Book of the Dead (53 page)

    
Scarpetta moves out of the way so the EMTs can get through with their stretcher and equipment. They head to the far corner of the building so they can maneuver behind the hedge instead of breaking through it.

    
“Your wallet’s on your desk. Right there with the door open. Is that your habit?” she asks Ed.

    
“Can we talk inside?”

    
“Let’s give our statements to the investigator over there,” she says. “Then we’ll talk inside.”

    
She notices someone heading toward them on the sidewalk, a woman in a housecoat. The woman is familiar, then becomes Rose. Scarpetta intercepts her in a hurry.

    
“Don’t come over here,” Scarpetta says.

    
“As if there’s anything I haven’t seen.” Rose looks up at the lighted open window. “That’s where he lived, isn’t it?”

    
“Who?”

    
“What would you expect after what happened?” she says, coughing, taking a deep breath. “What did he have left?”

    
“The question is timing.”

    
“Maybe Lydia Webster. It’s all over the news. You and I both know she’s dead,” Rose says.

    
Scarpetta just listens, wondering the obvious. Why would Rose assume Lupano might be affected by what has happened to Lydia Webster? Why would Rose know he’s dead?

    
“He was quite full of himself when we met,” Rose says, staring toward the dark shrubbery beneath the window.

    
“I wasn’t aware you’d ever met him.”

    
“Just once. I didn’t know it was him until Ed said something. He was talking to Ed in the office when I saw him quite a long time ago. Rather rough-looking. I thought he was a maintenance person, had no idea he was Drew Martin’s coach.”

    
Scarpetta looks down the dark sidewalk, notices Ed is talking to the detective. Paramedics are loading the stretcher inside the ambulance as emergency lights flash and cops poke around with their flashlights.

    
“Drew Martin comes along only once in a lifetime. What was left for him?” Rose says. “Possibly nothing. People die when there’s nothing left for them. I don’t blame them.”

    
“Come on. You shouldn’t be out here in the damp air. I’ll walk you back inside,” Scarpetta says.

    
They round the corner of the building as Henry Hollings comes down the front steps. He doesn’t look in their direction, walking fast and with purpose. Scarpetta watches him dissolve into the darkness along the seawall, toward East Bay Street.

    
“He got here before the police did?” Scarpetta says.

    
“He lives only five minutes from here,” Rose says. “He has a quite a place on the Battery.”

    
Scarpetta stares in the direction Hollings headed. On the harbor’s horizon, two lighted ships look like yellow LEGOs. The weather is clearing. She can see a few stars. She doesn’t mention to Rose that the Charleston County coroner just walked past a dead body and didn’t bother to look. He didn’t pronounce him. He didn’t do anything. Inside the building, she gets on the elevator with Rose, who does a poor job disguising how much she doesn’t want Scarpetta with her.

    
“I’m fine,” Rose says, holding open the doors, the elevator not going anywhere. “It’s back to bed for me. I’m sure people want to talk to you out there.”

    
“It’s not my case.”

    
“People always want to talk to you.”

    
“After I make sure you’re safely inside your apartment.”

    
“Since you’re here, maybe he assumed you’d take care of it,” Rose says as the doors shut and Scarpetta presses the button for her floor.

    
“You mean the coroner.” Even though Scarpetta has yet to mention him or point out that he inexplicably left without doing his job.

    
Rose is too breathless to talk as they follow the corridor to her apartment. She stands before the door and pats Scarpetta’s arm.

    
“Open the door and I’ll leave,” Scarpetta says.

    
Rose gets out her key. She doesn’t want to open the door with Scarpetta standing there.

    
“Go on inside,” Scarpetta says.

    
Rose doesn’t. The more reluctant she is, the more stubborn Scarpetta gets. Finally, Scarpetta takes the key from her and lets them in. Two chairs have been pulled up to the window that overlooks the harbor, and between them on a table are two wineglasses and a bowl of nuts.

    
“The person you’ve been seeing,” Scarpetta says, inviting herself inside. “Henry Hollings.” She shuts the door and looks into Rose’s eyes. “That’s why he hurried out of here. The police called him about Lupano and he told you, then left so he could come back without anyone knowing he was already here.”

    
She moves to the window as if she might see him on the street. She looks down. Rose’s apartment isn’t very far from Lupano’s.

    
“He’s a public figure and has to be careful,” Rose says, sitting on the couch, exhausted and pale. “We’re not having an affair. His wife is dead.”

    
“That’s the reason he’s sneaking?” Scarpetta sits next to her. “I’m sorry. That doesn’t make sense.”

    
“To protect me.” A deep breath.

    
“From what?”

    
“If it got out the coroner was seeing your secretary, somebody might make something of it. Certainly, it would end up in the news.”

    
“I see.”

    
“No, you don’t,” Rose says.

    
“Whatever makes you happy makes me happy.”

    
“Until you visited him, he assumed you hated him. That hasn’t helped,” Rose says.

    
“Then it’s my fault for not giving him a chance,” Scarpetta says.

    
“I couldn’t assure him otherwise, now, could I? You’ve assumed the worst about him, just as he’s assumed the worst about you.” Rose struggles to breathe, and she’s getting worse. The cancer is destroying her right before Scarpetta’s eyes.

    
“It will be different now,” she says to Rose.

    
“He was so happy you came to see him,” Rose says, reaching for a tissue, coughing. “That’s why he was here tonight. To tell me all about it. He talked of nothing else. He likes you. He wants the two of you to work together. Not against each other.” She coughs some more, the tissue speckled with blood.

    
“Does he know?”

    
“Of course. From the start.” She gets a pained expression on her face. “In that little wineshop on East Bay. It was instant. When we met. Started talking about burgundy versus Bordeaux. As if I know. Out of the blue, he suggests we try a few. He didn’t know where I work, so it wasn’t that. He didn’t learn I work for you until later.”

    
“It doesn’t matter what he knew. I don’t care.”

    
“He loves me. I tell him not to. He says if you love someone, that’s the way it is. And who can say how long any of us will be here. That’s how Henry explains life.”

    
“Then I’m his friend,” Scarpetta says.

    
She leaves Rose, and finds Hollings talking to the detective, the two of them near the shrubbery where the body was found. The ambulance and fire truck are gone, nothing parked nearby except an unmarked car and a cruiser.

    
“I thought you’d ducked out on us,” the detective says as Scarpetta walks toward them.

    
She says to Hollings, “I was making sure Rose got safely back into her apartment.”

    
“Let me bring you up to speed,” Hollings says. “Body’s en route to MUSC and will be autopsied in the morning. You’re welcome to be present and participate in any way you see fit. Or not.”

    
“Nothing so far to indicate it’s anything other than a suicide,” the detective says. “Except it bothers me he’s got no clothes on. If he jumped, why did he take all his clothes off?”

    
“You might get your answer from toxicology,” Scarpetta says. “The doorman says Lupano sounded intoxicated when he called him not long before he died. I think all of us have seen enough to know that when people decide to commit suicide, they can do a number of things that seem illogical, even suspicious. By chance did you find clothes inside that might be what he took off?”

    
“Got a few guys up there right now. Clothes on his bed. Jeans, shirt. Nothing unusual about that part of it. No sign anybody else was in there with him when he went out the window.”

    
“Ed say anything about seeing a stranger come inside the building tonight?” Hollings asks her. “Or perhaps someone who showed up to visit Lupano? And I will tell you, Ed’s a real stickler about letting people in.”

    
“I didn’t get that far with him,” Scarpetta says. “I did ask him why he had his wallet out and in plain view on his desk. He says it was on his desk when he got the call from Lupano and rushed upstairs.”

    
“He’s ordered a pizza,” the detective says. “That’s what he told me, said he’d just gotten a hundred-dollar bill out of his wallet when Lupano called. Ed did order a pizza. From Mama Mia’s. Was a no-show, and the guy left. I have trouble with the part about him having a hundred-dollar bill. Did he think some pizza deliverer was going to have change?”

    
“Maybe you should ask him who called first.”

    
“That’s a good idea,” Hollings says. “Lupano’s known for his flashy lifestyle, for having expensive tastes and carrying around a lot of cash. If he came back to the building during Ed’s shift, Ed would know he’s home. He places his pizza order, then realizes all he has is three dollars and a hundred-dollar bill.”

    
Scarpetta’s not going to tell them that yesterday Lucy was inside Lupano’s car, looking at his GPS.

    
She says, “That might be what happened – Ed called Lupano for change. And by this point, Lupano’s drunk, maybe drugged, irrational. Ed’s concerned and goes upstairs.”

    
“Or maybe he went upstairs to get change,” Hollings says.

    
“Still implying Ed called him first.”

    
The detective walks away and says, “I’m going to ask him.”

    
“I have a feeling you and I have a few matters to clear up,” Hollings says to her.

    
She looks at the sky and thinks about flying.

    
“How about we find a private place to talk,” he says.

    
Across the street is White Point Gardens, several acres of Civil War monuments, live oak trees, and plugged cannon aimed at Fort Sumter. Scarpetta and Hollings sit on a bench.

    
“I know about Rose,” she says.

    
“I figured you might.”

    
“As long as you take care of her.”

    
“Seems you do a fine job of that. I had some of your stew earlier tonight.”

    
“Before you left and came back. So no one would realize you were already inside the building,” Scarpetta says.

    
“So you don’t mind,” he says, as if he needs her approval.

    
“As long as you’re good to her. Because if you’re not, I’ll do something about it.”

    
“I believe that.”

    
“I need to ask you about Lupano,” she says. “I’m wondering if you might have contacted him after I left your funeral home earlier today.”

    
“Might I ask why you’d wonder that?”