Trace by Patricia Cornwell Read Free Book Online Page B

saying," Dr. Marcus replies.
         "Please do."
         "You have this man in hospice who says, 'I think I'd like to die today.' Should you expect your local doc to do it?"
         "The truth is, the patient in hospice already has that capacity. He can decide to die," she replies. "He can have morphine when he wants it for pain, so he asks for more and goes to sleep and dies from an O.D. He can wear a Do Not Resuscitate bracelet and a squad doesn't have to resuscitate him. So he dies. Chances are there will be no consequences to anyone."
         "But is it our case?" Dr. Marcus insists, his thin face white with rage as he glares at her.
         "People are in hospices because they want pain control and want to die in peace," she says. "People who make informed decisions to wear DNR bracelets basically want the same thing. A morphine O.D., a withdrawal of vital support in a hospice, a person wearing a DNR bracelet isn't resuscitated. These are not our issues. If you get called about a case like that, Dr. Marcus, I hope you turn it down."
         "Any comment?" Dr. Marcus asks tersely, shuffling paperwork and ready to leave.
         "Yeah," Marino says to him. "You ever thought of writing Q-and-A's for Jeopardy?"

    Chapter 5

         Benton Wesley paces from window to window inside his three-bedroom town home at the Aspen Club. The signal of his cell phone surges in and out, and Marino's voice is clear, then broken.
         "What? I'm sorry, say that again." Benton backs up three steps and stands still.
         "I said that's not the half of it. A hell of a lot worse than you thought." Marino's voice comes through intact. "It's like he brought her in to kick the shit out of her in front of an audience. Or try. I emphasize try."
         Benton stares out at snow caught in crooks of aspen trees and piled on the stubby needles of black spruce. The morning is sunny and clear for the first time in days, and magpies frolic from branch to branch, landing in a flutter and then flitting off in small white bursts of snow. A part of Benton's mind processes the activity and tries to determine a reason, perhaps a biological cause and effect that might explain the long-tailed birds' gymnastics, as if it matters. His mental probing is as conditioned as the wildlife and as relentless as the gondolas swinging up and down the mountain.
         "Try, yes. Try." Benton smiles a little as he imagines it. "But you need to understand he didn't invite her because it was a choice. It was an order. The health commissioner's behind it."
         "And you know that how?"
         "It took me one phone call after she told me she was going."
         "It's too bad about Asp—" Marino's voice fractures.
         Benton moves to the next window, flames snapping and wood popping in the fireplace at his back. He continues to stare out the floor-to-ceiling glass, his attention fixing on the stone house across the street as the front door opens. A man and a boy emerge dressed for the weather, their breath streaming out in a frozen vapor.
         "By now she's aware of it," Benton says. "Aware she's being used." He knows Scarpetta well enough to make predictions that undoubtedly are true. "I promise she knows the politics or simply that there are politics. Unfortunately, there's more, a lot more. Can you hear me?"
         He looks out at the man and the boy shouldering their skis and poles, walking sluggishly in half-buckled ski boots. Benton will not ski or snowshoe today. He doesn't have time.
         "Huh." Marino has started saying that a lot of late, and Benton finds it annoying.
         "Can you hear me?" Benton asks.
         "Yeah, I'm copying now," Marino comes back, and Benton can tell he's moving around, roaming for a better signal. "He's trying to blame everything on her, like he brought her here to do that. I don't know what else to tell you until I getinto it more. The kid, I mean."
         Benton is aware of