Postmortem

Scarpetta drives to the morgue. While she waits for Lori’s body to arrive, she calls Bertha to check on Lucy. She feels bad that she will not be able to take Lucy to Monticello that day as she had promised.

Once the body arrives, Scarpetta works with Neils Vander, the fingerprint technician, to gather fingerprints and other evidence. They use a special laser to identify trace evidence, like fibers. It is tedious, methodical work. They manage to find three latent fingerprints, made with a high concentration of reactive material. They also see some kind of material that glitters under the laser light. This material has been found on the other three victims, but they are not sure what the material is.

While taking a break, Scarpetta wonders why Marino seems to dislike her. She calls Marino and tells him to search the house for something that could leave the glittery residue. Marino tells her he thinks the husband committed the murder and that the residue could be from greasepaint used by actors. Scarpetta is skeptical, but she says she will compare Matt’s fingerprints to those on the body.

While working at her desk to write Lori’s autopsy report, Scarpetta is uneasy when she hears someone rattling the chains on the front door of the building, but the security guard tells her no one is there.

Scarpetta returns home. The babysitter, Bertha, tells her that she tried to hide the newspaper reporting on the murder from Lucy. Lucy is a prodigy who enjoys spending time on Scarpetta’s home computer and the internet. Scarpetta goes up to her home office to check on Lucy. She apologizes for not being able to take Lucy to Monticello.

Lucy replies defensively, saying she would rather spend the time on the computer. She says she reformatted Scarpetta’s hard drive to clear up space. Lucy has the newspaper with her; she asks Scarpetta about the murder. She grows frantic with worry that Scarpetta is going to die.

Scarpetta does her best to comfort Lucy and gives the girl a glass of red wine to calm her nerves. Scarpetta takes Lucy to bed. She tells Lucy that “some people would rather be bad […] it’s just an ugly, unfortunate part of life” (41), but she reassures Lucy that God will take care of them, even though she does not entirely believe it herself.

Later that night, Scarpetta gets a phone call, but no one speaks when she answers. She can only hear spooky music before she hangs up.

The next morning, Scarpetta checks in with Vander. She notes that Vander does not remember she prefers black coffee, just like her ex-husband Tony never remembered it, either. They talk about the press coverage of the case. Vander uses an FMP (fingerprint matching processor), one of the first automated fingerprint identification systems, to identify the fingerprints they found on Lori’s body. They are a match for Matt Petersen.

Scarpetta reflects that she is not surprised to find Matt’s fingerprints because people often reflexively touch a dead body to check for signs of life. However, the fact that his fingerprints were in the system suggests that he has had previous run-ins with law enforcement. Marino arrives, and she shares the news with him about the fingerprint match.

He has brought a “survival knife” owned by Matt, which was found in a drawer in the bedroom. Vander confirms that Matt’s fingerprints are on the knife. Marino feels confident that the material that fluoresced on Matt’s hands is the same material found on Lori and the other bodies, but Scarpetta is not sure. She tells Marino to bring in Matt’s stage makeup for testing.

Scarpetta and Marino review Matt’s doctoral dissertation draft on the lab computer. It is about Tennessee Williams, a Southern playwright known in part for his “controversial treatments of homosexuality and cannibalism” (50). Marino feels this interest confirms that Matt has a “pornographic imagination.” Scarpetta is unconvinced.

Marino plays the tape of his interview with Matt. On the tape, Matt tells Marino that he talked to his wife regularly. He reports that she had heard a noise in the backyard a week prior and had called the police, only for it to be discovered that it was cats. Matt tells Marino that he was struck by a strange maple syrup smell in the room when he found the body. He is unsure if he touched the body. He tells Marino that his knife was usually kept on the desk, and he does not know why it had been placed in the drawer. He denies any involvement in the crime.

Marino feels Matt was acting during the interview, because Matt is an actor. Scarpetta feels that Matt is simply an expressive person. She wonders if the murderer used the knife when he found it on the desk and then put it in the drawer to make the police think that Matt was the culprit. She does not feel a husband would commit such a violent, depraved crime against his wife. She thinks it was a stranger.

When Marino points out that no one else mentioned the maple syrup smell but Matt, Scarpetta retorts that Matt found his wife’s body very shortly after the murder, whereas the other victims were found the next day, meaning the smell could have dissipated before the bodies were found in the other cases. Marino storms off, muttering, “Goddam women…” (67).