ve collected is theirs, not without the accompanying garment or item. Unfortunately, a feather isn’t enough.”
“I don’t know,” I said. “It might be.”
By noon I had walked two blocks to where I had parked my car, and was inside with the heater blasting. I was so close to New Jersey Avenue that I felt like the tide being pulled by the moon. I fastened my seat belt, fiddled with the radio, and twice reached for the phone and changed my mind. It was crazy to even consider contacting Nicholas Grueman.
He won’t be in anyway, I thought, reaching for the phone again and dialing.
“Grueman,” the voice said.
“This is Dr. Scarpetta.”
I raised my voice above the heater’s fan.
“Well, hello. I was just reading about you the other day. You sound like you’re calling from a car phone.”
“That’s because I am. I happen to be in Washington.”
“I’m truly flattered that you would think of me while you’re passing through my humble town.”
“There is nothing humble about your town, Mr. Grueman, and there is nothing social about this call. I thought you and I should discuss Ronnie Joe Waddell.”
“I see. How far are you from the Law Center?”
“Ten minutes.”
“I haven’t eaten lunch and I don’t suppose you have, either. Does it suit you if I have sandwiches sent in?”
“That would be fine,” I said.
The Law Center was located some thirty-five blocks from the university’s main campus, and I remembered my dismay many years before when I realized that my education would not include walking the old, shaded streets of the Heights and attending classes in fine eighteenth-century brick buildings. Instead, I was to spend three long years in a brand-new facility devoid of charm in a noisy, frantic section of D.C. My disappointment, however, did not last long. There was a certain excitement, not to mention convenience, in studying law in the shadow of the U.S. Capitol. But perhaps more significant was that .I had not been a student long when I met Mark.
What I remembered most about my early encounters with Mark James during the first semester of our first year was his physical effect on me. At first I found the very sight of him unsettling, though I had no idea why. Then, as we became acquainted, his presence sent adrenaline charging through my blood. My heart would gallop and I would suddenly find myself acutely aware of his every gesture, no matter how common. For weeks, our conversations were entranced as they stretched into the early-morning hours. Our words were not elements of speech as much as they were notes to some secret inevitable crescendo, which happened one night with the dazzling unpredictability and force of an accident.
Since those days, the Law Center’s physical plant had significantly grown and changed. The Criminal Justice Clinic was on the fourth floor, and when I got off the elevator there was no one in sight and offices I passed looked unoccupied. It was, after all, still the holidays, and only the relentless or desperate would be inclined to work. The door to room 418 was open, the secretary’s desk vacant, the door to Grueman’s inner office ajar.