Page 36 of Sharp Force (Kay Scarpetta #29)

Sunlight fills the foyer as the front door pushes open. Blaise Fruge steps on the sticky mats, a leather bomber jacket and Ray-Bans on. Through the open door I see that the crime scene investigators are gone, their van still parked in the driveway.

“About time,” Marino complains as he closes the front door behind her. “Find out anything interesting? Let me guess. That would be no.”

Ignoring his sarcasm, Fruge wishes me a Merry Christmas while taking off her sunglasses, parking them on top of her head. I’ve not seen her for several weeks, and she’s cut her dark hair almost crew-cut short again. I can tell she’s been spending time on a tanning bed.

“They’re going to be pissed.” She looks at the hole in the door, shaking her head. “In fact, they already are.”

“When are they not?” Marino is pleased with himself.

“And where are they?” I ask about the crime scene unit. “They appear to have left.”

“They’re busy walking around,” Fruge tells us. “Apparently Benton located a crashed drone at the edge of the river. I don’t know what all they’re doing, but something’s got their interest big-time.”

“I’m glad they’re preoccupied,” I reply. “There’s a lot we need to do before we can let them in here.”

“You’ll probably catch holy hell for removing the door handles,” Fruge says to Marino.

“Rule number one if you’re going to be a good investigator?” He closes the Pelican case packed with our bags of hardware. “Preserve the evidence first and foremost. Then explain yourself.”

“Truth is, nobody at the hospital would tell us a damn thing helpful,” she admits.

Taking off her jacket, she’s in tight jeans and a formfitting shirt that show off her strong body.

She didn’t look like that when we first met while she was still in uniform.

What I see now is due to Marino’s influence.

They’re workout partners. In recent years, he’s been reshaping her like Pygmalion, and I know it rubs Dorothy the wrong way.

“Don’t say I didn’t warn you.” Marino wags his finger at Fruge like a disappointed coach. “Waste of time, and worse than that, you’ve tipped them off. You’ve tipped off everybody at the hospital.”

“About what?” She stares defiantly at him.

“About whatever you were asking.”

He carries the Pelican case across the mats, setting it down next to my coat and briefcase.

“Mostly we wanted to know if any patients were unaccounted for last night,” she says. “Or if anybody on the staff has been having a problem with anyone. Not just patients but outside vendors.”

“Which gives everyone a heads-up that what happened here might be connected to the hospital,” he replies. “That’s called dropping the iron curtain.”

“It had already dropped,” she counters.

“Having the FBI with you didn’t make that any better,” Marino continues to lecture. “Who was it?”

“At first, I was with Lucy and Tron, but they left early on. Then I hung out with Special Agent Tully. She’s always nice to deal with. You know, she isn’t disrespectful, treating me like a dumb shit.” The implication is obvious.

I step closer to the living room while they continue to spar.

“Well, you and Tully telegraphed way more to the hospital than they did to you.” Marino carries on.

“Have you found out something to make us think the killer is connected to this place? A patient, for example?” Fruge replies.

“Not necessarily. But that’s not the point.”

“And besides, everybody knows everything,” she goes on. “It’s all over the internet what happened on Mercy Island this morning. The names of the victims, this address, Zain Willard’s powerful uncle who’s running for president. The info’s gone viral as you’d expect.”

She informs us that Dana Diletti just interviewed Graden Crowley at the hospital’s entrance. He’s complaining that the medical examiner’s office is bullying him and the police.

“You’re mentioned by name.” Fruge derives some pleasure telling Marino this. “He’s saying you tried to arrest him.”

“I didn’t try.” Marino can’t help but smile. “If I had, he’d be in cuffs on his way to lockup.”

As he and Fruge go at it, I’m peeling up two sticky mats. Dried blood shows on the back of them, the drops still visible on the chevron oak flooring. I measure the distance between bloodstains, finding what I expect.

Perfectly round drops approximately the size of a dime.

Six to nine inches apart.

They fell at a slow velocity, impacting at a 90-degree angle, consistent with someone dripping blood while walking.

“How much blood was outside when you got here?” I interrupt Marino and Fruge bickering. “Were the drops as closely spaced as these?”

“They were a couple feet apart. Like every time he took another step, more blood hit the snow.” It’s Fruge who answers.

“There should have been a lot of blood,” I reply.

“There is on the hall runner where it appears he was attacked,” she says. “It’s hard to know how much he bled outside because of the conditions.”

“I don’t want anybody near the house.” Marino isn’t done bossing Fruge around. “You may as well put your coat back on. Best thing is for you to stand outside on the porch. We don’t need you or anybody else in here right now.”

“But I’ve already been inside.” She’s offended. “You and I walked through every inch of this place when we first got here.”

“It’s more helpful if you guard the door.” He’s gruff with her. “You shouldn’t have left your post, hanging out with the FBI, acting like a wannabe.”

“Who said I want to be FBI?”

“You’re always asking Lucy about Quantico,” he replies, and it’s true.

Now and then Fruge and Lucy socialize, having coffee in the guest cottage.

They grab a beer and listen to DJs at the Bayou Club on King Street.

Lucy mentioned that not long ago, Fruge asked for a tour of the FBI Academy.

She was crushed to learn the cutoff age for new agents is thirty-six. She’s a year older than that.

Grabbing her jacket, Fruge leaves in a huff. Marino shuts the door behind her, and we put on new coveralls, booties, face masks, gloves. Collecting my scene case and extra PPE, we enter the living room, the sharply pungent smell of bleach intensifying.

“I asked Crowley about the convicted offenders sometimes locked up in the forensic unit,” Marino says as I look around at the big windows and high ceiling.

“I wanted to know how many are here now. And if anybody we should be concerned about attended the Christmas party last night and maybe wandered off.”

“Or maybe someone dangerous was recently discharged?” I suggest.

“That too.”

“Graden’s not going to tell us the truth.”

“Of course, he said nobody was missing last night,” Marino verifies. “But he wasn’t at liberty to release information about patients.”

As I walk around on sticky mats, I remember the living room well. Only it was unfurnished when Benton and I saw it with the Realtor. Now it appears thoughtlessly put together, nothing much inside.

A blue fabric sofa has wood-veneer end tables with water rings on them. A tan leather recliner is stained in spots, crumbs on the cushion. The small Persian rug under the glass coffee table is an inexpensive reproduction. It doesn’t appear to have been vacuumed in recent memory.

“An escaped patient doesn’t make sense, though,” I’m saying to Marino. “How would it explain the hologram you saw? Not just anybody could pull that off.”

“If we’re talking about a patient being the Slasher, it could be someone hospitalized here before but not now or even recently. Or the more likely story? Someone who lives here on and off.” He’s pointing the finger at Zain Willard again.

I wander to the bookcase between windows, maybe a dozen old volumes missing their dust jackets. J. R. R. Tolkien. George Orwell. C. S. Lewis. Ralph Waldo Emerson. I slide out A Dream of John Ball by Victorian socialist William Morris.

Ex Libris Georgine Duvall, reads the bookplate in the front cover. Scrawled under it in her loopy handwriting, Society gets the criminals it deserves, and I photograph it with my phone.

“That mean something to you?” Marino asks.

I tell him it sounds like something she would quote. I know that’s what she believed, her empathy outrunning her common sense and good judgment. Ultimately, that must have something to do with why Lucy stopped seeing her.

“I found it the height of irony that Georgine was idealistic and anti-capitalism while living on a multimillion-dollar horse farm. Not to mention the priceless things they collected,” I explain. “She and her husband seemed like genuinely good people. But hopelessly idealistic.”

“Sound like fucking phonies to me,” Marino snorts.

“They meant no harm.” As I’m saying this, I still believe it. “But they were wrongheaded and na?ve. Most of all, too trusting.”

“A good way to get murdered,” he says.

“And cause damage to people you’re convinced you’re helping.” I’m thinking of Lucy again.

I notice tiny holes in plaster suggesting something once hung on the bare living room walls. I tell Marino that when I knew Georgine and her husband, they had a formidable art collection. Several Andy Warhols and Picassos. A few horse paintings by George Stubbs, dogs by Landseer. A Monet or two.

“They loved to show off their collection to visitors. I was sure they’d get burglarized,” I recall.

“Glad they weren’t capitalists,” Marino says snidely.

A TV is on a stand in a corner, and there are a few floor lamps, shiny brass with white pleated shades. The furnishings aren’t much better than I’d expect in a dorm room.

The small artificial Christmas tree in a corner looks like one you’d buy in a grocery store.

It’s scantily hung with shiny ball ornaments, and a few strands of lights that aren’t turned on.

I find it odd there are no other decorations.

It doesn’t seem this was Georgine’s favorite time of year anymore.