Trace by Patricia Cornwell Read Free Book Online

blank out. Don't do it, Scarpetta silently says to Marino. But he does.
         "Injured?" he asks. "He's still alive?"
         "Actually," Dr. Ramie stammers. "I didn't take this call. Not personally. Dr. Fielding ..."
         "No, I didn't," Fielding interrupts like a gun hammer clicking back.
         "You didn't? Oh. Dr. Martin did. This is his note," Dr. Ramie goes on, her hot and humiliated head bent low over the call sheet. "No one seems to be real clear on what happened, but he was on or near the tractor one minute and then his coworkers suddenly saw him badly injured in the dirt. Around half past eight this morning, not even an hour ago. So, somehow, he ran over himself, fell off or something, you know, and ran over himself. Was dead when the squad got there."
         "Oh. So he killed himself. A suicide," Marino decides, slowly twirling the cigarette.
         "Well, it's an irony that this occurred at the old building, the one they're tearing down at Nine North Fourteenth Street," Dr. Ramie adds tersely.
         This catches Marino. He drops his not-so-funny act, his silent reaction nudging Scarpetta while she remembers the man in olive-green pants and a dark jacket standing in front of the tractor's back tire on the pavement near the bay door. He was alive then. Now he's dead. He should not have been standing in front of the tire, doing whatever he was doing to the engine. She thought that at the time, and now he's dead.
         "He's a post," Dr. Ramie says, her composure and authority somewhat restored.
         Scarpetta remembers turning the corner as she drove around her old building, and the man and his tractor vanished from sight. He must have gotten his tractor started within minutes of her seeing him, and then he died.
         "Dr. Fielding, I suggest you do the tractor death," Dr. Marcus says. "Make sure he didn't have a heart attack or some other underlying problem before he was run over. The inventory of his injuries is going to be extensive and time-consuming. I don't need to remind you of how thorough we need to be in cases like this. Somewhat ironical, in light of our guest." He looks at Scarpetta. "A bit before my time, but I believe Nine North Fourteenth Street was your old building."
         "It was," says she, the ghost from the past as she recalls Mr. Whitby from a distance in black and olive green, now a ghost too. "I started out in that building. A bit before your time," she repeats. "Then I moved to this one." She reminds him that she worked in this building too, and then feels slightly foolish for reminding him of a fact that is indisputable.
         Dr. Ramie continues going through the cases: a prison death that isn't suspicious, but by law, all prison deaths are medical examiner cases; a man found dead in a parking lot, possibly hypothermia; a woman who was a known diabetic died suddenly while climbing out of her car; an unexpected infant death; and a nineteen-year-old found dead in the middle of a street, possibly a drive-by shooting.
         "I'm on call for court in Chesterfield," Dr. Ramie concludes. "I'm going to need a ride, my car's in the shop again."
         "I'll drop you off," Marino volunteers, winking at her.
         Dr. Ramie looks terrified.
         Everyone makes moves to get out of their chairs, but Dr. Marcus stops them. "Before you go," he says, "I could use your help and you could probably use a little mental stretching. As you know, the Institute is running another death investigation school, and as usual I've been prevailed upon to lecture about the medical examiner system. I thought I'd try out a few test cases on the group, especially since we are fortunate enough to have an expert in our midst."
         The bastard, Scarpetta thinks. So this is what it's going to be like. The hell with their talk in the library. The hell with his making the office open to her.
         He pauses, looking around the table. "A twenty-year-old white