PATRICIA CORNWELL. Unnatural Exposure

‘Shit.’ His face was deep red. ‘So, is there something like a return address?’

‘Yes. Someone on AOL with the name D-E-A-D-O-C.’

‘As in Dead-Doc?’ He was intrigued enough to forget his mood.

‘I can only assume. The message was one word: ten.’

‘That’s it?’

‘In lowercase letters.’

He looked at me, thinking. ‘You count the ones in Ireland, this is number ten. You got a copy of this thing?’

‘Yes. And the Dublin cases and their possible connection to the first four here have been in the news.’ I handed him a printout. ‘Anybody could know about it.’

‘Don’t matter. Assuming this is the same killer and he’s just struck again, he knows damn well how many he’s killed,’ he said. ‘But what I’m not getting is how he knew where to send this file to you?’

‘My address in AOL wouldn’t be hard to guess. It’s my name.’

‘Jesus, I can’t believe you would do that,’ he erupted again. ‘That’s like using your date of birth for your burglar alarm code.’

‘I use e-mail almost exclusively to communicate with medical examiners, people in the Health Department, the police. They need something easy to remember. Besides,’ I added as his stare continued to pass judgment on me, ‘it’s never been a problem.’

‘Well, now it sure as hell is,’ he said, looking at the printout. ‘Good news is, maybe we’ll find something in here that will help. Maybe he left a trail in the computer.’

‘On the Web,’ I said.

‘Yeah, whatever,’ he said. ‘Maybe you should call Lucy.’

‘Benton should do that,’ I reminded him. ‘I can’t ask her help on a case just because I’m her aunt.’

‘So I guess I got to call him about that, too.’ He picked his way around my clutter, walking to the doorway. ‘I hope you’ve got some beer in this joint.’ He stopped and turned toward me. ‘You know, Doc, it ain’t none of my business, but you got to talk to him eventually.’

‘You’re right,’ I said. ‘It’s none of your business.’

3

THE NEXT MORNING, I woke up to the muffled drumming of heavy rain on the roof and the persistent beeping of my alarm. The hour was early for a day that I was supposed to be taking off from work, and it struck me that during the night the month had turned into November. Winter was not far away, another year gone. Opening shades, I looked out at the day. Petals from my roses were beaten to the ground, the river swollen and flowing around rocks that looked black.

I felt bad about Marino. I had been impatient with him when I had sent him home without a beer last night. But I did not want to talk with him about matters he would not understand. For him, it was simple. I was divorced. Benton Wesley’s wife had left him for another man. We’d been having an affair, so we might as well get married. For a while I had gone along with the plan. Last fall and winter, Wesley and I went skiing, diving, we shopped, cooked in and out and even worked in my yard. We did not get along worth a damn.

In fact, I didn’t want him in my house any more than I wanted Marino sitting in my chair. When Wesley moved a piece of furniture or even returned dishes and silverware to the wrong cabinets and drawers, I felt a secret anger that surprised and dismayed me. I had never believed that our relationship was right when he was still married, but back then we had enjoyed each other more, especially in bed. I feared that my failure to feel what I thought I should revealed a trait that I could not bear to see.

I drove to my office with the windshield wipers working hard as the relentless downpour thrummed the roof. Traffic was thin because it was barely seven, and Richmond’s downtown skyline came into view slowly and by degrees in the watery fog. I thought of the photograph again. I envisioned it slowly painting down my screen, and the hairs on my arms stood up as a chill crept over me. I was disturbed in a way I could not define as it occurred to me for the first time that the person who had sent it might be someone I knew.

Pages: 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 32 33 34 35 36 37 38 39 40 41 42 43 44 45 46 47 48 49 50 51 52 53 54 55 56 57 58 59 60 61 62 63 64 65 66 67 68 69 70 71 72 73 74 75 76 77 78 79 80 81 82 83 84 85 86 87 88 89 90 91 92 93 94 95 96 97 98 99 100 101 102 103 104 105 106 107 108 109 110 111 112 113 114 115 116 117 118 119 120 121 122

Leave a Reply 0

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *