“Earth to Kay . . .”
My eyes focused. Bill was staring at me. “Off somewhere?” he asked, slipping an arm around my waist, his breath close to my cheek. “Can I come?”
“I was just thinking.”
“About what? And don’t tell me it’s about the office . . .”
I came out with it. “Bill, there’s some paperwork missing from one of the case files you, Amburgey and Tanner were looking through the other day . . .”
His hand kneading the small of my back went still. I could feel the anger in the pressure of his fingers. “What paperwork?”
“I’m not real sure,” I nervously replied. I didn’t dare get specific, didn’t dare mention the PERK label missing from Lori Petersen’s file. “I was just wondering if you may have noticed anyone accidentally picking up anything—”
He abruptly removed his arm and blurted out, “Shit. Can’t you push these goddam cases out of your mind for one goddam evening?”
“Bill . . .”
“Enough, all right?” He plunged his hands into the pockets of his shorts and wouldn’t look at me. “Jesus, Kay. You’re going to make me crazy. They’re dead. The women are fucking dead. Dead. Dead! You and I are alive. Life goes on. Or at least it’s supposed to. It’s going to do you in—it’s going to do us in—if you don’t stop obsessing over these cases.”
But for the rest of the evening, while Bill and Lucy were chatting about inconsequential matters at the dinner table, my ear was turned toward the phone. I kept expecting it to ring. I was waiting for Marino’s call.
When it rang early in the morning the rain was lashing my house and I was sleeping restlessly, my dreams fragmented, worrisome.
I fumbled for the receiver.
No one was there.
“Hello?”
I said again as I flicked on the lamp. In the background a television was faintly playing. I could hear the murmur of distant voices reciting lines I could not make out, and as my heart thudded against my ribs I slammed down the receiver in disgust.
It was Monday now, early afternoon. I was going over the preliminary lab reports of the tests the forensic scientists were conducting upstairs.
They had given the strangling cases a top priority. Everything else—blood alcohol levels, street drugs and barbiturates—was temporarily on hold. I had four very fine scientific minds focused on trace amounts of a glittery residue that might be a cheap soap powder found in public restrooms all over the city.
The preliminary reports weren’t exactly thrilling. So far, we couldn’t even say very much about the known sample, the Borawash soap we used in the building. It was approximately twenty-five percent “inert ingredient, an abrasive,” and seventy-five percent sodium borate. We knew this because the manufacturer’s chemists had told us so. Scanning electron microscopy wasn’t so sure. Sodium borate, sodium carbonate and sodium nitrate, for example, all came up as flat-out sodium in SEM. The trace amounts of the glittery residue came up the same way—as sodium. It’s about as specific as saying something contains trace elements of lead, which is everywhere, in the air, in the soil, in the rain. We never tested for lead in gunshot residues because a positive result wouldn’t mean a thing.
In other words, all that glitters isn’t borax.
The trace evidence we’d found on the slain women’s bodies could be something else, such as a sodium nitrate with uses ranging from fertilizer to a component of dynamite. Or it could be a crystal carbonate used as a constituent in photography developers. Theoretically, the killer could spend his working hours in a darkroom or in a greenhouse or on a farm. How many substances out there contain sodium? God only knows.
Vander was testing a variety of other sodium compounds in the laser to see if they sparkled. It was a quick way to mark items off our list.
Meanwhile, I had my own ideas. I wanted to know who else in the greater Richmond metropolitan area ordered Borawash, who in addition to the Health and Human Services Department. So I called the distributor in New Jersey. I got some secretary who referred me to sales who referred me to accounting who referred me to data processing who referred me to public relations who referred me back to accounting.
Next, I got an argument.
“Our list of clients is confidential. I’m not allowed to release that. You’re what kind of examiner?”
“Medical examiner,” I measured out each word. “This is Dr. Scarpetta, chief medical examiner in Virginia.”
“Oh. You grant licenses to physicians, then—”
“No. We investigate deaths.”
A pause. “You mean a coroner?”