‘Dammit!’ I exclaimed under my breath. ‘Dammit, dammit, dammit!’
The buzzer sounded in the bay as I wondered what else had been tampered with or taken. I thought about my office upstairs as I went out and pushed a button on the wall. The great door screeched open. Marino, in uniform, stood on its other side with two patrolmen and a detective. They ran past me to the autopsy suite, holsters unsnapped. I followed them and set my revolver on the counter because I did not think I would need it now.
‘What the hell’s going on?’ Marino asked as he looked blankly at the body in its unzipped pouch.
The other officers looked on, not seeing anything wrong. Then they looked at me and the revolver I had just set down.
‘Dr. Scarpetta? What seems to be the problem?’ asked the detective, whose name I did not know.
I explained about the removal service while they listened with no expression on their faces.
‘And he came in with what appears to be a note in his pocket. What police investigator would allow that? What police department is working this, for that matter? There’s no mention of one,’ I said, next pointing out that the head was bagged with a garbage bag tied with a shoelace.
‘What does the note say?’ asked the detective, who wore a belted dark coat, cowboy boots, and a gold Rolex that I was certain was counterfeit.
‘I haven’t touched it,’ I said. ‘I thought it wise to wait until you got here.’
‘I think we’d better look,’ he said.
With gloved hands, I slid the envelope out of the pocket, touching as little of the paper as I could. I was startled to see my name and home address neatly written on the front of it in black fountain ink. The letter also was affixed with a stamp. Carrying it to the counter, I carefully slit it open with a scalpel and unfolded a single sheet of stationery that by now was chillingly familiar. The note read:
HO! HO! HO! CAIN
‘Who’s CAIN?’ an officer asked as I untied the shoelace and removed the trash bag from the dead man’s head.
‘Oh shit,’ the detective said, taking a step back.
‘Holy Christ,’ Marino exclaimed.
Sheriff Santa had been shot between the eyes, a nine-millimeter shell stuck in his left ear. The firing pin impression was distinctly Glock. I sat down in a chair and looked around. No one seemed quite sure what to do. This had never happened before. People didn’t commit homicides and then deliver their victims to the morgue.
‘The night-shift security guard is upstairs,’ I said, trying to catch my breath.
‘He was here when this was delivered?’ Marino lit a cigarette, eyes darting.
‘Apparently.’
‘I’m gonna go talk to him,’ said Marino, who was in command, for we were in his precinct. He looked at his officers. ‘You guys poke around down here and out in the bay. See what you find. Put something out over the air without tipping off the media. Gault’s been here. He may still be in the area.’ He glanced at his watch, then looked at me. ‘What’s the guy’s name upstairs?’
‘Evans.’
‘You know him?’
‘Vaguely.’
‘Come on,’ he said.
‘Is someone going to secure this room?’ I looked at the detective and two uniformed men.
‘I will,’ one of them said. ‘But you might not want to leave your gun sitting there.’
I returned my revolver to my purse, which I carried with me. Marino stabbed the cigarette in an ash can, and we boarded the elevator across the hall. The instant the doors shut his face turned red. He lost his captain’s composure.
‘I’m not believing this!’ He looked at me, eyes filled with fury. ‘This can’t happen, it just can’t happen!’
Doors opened and he angrily strode down the hall on the floor where I had spent so much of my life.
‘He should be in the conference room,’ I said.
We passed my office and I barely glanced inside. I did not have time now to see if Gault had been in there. All he had to do was get on the elevator or climb the stairs, and he could have walked into my office. At three o’clock in the morning, who was going to check?