“I need to see him before he’s moved,” I repeated.
Marino was very displeased because he was overly protective. He didn’t have to say another word for me to know that.
“I just thought you might want to check out his residence in Richmond,” I told him.
“Yeah. I sure as hell will.”
“I don’t know what we’re going to find.”
“Well, I just wish you’d let them find it first.”
In Chesapeake, I took the Elizabeth River exit, then turned left on High Street, passing brick churches, used-car lots and mobile homes. Beyond the city jail and police headquarters, naval barracks dissolved into the expansive, depressing landscape of a salvage yard surrounded by a rusty fence topped with barbed wire. In the midst of acres littered with metal and overrun by weeds was a power plant that appeared to burn trash and coal to supply the shipyard with energy to run its dismal, inert business. Smokestacks and train tracks were quiet today, all dry-dock cranes out of work. It was, after all, New Year’s Eve.
I drove on toward a headquarters built of boring tan cinderblock, beyond which were long paved piers. At the guard gate, a young man in civilian clothes and hard hat stepped out of his booth. I rolled my window down as clouds churned in the windswept sky.
“This is a restricted area.” His face was completely devoid of expression.
“I’m Dr. Kay Scarpetta, the chief medical examiner,” I said as I displayed the brass shield that symbolized my jurisdiction over every sudden, unattended, unexplained or violent death in the Commonwealth of Virginia.
Leaning closer, he studied my credentials. Several times he glanced up at my face and stared at my car.
“You’re the chief medical examiner?” he asked. “So how come you’re not driving a hearse?”
I had heard this before and was patient when I replied, “People who work in funeral homes drive hearses. I don’t work in a funeral home. I am a medical examiner.”
“I’m going to need some other form of identification.”
I gave him my driver’s license, and had no doubt that this sort of interference wasn’t going to improve once he allowed me to drive through. He stepped back from my car, lifting a portable radio to his lips.
“Unit eleven to unit two.” He turned away from me as if about to tell secrets.
“Two,” floated back the reply.
I got a Dr. Scaylatta here.” He mispronounced my name worse than most people did.
“Ten-four. We’re standing by.”
“Ma’am,” the security guard said to me, “just drive through and you’ll find a parking lot on your right.” He pointed. “You need to leave your car there and walk to Pier Two, where you’ll find Captain Green. That’s who you need to see.”
“And where will I find Detective Roche?” I asked.
“Captain Green’s who you need to see,” he repeated.
I rolled my window up as he opened a gate posted with signs warning that I was about to enter an industrial area where spray painting was an imminent hazard, safety equipment was required and parking was at my own risk. In the distance, dull gray cargo and tank landing ships, and mine sweepers, frigates and hydrofoils intimidated the cold horizon. On the second pier, emergency vehicles, police cars and a small group of men had gathered.
Leaving my car as instructed, I briskly walked toward them as they stated. I had left my medical bag and dive gear in the car, so I was an empty-handed, middle-aged woman in hiking boots, wool slacks and pale army-green Schoffel coat. The instant I set foot on the pier, a distinguished, graying man in uniform intercepted me as if I were trespassing. Unsmiling, he stepped in my path.
“May I help you?” he asked in a tone that said halt, as the wind lifted his hair and colored his cheeks.
I again explained who I was.
“Oh, good.” He certainly did not sound as if he meant it. “I’m Captain Green with Navy Investigative Service.
We really do need to get on with this. Listen,” he turned away from me and spoke to someone else. “We gotta get those CPs off. . .