Page 11 of Sharp Force
Next to it is the recycling center where I make regular visits with a trunk full of bottles, cans and flattened cardboard boxes. I’ve caught glimpses of Duke Mansoni and other scientists when I’ve driven past their lab and its wooded tract of land that’s caged in by metal fencing. Mansoni advises that Peanut is still at large.
“He’s friendly, fond of people and extremely intelligent,” the scientist is saying. “But he’s a powerful animal and potentially deadly if he feels threatened…”
Sitting down at my desk, I look through notes I made downstairs, the paper forms damp from disinfectant. I dictate the list of personal effects I removed from Rowdy O’Leary’s body. The Rolex watch I unbuckled from his wrist is still ticking like in a commercial. I removed his wedding band from his little finger.
“Engraved inside isLove never diesand the date, June tenth, two-thousand-five.”
I’m speaking into the recorder on my phone, my attention constantly tugged back to the TV on the wall. Bose Flagler is being interviewed now, and he’s beautifully appointed in a tobacco cashmere jacket and creamy turtleneck. The commonwealth’s attorneyis considered the most desirable bachelor in Virginia, and it’s easy to understand why.
From a prominent local family, he’s flawlessly handsome like a young Alec Baldwin. If Shannon were here at this moment she’d be swooning as Flagler talks about a crime stoppers initiative he’s starting. It’s always something that he’s sure will play well with voters, and I stop watching, returning to Rowdy O’Leary’s autopsy details.
“… The crucifix necklace I’m told he always wore was caught in the waistband of his undershorts,” I dictate. “Otherwise, it would have been lost. The twenty-four-inch-long gold chain likely snagged on something while his body was submerged, moving with the current…”
Having grown up Catholic, I can’t help but take the broken necklace as a sign. Obviously, a bad one.
“… A gift-wrapped velvet box with a ring inside,” I’m dictating. “Gold metal with a green stone…”
In a pocket of Rowdy O’Leary’s parka, the emerald ring was intended as a Christmas gift for his wife, Reba, I assumed. The receipt in his wallet is from a jewelry store in Pentagon City. He spent $2,850 in cash at 5:30 p.m. exactly one week ago. The ring was the last thing he ever bought.
“… I cleaned and disinfected it and other jewelry. Also, scraps of soggy holiday wrapping paper and ribbon, four credit cards, a driver’s license, keys on a keychain attached to the silver metal figure of a runner. Inside the wallet was two hundred and ninety-eight dollars…”
I add that the cause of death is a “myocardial infarct due to hypertensive cardiovascular disease and atherosclerosis.”
I’m not sure of the manner yet. Maybe natural causes. But I don’t know. There are too many questions.
“… For now, it’s pending further investigation. This provisional report was recorded by me on December twenty-fourth at five-fifteen p.m. I attest that all statements and conclusions are factual to the best of my knowledge. Doctor Kay Scarpetta, chief medical examiner, the Commonwealth of Virginia.”
I email the audio file to Shannon for transcription, and get up from my desk, shutting down the computer. I turn off the TV as the news shows images of the pier where Rowdy O’Leary was fishing, and then the stretch of the Potomac River where his body was found.
I’m working the thick plastic cover over my microscope when my fired former secretary Maggie Cutbush fills my doorway.
“Brilliant that you’re still here,” she says in her posh British accent.
Her designer briefcase is in one hand, and in the other a small package wrapped in gold paper and a black satin bow. I can smell her expensive perfume as she walks into my office, her dyed blond hair short and stylish. Her once pretty face is haughty and harsh, her arched eyebrows unnaturally dark, her lips fishlike from filler.
She’s quite the fashion statement in her shorn mink coat, and black rubber boots and pocketbook with the Chanel interlocking C’s logo emblazoned in front. I hear she’s often seen prowling the designer outlets in Tysons Corner.
“I’m on my way out before the weather gets any worse,” I let her know. “And you’d be wise to do the same.”
“Oh, no worries there,” she says with an imperious smile. “Elvin’s giving me a lift. His Porsche SUV has no trouble with snow.”
I walk to my conference table, my coat draped over a chair.
“I wanted to wish you a Merry Christmas, Kay,” Maggie adds, and that’s not why she’s here.
“What’s on your mind?” I make no pretense at being friendly.
“Before you leave the country, we need to discuss a few of your cases. Starting with Rowdy O’Leary. Let’s talk about whatreallyhappened to him,” she says as if in possession of information I don’t have.
“And why might we need to talk about him?” I begin putting on my coat, signaling it will be a quick conversation.
“I understand he was shooting his gun like a maniac, drinking while looking at pornography on his phone. All this while supposedly fishing on an old pier at night in the middle of winter, and that all by itself strikes me as a clear sign of mental illness.”
“What’s your interest in him, Maggie?”
“Well, clearly, this is someone who was very unstable,” she says with saccharine pity. “And no big surprise that he fell into the water and drowned. I mean, obviously he’s a drowning.”
“Where did you hear that he was looking at pornography?” I’m not giving her details.
