Trace (kay Scarpetta, #13)

The thirteenth installment in Patricia Cornwell's Scarpetta series follows forensic pathologist Dr. Kay Scarpetta as she returns to Richmond, Virginia, where she once served as the state's chief medical examiner.

Scarpetta, now freelancing from South Florida, receives a call from Dr. Joel Marcus, the current chief medical examiner, asking for help with a baffling case: a 14-year-old girl named Gilly Paulsson was found dead in bed after a bout of the flu, with no apparent cause of death. The request actually originates from Virginia's health commissioner, prompted by Gilly's father, Frank Paulsson, a well-connected doctor in Charleston, South Carolina. Scarpetta reluctantly agrees, in part because a planned vacation in Aspen with her partner, forensic psychologist Benton Wesley, has fallen through. She travels to Richmond with Pete Marino, her longtime investigator companion.

Their first morning in the city, Scarpetta discovers her former office building is being demolished to make way for a parking deck. As they circle the block, she notices a man standing near a large yellow tractor in the back parking lot. Within the hour, that man, a tractor driver named Theodore Whitby, is dead, killed at the demolition site.

At the Office of the Chief Medical Examiner (OCME), Marcus proves hostile and condescending. He excludes Marino, relegates Scarpetta to the library, and uses test cases at a staff meeting to humiliate her. Scarpetta observes that the office is in disarray: books disordered, staff demoralized, and her former assistant chief, Dr. Jack Fielding, visibly deteriorating with a severe skin condition and combative demeanor. The morgue is chaotic, with undertrained soldiers from Fort Lee, a nearby US Army post, making basic errors.

A parallel storyline unfolds in Aspen, where Benton secretly shelters Henri Walden, a 28-year-old former actress and police officer whom Scarpetta's niece, Lucy Farinelli, recruited as an agent for her private investigation firm, The Last Precinct. Henri was attacked in Lucy's Pompano Beach mansion while sick with the flu. She was found unconscious, facedown, and nude on the bed with bruises on her hands and back, a broken toe, and a bloody nose. No seminal fluid was found, but several long, dyed-black curly head hairs and two partial fingerprints were recovered. Benton, evaluating Henri after the incident, concludes she has a narcissistic personality and constantly tests boundaries.

In South Florida, Lucy and her partner Rudy Musil are on edge. Lucy's black Ferrari has been scratched with a drawing of a large eye, the same image that now appears taped to the back door of her mansion. Lucy plants covert surveillance transmitters in the home of her wealthy neighbor Kate, who has a direct view into Lucy's property and may have witnessed events around the attack.

Scarpetta insists on Fielding's presence for Gilly's re-autopsy. The girl's body, stored for two weeks, shows bruises on the tops of both hands and a previously missed bruise on her upper back. Scarpetta concludes Gilly died of mechanical asphyxia: Someone knelt on her back, pinning her hands palms-down above her head, compressing her chest until she could not breathe. Ciliated respiratory epithelium, cells shed from the lung lining, found on the pillowcase confirms asphyxiation.

At the Paulsson home, Scarpetta and Marino interview Gilly's mother, Mrs. Paulsson, a fragile, evasive woman who insists Gilly died of the flu. Marino discovers that the lock on Gilly's bedroom window is broken, and in her top dresser drawer he finds a shrine to her estranged father: his old wallet, letters, undershirts, and a dead red rose that appears only weeks old. Mrs. Paulsson claims ignorance about the rose and mentions a missing basset hound puppy named Sweetie. She refers cryptically to people Frank "invited over here" but refuses to elaborate.

FBI Special Agent Karen Weber has inserted herself into the case. At a tense meeting, Marcus accuses Scarpetta and Fielding of cross-contaminating evidence: Identical trace materials, red, white, and blue paint chips on aluminum and a strange gray-brown dust, have appeared in both the Paulsson and Whitby cases. Fielding erupts, quits, and tells Marino to reveal "the truth." Marino explains that Frank serves as an informant for Homeland Security, and the FBI's involvement is politically motivated, aimed at embarrassing a rival agency rather than solving Gilly's murder. Scarpetta walks out in disgust.

That night, Mrs. Paulsson lures the heavily intoxicated Marino to her house, initiates aggressive sexual contact, and proposes a violent "game." Marino blacks out and wakes covered in bite marks and bruises, with Mrs. Paulsson screaming accusations from the bathroom. Scarpetta examines his injuries, photographs them, and confronts Mrs. Paulsson, collecting physical evidence. Mrs. Paulsson admits Marino "couldn't do it," effectively conceding no assault occurred.

In the Trace Evidence lab, Scarpetta identifies the mysterious dust as human bone dust from cremains, consistent with residue from the old building's crematorium. This contamination explains Whitby's case, since his wound pressed against the pavement, but the same material's presence in Gilly's case is inexplicable unless someone who frequented the old building was also in contact with Gilly.

The investigation converges when Scarpetta and Marino enter the house behind the Paulssons' back fence, owned by Bernice Towle, daughter of the deceased Mrs. Edith Arnette. The house is supposedly unoccupied, but inside they find fresh food, cigar smoke, soiled linens, and a direct line of sight from the bedroom into Gilly's room. The dresser contains a withered red rose, folded white handkerchiefs, and funeral-industry magazines addressed to Mrs. Arnette and to the OCME. Scarpetta identifies the likely occupant as Edgar Allan Pogue, a former employee of the Anatomical Division, the OCME's body-handling and crematorium unit. A locked woodshed on the property yields bags of cremated human remains and unburned bones.

Rudy calls with critical news: Fingerprints from the eye drawing on Lucy's door, a chemical bottle bomb planted in Lucy's mailbox and neutralized by Rudy, and the bedroom where Henri was attacked all match prints from the Paulsson case. The same person is responsible for both crimes.

Pogue's backstory fills in his motive. Years earlier, a teenage Lucy visited the Anatomical Division with Scarpetta and rode a gurney recklessly, causing Pogue to inhale formaldehyde. The exposure left him with permanent pulmonary fibrosis. He blames Lucy for his ruined health and Scarpetta for abandoning Richmond. He killed Mrs. Arnette and Gilly using "Burking," a method of mechanical asphyxia in which the killer sits on the victim's back and smothers them, leaving almost no detectable trace at autopsy. His attack on Henri was meant for Lucy, but Henri was simply in the way.

Scarpetta confronts Mrs. Paulsson with a decisive fact: No dog hair was found on Gilly's bed linens or anywhere in the evidence. The puppy never existed. Mrs. Paulsson admits Gilly had been opening her window to look outside, and the repeated use broke the lock, giving her killer easy entry. In Charleston, Lucy poses as a pilot to record Frank sexually harassing her during a flight physical. She confronts him, and he confirms "Sweetie" was a term of endearment he and his wife used. He denies harming Gilly.

Scarpetta returns to the old OCME building, where she finds a spray-painted eye on the wall and a receipt for cigars, confirming Pogue used the building recently. Marino tracks Pogue's cigar obsession to a shop in Hollywood, Florida. When Pogue walks in wearing his black wig and asks for a revolver, Marino captures him at gunpoint.

In Aspen, Henri reveals she withheld critical information: Days before the attack, she saw a fat figure with long kinky hair skimming Lucy's pool. Lucy fires Henri for concealing this detail. The novel closes with Scarpetta flying to Aspen, where Benton meets her outside his town home. They embrace after weeks of distance and walk together toward the warmth of the lighted house.