16 Scarpetta by Patricia Cornwell

Author:Patricia Cornwell
Language: eng
Format: mobi
Tags: Scarpetta
Published: 2012-08-22T20:08:10+00:00

While I’ve got my hands in a dead body, I imagine how I

could have killed the person better. With all I know? Of course I

could commit the perfect crime. When I’m with my colleagues

and throw back enough whiskey, we love to come up with

scenarios that we’d never present at professional meetings or

mention to family, friends, certainly not to our enemies!

I asked her what her favorite whiskey is.

Maybe a toss-up between Knappogue Castle single-malt Irish

whiskey and Brora single-malt Scotch.

Never heard of either.

Why would you? Knappogue is probably the finest Irish

whiskey in the world and costs close to seven hundred dollars.

And Brora is so rare and exquisite, each bottle is numbered and

costs more than your schoolbooks in a year.

How can you afford to drink such expensive

whiskey, and don’t you feel guilty when there are so

many people losing their homes and unable to fill their

cars with gas?

My turning down a magnificent Irish whiskey isn’t going to fill

your car with gas—assuming you have a car. It’s a fact that the

finer labels—whether it’s a Château Pétrus, a single-malt

whiskey, or very fine pure agave tequila—are less damaging to

your liver and brain.

So wealthy people who drink the good stuff aren’t

as affected by alcohol abuse? That’s something I’ve

never heard.

How many human livers and brains have you seen and

sectioned?

How about some other examples from the dark

side? What else do you say behind the scenes,

especially when you’re with your colleagues?

We brag about famous people we’ve autopsied (all of us

secretly wish we’d done Elvis or Anna Nicole Smith or Princess

Diana). Listen, I’m no different from anybody else. I want the

case nobody else gets. I want the Gainesville serial murders. I

want to be the one who arrives at the scene and finds the

severed head on a bookshelf staring at me when I walk through

the door. I would have loved to have been cross-examined by

Ted Bundy when he represented himself at his own murder trial.

Hell, I would have loved to have done his autopsy after he was

executed.

Share some sensational cases you have worked.

I’ve been fortunate to have a number of them. For example,

lightning strikes, where nobody else could figure out the cause of

death, because you’ve got this body lying in a field, her clothes

ripped off and scattered. First thought? Sexual assault. But no

sign of injury at autopsy. Dead giveaways, excuse the pun? The

branching pattern known as the Lichtenberg figures or electrical

treeing. Or if the person was wearing anything ferrous, such as

a steel belt buckle, it would have become magnetized, or the

wristwatch might have stopped at the time of death—I always

check for things like that. Most medical examiners don’t because

they’re inexperienced or naïve or just not very good at what

they do.

You don’t sound as compassionate as I expected.

Let’s face it. Dead is dead. I can show all the empathy in the

world and move any jury to tears. But do I really feel that my

heart has been snatched out of my chest when the latest

tragedy’s rolled in? Do I really care when the cops make

comments that the public never hears?

Such as?

Typically, comments with sexual overtones. The size of the

deceased’s penis—especially if it’s small or huge.

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