Autopsy (Kay Scarpetta, #25)(19)

The succulents are dried up, the violets a withered blackish-purple. They’ve not been watered in recent memory, maybe ever, and how disgraceful. Like the absence of so much as a single holiday candle. Like everything I’m seeing.

“Was the kitchen light on when you got here?” I ask. “In fact, were any lights on?”

“Yes, the ones that are now. Here, the living room, master bedroom, and entryway. And the garage, everything is exactly like it was when the manager let me in. I didn’t touch a thing except for going through the knapsack on the table.” She heads that way to show me.

“I’ll get there eventually. One thing at a time,” I let her know, because I won’t be hurried or directed.

I imagine Dorothy appearing at Gwen’s door, welcoming her to the neighborhood with a dish garden. Likely it was my sister who set it on the windowsill with its northern exposure, and it catches my attention that the faux wooden blinds are open. The kitchen lights shine through the glass, dimly illuminating the patio.

I can see the cover on the grill twitching in the wind, the empty bird feeders and suet basket hanging from wrought-iron shepherd hooks, the table and chairs. If a stalker, a killer had gotten into the patio area when she was fixing soup with the blinds open, she would have been visible through the window over the sink.

“Especially after dark.” I point this out to Fruge. “I’m curious why the blinds are open, and find it odd. The drapes are drawn everywhere else I’ve looked so far. Yet she was inside the kitchen late afternoon, early evening, and didn’t close the blinds?”

“Why are you making a big deal out of a dead plant?” She watches curiously as I use my phone to take pictures of the dish garden. “What’s so important about it?”

“I’m making sure we have a record of what it looked like before it was moved.” I pick it up. “And tampered with.” I dribble in tap water from the sink.

About a fourth of a cup should be enough, and I set the ceramic pot in the dish rack to drain, feeling increasingly uncharitable about the person to blame.

“How hard is it to take care of something that needs minimal sunlight and watering only once a week?” I can’t help but remark.

“By all appearances, Gwen Hainey didn’t seem to have much respect for anything,” Fruge agrees. “Probably selfish as heck, like a lot of these people who grew up on social media.”

“Except from what I’ve been told she has no presence on it,” I reply. “It would seem she was skilled at staying off the radar.”

My next stop is the kitchen table, what’s actually a butcher block that no doubt belongs to the house. On top of it is a green leather knapsack, a wallet. Gwen’s driver’s license is near a set of keys simply labeled #14, an abbreviation for the address of the rented townhome.

“When I first got here there was nothing else on the table except the knapsack I went through,” Fruge says. “I was looking for a picture ID and for her phone, which still hasn’t turned up. I don’t think it’s here anywhere, and I’m thinking the killer took it.”

The wallet and knapsack are an expensive designer brand. There’s a large amount of cash inside, and I run my thumb through the crisp hundred-dollar bills. What must be thousands of dollars, and it’s consistent with the story of Gwen’s paying three months’ rent in cash.

“Where’s she getting all her money?” Fruge wants to know. “I didn’t count what’s in there when I looked for her license but obviously it’s a lot. Who walks around with that much cash? What does she make as a scientist? Because my mom’s sure not gotten rich from being one.”

“We don’t know what Gwen was earning,” I reply. “I doubt it’s a fortune, and paying cash for most things certainly raises questions.”

“Well, it looks like she was getting mail-order food, and you can’t pay cash when you’re ordering off the Internet.”

“She doesn’t have much in the way of credit cards.” I return the wallet to the table. “Amex, a debit card, assuming nothing’s missing. She might have resorted to an online payment service if the point was to stay below the radar. Like PayPal, Google Pay, there’s a number of them.”

“It’s obvious that she’s involved in some sort of dirty business. Maybe spying like you said.”

“What’s apparent is robbery wasn’t a motive for whoever targeted her,” I reply. “Her money, her laptops weren’t taken. It would seem they were of no interest.”





CHAPTER 8


HER DRIVER’S LICENSE WAS renewed four years ago, apparently while she was living in Boston, based on the address. In the photo, she’s heavier, her short hair dyed platinum blond, exactly as August described when he called me earlier.

At a glance she’s not recognizable as the murdered woman. Although on closer inspection there are similarities in bone structure, the shapes of the ears, the slope of the nose. Their heights aren’t the same, the Department of Motor Vehicles listing Gwen Hainey as five-foot-five.

I happen to know from measuring the body that she was an inch shorter than that, assuming the victim in my cooler is who I believe she is. The inconsistencies don’t necessarily mean much. I’m used to lies about personal details such as dental work, plastic surgery, health habits, various implants, and all sorts of secret vices.