Book of the dead by Patricia Cornwell

Author:Patricia Cornwell [Cornwell, Patricia]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Medical examiners (Law), Mystery & Detective, Medical, General, Women physicians, South Carolina, Women Sleuths, Scarpetta; Kay (Fictitious character), Fiction, Horror, Forensic pathologists
ISBN: 9780425216217
Publisher: Berkley Books
Published: 2008-01-01T00:00:00+00:00

Chapter 12

Water drips from live oaks.

In the deep shadows of yew and tea olive trees, Scarpetta arranges broken pieces of pottery in the bottoms of pots to help with drainage so the plants don't rot. The warm air is steamy from a hard rain that suddenly started and just as suddenly stopped.

Bull carries a ladder over to an oak tree that spreads its canopy over most of Scarpetta's garden. She begins tamping potting soil into the pots and tucks in petunias, then parsley, dill, and fennel, because they attract butterflies. She relocates fuzzy silver lamb's ears and artemisia into better spots where they will catch the sun. The scent of wet, loamy earth mingles with the pungency of old brick and moss as she moves rather stiffly - from years of unforgiving tile floors in the morgue - to a brick post overgrown with hollyfern. She starts diagnosing the problem.

"If I pull this fern out, Bull, I might damage the brick. What do you think?"

"That's Charleston brick, probably two hundred years old, my guess." From the top of the ladder. "I'd pull a little, see what happens."

The fern peels off without complaint. She fills a watering can and tries not to think about Marino. She feels sick when she thinks about Rose.

Bull says, "Some man came through the alley on a chopper right before you got here."

Scarpetta stops what she's doing, stares up at him. "Was it Marino?"

When she got home from Rose's apartment, his motorcycle was gone. He must have driven her car to his house and gotten a spare key.

"No, ma'am, it wasn't him. I was up on the ladder limbing the loquats, could see the man on the chopper over the fence. He didn't see me. Maybe nothing." The clippers snap, and side shoots called suckers fall to the ground. "Anybody been bothering you, 'cause I'd like to know about it."

"What was he doing?"

"Turned in and rode real slow about halfway, then turned around and went back. Looked to me like he had on a do-rag, maybe orange and yellow. Hard to tell from where I was. His chopper had bad pipes, rattled and spit like something about to quit. You should tell me if I should know something. I'll be looking."

"You ever seen him before around here?"

"I'd recognize that chopper."

She thinks about what Marino told her last night. A biker threatened him in the parking lot, said something bad would happen to her if she didn't leave town. Who would want her gone so badly as to pass on a message like that? The local coroner sticks in her mind.

She asks Bull, "You know much about the coroner here? Henry Hollings?"

"Only his funeral home business been in the family since the War, that huge place behind a high wall over there on Calhoun, not too far from here. I don't like the thought of someone bothering you. Your neighbor sure is curious."

Mrs. Grimball is looking out the window again.

"She watches me like a hawk," Bull says. "If I might say so, she's got an unkindness about her and don't mind hurting people.

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