The Body Farm

"They got good cherry cobbler here," Marino said, looking for the waitress. She was standing just outside the kitchen door watching him, waiting for his slightest signal.

"How many times have you eaten here?" I asked him.

"I got to eat somewhere, isn't that right. Dot?" He raised his voice as our ever-vigilant waitress appeared. Wesley and I ordered coffee.

"Why, honey, wasn't your salad all right?" She was sincerely distressed.

"It was fine," I assured her.

"I'm just not as hungry as I thought."

"You want me to wrap that up for you?"

"No, thank you." When she moved on, Wesley got around to telling Marino what we knew about the forensic evidence. We talked for a while about the pith wood and the duct tape, and by the time Marino's cobbler had been served and eaten and he had started smoking again, we had pretty much exhausted the conversation. Marino had no more idea what the blaze orange flame-retardant duct tape or pith wood meant than we did.

"Damn," he said again.

"That's just strange as shit. I haven't come across a thing that would fit with any of that."

"Well," said Wesley, whose attention was begi

"I'll take care of this." I picked up the bill.

"They don't take American Express here," Marino said.

"It's one-fifty now." Wesley got up.

"Let's meet back at the hotel at six and work out a plan."

"I hate to remind you," I said to him.

"But it's a motel, not a hotel, and at the moment you and I don't have a car."

"I'll drop you at the Travel-Eze. Your car should already be there waiting. And Benton, we can find you one, too, if you think you're go

"I don't know what I'm going to need right now," he said.

13

Detective Mote had been moved to a private room and was in stable but guarded condition when I went to see him later that day. Not knowing my way around town very well, I'd resorted to the hospital gift shop, where they had but a very small selection of flower arrangements to choose from behind refrigerated glass.

"Detective Mote?" I hesitated in his doorway. He was propped up in bed dozing, the TV on loud.

"Hi," I said a little louder. He opened his eyes and for an instant had no idea who I was. Then he remembered and smiled as if he'd been dreaming of me for days.

"Well, Lord have mercy. Dr. Scarpetta. Now I never would've thought you'd still be hanging'round here."

"I'm sorry about the flowers. They didn't have much to choose from downstairs." I carried in a pitiful bunch of mums and daisies in a thick green vase.

"How about if I just put them right here?"

I set the arrangement on the dresser, and felt sad that his only other flowers were more pathetic than mine.

"There's a chair right there if you can sit for a minute."

"How are you feeling?" I asked. He was pale and thi

"Well, I'm just trying to go with the flow, like they say," he said.

"It's hard to know what's around the corner, but I'm thinking about fishing and the woodworking I like to do. You know, I've been wanting for years to build a little cabin someplace. And I like to whittle walking sticks from basswood."

"Detective Mote," I said hesitantly, for I did not want to upset him, "has anyone from your department come to visit?"

"Why sure," he answered as he continued staring out at a stu

"A couple fellas have dropped by or else called."

"How do you feel about what's going on in the Steiner investigation?"

"Not too good."

"Why?"

"Well, I'm not there, for one thing. For another, it seems like everybody's riding off in his own direction. I'm worried about it some."

"You've been involved in the case from the start," I said.

"You must have known Max Ferguson pretty well."

"I guess not as well as I thought."

"Are you aware that he's a suspect?"

"I know it. I know all about it." The sun through the window made his eyes so pale they seemed made of water. He blinked several times and dabbed tears caused by bright light or emotion. He talked some more.

"I also know they're looking hard at Creed Lindsey, and you know it's sort of a shame for either of'em."

"In what way?" I asked.

"Well, now. Dr. Scarpetta, Max ain't exactly here to defend himself."

"No, he isn't," I agreed.

"And Creed couldn't begin to know how to defend himself, even if he was here."

"Where is he?"

"I hear he's run off someplace, not that it's the first time. He done the same thing when that little boy was run over and killed. Everybody thought Creed was guiltier than sin. So he disappeared and turned up again like a bad pe

"Where does he live?"

"Off Montreal Road, up there in Rainbow Mountain."

"I'm afraid I'm not familiar with where that is."

"When you get to the Montreal gate, it's the road going up the mountain to the right. Used to be only mountain folk up there, what you'd probably call hillbillies. But during the last twenty years a lot of them has gone on to other places or passed on and folk like Creed's moved in." He paused for a minute, his expression distant and thoughtful.

"You can see his place from down below on the road. He's got an old washing machine on the porch and pitches most his trash out the back door into the woods." He sighed.

"The plain fact is. Creed wasn't gifted with smarts."

"Meaning?"

"Meaning he's scared of what he don't understand, and he can't understand something like what's going on around here."

"Meaning you also don't think he's involved in the Steiner girl's death," I said. Detective Mote closed his eyes as the monitor over his bed registered a steady pulse of 66. He looked very tired.

"No ma'am, I don't for a minute. But there's a reason he's ru

"You said he was scared. That seems reason enough."

"I just have this feeling there's something else. But I guess there's no point in my stewing over it. Not a darn thing I can do. Not unless all of 'em want to line up outside my door and let me ask'em whatever I want, and that sure isn't likely to happen."

I did not want to ask him about Marino, but I felt I must.

"What about Captain Marino? Have you heard much from him?" Mote looked straight at me.

"He came on in the other day with a fifth of Wild Turkey. It's in my closet over there." He raised an arm off the covers and pointed. We both sat silently for a moment.

"} know I'm not supposed to be drinking," he added.

"I want you to listen to your doctors. Lieutenant Mote. You've got to live with this, and that means not doing any of those things that got you into trouble."

"I know I got to quit smoking."

"It can be done. I never thought I could."

"You still miss it?"

"I don't miss the way it made me feel."

"I don't like the way any bad habit makes me feel, but that's got nothing to do with it." I smiled.

"Yes, I miss it. But it does get easier."

"I told Pete I don't want to see him ending up in here like me. Dr. Scarpetta. But he's a hardhead."

I was unsettled by the memory of Mote turning blue on the floor as I tried to save his life, and I believed it was simply a matter of time before Marino suffered a similar experience. I thought of the fried steak lunch, his new clothes and car and strange behavior. It almost seemed he had decided he did not want to know me anymore, and the only way to bring that about was to change into someone I did not recognize.