Autopsy (Kay Scarpetta, #25)(85)

“Well, don’t sneak up on us again,” Marino says to her. “Hop in, I’ll drop you at your car. And no comments from the peanut gallery about what I’ve got in back.”

“No problem.” She climbs in, moving his big military surplus ammo box out of her way. “I don’t mind riding around with a truck full of guns. I grew up in Virginia, remember?”

“When you were talking to Maggie,” I say to Fruge as we drive off, “I’m wondering if she mentioned that I’m trying to reach your mother.”

“No, ma’am, she didn’t. But that’s an easy one. Anything special you want me to tell her?”

“I have a question when she has time to call.” I give Fruge my number.

“I’m letting her know right now, texting her as we speak,” she says, and then I ask about something else.

“Doctor Reddy showed up at the scene last April tenth. Supposedly he’d been out to dinner near Daingerfield Island,” I explain. “He was near the scene when notified about the body.”

“I remember he was looking at it with August Ryan, and it was embarrassing,” Fruge says. “I don’t like him in the least but it’s not up to me to ruin people. That’s for them to do. And you can imagine what I see around here, people getting drunk, fighting, cheating on each other.”

She tells us that the former chief had been drinking, was slurring his words, and it would be bad for him if that ever came out. Maggie had to drive him, confirming what I suspect, and that wouldn’t be good for him, either.

“Then he didn’t have his wife, Helen, with him,” I make sure.

“No. Maggie was with him but she didn’t get out of the car,” Fruge says.

“Whose car?”

“His Mercedes. And when I knocked on the window to say hi, Maggie shook her head at me. It was obvious she didn’t want people seeing her there, probably afraid it might look like the two of them had something going on.”

“Do they?” Marino asks, and Fruge shrugs.

“If they do, it’s not against the law. All I know is Doctor Reddy had been drinking, and she was driving him. This was right before August asked me to leave, saying the park police were handling things.”

“I’m sure they didn’t want you there, nosy as you are.” Marino eyes her in the rearview mirror, and I can tell he likes her more than he lets on. “How’d you find out about the bag of clothes and body parts?” he asks as we rumble slowly along the narrow road through the woods.

“The dumpster diver who found it called nine-one-one,” she says. “Dispatch called me, and off I went.”

“I’m assuming the person who found the bag opened it. Or he wouldn’t have called the police,” I reply.

“That’s right. I’ve gotten his DNA swab, and tomorrow he’ll come into the station so we can get his fingerprints.”

“Is August Ryan aware of what’s happened?” I ask her.

“Besides you, the only person I’ve told is your DNA guy, Rex Bonetta,” she replies as we stop in a parking lot by her police SUV.

“Be careful out there, Fruge,” Marino says as she climbs out. “And hey, good job.”

“What?” She stops in her tracks. “You talking to me?”

“Good job getting the stuff from the dumpster and being smart enough to take it straight to the labs,” he says, and she couldn’t look more pleased. “You know, before the Feds made off with it.”

“Exactly.” She unlocks her SUV. “I thought maybe we could get some real answers for once.”

“What do you think?” he asks me as we watch her crank the engine, the headlights going on.

“That I’d like to check out what’s in the evidence room,” I reply, and most of all, I want to see the hands.

“No kidding, you and me both.” He follows Fruge out of the park.

The road leading in and out crosses the railroad tracks, and the lights are flashing, the gate arm going down. It’s nine o’clock on the nose, and we watch the silvery train thunder by, its passengers clearly visible in the lighted windows. Some are looking out and talking, others reading or busy with their phones, and I can imagine the killer watching the same thing we are.

“The best of both worlds,” I comment, the last cars passing, the rhythmic clatter fading.

“What are you talking about?” Marino asks as the lights stop flashing, the gate arm going up.

“Dumping a body by the tracks,” I answer as Fruge drives across them, and we’re right behind her. “Nobody sees what the killer’s doing inside the park at night. Then when it’s showtime, he has a built-in audience as the commuter train goes by.”

“And you’re thinking that’s what he had in store for Cammie, too. But his plan went off the rails, so to speak.”

“Very possibly,” I reply.

We’re back on the parkway, traffic much lighter at this hour, and my phone starts ringing. I don’t recognize the number but it’s the area code for Richmond, and I answer.

“Talk about a ghost from the past.” Greta Fruge’s pleasantly modulated voice sounds over speakerphone. “What a lovely surprise when Blaise told me you were trying to get hold of me.”