‘No, I don’t know it for a fact. Makes sense, that’s all.’
‘Maybe to you.’ The driver’s face was menacing.
‘Believe that will be about enough, boys,’ Grigg warned, moving close again, his presence reminding them he was big and wore a gun.
‘You got that right,’ said the driver. ‘I’ve had enough of this shit. When can I get out of here? I’m already late.’
‘Something like this inconveniences everyone,’ Grigg said to him with a steady look.
Rolling his eyes and muttering profanity, the driver stalked off and lit a cigarette.
I removed the thermometer from the body, and held it up. The core temperature was eighty-four degrees, the same as the ambient air. I turned the torso over to see what else was there and noted a curious crop of fluid-filled vesicles over the lower buttocks. As I checked more carefully, I found evidence of others in the area of the shoulders and thighs, at the edges of deep cuts.
‘Double-pouch her,’ I directed. ‘I need the trash bag it came in, including what’s caught on the bucket up there. And I want the trash immediately around and under her, send all of it in.’
Grigg unfolded a twenty-gallon trash bag and shook it open. He pulled gloves out of a pocket, squatted and started grabbing up garbage by the handful while paramedics opened the back of the ambulance. The driver of the packer was leaning against his cab, and I could feel his fury like heat.
‘Where was your packer coming from?’ I asked him.
‘Look at the tags,’ he replied in a surly tone.
‘Where in Virginia?’ I refused to be put off by him.
It was Pleasants who said, ‘Tidewater area, ma’am. The packer belongs to us. We got a lot of them we lease.’
The landfill’s administrative headquarters overlooked the fire pond and was quaintly out of sync with the loud, dusty surroundings. The building was pale peach stucco, with flowers in window boxes and sculpted shrubs bordering the walk. Shutters were painted cream, a brass pineapple knocker on the front door. Inside, I was greeted by clean, chilled air that was a wonderful relief and I knew why Investigator Percy Ring had chosen to conduct his interviews here. I bet he had not even been to the scene.
He was in the break room, sitting with an older man in shirtsleeves, drinking Diet Coke and looking at computer-printed diagrams.
‘This is Dr Scarpetta. Sorry,’ Pleasants said, adding to Ring, ‘I don’t know your first name.’
Ring gave me a big smile and a wink. ‘The doc and I go way back.’
He was in a crisp blue suit, blond and exuding pure youthful innocence that was easy to believe. But he had never fooled me. He was a big-talking charmer who basically was lazy, and it had not escaped me that the moment he had become involved in these cases, we had been besieged by leaks to the press.
‘And this is Mr Kitchen,’ Pleasants was saying to me. ‘The owner of the landfill.’
Kitchen was simple in jeans and Timberland boots, his eyes gray and sad as he offered a big rough hand.
‘Please sit down,’ he said, pulling out a chair. ‘This is a bad, bad day. Especially for whoever that is out there.’
‘That person’s bad day happened earlier,’ Ring said. ‘Right now, she’s feeling no pain.’
‘Have you been up there?’ I asked him.
‘I just got here about an hour ago. And this isn’t the crime scene, just where the body ended up,’ he said. ‘Number five.’ He peeled open a stick of Juicy Fruit. ‘He’s not waiting as long, only two months in between ’em this time.’
I felt the usual rush of irritation. Ring loved to jump to conclusions and voice them with the certainty of one who doesn’t know enough to realize he could be wrong. In part this was because he wanted results without work.
‘I haven’t examined the body yet or verified gender,’ I said, hoping he would remember there were other people in the room. ‘This is not a good time to be making assumptions.’
‘Well, I’ll leave ya,’ Pleasants said nervously, on his way out the door.