Patricia Cornwell – Scarpetta11 – The Last Precinct

“How many for the morning, so far?” I inquire about our case load for tomorrow.

“Five so far. Including a weirdo one that’s going to be a pain in the butt. Young white malemaybe Hispanicfound inside a motel room. Looks like the room was torched. No ID. A needle stuck in his arm, so we don’t know if he’s a drug OD or smoke inhalation.”

“Let’s not talk about it over a cell phone,” I cut him off, looking around me. “We’ll talk about it in the morning. I’ll take care of him.”

A long, surprised pause is followed by, “You sure? Be­cause I…”

“I’m sure, Jack.” I have not been to the office at all this week. “See you then.”

I am supposed to meet Lucy in front of Waldenbooks at seven-thirty, and I venture back out into the churning herd. I have no sooner parked myself at the appointed spot when I notice a familiar, big, sour-looking man riding up the escala­tor. Marino bites into a soft pretzel and licks his fingers as he stares at the teenage girl one step above him. Her tight jeans and sweater leave no mysteries about her curves, dips and el­evations, and even from this distance, I can tell Marino is mapping her routes and imagining what it would be like to travel them.

I watch him carried along crowded steps of steel, heavily involved with the pretzel, chewing with his mouth open, lust­ing. Faded, baggy blue jeans ride below his swollen gut, and his big hands look like baseball mitts protruding from the sleeves of a red NASCAR windbreaker. A NASCAR cap cov­ers his balding head and he wears ridiculous Elvis-size wire-rim glasses. His fleshy face is furrowed by discontent and has the slack, flushed look of chronic dissipation, and I am star­tled by an awareness of how miserable he is in his own body, of how much he wars against flesh that by now fails him with a vengeance. Marino reminds me of someone who has taken terrible care of his car, driving it hard, letting it rust and fall apart, and then violently hating it. I imagine Marino slamming down the hood and kicking the tires.

We worked our first case together shortly after I moved here from Miami, and he was surly and condescending and positively boorish from the start. I was certain that by accept­ing the chief medical examiner’s position in Virginia I had made the biggest mistake of my life. In Miami, I had earned the respect of law enforcement and the medical and scientific community. The press treated me reasonably well and I en­joyed a rise to minor stardom that gave me confidence and re­assurance. Gender did not seem an issue until I met Peter Rocco Marino, begotten of hardworking Italian stock in New Jersey, a former New York cop, now divorced from his child­hood sweetheart, father of a son he never talks about.

He is like the harsh lighting in dressing rooms. I was rela­tively comfortable with myself until I saw my reflection in him. This minute, I am unsettled enough to accept that the flaws he holds up to me are probably true. He notices me against the glass storefront, tucking my phone back into my satchel, shopping bags at my feet, and I wave at him. He takes his time maneuvering his bulk through prepossessed people who right now aren’t thinking about murderers or trials or New York prosecutors.

“What are you doing here?” he asks me as if I am tres­passing.

“Buying your Christmas present,” I say. He takes another bite of pretzel. It appears he has purchased nothing but the pretzel. “And you?” I inquire.

“Came to sit on Santa’s lap and get my picture took.”

“Don’t let me stop you.”

“I paged Lucy. She told me where in this zoo you was probably at. I thought you might need someone to carry your bags, being that you’re a little shorthanded at the moment. How you gonna do autopsies with that thing on?” He indi­cates my cast.

I know why he is here. I detect the distant roar of informa­tion headed my way like an avalanche. I sigh. Slowly but surely I am surrendering to the fact that my life is only going to get worse. “Okay, Marino, now what?” I ask him. “What’s happened now?”