Autopsy (Kay Scarpetta, #25)(12)

“Good question,” Marino says.

Each townhome we pass is redbrick with generous windows, and columned patios and porches. They have big kitchens, attached garages and boat slips, the backyards spacious enough for small swimming pools and gardens. I’ll never forget Marino’s excitement when they bought their place, three bedrooms, a man cave, and a dead-on view of the river.

All his years of living on a cop’s wages, and it’s as if he won the lottery. That’s what he says, and I can see the smudged lights of Christmas trees, the shadows of people moving around behind drawn curtains. A man has stepped out on his porch, staring in the direction of the pulsing police lights as he talks on his phone.

He waves at Marino while the elderly woman next door emerges from her front door, staring at the big strobing truck. Frantically motioning to us, she hurries down her sidewalk, unmindful of the rain and that she’s in slippers and a bathrobe.

“I’m so upset! This is dreadful! Do you know what’s happening?” she calls out to Marino as he lowers his window. “Has there been a burglary?”

“We don’t know what we’re dealing with yet,” he says to her sweetly. “But don’t you worry, we’re going to make sure everybody’s safe.”

“It’s that woman jogger who moved here not so long ago. Not at all friendly, that one. The police are at her place so something must be horribly wrong.” Marino’s neighbor is visibly unnerved, her glasses speckled with rain. “I’ve never talked to her but she runs past my house every morning.”

“When’s the last time you saw her?” he asks.

“Several days ago. I’m not sure exactly. She runs up and down the street a few times, then heads out the gate. Usually at the crack of dawn, and is back an hour or two later.”

“You need to get back inside and out of the rain. I don’t want you getting sick,” Marino says kindly but with authority, and you might think he’s the mayor. “You got my number. I’m just a phone call away.”

Thanking him, she hurries back to her house, and he waits until she’s inside before driving on. He takes in every detail, looking for anything else that might indicate a monster has accessed his cloistered neighborhood.

“Maybe we turn off the strobes.” Finding the switch, I do it for him.

I don’t want it looking like we’re making a grand entrance, and in his badass pickup truck we’re more than a little conspicuous no matter what.

“I’ll get out while you stay put, giving me a chance to explain that you’re with me,” I add. “I’m leaving my scene case, and will ask you to bring it if need be. Hopefully they’ve got PPE.”

We pass the townhome where he lives with Dorothy, and the porch light is on, an American flag over the entrance snapping in the wind. Strands of white and blue LEDs are wound around shrubbery and columns. There are electric candles in the windows, a fresh wreath with a big red bow on the door, everything tastefully complying with residential code.

Two properties down from them is where Gwen Hainey had been living for the past six weeks, and it’s undecorated, not so much as a hint of the holidays. The last townhome in the row of them, it’s on a cul-de-sac, a wall in front, another one on the right side, and the tall wrought-iron fencing in back along the water.

There are no eyes or ears except for the neighbor on the left, some CEO who spends the winters in Florida, Marino says. Gwen’s place is the most remote one, and that was helpful to whoever targeted her.

“It makes me wonder if the location is a factor,” I comment as we park behind Alexandria P.D. cruisers and a crime scene van, their light bars going full tilt. “It’s pretty desolate back here in this corner.”

“Even more so this past Friday night,” Marino says. “A lot of people were gone for Thanksgiving.”

“I guess I’d better leave this here.” I take off my coat.

There will be no good place to put it or my briefcase once I’m at the scene, and I place them on the seat. I climb out of Marino’s truck, the rain steady but not nearly as hard.

I notice the TV news truck ahead, and that’s just my luck. Shutting the door, already I’m getting wet, the rain cold on top of my bare head. I can feel the eyes of the cops inside their cruisers, their engines rumbling as I trot past coatless and in a chilly hurry.

Bright yellow crime scene tape flutters in the wind, and I recognize the local TV news crew up ahead, the same one I was confronted by three nights ago. Their camera lights flare on at my approach.

“This is Dana Diletti, live from Colonial Landing on Old Town’s waterfront,” she says into her microphone.

Great Dana, as she’s been nicknamed, is six feet tall, a former college basketball player, and now a celebrity news anchor who has her own show. Dressed in rain gear, she’s appropriately somber as her crew holds up umbrellas, tending to her every need, the cameras running constantly and with no regard for decorum.

“. . . We’re here live at the scene where a woman recently employed by Thor Laboratories has gone missing,” she says to my dismay, and so much for verifying the victim’s identity. “Approaching now is the chief medical examiner . . . ,” she adds.

It’s the same thing I put up with Friday night when they showed up at the train tracks on Daingerfield Island. I didn’t want to be on TV then, and don’t want to be on it now. Walking with purpose, I avert my rain-slick face from them.