Dust by Patricia Cornwell Read Free Book Online Page A

years ago because it was my idea and completely against his will. Were he asked “Is your every disappointment Kay Scarpetta’s fault?” he’d say yes and pass a polygraph.
     
    I turn on lights that fill the French stained-glass windows over the landings, wildlife scenes in rich, brilliant hues.
    In the entryway I disarm the alarm system and open the front door, and Marino looms large on the front porch mat, his dog all legs and paws tugging desperately to give Sock and me a playful, sloppy hello.
    “Come in. I’ve got to let Sock out and feed him.” In the entryway closet I begin collecting my gear.
    “You look like hell.” Marino pushes back the hood of his dripping rain slicker, his dog wearing a working vest, in training on one side and do not pet on the other in big white letters.
    I drag out my field case, a large, heavy-duty plastic toolbox I picked up for a bargain like a lot of medicolegal necessities I find at Walmart, Home Depot, wherever I can. There’s no point in paying hundreds of dollars for a surgical chisel or rib cutters if I can pick up tools for a song that do the job just fine.
    “I don’t want to get your floor wet.” Marino watches me from the porch, staring the same unblinking stare as he did in my dream.
    “Don’t worry about it. Rosa’s coming. The place is a mess. I haven’t even gotten a tree yet.”
    “Looks like Scrooge lives here.”
    “Maybe he does. Come in out of the weather.”
    “It’s supposed to clear off pretty soon.” Marino wipes his feet on the mat, his leather boots thudding and scraping.
    I sit down on the rug as he steps inside and shuts the door. Quincy pulls toward me, his tail wagging furiously, loudly thumping the umbrella stand. Marino the dog handler, or what Lucy calls “the dog chauffeur,” chokes up on the lead and commands Quincy to sit. He doesn’t.
    “Sit,” Marino repeats firmly. “Down,” he adds hopelessly.
    “What else do we know about this case beyond what you described to me on the phone?” Sock is in my lap, trembling because he knows I’m leaving. “Anything further about Gail Shipton, if that’s who we’re dealing with?”
    “There’s an alley in back of the bar with a small parking area, deserted, some of the lights burned out,” Marino describes. “Obviously it’s where she went to use her phone. I located it and a shoe that are hers.”
    “Are we sure they’re hers?” I begin putting on ankle-high boots, black nylon, insulated and waterproof.
    “The phone definitely.” He digs in a pocket for a biscuit, breaks off a piece, and Quincy sits in what I call his lunging position. Ready to pounce.
    “What about those treats I gave you? Sweet-potato ones, a case of them.”
    “I ran out.”
    “Then you’re giving him too many.”
    “He’s still growing.”
    “Well, if you keep it up he will but not the way you want.”
    “Plus they clean his teeth.”
    “What about the dog toothpaste I made for you?”
    “He doesn’t like it.”
    “Her phone isn’t password-protected?” I ask as I tie my laces in double bows.
    “I’ve got my little trick for getting around that.”
    Lucy, I think. Already, Marino is bringing my niece’s old tricks to his new trade, and all of us know that her tricks aren’t necessarily legal.
    “I’d be careful about what you might not want to explain in court,” I tell him.
    “What people don’t know they can’t ask about.” It’s clear from his demeanor he doesn’t want my advice.
    “I assume you processed the phone first for prints, for DNA.” I can’t stop myself from talking to him the same way I did when he was under my supervision. Not even a month ago.
    “The phone and the case it’s in.”
    I get up from the floor and he shows me a photograph of a smartphone in a rugged black case on wet, cracked pavement near a dumpster. Not just a typical smartphone skin, I think. But a water- and shock-resistant hard-shell case with retractable screens, what Lucy refers to as