Black Notice - Cornwell Patricia (книги онлайн без регистрации txt) 📗

I peered into the lens at little organisms that looked as if they were made of clear glass, in all sorts of shapes that brought to mind boats, chains and zigzags and slivered moons and tiger stripes and crosses and even stacks of poker chips. There were pieces and parts that reminded me of confetti and grains of sand and other particles of different colors that probably were minerals.

Posner removed the slide from the stage and replaced it with another.

"The sample you brought back from the Seine," he said. "Cymbella, Melosira, Navicula, Fragilaria. On and уn. Common as dust. All freshwater, so at least that's good, but they really tell us nothing in and of themselves."

I leaned back in the chair and looked at him.

"You ordered me here to tell me that?" I said, disappointed.

"Well, I'm no Robert McLaughlin," he dryly said, referring to the world-renowned diatomist who had trained him.

He leaned over the microscope and adjusted the magnification to 1000X and began moving slides around.

"And no, I didn't ask you to drop by for nothing," he went on. "Where we lucked out is in the frequency of occurrence of each species in the flora."

Flora was a botanical listing of plants by species, or in this case, diatoms by species.

"Fifty-one percent occurrence of Melosira, fifteen percent occurrence of Fragilaria. I won't bore you with all of it, but the samples are very consistent with each other. So much so, actually, I would almost call them identical, which I find rather miraculous, since the flora where you, dipped in your Advil bottle might be totally different a hundred feet away."

It chilled me to think of he Saint-Louis's shore, of the stories of the nude man swimming after dark so close tу the Chandonne house. I imagined him dressing without showering or drying off, and transferring diatoms to the inside of his clothes.

"If he swims in the Seine and these diatoms are all over his clothes," I said, "he isn't washing off before he dresses. What about Kim Luong's body?"

"Definitely not the same flora as the Seine," Posner said. "But I did take a sample of water from the James River, close to where you live, as a matter of fact. Again, nearly the same frequency distribution."

"Flora on her body and flora in the James, consistent with each other?" I had to make sure.

"One question I do have is whether diatoms from the James are going to be everywhere around here," Posner said.

"Well, let's see," I said.

I got Q-tips and swabbed my forearm, my hair and the bottoms of my shoes, and Posner made more slides. There wasn't a single diatom.

"In tap water maybe?" I asked.

Posner shook his head.

"So they shouldn't be all over a person, I wouldn't think, unless that person has been in the river, lake, ocean..:'

I paused as an odd thought came to me.

"The Dead Sea, the Jordan River," I said.

"What?" Posner asked, baffled.

"The spring at Lourdes," I said, getting more excited. "The Sacred River. Ganges, all believed to be places of miracles where the blind, the lame and the paralyzed could enter the water to be healed."

"He's swimming in the James this time of year?" Posner said. "The guy must be nuts."

"There's no cure for hypertrichosis," I said.

"What the hell's that?"

"A horrible, extremely rare disorder, hair all over your body when you're bone. A baby-fine hair that can get up to six, seven, nine inches long. Among other anomalies."

"Ehhh!"

"Maybe he bathed nude in the Seine hoping he might be miraculously healed. Maybe now he's doing the same thing in the James," I said.

"Jesus!" Posner said. "Now that's a creepy thought."

When I returned to my office, Marino was sitting in a chair by my desk.

"You look like you been up all night," he said to me, slurping coffee.

"Lucy ran off to New York. I talked to Jo and her parents."

"Lucy did what?"

"She's on her way back. It's all right."

"Well, she'd better mind her p's and q's. This ain't a good time for her to be acting squirrelly."

"Marino," I quickly said, "it's possible the killer bathes in rivers with some notion it might cure his disorder. I'm wondering if he's staying someplace near the James."

He thought about this for a minute, an odd expression spreading over his face. Running footsteps sounded in the hall.

"Let's hope there ain't some old estate along there where the owner ain't been heard from for a while," Marino said. "I have a bad feeling."

Then Fielding was in my office yelling at Marino.

"What the hell's wrong with you!"

Veins and arteries were bulging in Fielding's neck, his face bright red. I'd never heard him raise his voice to anyone.

"You let the fucking press find out before we can even get to the goddamn scene!" he accused.

"Hey," Marino said. "Calm down. Let the fucking press know what?"

"Diane Bray's been murdered," Fielding said. "It's all over the news. They've got a suspect in custody. Detective Anderson."

39It was very overcast and rain had begun to fall when we reached Windsor Farms, and it seemed bizarre to be driving the office's black Suburban past Georgian brick and Tudor homes on gracious acres beneath old trees.

I'd never known my neighbors to worry much about crime. It seemed that old family money and genteel streets with English names had created a fortress of false security. I had no doubt that was about to change.

Diane Bray's address was at the outer limits of the neighborhood, where the Downtown Expressway ran loudly and continuously on the other side of a brick wall. When I turned onto her narrow street, I was dismayed. Reporters were everywhere. Their cars and television trucks blocked traffic and outnumbered police vehicles three to one in front of a white Cape Cod with a gambrel roof that looked like it belonged in New England.

"This is as close as I can get," I said to Marino:

"We'll see about that," he replied, jerking up his door handle.

He got out in heavy rain and stalked over to a radio van that was halfway on the lawn in front of Bray's house. The driver rolled down his window and was foolish enough to poke his microphone Marino's way.

"Move!" Marino said with violence in his voice.

"Captain Marino, can you verify…?"

"Move your fucking van, now!"

Tires spun, clawing up grass and mud as the driver of the van pulled out. He stopped in the center of the street and Marino kicked the back tire.

"Move!" he ordered.

The van driver rolled away, windshield wipers flying. He' parked on someone's lawn two houses away. Rain whipped my face and strong gusts of wind pushed me like a hand as I got my scene case out of the back of the Suburban.

"I hope your latest act of graciousness doesn't make it on the air," I said when I reached Marino.

"Who the hell's working this thing?"

"I hope you are," I said, walking fast with head bent.

Marino grabbed my arm. A dark blue Ford Contour was parked in Bray's driveway. A patrol car was parked behind it, an officer in front, another in back with Anderson. She looked angry and hysterical, shaking her head and talking fast in words I couldn't hear.

"Dr. Scarpetta?" A television reporter headed toward me, the cameraman on his heels.

"Recognize our rental car?" Marino quietly said to me, water running down his face as he stared at the dark blue Ford with the familiar number RGG-7112 on the license plate.

"Dr. Scarpetta?"

"No comment."

Anderson didn't look at us as we walked past.

"Can you tell…?" Reporters were relentless.

"No," I said, hurrying up the front steps.

"Captain Marino, I understand the police were led here by a tip."

Rain smacked and engines rumbled. We ducked under the yellow crime-scene tape stretching from railing to railing. The door suddenly swung open and an officer named Butterfield let us in.