Autopsy(Kay Scarpetta #25)(42)

“Making everything that much harder for those of us trying to work the case,” I reply, and I bring up the disturbing death that Officer Fruge told me about.

Cammie Ramada, her body found on the shore of the Potomac River inside the same park where Gwen was found on Daingerfield Island, I explain to Clark.

“Apparently, this was in early April, and ruled a drowning, the manner of death accidental.” I run a comb through my damp hair, working a dab of gel through it. “But a police officer I was with last night insists Cammie Ramada was murdered. There seem to be a lot of unanswered questions about the case.”

“Which police officer?” Clark asks, and I can tell he’s guarded.

“Blaise Fruge.” I open a cabinet, and nothing is where it’s supposed to be thanks to Dorothy rummaging through my belongings. “She and I spent a lot of time together going through Gwen Hainey’s townhome.”

“What is it I can help you with, exactly?”

“I’m interested in what you have to say since you were working here when Cammie Ramada mysteriously drowned.” I remind him I hadn’t moved from Massachusetts yet.

I also don’t think the death made the news in a big way or I would have heard about it. I go on to say that Park Police Investigator Ryan hasn’t mentioned the case to me, and one can only hope there’s no conspiracy of silence going on.

“Because of tourism, local business, politics or anything else,” I’m saying to Clark. “We need to make sure her death isn’t connected to Gwen Hainey’s,” I add, and he responds with a startled pause.

“Just so we’re clear,” he finally says, “I was on vacation with my family in the Outer Banks when Cammie Ramada’s body was found.”

At the end of the day, his lab isn’t responsible for the DNA analysis such as it was, he adds. There’s not much to tell except what he knows from talking to the police, reviewing their reports, he says.

“The FBI decided to move samples to their Quantico labs and do the analysis there,” Clark explains, and they’ll try the same thing with me, I have no doubt.

But it’s not going to happen. I’ve yet to let them take Gwen’s evidence out from under us. The body and everything relating to it is the medical examiner’s jurisdiction. Naturally, I extend that to include the flattened penny, and anything else I collected, the analysis in my labs already under way.

“Our hands were tied as you likely know if you’ve reviewed the records,” Clark says over speakerphone. “Once the FBI took over, that was that.”

“The problem is I’ve not looked at the records yet,” I reply, fussing with my hair in the mirror. “I’d never heard of Cammie Ramada before last night but intend to get up to speed before the day is out.”

“After the FBI took what they wanted, nothing happened. The case was closed.”

He explains that the scene wasn’t managed the way it should have been, too many cooks in the kitchen. There were problems with contamination.

“I’m not sure how well acquainted you might be with the former chief,” Clark says, and he doesn’t know the half of it. “But it’s likely he hasn’t worked many scenes in recent memory.”

“I’d say that’s accurate.” I refrain from adding the rest of it.

Elvin Reddy is more of a politician than a medical examiner, having no passion or respect for the work itself and even less for patients living or dead. He’d far rather appear on the news or mingle with the prominent and powerful than talk to the family of a loved one who’s died suddenly, tragically.

I knew what he was early on when he’d have his morbid fun with those he could bully. Nothing like asking the wrong person to open a body bag crawling with maggots. Or making lewd observations about a dead woman’s “sizeable attributes, what a waste.” I’d overhear his salacious cracks.

He was the sort to keep trophies such as artificial joints and breast implants until I caught wind of it. Suffice it to say, we did nothing but clash during my Richmond days when he was one of my forensic pathology fellows, the worst I ever mentored.





CHAPTER 17

MIND YOU, THIS IS hearsay because I wasn’t there.” Clark continues to tell me what he knows about last April’s case. “Doctor Reddy appearing at the scene only added to the confusion, and the cops were afraid to stand up to him if he did something they didn’t agree with.”

“Such as?”

“Not having appropriate PPE,” he says. “Just a mask, gloves, and he had to be told to put them on.”

Clark says he’s seen the photographs of the former chief shining his light on the body, and he’s not exactly a poster child for proper forensic procedures. Such trifling details are for everyone else to worry about, is the way he looks at it.

“Not to mention,” he adds, “there’s the obvious complications since we’re talking about a national park. The Feds, in other words, and technically the jurisdiction of the park police.”

But Daingerfield Island is located in the city of Alexandria, and of interest to their law enforcement. Also, the FBI could stake claims on the investigation. To confuse things further, Cammie Ramada’s body was partially on Virginia soil, and partially in water located in the District of Columbia. What Marino would call a cluster-eff on flipping steroids.