“Well, if you find a knife or bullet in his back, I hope you’ll call me first,” he said with quiet irony as he gave me one of his cards.
I drove away looking up the number for Mant morgue assistant and hoping I would find him home. I did.
“Danny, it’s Dr. Scarpetta,” I said.
“Oh, yes, ma’am,” he said, surprised.
Christmas music sounded in the background and I heard the voices of people arguing.
Danny Webster was in his early twenties and still lived with his family.
“I’m so sorry to bother you on New Year’s Eve,” I said, “but we’ve got a case I need to autopsy without delay. I’m on my way to the office now.”
“You need me?” He sounded quite open to the idea.
“If you could help me, I can’t tell you how much I would appreciate it. There’s a johnboat and a body headed to I the office as we speak.”
“No problem, Dr. Scarpetta,” he cheerfully said. “I’ll be right there.”
I tried my house, but Lucy did not pick up, so I entered a code to check the answering machine’s messages. There were two, both left by friends of Mant, expressing their sympathy. Snow had begun drifting down from a leaden sky, the interstate busy with people driving faster than was safe. I wondered if my niece had gotten delayed and why she hadn’t called. Lucy was twenty-three and barely graduated from the FBI Academy. I still worried about her as if she needed my protection.
My Tidewater District Office was located in a small, crowded annex on the grounds of Sentara Norfolk General Hospital. We shared the building with the Department of Health, which unfortunately included the office of Shell Fish Sanitation. So between the stench of decomposing bodies and decaying fish, the parking lot was not a good place to be, no matter the time of year or day. Danny’s ancient Toyota was already there, and when I unlocked the bay I was pleased to find the johnboat waiting.
I lowered the door behind me and walked around, looking. The long low-pressure hose had been neatly coiled, an d as I had requested one severed end and the regulator it was attached to were sealed inside plastic. The other end was still connected to the small compressor strapped to the inner tube. Nearby were a gallon of gasoline and the expected miscellaneous assortment of dive and boat equipment, including extra weights, a tank containing three thousand pounds per square inch of air, a paddle, life preserver, flashlight, blanket and flare gun.
Eddings also had attached an extra five-horsepower trolling engine that he clearly had used to enter the restricted area where he had died. The main thirty-five-horsepower engine was pulled back and locked, so its propeller would have been out of the water, and I remembered this was the position it was in when I saw the johnboat at the scene.
But what interested me more than any of this was a hard plastic carrying case open on the floor. Nestled in its foam lining were various camera attachments and boxes of Kodak 100 ASA film. But I saw no camera or strobe, and I imagined they were forever lost on the bottom of the Elizabeth River.
I walked up a ramp and unlocked another door, and inside the white-tiled corridor, Ted Eddings was zipped inside a pouch on top of a gurney parked near the X-ray room.
His stiff arms pushed against black vinyl as if he were trying to fight his way free, and water slowly dripped on the floor. I was about to look for Danny when he limped around a corner, carrying a stack of towels, his right knee in a bright red sports brace from a soccer injury that had necessitated a reconstruction of his anterior cruciate ligament.
“We really should get him in the autopsy suite,” I said.
“You know how I feel about leaving bodies unattended in the hall.”
“I was afraid someone would slip,” he said, mopping up water with the towels.
“Well, the only someones here today are you and me.”
I smiled at him. “But thank you for the thought, and I certainly don’t want you to slip.