The bacon had been used up the night before in the chili, so Marino had to be a little more creative about breakfast meat. He decided on Hebrew Brothers kosher knockwurst, splitting two and browning them in the skillet. These he put on a plate, which he covered with aluminum foil and placed in the oven, on warm. He poured several dollops of half-and-half into the juice container of eggs, added salt and peppex; and vigorously shook the mixture until it was frothy. He poured it into the skillet, and instantly the eggs began to cook around the edges and bubble in the middle.
The secret was to cook slowly and wait until there was no raw egg left. Then he turned the burner down to iSO degrees. He sliced cream cheese into thick squares and placed them in the middle of the omelet, which he expertly folded. A minute latex; he turned the burner off entirely, and several minutes later the cream cheese was hot, the omelet ready to serve. He divided it, but certainly not equally, and, with a nod to the South, spooned strawberry preserves on top. He added the knockwurst to each plate and carried breakfast into the living room.
“How ‘bout setting up those TV trays,” he said, nodding at a rack of metal folding trays parked in a corner near the window
Jimmy opened two of them, situating one in front of the reclinex; the other where he was stationed on the couch.
“You can put mustard on your knockwurst, if you want,” Marino said, cutting into his omelet.
“No, thank you.”
“Let me know if you need more jelly.”
“I like grape best,” Jimmy confessed.
“Tough shit,” Marino said.
Chapter 9
Scarpetta arrived on US Airways flight 301 after a typical changing of planes and dashing to distant gates in the Charlotte airport, where one was certain to stop on his way to anywhere else, including the afterlife. She had left her Mercedes in long term parking at Richmond’s International Airport, and she was not able to open the driver’s door at first because it was frozen shut, icicles on the handle.
Nor had she worn boots, because it had not occurred to her to pack them for her trip to Miami. Snow caved in around her loafers as she slipped and tugged. Eventually the door opened with a jerk, and now she was faced with cleaning off her car. She started the engine and turned the heat on high. She swiped the snow scraper over windshield, side and rear windows, and mirrors, meticulously clearing every inch of snow and ice off glass, for she was the last person on earth to drive with an obstructed view. How many cases had she seen where the victim died because of a blind spot? She got in and buckled up, driving defensively because not everyone else on the road felt the same way she did, or cared, frankly. They peered through arches left by sluggish wipers, great clumps of snow blowing off their roofs onto the windshields of cars behind them.
Scarpetta took 1-64 West to the Fifth Street exit, eventually winding around on the Downtown Expressway, passing her old building at Fourteenth and Franklin Streets. She did not miss working in the ugly four-story precast concrete building with its small windows and biological hazards, but reminders of the past brought so much to mind. She thought of stages she had passed through, of Lucy as a child, and relationships that had left their marks. Scarpetta thought of the dead, too, of those who had come under her care and once were front-page news. She could not remember every name, but she could still see her patients in her mind and recall the smallest details of what she had learned about them. The smokestacks on the roof of her old building were forlorn and cold. The crematorium had been quiet for years.
The streets of Windsor Farms were rutted and deep with slush that would turn to ice with the fading day. She moved slowly along Dover Road into the newer neighborhood, where she lived. The guard in his booth was named Roy, and he waved her through, always happy to see her because she appreciated