Part Sixty Seven
As Dr. Kay Scarpetta moved around her Richmond Virginia home, packing all the belongings she might need for her trip to the UK, Captain Pete Marino watched her stonily. He hated it whenever she went away from him, for work or for any other reason, though he was forced to admit that this time, it might not be such a bad thing. They were in the middle of a very dangerous case, and it wouldn't do the Doctor Lawyer Indian Chief any harm to get out of the limelight for a while. Bodies kept turning up, all women, and all women who looked like Scarpetta. They couldn't find any real pattern apart from this, and the fact that they kept turning up wherever Kay appeared to have been last. This meant anywhere from near to the FBI academy in Quantico, to the Center for Disease Control in Atlanta Georgia, or the FBI headquarters in Washington DC. So, all in all, Marino was quietly relieved that she was getting out of the country for a while. He didn't know what he would do if anything ever happened to her, and there had been numerous occasions when that fear had almost been realised.
"Where're you gonna be staying over the next two weeks?" Marino asked as Kay began spreading the contents of her medical bag over the kitchen table, making sure she had everything it ought to contain. "I'm staying with one of the barristers presenting the case," She told him distractedly. "Why?" "Just wanna make sure you're safe, that's all." "Marino, I will be perfectly safe," She told him affectionately. "Why else would Senator Lord have got me permission to take my gun into the UK. I'm told someone owed him a favour." "Some favour," Marino commented dryly. "I ain't ever been to the UK, but I sure as hell know I wouldn't get permission to take my piece there." "You've never been to the UK?" Kay looked up at him in surprise. "Nope, not in all my sixty-two years have I been there. Hey, maybe you could take me there some day." "Maybe I will," Kay replied with a fond smile.
After repacking the medical bag, Kay put a CD on the stereo. It was Vivaldi's Four Seasons, something which she found soothing as she prepared to leave her comfortably familiar home for a fortnight. Marino grimaced, classical music clearly not being his preferred form of listening. "Why do you like this stuff?" Marino asked, watching her as she began packing a scene case to take with her. "Because it's the kind of music that fills your soul with peace and energy." "What kind of oxymoron is that?" Marino said in disgust, clearly surprising her because she hadn't thought he would know a word like oxymoron. "Didn't think I'd know a word like that, did you," He said when she momentarily stared at him. "Yeah, well, maybe I've been listening to you all these years." "Marino, I'm delighted that you know a word like oxymoron," Kay told him, trying not to laugh. "And yes, peace and energy are two very different things. The music gives me energy because it's so vibrant, so full of passion and imagery. I suppose it also gives me a sense of peace, because of its fluidity, the way it conjures up visions of animals and birds, all living through the ebb and flow of each season of the year." She'd looked almost wistful as she'd said all this, making Marino smile fondly at her. "You're getting very poetic in your old age, Doc," He said, her words having flowed over him like honey. "Less of the old," Kay said miserably. "March the twenty-third is coming far too quickly this year."
Leaving him sitting at the kitchen table drinking the coffee she'd made him, Kay went through to her bedroom, bringing her suitcase back into the lounge, leaving just another bag of essentials for the morning. Glancing through the lounge door at her, Marino saw that just for a moment, she was standing perfectly still, really taking in every note of the music. Moving quietly to join her, Marino simply watched the dreamy look on her face, making her features as soft and open as he had ever seen them. "This part is supposed to be summer," She told him quietly. "But it sounds more like autumn." She was right, Marino thought, as the cellos thundered away under the violas and violins, giving the impression of an approaching storm. "Doesn't it make you think of a large animal?" She asked him in ever so slight wonder. "A stag, or a wolf, something with thundering hooves, galloping through some great forest." "You'd play the violin if you were part of this lot, wouldn't you," Marino said, trying to visualise the prospect. "No, definitely not," she said without rancour. "The violin's too much in the limelight for my liking." "Doc, you've been in the limelight ever since I met you." "Which is precisely why I wouldn't do it for pleasure," She explained. "If I were to play any instrument, I think it would be the cello." "Now that just ain't natural," Marino said in total disgust. "What isn't?" "Women playing the cello, it ain't right." "Don't be ridiculous," Kay said with a laugh. "Women can play the cello with just as much dignity as men. The cello is so elegant, it's sound so rich and sexy, that it has far more soul to it than the violin any day." "If you say so," Marino said noncommittally, knowing neither one way nor the other. As the music moved into a furious tattoo of rhythm, illustrating the sudden august rain and any animal's rush for shelter, Kay absent mindedly began to conduct with her right hand, moving it fluidly between the beats. "That's really what you'd like to do, isn't it," Marino said knowingly. "To have all those players at your beck and call, kind of like the way you run your office." "Perhaps," Kay admitted not looking at him because she knew he was right.
"How're you getting to New York tomorrow?" He asked a good while later, knowing that she was flying to England from JFK airport this time. "Lucy's coming to pick me up in the whirly bird," Kay told him as she prepared them some dinner. "She says her flying hands need some exercise, which probably means I'll get a lesson en route." "Want me to come along for the ride?" "You can if you like," Kay said noncommittally. "I just want to make sure you get on that plane without anyone putting in an appearance." "Marino, whoever this killer is, isn't going to confront me in broad daylight, especially not in the middle of a busy airport with you and Lucy covering my back." "And you will keep in touch while you're over there, won't you, just to let me know you're safe." "Yes, I will, I promise," Kay told him seriously, knowing just what he felt for her, and that it would finish him off altogether if anything happened to her.