Four Scarpetta Novels by Patricia Cornwell Page B

cusses.
    Marino winks at Shandy, who looks bizarre in her open surgical gown and black leather motorcycle boots. Lucious impatiently abandons the pouched body in the middle of the hall, snaps the rubber band on his wrist, and says in an irritable raised voice, “Got to take care of her paperwork.”
    â€œKeep it down,” Marino says. “You might wake somebody up.”
    â€œI don’t got time for your comedy club.” Lucious starts to walk off.
    â€œYou ain’t going nowhere until you help me transfer her from your stretcher to one of our state-of-the-art gurneys.”
    â€œShowing off.” Lucy’s voice sounds in Benton’s earpiece. “Trying to impress his potato-chip tramp.”
    Marino rolls a gurney out of the cooler, scratched up and rather bandy-legged, one of the wheels slightly cockeyed like a bedraggled grocery store buggy. He and an angry Lucious lift the pouched body from the stretcher, place it on the gurney.
    â€œThat lady boss of yours is a piece of work,” Lucious says. “The b-word comes to mind.”
    â€œNobody asked your opinion. You hear anybody ask his opinion?” To Shandy.
    She stares at the pouch, as if she didn’t hear him.
    â€œIt’s not my fault she’s got her addresses mixed up on the Internet. She acted like it was my problem showing up, trying to do my job. Not that I can’t get along with anybody. You got a particular funeral home you recommend to your clients?”
    â€œGet a fucking ad in the Yellow Pages.”
    Lucious heads to the small morgue office, walking fast, hardly bending his knees, reminding Benton of a pair of scissors.
    One quadrant of the screen shows Lucious inside the morgue office, fussing with paperwork, opening drawers, rummaging, finding a pen.
    Another quadrant of the screen shows Marino saying to Shandy, “Didn’t anyone know the Hinelick maneuver?”
    â€œI’ll learn anything, baby,” she says. “Any maneuver you want to show me.”
    â€œSeriously. When your father was choking on—” Marino starts to explain.
    â€œWe thought he was having a heart attack or a stroke or a seizure,” she interrupts him. “It was so awful, grabbing himself, falling to the floor and cracking his head, his face turning blue. No one knew what to do, had no idea he was choking. Even if we had, we couldn’t have done anything except what we did, call nine-one-one.” She suddenly looks as if she might start crying.
    â€œSorry to tell you, but you could have done something,” Marino says. “I’m gonna show you. Here, turn around.”
    Done with his paperwork, Lucious hurries out of the morgue office, walks right past Marino and Shandy. They pay him no mind as he enters the autopsy suite unattended. Marino wraps his huge arms around her waist, makes a fist, his thumb against her upper abdomen, just above her navel. He grasps his fist with his other hand and gives a gentle upward thrust, just enough to show her. He slides his hands up and fondles her.
    â€œGood God,” Lucy says in Benton’s ear. “He’s got a hard-on in the fucking morgue.”
    In the autopsy suite, the camera picks up Lucious walking to the large black log on a countertop, the Book of the Dead, as Rose politely calls it. He starts signing in the body with the pen he took from the morgue office desk.
    â€œHe’s not supposed to do that.” Lucy’s voice in Benton’s ear. “Only Aunt Kay is supposed to touch that log. It’s a legal document.”
    Shandy says to Marino, “See, it’s not hard being in here. Well, maybe it is.” Reaching back, grabbing him. “You sure know how to cheer a girl up. And I do mean up. Whoa!”
    Benton says to Lucy, “This is unbelievable.”
    Shandy turns around in Marino’s arms and kisses him—kissing him on the mouth right there in the morgue—and for an instant, Benton