“At least take a nanosecond to assess the situation before I went in there and put a gun to the asshole’s head. Shit. The guy was so fucked up he couldn’t even see what he was doing. He’s screaming bloody murder because he’s got this chemical shit you threw in his eyes. He wasn’t armed by this point. He wasn’t going to be hurting nobody. That was obvious right away. And it was obvious you was hurt, too. So if it had been me, I’d called for an ambulance, and Lucy didn’t think to even do that. She’s a wild card, Doc. And no, I didn’t want her in the house with all this going on. That’s why we interviewed her down at the station, got her statements in a neutral place to get her calmed down.”
“I don’t consider an interrogation room a neutral place,” I reply.
“Well, being inside the house where your Aunt Kay almost got whacked ain’t exactly neutral, either.”
I don’t disagree with him, but sarcasm is poisoning his tone. I begin to resent it.
“All the same, I got to tell you I’ve got a really bad feeling about her being alone in a hotel right now,” he adds, rubbing his face again, and no matter what he says to the contrary, he thinks the world of my niece and would do anything for her. He has known her since she was ten, and he introduced her to trucks and big engines and guns and all sorts of so-called manly interests that he now criticizes her for having in her life. “I might just check on the little shit after I drop you off at Anna’s. Not that anybody seems to care about my bad feelings,” he jumps back several thoughts. “Like Jay Talley. Of course, it ain’t my business. The self-centered bastard.”
“He waited with me the entire time at the hospital,” I defend Jay yet one more time, deflecting Marino’s naked jealousy. Jay is ATF’s Interpol liaison. I don’t know him very well but slept with him in Paris four days ago. “And I was there thirteen or fourteen hours,” I go on as Marino practically rolls his eyes. “I don’t call that self-centered.”
“Jesus!” Marino exclaims. “Where’d you hear that fairy tale?” His eyes burn with resentment. He despises Jay and did the first time he ever laid eyes on him in France. “I can’t believe it. He lets you think he was at the hospital all that time? He didn’t wait for you! That’s total bullshit. He took you there on his fucking white horse and came right back here. Then he called to see when you was going to be ready to check out and slithered back to the hospital and picked you up.”
“Which makes good sense.” I don’t show my dismay. “No point in sitting and doing nothing. And he never said he was there the entire time. 1 just assumed it.”
“Yeah, why? Because he let you assume it. He lets you think something that isn’t true, and you ain’t bothered by that? In my book, that’s known as a character flaw. It’s called lying…. What?” He abruptly changes his tone. Someone is in my doorway.
A uniformed officer whose nameplate reads M. I. Cal-loway steps inside my bedroom. “I’m sorry,” she addresses Marino right off. “Captain, I didn’t know you were back here.”
“Well, now you know.” He gives her a black look.
“Dr. Scarpetta?” Her wide eyes are like Ping-Pong balls, bouncing back and forth between Marino and me. “I need to ask you about the jar. Where the jar of the chemical, the for-mulin…”
“Formalin,” I quietly correct her.
“Right,” she says. “Exactly, I mean, where exactly was the jar when you picked it up?”
Marino remains on the bed, as if he makes himself at home on the foot of my bed every day of his life. He starts feeling for his cigarettes.
“The coffee table in the great room,” I answer Galloway. “I’ve already told everybody that.”
“Yes, ma’am, but where on the coffee table? It’s a pretty big coffee table. I’m really sorry to bother you with all this. It’s just we’re trying to reconstruct how it all happened, because later it’s only going to get harder to remember.”