Trace - Cornwell Patricia (серии книг читать онлайн бесплатно полностью txt) 📗

"They told me to be here when they opened," Mrs. Paulsson says. "Then I was told to wait because the chief hasn't gotten here yet."

Scarpetta was not informed that Mrs. Paulsson would be present at the meeting with Dr. Marcus. "Come on," she says to her. "I'll take you inside. You're meeting with Dr. Marcus?"

"I think so."

"I'm meeting with him too," Scarpetta says. "I guess we're going to the same meeting. Come on. You can come with me."

Mrs. Paulsson slowly gets up from the couch, as if she is tired and in pain. Scarpetta wishes there were real plants in the waiting area, just a few real plants to add warmth and life. Real plants make people feel less alone and there is no lonelier place on earth than a morgue, and no one should ever have to visit a morgue, much less wait to visit one. She presses a buzzer next to a window. On the other side of the glass is a countertop, then a stretch of gray-blue carpet, then a doorway leading to the administrative offices.

"May I help you?" a woman's voice blares over the intercom.

"Dr. Scarpetta," she announces herself.

"Come in," the voice says, and the glass door to the right of the window clicks open.

Scarpetta holds the door for Mrs. Paulsson. "I hope you haven't been waiting long," Scarpetta says to her. "I'm so sorry you had to wait. I wish I'd known you were coming. I would have met you or made sure you had a comfortable place to sit and some coffee."

"They told me to get here early if I. wanted a parking place," she replies, looking around as they walk into the outer office where the clerks file and work on their computers.

Scarpetta can tell that Mrs. Paulsson has never visited the OCME before. She isn't surprised. Dr. Marcus isn't the type to spend much time having sit-down visits with families, and Dr. Fielding is too used up to have sit-down emotionally wrenching meetings with families. She is suspicious that the reason for summoning Mrs. Paulsson to a meeting is political and is probably going to make Scarpetta angry and disgusted. From her cubicle a clerk tells them that they can go on back to the conference room, that Dr. Marcus is running a little late. It strikes Scarpetta that the clerks never seem to leave their cubicles. When she walks into the front office, it is as if cubicles work here, not people.

"Come on," Scarpetta says, touching Mrs. Paulsson's back. "Would you like coffee? Let's get you some and we'll go sit down."

"Gilly's still here," she says, walking woodenly and looking around with frightened eyes. "They won't let me take her." She begins to cry, twisting the strap of her pocketbook. "It's not right that she's still here."

"What reason are they giving you?" Scarpetta asks as they walk slowly toward the conference room.

"It's all because of Frank. She was so attached to him, and he said she could come live with him. She wanted to." She cries harder as Scarpetta stops at the coffee machine and begins pouring coffee into styrofoam cups. "Gilly told the judge she wanted to move to Charleston after she finishes this school year. He wants her there, in Charleston."

Scarpetta carries their coffees into the conference room and this time sits at the middle of the long polished table. She and Mrs. Paulsson are alone in the big empty room and Mrs. Paulsson stares numbly at the Guts Man, then at the anatomical skeleton hanging from his rack in a corner. Her hand trembles as she lifts the coffee to her lips.

"Frank's family's buried in Charleston, you see," she says. "Generations of them. My family's buried here in Hollywood Cemetery, and The have a plot there too. Why does this have to be so hard? It's already so hard. He just wants Gilly so he can spite me, so he can pay me back, so he can make me look bad. He always said he'd drive me mad and they'd end up locking me in some hospital. Well, he's about done it this time."

"Are you two talking to each other?" Scarpetta asks.

"He doesn't talk. He tells me things, gives me orders. He wants everyone to think he's a wonderful father. But he doesn't care about her the way I do. It's his fault she's dead."

"You've said that before. How is it his fault?"

"I just know he did something. He wants to destroy me. First it was take Gilly away to live with him. Now it's take Gilly away forever. He wants me to go crazy. Then nobody sees what a bad husband and father he really is. Nobody sees the truth, and there's a truth all right. They just see that I'm crazy and feel sorry for him. But there's a truth all right."

They turn around as the conference room door opens and a well dressed woman walks in. She appears to be in her late thirties or early forties and has the fresh look of someone who finds plenty of time for sleep, a proper diet and exercise, and regular touch-ups to her highlighted blond hair. The woman sets a leather briefcase on top of the table and smiles and nods at Mrs. Paulsson as if they have met before. The clasps of her briefcase spring free in loud snaps and she gets out a file folder and a legal pad and sits down.

"I'm FBI Special Agent Weber. Karen Weber." She looks at Scarpetta. "You must be Dr. Scarpetta. I was told you'd be here. Mrs. Paulsson, how are you today? I wasn't expecting to see you."

Mrs. Paulsson finds a tissue in her pocketbook and wipes her eyes. "Good morning," she replies.

Scarpetta has to control her impulse to bluntly ask Special Agent Weber why the FBI has inserted itself or has been inserted into the case. But Gilly's mother is sitting at the table. There is very little Scarpetta can bluntly ask. She tries an indirect approach.

"Are you from the Richmond Field Office?" she says to Special Agent Weber.

"From Quantico," she replies. "The Behavioral Science Unit. Perhaps you've seen our new forensic labs at Quantico?"

"No, I'm afraid not."

"They're something. Really something."

"I'm sure they are."

"Mrs. Paulsson, what brings you here today?" Special Agent Weber asks.

"I don't know," she replies. "I came for the report. They're supposed to give me Gilly's jewelry. She has a pair of earrings she was wearing and a bracelet, a little leather bracelet she never took off. They said the chief wanted to say hello to me."

"You're here for this meeting?" the FBI agent asks with a puzzled look on her attractive, well-maintained face.

"I don't know."

"You're here for Gilly's reports and belongings?" Scarpetta asks as it begins to enter her mind that a mistake has been made.

"Yes. I was told I could come by for them at nine. I haven't been able to come here before now, I just couldn't. I have a check written because there's a fee," Mrs. Paulsson says with the same scared look in her eyes.

Maybe I'm not supposed to be in here. Nobody said anything about a meeting."

"Yes, well, while you're here," says Special Agent "Weber, "let me ask you a question, Mrs. Paulsson. You remember when we talked the other day? You said your husband, your former husband, is a pilot? Is that correct?"

"No. He's not a pilot. I said he wasn't."

"Oh. Okay. Because I couldn't find any record of his ever having a pilot's license of any type," Special Agent Weber replies. "So I was a little confused." She smiles.

"A lot of people assume he's a pilot," Mrs. Paulsson says.

"Understandably."

"He likes to spend time with pilots, especially military ones. He especially likes women pilots. I've always known what he's about," Mrs. Paulsson says dully. "You'd have to be blind, deaf, and dumb not to know what he's about."

"Could you elaborate on that?" Special Agent Weber asks.

"Oh, he gives the pilots physicals. You can imagine," she says. "That's what floats his boat. A woman comes in wearing a flight suit. You can just imagine."

"You've heard stories about him sexually harassing female pilots?" Special Agent Weber asks somberly.