‘You’ll have to use an alias,’ he went on. ‘And you got to have security. You can’t be off at some ski resort all by yourself.’
‘Well,’ I snapped, ‘no one is going to assign an FBI or Secret Service agent to me, if that’s what you’re thinking. Rights are honored only in the breach. Most people don’t get agents or cops assigned to them until they’re already raped or dead.’
‘You can hire someone. He can drive, too, but you shouldn’t be in your own ride.’
‘I am not hiring anybody and I insist on driving my own car.’
He thought for a minute, staring up at the vaulted ceiling. ‘How long have you had it?’
‘Not even two months.’
‘You got it from McGeorge, right?’ He referred to the Mercedes dealership in town.
‘Yes.’
‘I’ll talk to them and see if they’ll let you borrow something less conspicuous than that big black Nazimobile of yours,’
Furious, I got up from the couch and moved closer to the fire.
‘And just what else should I give up?’ I said bitterly as I stared at flames wrapping around artificial logs.
Marino did not answer.
‘I won’t let him turn me into Jane.’ I launched into a diatribe. ‘It’s as if he’s prepping me so he can do the same thing to me he did to her. He’s trying to take away everything I have.
‘Even my name. I’m supposed to have an alias. I’m supposed to be less conspicuous. Or generic. I’m not to live anywhere or drive anything and can’t tell people where to find me. Hotels, private security are very expensive.
‘So, eventually, I will go through my savings. I’m the chief medical examiner of Virginia and hardly in the office anymore. The governor may fire me. Little by little I will lose all that I have and all that I’ve been. Because of him.’
Still, Marino did not answer, and I realized he was asleep. A tear slid down my cheek as I pulled the covers to his chin and went back upstairs.
12
I parked behind my building at a quarter after seven and for a while sat in my car, staring at cracked blacktop, dingy stucco and the sagging chain-link fence around the parking lot.
Behind me were railroad trestles and the 1-95 overpass, then the outer limits of a downtown boarded up and battered by crime. There were no trees or plantings and very little grass. My appointment to this position certainly had never included a view, but right now I did not care. I missed my office and my staff, and all that I looked at was comforting.
Inside the morgue, I stopped by the office to check on the day’s cases. A suicide needed to be viewed along with an eighty-year-old woman who had died at home from untreated carcinoma of the breast. An entire family had been killed yesterday afternoon when their car was struck by a train, and my heart was heavy as I read their names. Deciding to take care of the views while I waited for my assistant chiefs, I unlocked the walk-in refrigerator and doors leading into the autopsy suite.
The three tables were polished bright, the tile floor very clean. I scanned cubbyholes stacked with forms, carts neatly lined with instruments and test tubes, steel shelves arranged with camera equipment and film. In the locker room I checked linens and starchy lab coats as I put on plastic apron and gown, then went out in the hall to a cart of surgical masks, shoe covers, face shields.
Pulling on gloves, I continued my inspection as I went inside the refrigerator to retrieve the first case. Bodies were in black pouches on top of gurneys, the air properly chilled to thirty-four degrees and adequately deodorized considering we had a full house. I checked toe tags until I found the right one, and I wheeled the gurney out.
No one else would be in for another hour, and I cherished the silence. I did not even need to lock the autopsy suite doors because it was too early for the elevator across the hall to be busy with forensic scientists going upstairs. I couldn’t find any paperwork on the suicide and checked the office again. The report of sudden death had been placed in the wrong box. The date scribbled on it was incorrect by two days, and much of the form had not been completed. The only other information it offered was the name of the decedent and that the body had been delivered at three o’clock this morning by Sauls Mortuary, which made no sense.