Dust by Patricia Cornwell Read Free Book Online

through plastic bags from the bath and body boutique called Octopus near Lafayette Square, mere blocks from the White House. There’s no evidence of sexual assault, nothing significant recovered from the bodies except two types of Lycra fibers, one blue-dyed and the other white. The morphology of the fibers in each of the three cases is slightly different. It’s been speculated they might be from athletic clothing the killer wears or possibly from furniture upholstery in his residence.
    I sit down on the sofa to dress, conserving strength, before venturing out to MIT’s playing fields where I will examine a dead human being whose truth must be coaxed and cut out of her, as I have done thousands of times in my career. Sock jumps up and rests his grizzled muzzle on my lap. I stroke his head and velvety long snout, careful with his ears, tattered and scarred from his former cruel life at the racetrack.
    “You need to get up,” I tell him. “I have to take you out, then I’ve got work to do. I don’t want you to get into a state about it. Promise?” I reassure him our housekeeper Rosa will be here soon and will keep him company. “Come on. Then you’ll eat breakfast and take a nap. I’ll be home before you know it.”
    I hope dogs don’t know when we lie. Rosa won’t be here soon and I won’t be home before Sock knows it. It’s very early and will be a very long day. The message alert dings on my phone.
    “You coming or what?” Marino texts me.
    “Ready,” I reply.
    I clip the fanny pack’s nylon strap around my waist, tightening it as I move a curtain aside.

5
     
     
    Veils of rain billow past streetlights in front of our Federal-style antique home in central Cambridge, close to Harvard’s Divinity School and the Academy of Arts and Sciences.
    I watch Marino climb out of an SUV that doesn’t belong to him personally. The Ford Explorer is black or dark blue, parked in my puddled driveway, the old brick boiling with heavy rain. He opens a passenger door, unaware that I’m staring down at him from a second-floor window, oblivious to what I feel when I see him, indifferent to how anything might affect me.
    He never announced his news and of course he didn’t need to because I already knew. The Cambridge Police Department wouldn’t have cared about his petition for exemption, and no number of glowing advisory letters was going to matter if I didn’t personally recommend him for a lateral transfer into their investigative unit. I got him his damn new job. That’s the truth of it and the irony.
    I lobbied on his behalf to the Cambridge police commissioner and the local district attorney, telling them with authority that Marino is the perfect candidate. With his vast experience and training he shouldn’t be obliged to go through the academy with rookies, and the hell with age limitations. He’s gold, a treasure. I made my case for him because I want him to be happy. I don’t want him to resent me anymore. I don’t want him to blame me.
    I feel a twinge of sadness and anger as he unlatches the dog crate in the backseat to let out his German shepherd, a rescue he named Quincy. He snaps a leash on the harness and I hear the muffled thud of the car door shutting in the hard rain. Through the bare branches of the big oak tree on the other side of the glass I watch this man I’ve known most of my professional life lead his dog, still a puppy, to shrubbery.
    They follow the brick walk, and motion-sensor lights blink on as if saluting Cambridge police detective Pete Marino’s approach. His large stature is exaggerated by the shadow he casts, on the front porch steps now in the glow of old iron gas lamps. Sock’s nails click on the hardwood floor, following me to the stairs.
    “My opinion is it won’t work out the way he thinks,” I continue talking to a dog as silent as a mime. “He’s doing it for the wrong reason.”
    Of course Marino doesn’t see it. He has it in his head that he left policing ten