An open doorway led into a corridor running the length of the house. To my right appeared a series of rooms, to the left was the kitchen, where Marino and a young officer were talking to a man I assumed was the husband.
I was vaguely aware of clean countertops, linoleum and appliances in the off-white that manufacturers call “almond,” and the pale yellow of the wallpaper and curtains. But my attention was riveted to the table. On top of it lay a red nylon knapsack, the contents of which had been gone through by the police: a stethoscope, a penlight, a Tupperware container once packed with a meal or a snack, and recent editions of the Annals of Surgery, Lancet and the Journal of Trauma. By now I was thoroughly unsettled.
Marino eyed me coolly as I paused by the table, then introduced me to Matt Petersen, the husband. Petersen was slumped in a chair, his face destroyed by shock. He was exquisitely handsome, almost beautiful, his features flawlessly chiseled, his hair jet-black, his skin smooth and hinting of a tan. He was wide shouldered with a lean but elegantly sculpted body casually clad in a white Izod shirt and faded blue jeans. His eyes were cast down, his hands stiffly in his lap.
“These are hers?” I had to know. The medical items might belong to the husband.
Marino’s “Yeah” was a confirmation.
Petersen’s eyes slowly lifted. Deep blue, bloodshot, they seemed relieved as they fixed on me. The doctor had arrived, a ray of hope where there was none.
He muttered in the truncated sentences of a mind fragmented, stunned, “I talked to her on the phone. Last night. She told me she’d be home around twelve-thirty, home from VMC, the ER. I got here, found the lights out, thought she’d already gone to bed. Then I went in there.”
His voice rose, quivering, and he took a deep breath. “I went in there, in the bedroom.”
His eyes were desperate and welling, and he was pleading with me. “Please. I don’t want people looking at her, seeing her like that. Please. “I gently told him, “She has to be examined, Mr. Petersen.”
A fist suddenly banged the top of the table in a startling outburst of rage. “I know!”
His eyes were wild. “But all of them, the police and everybody!”
His voice was shaking. “I know how it is! Reporters and everybody crawling all over the place. I don’t want every son of a bitch and his brother staring at her!”
Marino didn’t bat an eye. “Hey. I got a wife, too, Matt. I know where you’re coming from, all right? You got my word she gets respect. The same respect I’d want if it was me sitting in your chair, okay?”
The sweet balm of lies.
The dead are defenseless, and the violation of this woman, like the others, had only begun. I knew it would not end until Lori Petersen was turned inside out, every inch of her photographed, and all of it on display for experts, the police, attorneys, judges and members of a jury to see. There would be thoughts, remarks about her physical attributes or lack of them. There would be sophomoric jokes and cynical asides as the victim, not the killer, went on trial, every aspect of her person and the way she lived, scrutinized, judged and, in some instances, degraded.
A violent death is a public event, and it was this facet of my profession that so rudely grated against my sensibilities. I did what I could to preserve the dignity of the victims. But there was little I could do after the person became a case number, a piece of evidence passed from hand to hand. Privacy is destroyed as completely as life.
Marino led me out of the kitchen, leaving the officer to continue questioning Petersen.
“Have you taken your pictures yet?” I asked.
“ID’s in there now, dusting everything,” he said, referring to the Identification section officers processing the scene. “I told ’em to give the body a wide berth.”
We paused in the hallway.
On the walls were several nice watercolors and a collection of photographs depicting the husband’s and the wife’s respective graduating classes, and one artistic color shot of the young couple leaning against weathered piling before a backdrop of the beach, the legs of their trousers rolled up to their calves, the wind ruffling their hair, their faces ruddy from the sun. She was pretty in life, blond, with delicate features and an engaging smile. She went to Brown, then to Harvard for medical school. Her husband’s undergraduate years were spent at Harvard. This was where they must have met, and apparently he was younger than she.