Unnatural Exposure: A Novel (Kay Scarpetta, 8)

Cornwell, Patricia

ISBN 10: 0679445099 ISBN 13: 9780679445098

Publisher: Random House Audio, 1997

Synopsis

"In this return to the luridly fascinating world of Dr. Kay Scarpetta, Cornwell delivers the goods."
--Publishers Weekly

When the body of an elderly woman is found dismembered in a Virginia landfill, forensic pathologist Kay Scarpetta initially believes that the clues mirror that of a serial killer she's encountered before. But upon further investigation she discovers puzzling pox-like eruptions on the woman's body that, perhaps, point in another direction.

The killer then contacts Scarpetta via e-mail, and she enlists the aid of her computer-savvy niece, Lucy, to help track this monster through cyberspace. When Scarpetta learns that the Virginia victim was exposed to a high-tech virus that might unleash an epidemic, she begins to realize that she's dealing with a sophisticated and devious mind.

Her investigation leads her to the government's biological defense facility in Utah and to Atlanta's Center for Disease Control--and eventually to quarantine, when it's discovered that Scarpetta has been exposed to this often fatal virus. Along the way, she's forced to deal with the unscrupulous ambitions of a slick FBI agent, Lucy's problems, and her own turbulent feelings for Agent Wesley Benton.

Taut with unrelieved tension and continual surprises, Unnatural Exposure is the case of Kay Scarpetta's life--and a triumph for Patricia Cornwell.

About this title

About the Author

Patricia Cornwell is the Gold Dagger- and Edgar-winning author whose international bestsellers include Cause of Death, From Potter's Field, and The Body Farm.

Blair Brown is a five-time Emmy nominee, Broadway and screen star, and is a series regular on the television series Feds.

Reviews

In Cornwell's latest, she concocts a killer with a deadly biological agenda. Blair Brown just doesn't have the gritty determination for Kay Scarpetta and her law enforcement cohorts. While distinguishing the characters she's not able to capture the tension or complexities to drive the narrative. R.F.W. (c)AudioFile, Portland, Maine

Kay Scarpetta grapples with a serial killer who contacts her via the Internet in this latest from crime novelist Cornwell, who is involved in some headline-making scandal of her own: In a recent trial, she was named as the former lover of a woman whose husband attempted to murder her in a rage over the affair.
Copyright 1997 Reed Business Information, Inc.

Excerpt. © Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved.

Unnatural Exposure

By Patricia D. Cornwell

Random House Audio Publishing Group

Copyright © 1997 Patricia D. Cornwell
All right reserved.
ISBN: 9780679445098

Chapter One

Night fell clean and cold in Dublin, and wind moanedbeyond my room as if a million pipes played the air.Gusts shook old windowpanes and sounded like spiritsrushing past as I rearranged pillows one more time, finallyresting on my back in a snarl of Irish linen. But sleepwould not touch me, and images from the day returned. Isaw bodies without limbs or heads, and sat up, sweating.

    I switched on lamps, and the Shelbourne Hotel wassuddenly around me in a warm glow of rich old woodsand deep red plaids. I put on a robe, my eyes lingeringon the phone by my fitfully-slept-in bed. It was almosttwo A.M. In Richmond, Virginia, it would be five hoursearlier, and Pete Marino, commander of the city policedepartment's homicide squad, should be up. He was probablywatching TV, smoking, eating something bad forhim, unless he was on the street.

    I dialed his number, and he grabbed the phone as if hewere right next to it.

    "Trick or treat." He was loudly on his way to beingdrunk.

    "You're a little early," I said, already regretting thecall. "By a couple of weeks."

    "Doc?" He paused in confusion. "That you? You backin Richmond?"

    "Still in Dublin. What's all the commotion?"

    "Just some of us guys with faces so ugly we don't needmasks. So every day is Halloween. Hey! Bubba's bluffing,"he yelled out.

    "You always think everybody's bluffing," a voice firedback. "It's from being a detective too long."

    "What you talking about? Marino can't even detect hisown B.O."

    Laughter in the background was loud as the drunk, derisivecomments continued.

    "We're playing poker," Marino said to me. "What thehell time is it there?"

    "You don't want to know," I answered. "I've gotsome unsettling news, but it doesn't sound like we shouldget into it now."

    "No. No, hold on. Let me just move the phone. Shit.I hate the way the cord gets twisted, you know what Imean? Goddamn it." I could hear his heavy footsteps anda chair scraping. "Okay, Doc. So what the hell's goingon?"

    "I spent most of today discussing the landfill cases withthe state pathologist. Marino, I'm increasingly suspiciousthat Ireland's serial dismemberments are the work of thesame individual we're dealing with in Virginia."

    He raised his voice. "You guys hold it down in there!"

    I could hear him moving farther away from his pals asI rearranged the duvet around me. I reached for the lastfew sips of Black Bush I had carried to bed.

    "Dr. Foley worked the five Dublin cases," I went on."I've reviewed all of them. Torsos. Spines cut horizontallythrough the caudal aspect of the fifth cervical vertebralbody. Arms and legs severed through the joints,which is unusual, as I've pointed out before. Victims area racial mix, estimated ages between eighteen and thirty-five.All are unidentified and signed out as homicides byunspecified means. In each case, heads and limbs werenever found, the remains discovered in privately ownedlandfills."

    "Damn, if that don't sound familiar," he said.

    "There are other details. But yes, the parallels are profound."

    "So maybe the squirrel's in the U.S. now," he said."Guess it's a damn good thing you went over there, afterall."

    He certainly hadn't thought so at first. No one reallyhad. I was the chief medical examiner of Virginia, andwhen the Royal College of Surgeons had invited me togive a series of lectures at Trinity's medical school, Icould not pass up an opportunity to investigate the Dublincrimes. Marino had thought it a waste of time, while theFBI had assumed the value of the research would proveto be little more than statistical.

    Doubts were understandable. The homicides in Irelandwere more than ten years old, and as was true in the Virginiacases, there was so little to go on. We did not havefingerprints, dentition, sinus configurations or witnessesfor identification. We did not have biological, samplesfrom people missing to compare to the victims' DNA. Wedid not know the means of death. Therefore, it was verydifficult to say much about the killer, except that I believedhe was experienced with a meat saw and quite possiblyused one in his profession, or had at one time.

    "The last case in Ireland, that we know of, was a decadeago," I was saying to Marino over the line. "In thepast two years we've had four in Virginia."

    "So you're thinking he stopped for eight years?" hesaid. "Why? He was in prison, maybe, for some othercrime?"

    "I don't know. He may have been killing somewhereelse and the cases haven't been connected," I replied aswind made unearthly sounds.

    "There's those serial cases in South Africa," he thicklythought out loud. "In Florence, Germany, Russia, Australia.Shit, now that you think of it, they're friggin'everywhere. Hey!" He put his hand over the phone."Smoke your own damn cigarettes! What do you thinkthis is? Friggin' welfare!"

    Male voices were rowdy in the background, and someonehad put on Randy Travis.

    "Sounds like you're having fun," I dryly said. "Pleasedon't invite me next year, either."

    "Bunch of animals," he mumbled. "Don't ask me whyI do this. Every time they drink me outa house, home.Cheat at cards."

    "The M.O. in these cases is very distinctive." My tonewas meant to sober.

    "Okay," he said. "So if this guy started in Dublin,maybe we're looking for someone Irish. I think youshould hurry back home." He belched. "Sounds like weneed to go to Quantico and get on this. You told Bentonyet?"

    Benton Wesley headed the FBI's Child Abduction SerialKiller Unit, or CASKU, for which both Marino and Iwere consultants.

    "I haven't had a chance to tell him yet," I replied,hesitantly. "Maybe you can give him a heads-up. I'll gethome as soon as I can."

    "Tomorrow would be good."

    "I'm not finished with the lecture series here," I said.

    "Ain't a place in the world that don't want you tolecture. You could probably do that and nothing else," hesaid, and I knew he was about to dig into me.

    "We export our violence to other countries," I said."The least we can do is teach them what we know, whatwe've learned from years of working these crimes ..."

    "Lectures ain't why you're staying in the land of leprechauns,Doc," he interrupted as a flip-top popped. "Itain't why, and you know it."

    "Marino," I warned. "Don't do this."

    But he kept on. "Ever since Wesley's divorce, you'vefound one reason or another to skip along the YellowBrick Road, right on out of town. And you don't want tocome home now, I can tell from the way you sound, becauseyou don't want to deal, take a look at your handand take your chances. Let me tell you. Comes a timewhen you got to call or fold ..."

    "Point taken." I was gentle as I cut off his besottedgood intentions. "Marino, don't stay up all night."

The Coroner's Office was at No. 3 Store Street, acrossfrom the Custom House and central bus station, neardocks and the river Liffey. The brick building was smalland old, the alleyway leading to the back barred by aheavy black gate with MORGUE painted across it in boldwhite letters. Climbing steps to the Georgian entrance, Irang the bell and waited in mist.

    It was cool this Tuesday morning, trees beginning tolook like fall. I could feel my lack of sleep. My eyesburned, my head was dull, and I was unsettled by whatMarino had said before I had almost hung up on him.

    "Hello." The administrator cheerfully let me in. "Howare we this morning, Dr. Scarpetta?"

    His name was Jimmy Shaw, and he was very youngand Irish, with hair as fiery as copper ivy, and eyes asblue as sky.

    "I've been better," I confessed.

    "Well, I was just boiling tea," he said, shutting usinside a narrow, dimly lit hallway, which we followed tohis office. "Sounds like you could use a cup."

    "That would be lovely, Jimmy," I said.

    "As for the good doctor, she should be finishing up aninquest." He glanced at his watch as we entered his cluttered,small space. "She should be out in no time."

    His desk was dominated by a large Coroner's Inquiriesbook, black and bound in heavy leather, and he had beenreading a biography of Steve McQueen and eating toastbefore I arrived. Momentarily, he was setting a mug oftea within my reach, not asking how I took it, for by nowhe knew.

    "A little toast with jam?" he asked as he did everymorning.

    "I ate at the hotel, thanks." I gave the same reply ashe sat behind his desk.

    "Never stops me from eating again." He smiled, slippingon glasses. "I'll just go over your schedule, then.You lecture at eleven this morning, then again at one P.M.Both at the college, in the old pathology building. I shouldexpect about seventy-five students for each, but therecould be more. I don't know. You're awfully popular overhere, Dr. Kay Scarpetta," he cheerfully said. "Or maybeit's just that American violence is so exotic to us."

    "That's rather much like calling a plague exotic," Isaid.

    "Well, we can't help but be fascinated by what yousee."

    "And I guess that bothers me," I said in a friendly butominous way. "Don't be too fascinated."

    We were interrupted by the phone, which he snappedup with the impatience of one who answers it too often.

    Listening for a moment, he brusquely said, "Right,right. Well, we can't place an order like that just yet. I'llhave to ring you back another time.

    "I've been wanting computers for years," he complainedto me as he hung up. "No bloody money whenyou're the dog wagged by the Socialist tail."

    "There will never be enough money. Dead men don'tvote."

    "The bloody truth. So what's the topic of the day?"he wanted to know.

    "Sexual homicide," I replied. "Specifically the roleDNA can play."

    "These dismemberments you're so interested in." Hesipped tea. "Do you think they're sexual? I mean, wouldthat be the motivation on the part of whoever would dothis?" His eyes were keen with interest.

    "It's certainly an element," I replied.

    "But how can you know that when none of the victimshas ever been identified? Couldn't it just be someone whokills for sport? Like, say, your Son of Sam, for example?"

    "What the Son of Sam did had a sexual element," Isaid, looking around for my pathologist friend. "Do youknow how much longer she might be? I'm afraid I'm ina bit of a hurry."

    Shaw glanced at his watch again. "You can check. OrI suppose she may have gone on to the morgue. We havea case coming in. A young male, suspected suicide."

    "I'll see if I can find her." I got up.

    Off the hallway near the entrance was the coroner'scourt, where inquests for unnatural deaths were held beforea jury. This included industrial and traffic accidents,homicides and suicides, the proceedings in camera, forthe press in Ireland was not allowed to print many details.I ducked inside a stark, chilly room of varnished benchesand naked walls, and found several men inside, tuckingpaperwork into briefcases.

    "I'm looking for the coroner," I said.

    "She slipped out about twenty minutes ago. Believeshe had a viewing," one of them said.

    I left the building through the back door. Crossing asmall parking lot, I headed to the morgue as an old mancame out of it. He seemed disoriented, almost stumblingas he looked about, dazed. For an instant, he stared at meas if I held some answer, and my heart hurt for him. Nobusiness that had brought him here could possibly bekind. I watched him hurry toward the gate as Dr. MargaretFoley suddenly emerged after him, harried, her grayinghair disarrayed.

    "My God!" She almost ran into me. "I turn my backfor a minute and he's gone."

    The man let himself out, the gate flung open wide ashe fled. Foley trotted across the parking lot to shut andlatch it again. When she got back to me, she was out ofbreath and almost tripped over a bump in the pavement.

    "Kay, you're out and about early," she said.

    "A relative?" I asked.

    "The father. Left without identifying him, before Icould even pull back the sheet. That will foot me up therest of the day."

    She led me inside the small brick morgue with its whiteporcelain autopsy tables that probably belonged in a medicalmuseum and old iron stove that heated nothing anymore.The air was refrigerated-chilly, modern equipmentnonexistent except for electric autopsy saws. Thin graylight seeped through opaque skylights, barely illuminatingthe white paper sheet covering a body that a father couldnot bear to see.

    "It's always the hardest part," she was saying. "Noone should ever have to look at anyone in here."

    I followed her into a small storeroom and helped carryout boxes of new syringes, masks and gloves.

    "Strung himself up from the rafters in the barn," shewent on as we worked. "Was being treated for a drinkproblem and depression. More of the same. Unemployment,women, drugs. They hang themselves or jump offbridges." She glanced at me as we restocked a surgicalcart. "Thank God we don't have guns. Especially since Idon't have an X-ray machine."

    Foley was a slight woman with old-fashioned thickglasses and a penchant for tweed. We had met years agoat an international forensic science conference in Vienna,when female forensic pathologists were a rare breed, especiallyoverseas. We quickly had become friends.

    "Margaret, I'm going to have to head back to the Statessooner than I thought," I said, taking a deep breath, lookingabout, distracted. "I didn't sleep worth a damn lastnight."

    She lit a cigarette, scrutinizing me. "I can get you copiesof whatever you want. How fast do you need them?Photographs may take a few days, but they can be sent."

    "I think there is always a sense of urgency when someonelike this is on the loose," I said.

    "I'm not happy if he's now your problem. And I'dhoped after all these years he had bloody quit." She irritablytapped an ash, exhaling the strong smoke of Britishtobacco. "Let's take a load off for a minute. My shoesare already getting tight from the swelling. It's hell gettingold on these bloody hard floors."

    The lounge was two squat wooden chairs in a corner,where Foley kept an ashtray on a gurney. She put her feetup on a box and indulged her vice.

    "I can never forget those poor people." She startedtalking about her serial cases again. "When the first onecame to me, I thought it was the IRA. Never seen peopletorn asunder like that except in bombings."

    I was reminded of Mark in a way I did not want to be,and my thoughts drifted to him when he was alive andwe were in love. Suddenly he was in my mind, smilingwith eyes full of a mischievous light that became electricwhen he laughed and teased. There had been a lot of thatin law school at Georgetown, fun and fights and stayingup all night, our hunger for each other impossible to appease.Over time we married other people, divorced andtried again. He was my leitmotif, here, gone, then backon the phone or at my door to break my heart and wreckmy bed.

    I could not banish him. It still did not seem possiblethat a bombing in a London train station would finallybring the tempest of our relationship to an end. I did notimagine him dead. I could not envision it, for there wasno last image that might grant peace. I had never seen hisbody, had fled from any chance, just like the old Dublinerwho could not view his son. I realized Foley was sayingsomething to me.

    "I'm sorry," she repeated, her eyes sad, for she knewmy history well. "I didn't mean to bring up somethingpainful. You seem blue enough this morning."

    "You made an interesting point." I tried to be brave."I suspect the killer we're looking for is rather much likea bomber. He doesn't care who he kills. His victims arepeople with no faces or names. They are nothing but symbolsof his private, evil credo."

    "Would it bother you terribly if I asked a questionabout Mark?" she said.

    "Ask anything you want." I smiled. "You will anyway."

    "Have you ever gone to where it happened, visited thatplace where he died?"

    "I don't know where it happened," I quickly replied.

    She looked at me as she smoked.

    "What I mean is, I don't know where, exactly, in thetrain station." I was evasive, almost stuttering.

    Still she said nothing, crushing the cigarette beneath herfoot.

    "Actually," I went on, "I don't know that I've beenin Victoria at all, not that particular station, since he died.I don't think I've had reason to take a train from there.Or arrive there. Waterloo was the last one I was in, Ithink."

    "The one crime scene the great Dr. Kay Scarpetta willnot visit." She tapped another Consulate out of the pack."Would you like one?"

    "God knows I would. But I can't."

    She sighed. "I remember Vienna. All those men andthe two of us smoking more than they did."

    "Probably the reason we smoked so much was all thosemen," I said.

    "That may be the cause, but for me, there seems to beno cure. It just goes to show, that what we do is unrelatedto what we know, and our feelings don't have a brain."She shook out a match. "I've seen smokers' lungs. AndI've seen my share of fatty livers."

    "My lungs are better since I quit. I can't vouch for mylivers," I said. "I haven't given up whiskey yet."

    "Don't, for God sake. You'd he no fun." She pausedadding pointedly. "Course, feelings can be directed, educated,so they don't conspire against us."

    "I will probably leave tomorrow." I got back to that.

    "You have to go to London first to change planes."She met my eyes. "Linger there. A day."

    "Pardon?"

    "It's unfinished business, Kay. I have felt this for along time. You need to bury Mark James."

    "Margaret, what has suddenly prompted this?" I wastripping over words again.

    "I know when someone is on the run. And you are,just as much as this killer is."

    "Now, that's a comforting thing to say," I replied, andI did not want to have this conversation.

    But she was not going to let me escape this time. "Forvery different reasons and very similar reasons. He's evil,you're not. But neither of you wants to be caught."

    She had gotten to me and could tell.

    "And just who or what is trying to catch me, in youropinion?" My tone was light but I felt the threat of tears.

    "At this stage, I expect it's Benton Wesley."

    I stared off, past the gurney and its protruding pale foottied with a tag. Light from above shifted by degrees asclouds moved over the sun, and the smell of death in tileand stone went back a hundred years.

    "Kay, what do you want to do?" she asked kindly asI wiped my eyes.

    "He wants to marry me," I said.

I flew home to Richmond and days became weeks withthe weather getting cold. Mornings were glazed with frostand evenings I spent in front of the fire, thinking andfretting. So much was unresolved and silent, and I copedthe way I always did, working my way deeper into thelabyrinth of my profession until I could not find a wayout. It was making my secretary crazy.

    "Dr. Scarpetta?" She called out my name, her footstepsloud and brisk along the tile floor in the autopsysuite.

    "In here," I answered over running water.

    It was October 30. I was in the morgue locker room,washing up with antibacterial soap.

    "Where have you been?" Rose asked as she walkedin.

    "Working on a brain. The sudden death from the otherday."

    She was holding my calendar and flipping pages. Hergray hair was neatly pinned back, and she was dressed ina dark red suit that seemed appropriate for her mood. Rosewas deeply angry with me and had been since I'd left forDublin without saying good-bye. Then I forgot her birthdaywhen I got back. I turned off the water and dried myhands.

    "Swelling, with widening of the gyri, narrowing of thesulci, all good for ischemic encephalopathy brought on byhis profound systemic hypotension," I cited.

    "I've been trying to find you," she said with strainedpatience.

    "What did I do this time?" I threw up my hands.

    "You were supposed to have lunch at the Skull andBones with Jon."

    "Oh, God," I groaned as I thought of him and othermedical school advisees I had so little time to see.

    "I reminded you this morning. You forgot him lastweek, too. He really needs to talk to you about his residency,about the Cleveland Clinic."

    "I know, I know." I felt awful about it as I looked atmy watch. "It's one-thirty. Maybe he can come by myoffice for coffee?"

    "You have a deposition at two, a conference call atthree about the Norfolk-Southern case. A gunshot woundlecture to the Forensic Science Academy at four, and ameeting at five with Investigator Ring from the state police."Rose went down the list.

    I did not like Ring or his aggressive way of taking overcases. When the second torso had been found, he hadinserted himself into the investigation and seemed to thinkhe knew more than the FBI.

    "Ring I can do without," I said, shortly.

    My secretary looked at me for a long moment, waterand sponges slapping in the autopsy suite next door.

    "I'll cancel him and you can see Jon instead." Sheeyed me over her glasses like a stern headmistress. "Thenrest, and that's an order. Tomorrow, Dr. Scarpetta. Don'tcome in. Don't you dare let me see you darken the door."

    I started to protest and she cut me off.

    "Don't even think of arguing," she firmly went on."You need a mental health day, a long weekend. Iwouldn't say that if I didn't mean it."

    She was right, and as I thought about having a day tomyself, my spirits lifted.

    "There's not a thing I can't reschedule," she added."Besides." She smiled. "We're having a touch of Indiansummer and it's supposed to be glorious, in the eightieswith a big blue sky. Leaves are at their peak, poplars analmost perfect yellow. Maples look like they're on fire.Not to mention, it's Halloween. You can carve a pumpkin."

    I got suit jacket and shoes out of my locker. "Youshould have been a lawyer," I said.

Continues...

Excerpted from Unnatural Exposureby Patricia D. Cornwell Copyright © 1997 by Patricia D. Cornwell. Excerpted by permission.
All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.
Excerpts are provided by Dial-A-Book Inc. solely for the personal use of visitors to this web site.

Edition details

• Publisher: Random House Audio
• Publication date: 1997
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 0679445099
• ISBN 13: 9780679445098
• Binding: Audio Cassette