“Stop it, Lucy.”
“Where are they? I want them. I want the clothes you had on. What did you do with them?”
“You’re making it worse.”
“You threw them out, didn’t you?”
“Leave it alone.”
“Sexual battery. A felony. And you aren’t going to tell Benton or you would have already. And you weren’t going to tell me. Rose had to tell me, at least tell me she suspected it. What’s wrong with you? I thought you were a strong woman. I thought you were powerful. All my life I’ve thought it. There. The flaw. Someone who lets him do this and doesn’t tell. Why did you let him?”
“And that’s what this is about.”
“Why did you?”
“That’s what this is about,” Scarpetta says. “Let’s talk about your flaw.”
“Don’t turn this on me.”
“I could have called the police. I was within reach of his gun and could have killed him and it would have been justified. There are a lot of things I could have done,” Scarpetta says.
“Then why didn’t you?”
“I chose the lesser of evils. It will be all right. All other choices wouldn’t have been,” Scarpetta says. “You know why you’re doing this.”
“It’s not what I’m doing. It’s what you did.”
“Because of your mother — my pathetic sister. Bringing one man after another into the house. Worse than male-dependent. She’s male-addicted,” Scarpetta says. “Do you remember what you asked me once? You asked why men were always more important than you.”
Lucy clenches her hands.
“You said any man in your mother’s life was more important than you. And you were right. Remember my telling you why? Because Dorothy’s an empty vessel. It’s not about you. It’s about her. You always felt violated because of what went on in your home…” Her voice trails off and a shadow turns her eyes a deeper blue. “Did something happen? Something else? Did one of her boyfriends ever act inappropriately with you?”
“I probably wanted attention.”
“What happened?”
“Forget it.”
“What happened, Lucy?” Scarpetta says.
“Forget it. This isn’t about me right now. And I was a little kid. You aren’t a little kid.”
“I may as well have been. How could I have fought him off?”
They get quiet for a while. The tension between them suddenly goes slack. Lucy doesn’t want to fight with her anymore, and she resents Marino as much as she’s resented anyone in her life because, for an instant, he made her unkind toward her aunt. She showed no mercy toward her aunt, who did nothing but suffer. He inflicted an injury that can’t ever heal, not really, and Lucy just made it worse.
“That wasn’t fair,” Lucy says. “I just wish I’d been there.”
“You can’t always fix things, either,” Scarpetta says. “You and I are more alike than we’re different.”
“Drew Martin’s coach has been to Henry Hollings’s funeral home,” Lucy says, because they shouldn’t talk about Marino anymore. “The address is stored in his Porsche’s GPS. I can check it out if you’d prefer to stay away from the coroner.”
“No,” she says. “I think it’s time we meet.”
An office tastefully furnished with fine antiques and damask draperies pulled back to let the outdoors in. On mahogany-paneled walls are oil portraits of Henry Hollings’s ancestors, an array of somber men watching over their past.
His desk chair is swiveled around as he faces the window. Beyond it is yet another perfectly splendid Charleston garden. He doesn’t seem aware that Scarpetta is standing in the doorway.
“I have a recommendation I think you just might like.” He talks on the phone in a soothing voice with a thick southern cadence. “We have urns made just for that, an excellent innovation most people don’t know about. Biodegradable, dissolve in water, nothing ornate or expensive…Yes, if you plan on a water committal…That’s right…Scatter his ashes at sea…Indeed. You prevent them from blowing everywhere by simply immersing the urn. I understand it might not seem the same. Of course, you can choose whatever’s meaningful to you, and I’ll assist in any way I can…Yes, yes, it’s what I recommend…No, you don’t want them blowing everywhere. How do I put this delicately? Blowing in the boat. That would be unfortunate.”
He adds several sympathetic comments and hangs up. When he turns around, he doesn’t seem surprised to see Scarpetta. He’s expecting her. She called first. If it occurs to him she was listening to his conversation, he doesn’t seem concerned or the least bit offended. It disconcerts her that he seems sincerely thoughtful and kind. There’s a certain comfort in assumptions, and hers has always been that he is greedy, unctuous, and full of self- importance.
“Dr. Scarpetta.” He smiles as he gets up and walks around his perfectly organized desk to shake her hand.
“I appreciate your seeing me, especially on such short notice,” she says, choosing the wing chair while he settles on the couch, his choice of where he sits significant. If he wanted to overpower or belittle her, he would remain enthroned behind his massive burlwood partner’s desk.
Henry Hollings is a distinguished man in a beautiful hand-tailored dark suit with creased trousers, and a black silk-lined single-button jacket, and a pale blue shirt. His hair is the same silver as his silver silk tie, his face lined but not in a harsh way, the wrinkles indicating that he smiles more than he frowns. His eyes are kind. It continues to disturb her that he doesn’t fit the image of the cunning politician she expected, and she reminds herself that that’s the problem with cunning politicians. They fool people right before they take advantage of them.
“Let me be forthright,” Scarpetta says. “You’ve had ample opportunity to acknowledge I’m here. It’s been almost two years. Let me just say that and we’ll move on.”
“Seeking you out would have been forward of me,” he says.
“It would have been gracious. I’m the new person in town. We have the same agendas. Or should.”
“Thank you for your candor. It affords me an opportunity to explain. We tend to be ethnocentric in Charleston, quite skilled at taking our time, waiting to see what’s what. I suspect you may have noticed by now that things don’t tend to happen speedily. Why, people don’t even walk fast.” He smiles. “So I’ve been waiting for you to take the initiative, if you ever made that choice. I didn’t think you would. If you’ll allow me to explain further? You’re a forensic pathologist. Of considerable reputation, I might add, and people such as yourself generally have a low opinion of elected coroners. We’re not doctors or forensic experts, as a rule. I expected you would experience some defensive feelings about me when you set up your practice here.”
“Then it would seem both of us have made assumptions.” She’ll give him the benefit of the doubt, or at least pretend.
“Charleston can be gossipy.” He reminds her of a Matthew Brady photograph — sitting straight, legs crossed, hands folded in his lap. “A lot of it spiteful and small-minded,” he says.
“I’m sure you and I can get along as professionals.” She’s not sure of any such thing.
“Are you familiar with your neighbor Mrs. Grimball?”
“I mainly see her when she’s looking out her window at me.”
“Apparently, she complained about a hearse being in the alley behind your house. Twice.”
“I’m aware of once.” She can’t think of a second time. “Lucious Meddick. And a mysterious and erroneous listing of my address, which I’m hoping has been cleared up.”
“She made a complaint to people who could have caused you quite a lot of trouble. I got a call about it and interceded. I said I knew for a fact you didn’t have body deliveries at your house, and there must be a misunderstanding.”
“I’m wondering if you would have told me this if I hadn’t happened to call you.”
“If I were out to get you, why would I have protected you in this instance?” he says.
“I don’t know.”
“I happen to think there’s plenty of death and tragedy to go around. But not everybody feels the same way,”
