Autopsy(Kay Scarpetta #25)(11)

“What if I told you there was a penny on the tracks at the scene?” I say to Marino. “And likely it was run over by the seven P.M. commuter train that stopped when the body was spotted.”

“I don’t like the sound of that,” he says, and we’re in the heart of the historic district, shops and restaurants cheek to jowl, mostly empty in this weather.

“It was on top of a rail, close to the body.”

“How close?”

“Barely six feet away.” I envision August taking photographs and measuring the distance.

“It sounds like it was just placed there,” Marino says. “When I was growing up, I used to put pennies on the rails at the railroad crossing near my house, a lot of us kids did. It was a thing in New Jersey because of Hookerman.”

It’s not the first time I’ve heard him tell his spooky tale about a railway worker losing an arm in the past century. His lantern-toting ghost is spotted along the tracks on dark nights, first appearing like a floating lighted orb from afar. Approaching slowly, the levitating light gets bigger and brighter before suddenly vanishing.

“What’s known as ball lighting.” I remind Marino of the scientific explanation. “Granite, quartz, the steel rails, they’re great conductors of electricity.”

“Whatever.” He’s not interested in what the geophysicists have to say. “But going out after dark looking for ghosts along the railroad tracks was really stupid. A good way to get killed, and we never found most of the pennies.”

“I don’t think the one from Friday night had been out there long,” I reply. “It wouldn’t make sense that it’s been run over repeatedly, and somehow was still there. Not to mention, it’s conveniently near a murder victim’s body? That’s too many coincidences.”

“Was it tarnished?”

“No. And you’re wondering the same thing I am. If the killer put it there.”

“Yeah, I’m wondering that. Who else knows besides him, and where’s the penny now?”

“August Ryan found it, as I’ve mentioned, and it’s in the labs,” I reply. “This morning we took a look with scanning electron microscopy and X-ray diffraction.”

“August was there for that?”

“He wasn’t, and what we’ve discovered so far isn’t very helpful. The penny’s composition is copper and zinc, the date two thousand twenty.”

“You can forget DNA and fingerprints if it was run over by a train.” Marino bypasses traffic, cutting through another side street, bumping us over pavers.

“Benton feels it’s probably not random, and likely is symbolic,” I add.

“The penny doesn’t fit with a violent ex-boyfriend,” Marino decides as I look out at my favorite French bakery, dark and closed. “I sure hope August keeps his mouth shut about that and everything else.”

“He’s in charge of the homicide investigation. You’d best get along with him somehow. There’s but so much I can do if he decides to make a big fuss about you.”

The murder is federal jurisdiction because the body was found inside a national park, I spell out. The U.S. Park Police is running the show whether Marino likes it or not.

“And if the victim is Gwen Hainey as we suspect, nothing will change. August is still running the show,” I add, and up ahead blue and red emergency lights are a throbbing nimbus over Colonial Landing, where Marino lives with my sister.

The sliding metal front gate is wide open, the management office to the left lit up. August Ryan’s Dodge Charger is parked in a visitor’s spot next to a Prius that I’ve noticed before. The pricey residential community is directly on the Potomac River, and surrounded by a high wall on three sides, with tall wrought-iron fencing in back.

The waterfront townhomes are on half-acre lots, their slate rooftops and chimneys all that’s visible from outside the compound. It can’t be accessed without physically entering codes on squawk boxes at egresses, each covered by closed-circuit TV cameras. They’re monitored remotely by the resident manager, who I met briefly many months ago.

I’m the one who encouraged Marino and my sister to move here. Finding the listing, I even previewed it for them during one of many trips to Alexandria while discussing my new job situation. It’s very likely that Lucy would have settled into this same development had there been anything else available at the time. Thank God there wasn’t.





CHAPTER 5

WE STOP AT THE entrance, the gate locked in the open position, enabling the police and other responders like me to come and go freely. That also could include the media or anyone else who shouldn’t be allowed inside an enclave that prides itself on security and privacy.

“Sit tight for a second.” Marino opens his door.

He climbs out of his truck, the rain slashing through his headlights shining on the open gate. He directs his flashlight at the hardwired security camera mounted on a pole above the squawk box. Walking around to the exit gate, he checks that camera next.

“They look okay as best I can tell,” he reports when back inside the truck, his face wet, tucking the flashlight into a pocket. “There’s nothing obvious, like they’ve been damaged, the wires cut or whatever.”

“It sounds too good to be true that we might have video.” I hand him the same towel he let me use earlier as we drive through the open gate. “Also, an assailant would have needed a code to enter. How did he manage that?”