Other than teenagers burning down old farmhouses, arsons in Lehigh were rare. Violence in the tidy middle-class subdivision called Wescosville where Shephard had lived was unheard of, as well. Crime there had never been more serious than smash and grabs, when a thief spied a pocketbook or wallet in plain view inside a house, and broke in and grabbed. Since there was no police department in Lehigh, by the time state troopers responded to the clanging burglar alarm, the thief was long gone.
I got my BDUs and steel-reinforced boots from my turnout bag and shared the same changing room with the mannikin. Gerde was kind enough to give me a ride to the fire scene, and I was impressed by lush fir trees and roadside flower gardens, and every now and then, a well-kept, unassuming church. We turned on Hanover Drive, where homes were modern brick and wood, two-story and spacious, with basketball hoops, bicycles, and other signs of children.
‘Do you have any idea of the price range?’ I said, watching more houses flow past.
‘Two-to-three-hundred-K range,’ he said. ‘Got a lot of engineers, nurses, stock brokers, and executives back here. Plus, I-78 is the main artery through Lehigh Valley, and you can shoot straight out on that and be in New York in an hour and a half. So some people commute back and forth to the city.’
‘What else is around here?’ I asked.
‘A lot of industrial parks are just ten or fifteen minutes away. Coca-Cola, Air Products, Nestlé warehouses, Perrier. You pretty much name it. And farmland.’
‘But she worked at the hospital.’
‘Right. And that’s at most a ten-minute drive, as you can tell.’
‘Are you aware of ever having seen her before?’
Gerde thought for a minute as thin smoke drifted up from behind trees at the end of the street.
‘I’m fairly certain I’ve seen her in the cafeteria before,’ he answered. ‘It’s hard not to notice someone who looked like that. She may have been at a table with other nurses, I don’t really recall. But I don’t think we ever spoke.’
Shephard’s house was yellow clapboard with white trim, and although the fire may not have been difficult to contain, the damage from water, and from axes chopping great holes to vent the fire out of the roof, was devastating. What was left was a sad, sooty face with a caved-in head, and shattered windows that were depressed, lifeless eyes. Borders of wildflowers were trampled, the neatly mown grass turned to mud, and a late-model Camry parked in the drive was covered with cinders. Fire department and ATF investigators were working inside, while two FBI agents in flak jackets were prowling the perimeter.
I found McGovern in the backyard talking to an intense young woman dressed in cut-off jeans, sandals, and a T-shirt.
‘And that was what? Close to six?’ McGovern was saying to her.
‘That’s right. I was getting dinner ready and saw her pull into her driveway, parking exactly where her car is now,’ the woman recounted excitedly. ‘She went inside, then came out maybe thirty minutes later and began pulling weeds. She liked to work in the yard, cut her own grass and everything.’
McGovern watched me as I walked up.
‘This is Mrs Harvey,’ she said to me. ‘The next-door neighbor.’
‘Hello,’ I said to Mrs Harvey, whose eyes were bright with excitement that bordered on fear.
‘Dr Scarpetta is a medical examiner,’ McGovern explained.
‘Oh,’ said Mrs Harvey.
‘Did you see Kellie again that night?’ McGovern then asked.
The woman shook her head.
‘She went in,’ she said, ‘I guess, and that was it. I know she worked real hard and usually didn’t stay up late.’
‘What about a relationship? Was there anybody she saw?’
‘Oh, she’s been through them,’ Mrs Harvey said. ‘A doctor here and there, different folks from the hospital. I remember last year she started seeing this man who had been her patient. Nothing lasted very long, it seems to me. She’s so beautiful, that’s the problem. The men wanted one thing, and she had something different in mind. I know because she used to make remarks about it.’
‘But nobody recently?’ McGovern asked.