Autopsy(Kay Scarpetta #25)(63)

“The gist seems to be that she’s accusing the police of mistreating her,” I add. “Targeting her because she dares to report the news accurately, to criticize the police and those in power.”

I play a live video clip so we can hear what she’s saying.

“. . . The police came eventually.” Dana Diletti is standing outside in the glare of television lights not far from here. “The two officers were, well, let’s just say they didn’t seem happy to see me, making sure I knew they don’t watch my particular brand of reporting.”

Dressed in jeans, a raincoat, she has little if any makeup on, looking more like a neighbor than a famous journalist, a strikingly tall and beautiful one. Surrounded by her crew, she tells her inflammatory story as dozens of police officers in riot gear keep a wary eye on the growing crowd, many people angrily fist-pumping, carrying flags and signs.

“. . . Let me just say it required considerable effort on my part for them to take the situation seriously,” Dana says earnestly, staring into the camera. “Or worse, as if it didn’t matter what might have happened to me, that maybe I don’t belong in this upscale neighborhood.”

She accuses the police of refusing to request that an investigative unit be summoned to check for evidence. The responding officers saw no need to dust for fingerprints, swab for DNA, take photographs or do anything else, she claims. They left after searching her house, making sure no one was inside it. Or so they explained.

“But that’s not what they were really doing,” she dramatically declares. “Their gloved hands were rifling through my closets, drawers, cupboards and other places that had nothing to do with someone trying to pry open my bedroom window. In the process setting off the alarm, thank God. Because I was right there in the dark, sound asleep in bed.”

She blatantly states that the police searched her place without a warrant, treating her like a suspect, not a victim. Their only interest was prurient details they could gossip about while hoping to find drugs or other contraband, illegal weapons, who knows what? All to discredit and destroy her, she’s adamant.

“Finally, after calling the mayor to complain,” she adds, “five hours after the fact, an investigative unit showed up where I live.”

She looks back at her lovely antique brick house decorated for the holidays, on a generous lot thick with old hardwood and fir trees.

“And they found it necessary to remove the entire window, making it impossible for me to stay here . . .”

Why not invite some thug to break in, just send out an engraved invitation? she says, and that’s rather much what she’s doing on live TV. Next, we’re shown images of the big plyboard-covered window at the back of her house, and I would agree that it’s an unacceptable vulnerability.

She’s right to feel unsafe. Were it me, I’d live elsewhere for a while or at least have someone staying with me. For sure I wouldn’t draw attention to my situation by holding a press conference that not so accidentally is accompanied by protesters marching through my neighborhood.

“What she’s doing is really unfortunate. Reckless, actually,” I remark as the coverage plays on my phone. “And yes, that’s too bad about her window. But it’s a sad fact of life that if you want evidence properly tested, it’s usually not going to be convenient or pretty.”

As much crime as the TV journalist covers, she certainly knows that. I speak my mind to Benton even as Dana speaks hers on camera.

“. . . Meaning some serial killer can come back with a hammer, pull out the nails and let himself in . . . ,” she’s saying.

All to intimidate her into silence or get her murdered, she goes on convincingly until I can’t listen anymore.

“Talk about giving someone ideas.” I end the video file. “And making everything about herself, I’m sorry to say.”

“Just what nobody needs right about now,” Benton agrees.

FOLLOWING THE GEORGE WASHINGTON Memorial Parkway along the river, we’ve avoided Dana Diletti’s neighborhood and the problems that go with it.

We’re just south of the airport, not far from Daingerfield Island, and I text Maggie to e-mail me the Cammie Ramada case. I also want the hard copy waiting on my desk when I get there.

Why, is there a new development? My secretary answers with an outrageous question.

Just do it, please, I text her back, adding that hopefully she’ll still be there by the time I arrive, and it’s more an order than a hope.

“How far out are we?” I ask Benton.

“Ten minutes, knock on wood.”

I pass this along to my overreaching secretary as Rex Bonetta texts me back, and I call him. Right away my chief toxicologist lets me know that we can’t yet identify the presumed opioid that could have killed a lot of people including me. They’ve screened for everything they can to no avail.

“In other words, I’m frustrated,” he says over speakerphone. “And I’m not feeling terribly optimistic, Kay. The testing could take a very long time when there’s no clue what we might be looking for. Or if it’s some new drug we don’t have an assay for, and that’s what I suspect.”

The possibilities for synthetic opioids are as endless as the number pi, as limitless as a chemist’s imagination. All that’s required is changing a single molecule, and fentanyl isn’t fentanyl anymore. The same with carfentanil, methadone and other drugs created primarily for pain relief.