All That Remains (kay Scarpetta, #3)

Patricia Cornwell's novel follows Dr. Kay Scarpetta, Virginia's Chief Medical Examiner, as she investigates a serial killer targeting young couples in the wooded areas surrounding Williamsburg, Virginia.

In late August, Scarpetta is summoned to a rest stop on Interstate 64 after the abandoned Jeep Cherokee of nineteen-year-olds Deborah Harvey and Fred Cheney is discovered. The couple left Deborah's family home the previous evening, heading to a beach house in North Carolina, but never arrived. Richmond homicide detective Pete Marino, Scarpetta's frequent collaborator, and FBI profiler Benton Wesley respond to the scene. Deborah is the daughter of Pat Harvey, the National Drug Policy Director. The Jeep sits with keys in the ignition and luggage undisturbed, but there is no sign of the couple or Deborah's purse. Search-and-rescue bloodhounds react with extreme distress when sniffing the passenger seat, while a second dog tracks a scent across the Interstate to a parking lot, where the trail vanishes.

Four couples have already vanished and turned up dead within a fifty-mile radius of Williamsburg over the past two and a half years, cases the press has dubbed "The Couple Killings." In every prior instance, Scarpetta ruled the cause of death undetermined because the bodies were badly decomposed by the time they were found. The pattern is consistent: abandoned cars with keys in the ignition, no signs of struggle, and no evidence of theft.

Pat Harvey invites Scarpetta to her estate to review the previous cases. Shortly after, Wesley summons Scarpetta and Marino to his home, revealing that Harvey has consulted a psychic named Hilda Ozimek and that Harvey's work as National Drug Policy Director has involved investigating charities suspected of being fronts for drug cartels. Wesley raises the possibility that Deborah's disappearance could be a political kidnapping designed to derail Harvey's upcoming congressional testimony. He instructs Scarpetta and Marino to maintain absolute discretion.

Abby Turnbull, a former Richmond crime reporter now at the Washington Post and an old friend of Scarpetta's, visits Richmond. She reveals she has been investigating the couple killings and believes she is under surveillance. She discloses that in each of the first four cases, a jack of hearts playing card was found inside the abandoned vehicle, a detail the FBI has suppressed. At the convenience store where Deborah and Fred stopped, a clerk recalls a military-looking man who was present when she directed the couple to the nearby rest stop.

In January, two bodies are found in the woods of New Kent County, less than four miles from where Deborah's Jeep was abandoned. The badly decomposed remains lie facedown, side by side, the female's arm tucked under the male's. Scarpetta notices the bodies have been moved before her arrival, a violation she suspects Wesley orchestrated to search for a jack of hearts, which is found inside Deborah's purse.

Dental records confirm the identities. Scarpetta discovers that Deborah was shot in the back with a nine-millimeter Hydra-Shok round, a type of specialized hollow-point bullet, lodged in her lumbar vertebra; the wound would have instantly paralyzed her. Fred's cause of death remains undetermined. At the Smithsonian, forensic anthropologist Dr. Alex Vessey confirms a cut on Deborah's finger was inflicted by a serrated blade, indicating she fought back.

Wesley pressures Scarpetta to pend the cases indefinitely, but she refuses and releases autopsy reports to the families. Pat Harvey holds a press conference accusing the Justice Department of conspiracy and revealing the jack of hearts detail. The media ridicules her, and Scarpetta suspects the discrediting was orchestrated. Wesley and Mark James, Scarpetta's former lover and an FBI agent, reveal that the CIA fears the killer may be one of their officers from Camp Peary, a CIA training facility near Williamsburg. Training exercises at the facility, including surveillance dry runs and wooded "kill zones" using night vision equipment, parallel the killer's methods.

Scarpetta pursues her own leads. She discovers an eight-year-old case of a dog shot with specialized ammunition near where the second couple was found. She also uncovers two older unsolved murders: Jill Harrington and Elizabeth Mott, two women killed in a church cemetery near Williamsburg. The women were barefoot, their shoes left in the car, matching the later cases. Through her psychiatrist, Dr. Anna Zenner, who had treated Jill, Scarpetta learns the two women were secret lovers, linking them to the pattern of murdered couples.

A suspicious dark gray Lincoln appears twice near Williamsburg. Abby records the first plate number, and Scarpetta notices a different plate on a subsequent encounter. Marino traces both to vehicles in long-term parking at the Newport News airport, confirming someone is stealing plates. Scarpetta enters a bookstore called The Dealer's Room and recognizes the owner as the Lincoln's driver. Wesley identifies the man as Steven Spurrier, a thirty-four-year-old loner who briefly served in the navy, worked at a printing press, and opened his bookstore with inherited wealth. FBI surveillance reveals Spurrier cruises bars and rest stops at night, approaching young couples.

Spurrier is arrested stealing license plates. A search of his house turns up violent pornography, newspaper clippings about all the murders, black nylon warm-up suits, surgical gloves, and unopened decks of playing cards, but no weapons. The convenience store clerk identifies him as the man present the night Deborah and Fred stopped in. However, a DNA comparison of Spurrier's blood with blood found in Elizabeth Mott's car comes back as a non-match. Surveillance is pulled, and Spurrier receives only a suspended sentence for petit larceny. Abby, now staying at Scarpetta's house and secretly writing a book about the cases, arranges an interview at Spurrier's home, misleading Scarpetta about his release.

Scarpetta discovers Abby's deception and races to Spurrier's house with Marino. They find Pat Harvey's Jaguar out front. Inside, Spurrier lies dead on the floor, and Abby lies fatally wounded on the couch. A tape recorder reveals the sequence: Harvey arrived during Abby's interview, confronted Spurrier, and in the struggle Spurrier grabbed Abby as a shield. Abby was shot with her own .38, and Harvey then killed Spurrier before turning the gun on herself. Scarpetta cannot save Abby but keeps Harvey alive by applying pressure to Harvey's chest wound until paramedics arrive.

In the aftermath, Scarpetta resolves the DNA mystery during Spurrier's autopsy, where she finds scars from a bone marrow transplant. Years earlier, Spurrier developed aplastic anemia, a blood disorder caused by benzene exposure. He received a marrow transplant from his brother Gordon, which replaced his blood cells entirely. The DNA from his recently drawn blood matched Gordon's, not the blood Steven left in Elizabeth Mott's car before the transplant. Scarpetta requests a new comparison using brain tissue, which retains Steven's original DNA. Wesley confirms that Spurrier purchased night vision goggles and Hydra-Shok cartridges before Deborah and Fred disappeared and planted a stolen Camp Peary gas card in one couple's car to direct suspicion toward the CIA. At Abby's graveside service, Wesley explains that Spurrier's illness accounts for the five-year gap between his first and subsequent killings. Scarpetta drives home alone.