Autopsy (Kay Scarpetta, #25)(71)

Then she’s breezing through our shared doorway, her coat and pocketbook in hand. Ready to leave for the day, she places a stack of autopsy protocols and death certificates on my desk.

“Sorry but no luck,” she says, and I’m where she left me earlier, standing by my conference table, going through the case file.

My shoes are off, my suit jacket draped over a chair. I’m not in a state of undress but getting there, and I pad in my stocking feet toward the bathroom.

“Doctor Fruge didn’t answer but I left a message for her to call you.” Maggie eyes me suspiciously. “Why are you changing your clothes? What are you planning to do during your so-called scene visit?”

“Thanks for trying Greta.” I ignore my pushy secretary’s questions. “And speaking of, I spent a good bit of time with her daughter last night. Apparently, Officer Fruge lives near you. She says she sees you out walking Emma.” I happen to know the name of Maggie’s Corgi.

“Yes, Officer Fruge indeed, driving around in her police SUV with too much time on her hands,” Maggie says snidely. “One of these pointless people who can talk the paint off a wall, needing to be in everybody’s business.”

“It just so happened she was at Daingerfield Island when Doctor Reddy showed up at the scene.” I let that sink in for a moment, flipping on the bathroom light, setting Cammie’s open file on the countertop.

“Well, there you have it, showing up where she doesn’t belong,” Maggie answers through the partially opened door, evading the topic of her former boss. “That’s precisely what I mean about her.”

Inside my locker are more tactical shirts and cargo pants neatly folded, and I pick what I need. I sense I’ve knocked Maggie off-balance. She didn’t expect me to know that Fruge was at the scene last April.

“I’m sure you’re aware that Cammie Ramada may have died in Alexandria but it’s not the Alexandria Police Department’s jurisdiction,” Maggie informs me. “Officer Fruge shouldn’t have shown up at all. But she heard it over the radio, and some people just don’t seem to know when to mind their own business.”

I wonder how she would know what Fruge heard on the radio, and if the two of them might be better acquainted than I thought. Both of them live alone in the same neighborhood and may have gotten friendly. I could see that happening. It would be just like my charming secretary to bleed Fruge for information, to manipulate her, all the while looking down her nose at her.

“I’m well aware the park is federal property,” I reply. “But if you have the shock of stumbling upon a dead body, you’re going to panic. When panicky people call nine-one-one they don’t care whose jurisdiction it is. And you can’t expect the local cops or anyone else to wait until the FBI shows up.”

“Officer Fruge is a boundary crasher. She may be something worse than that,” Maggie warns.

“You and I both know that Elvin Reddy typically won’t respond to anything if it doesn’t involve prominent, powerful people. If there’s nothing in it for him, he’s not interested.” I don’t pull any punches. “Why did he decide to show up at this particular scene at Daingerfield Island?”

I demand answers through the cracked door, sitting on the closed toilet lid, putting on my boots. What was his motivation? What was so important that it merited interrupting him after hours?

“Well, that case was a while ago,” she says as if we’re talking decades instead of months.

“What do you remember?”

“Let’s see, I recall they were headed back from dinner at their favorite place in Arlington. I can’t think of the name of it at the moment,” she says, and I don’t believe her.

“Who do you mean by they?”

“His wife was with him,” Maggie says, the story getting only weirder.

Coincidentally, they were just minutes from the scene when the medical examiner’s office was notified about a dead body discovered on Daingerfield Island. Maggie claims Elvin was driving his personal Mercedes along I-395 and headed in that general direction.

But what she doesn’t attempt to address is why he was contacted about the death to begin with. Especially after hours when he was headed home from dinner with his wife, and I wonder why Fruge didn’t mention that detail to me. When she talked about him showing up at the scene, I assumed he was alone.

“Okay, he was notified for some reason,” I say to Maggie. “Then what?”

There’s no way Elvin keeps a scene case in his car. I doubt he owns one. I can’t imagine he had PPE with him either when he and his wife supposedly were on their way home from a favorite restaurant that likely required a reservation. Which would have been made by Maggie, who suddenly has amnesia.

“He said he’d swing by to see what was going on,” she says.

“I wouldn’t expect that. Especially with his wife in the car.”

“I’m quite sure she didn’t get out,” she says, and I don’t see how she can be sure of any such thing if she wasn’t there.

“Who notified him about the case to begin with and why?”

“As I’ve mentioned, we got the call,” my secretary says, and I know the answer.

She notified Elvin Reddy, and I ask her why. She answers by putting on her coat, looping the strap of her pocketbook over her shoulder, moving closer to the door that opens onto the hallway.