“Oh God, please help me.” She buried her face in her hands. I watched her try to compose herself, shoulders heaving as she wept. I sat numbly as she got still, little by little, her feet, her arms, her hands. She slowly lifted her eyes to me. Through their bleariness gleamed a strange cold light that oddly made me think of the lake at night, of water so dark it seemed another element. And I felt fretful the way I did in my dreams. She spoke in a low voice.
“What I want to know. Dr. Scarpetta, is do you know that man?”
“What man?” I asked, and then Marino walked back in with a peanut butter and jelly sandwich on toast, a dish towel, and a bottle of chablis.
“The man who killed the little boy. Did you ever talk to Temple Gault?” she asked as Marino set her glass upright and refilled it, and placed the sandwich nearby.
“Here, let me help with that.” I took the dish towel from him and wiped up spilled wine.
“Tell me what he looks like.” She shut her eyes again.
I saw Gault in my mind, his piercing eyes and light blond hair. He was sharp featured, small and quick. But it was the eyes. I would never forget them.
I knew he could slit a throat without flinching. I knew he had killed all of them with that same blue stare.
“Excuse me,” I said, realizing Mrs. Steiner was still talking to me.
“Why did you let him get away?” she repeated her question as if it were an accusation, and began crying again. Marino told her to get some rest, that we were leaving. When we got into the car, his mood was horrible.
“Gault killed her cat,” he said.
“We don’t know that for a fact.”
“I ain’t interested in hearing you talk like a lawyer right now.”
“I am a lawyer,” I said.
“Oh yeah. Excuse me for forgetting you got that degree, too. It just slips my mind that you really are a doctor-lawyer-Indian chief.”
“Do you know if Ferguson called Mrs. Steiner after he left Quantico?”
“Hell, no, I don’t know.”
“He mentioned in the consultation he intended to ask her several medical questions. Based on what Mrs. Steiner said to me, it sounds like he did, meaning he must have talked to her shortly before his death.”
“So maybe he called her as soon as he got home from the airport.”
“And then he goes straight upstairs and puts a noose around his neck?”
“No, Doc. He goes straight upstairs to beat off. Maybe talking to her on the phone put him in the mood.” That was possible.
“Marino, what’s the last name of the little boy Emily liked? I know his first name was Wren.”
“Why?”
“I want to go see him.”
“In case you don’t know much about kids, it’s almost nine o’clock on a school night.”
“Marino,” I said evenly, “answer my question.”
“I know he don’t live too far from the Steiners’ crib.” He pulled off on the side of the road and turned on his interior light.
“His last name’s Maxwell.”
“I want to go to his house.” He flipped through his notepad, then glanced over at me. Behind his tired eyes I saw more than resentment. Marino was in terrific pain. The Maxwells lived in a modern log cabin that was probably prefabricated and had been built on a wooded lot in view of the lake. We pulled into a gravel drive lit by floodlights the color of pollen. It was cool enough for rhododendron leaves to begin to curl, and our breath turned to smoke as we waited on the porch for someone to answer the bell. When the door opened, we faced a young, lean man with a thin face and black-rimmed glasses. He was dressed in a dark wool robe and slippers. I wondered if anyone stayed up past ten o’clock in this town.
“I’m Captain Marino and this is Dr. Scarpetta,” Marino said in a serious police tone that would fill any citizen with dread.
“We’re working with the local authorities on the Emily Steiner case.”