Page 50 of Identity Unknown
“I don’t know, unless he was on his way to or from Green Bank?” I offer.
“He wasn’t on those occasions.” Gus moves away from the window, returning to his chair. “The last time he visited the observatory was in September, and it doesn’t appear that he stopped in Weyers Cave coming or going.”
“Doctor Scarpetta, might you have noticed if he was carrying anything unusual in his truck yesterday while he was getting ready to leave for West Virginia?” the National Security Agency asks.
“Such as?”
“For example, a blue fabric briefcase with a black shoulder strap?”
“I didn’t notice anything like that. And that’s not what he typically carried—”
“Asking about a blue fabric briefcase is pretty damn specific,” Marino interrupts again.
“Images from his front-door camera show him placing it on the floor of the front passenger seat not long before Doctor Scarpetta showed up.” Secret Service Director Bella Steele twists off the cap from a water bottle, taking a swallow. “Four days ago, on Thursday, he stopped by his bank and withdrewfive thousand dollars in twenty-dollar bills. And he did the same thing around the time of those other visits to the convenience store in Weyers Cave. A total of thirty-five thousand dollars cash has been withdrawn since last June. Do you have any idea why?” She’s asking me this.
“No, I don’t,” I reply. “And the blue briefcase doesn’t sound familiar.”
“It’s missing, like everything else, it seems,” Lucy says. “We’ve not had the chance to search his truck yet, but it’s looking like nothing was inside when it went off the mountain.”
“It certainly seems that Sal Giordano might have been meeting someone on his way to Green Bank yesterday afternoon,” Bella goes on as she looks at me. “And perhaps exchanging the briefcase and cash for something. Of course, some of this is conjecture. But one has to ask if it’s connected to his death.”
The speculations continue implying that Sal may have been a traitor, and I can scarcely listen. How quickly people want to blame the victim, and he wasn’t perfect. No one is. But he wasn’t a turncoat. I refuse to believe it, and I pull on fresh gloves, unwilling to discuss this further.
“I know some of you have seen postmortems. Who hasn’t?” I look up at my audience behind glass, and several people raise their hands. “Think of a forensic autopsy as exploratory instead of something gory.” I begin taking x-rays through the double layers of thick plastic.
I give them a preview of what to expect while moving the C-arm as images appear on the console’s video screen. Marino is checking out a vintage Nikon 35-millimeter camera that isn’t Wi-Fi enabled.
“It’s an excavation rather than an anatomical dissection,” I’m saying to our audience. “The goal is to see what truths the dead have to tell.”
As I explain, I notice a radiodense object in the stomach. The shape makes me think of a pharmaceutical capsule that Sal must have swallowed close to the time he ate dinner. I find this puzzling, not aware that he was on any medications. He was staunchly against them, taking only vitamins and other nutritional supplements.
But I’m not the end-all when it comes to information about him despite what’s been implied. I roll the C-arm from one part of the body to the next, monitoring the images on the display, doing what I can to disavow people of their assumptions.
“You saw him how often, would you estimate?” the NSA asks me.
“On average once a month or so we’d see each other at meetings. Or he’d come to our house. Now and then Benton and I would drop by his. Sometimes we’d run into each other in the neighborhood.”
“And how often did you text or talk on the phone?”
“It varied depending on what was going on. At least several times a month.” I’m aware of Benton’s eyes on me.
“Would Sal Giordano have told you if he’d gotten involved with someone?” Gus wants to know.
“What do you mean by involved?”
“If he were sleeping with someone. Would he have confided that in you?”
“Not necessarily.” I position the C-arm over the right side of the head.
“What makes you think he was sleeping with someone?” Marino asks as he finds a six-inch plastic ruler that he’ll use for a photographic scale.
“Because he seems to have been living a secret life,” Gus says. “Our concern is that he might have been lured into something. Unfortunately, it happens all too often. No one is immune to mistakes of the heart.”
“Or mistakes of a lower part of the anatomy, I was actually thinking,” Bella says, and those around her manage to smile. “Did Sal sleep with a lot of women? Does anybody know? Because that’s not how he came across to me. The question is whether he was easily led astray, shall we say.”
“That wasn’t my impression,” I reply.
“I’m more suspicious about him selling secrets to the bad guys,” says the secretary of state.