Page 1 of Identity Unknown

CHAPTER 1

AStryker saw grinds through bone, a knife rasping across a whetstone as water drums into deep metal sinks. Doctors call out organ weights, wound measurements and other findings as those assisting scribe. Rock and roll blares from the vintage boom box on a shelf, the autopsy suite not the quiet place one might expect.

Our caseload is heavy this Tuesday morning, the weather beautiful in Northern Virginia, the sun shining, the temperature in the seventies. People have been flocking to the parks, the nature trails, the waterfront, and with the good comes the awful. Violence, accidents and other senseless deaths escalate when the weather is nice, my idea of spring fever different from most.

I’m finishing a complicated case that I find especially disturbing, and there’s nothing more I can do for now. What’s needed is time for elusive injuries to creep out of hiding. When contusions occur close to death, the skin discoloration is subtle like shadows and easily missed. But with additional days in the cooler, the injuries become obvious like the bruised flesh of a peach turning brown.

I’m suspicious that faint marks on the victim’s upper arms and neck were caused by violent gripping and throttling. If I’m right, that will be incriminating for her parents, Ryder and Piper Briley. My decisions could result in them charged with child abuse and murder. Based on what I’ve witnessed at their home and during the autopsy, they’re a monstrous couple.

But it’s not up to me to judge. I’m not supposed to care about punishment. The forensic pathologist’s job is to present the facts with no interest in the outcome. That’s impossible unless you’re a robot or cold-blooded. Luna Briley’s death is outrageous and infuriating. It was all I could do to keep my cool when I was at the scene yesterday.

I have no doubt that her entire short life was hellish, her influential parents unaccustomed to facing consequences. I’m sealing bullet fragments inside an evidence container when the old-style wall phone begins to clangor near my workstation. I wonder who it is. Few people have this number.

“Someone expecting a call down here?” I raise my voice above the din.

My medical examiners are deep in their cases, scarcely glancing in my direction as the ringing continues.

“No problem. I’ll get it.” I mutter this to no one in particular.

Taking off my surgical mask and bloody gloves, I toss them into the biohazard trash. The floor is sticky beneath my Tyvek-covered feet as I step over to the countertop. Taped to the cinderblock wall is a sign demandingCLEANHANDSONLY!and I grab the phone, the long cord hopelessly snarled.

“Doctor Scarpetta,” I answer, and there’s no response.“Hello?” I detect the murmur of a talk show playing in the background. “Anybody there? Hello?”

Sensing someone on the line, I hang up. I’m returning to my table when the ringing starts again. This time I’m not as pleasant.

“Morgue,” I announce.

“Hate to interrupt. I know you’re slammed.” It’s my niece, Lucy Farinelli, a U.S. Secret Service agent and helicopter pilot.

I can tell by the noise of throbbing engines and thudding rotor blades that she’s flying somewhere. She wouldn’t call like this unless it’s urgent.

“The phone just rang, and no one said anything. That wasn’t you by chance?” I ask her.

“It wasn’t, and I have bad news, Aunt Kay.”

Lucy never calls me that anymore unless no one else is listening. She must be flying alone, and I imagine her in the right seat of a cockpit that reminds me of a space shuttle.

“We’ve got a bizarre death that I suspect is somehow related to the little girl likely on your table as we speak,” she tells me somberly, and I detect an undercurrent of anger.

“I’m just finishing up with Luna Briley if that’s who you mean.” Rolling out a chair from the countertop, I sit down with my back to the room.

“I’m betting she’s not an accident,” Lucy says ominously.

“Whatbizarre deathare you thinking might be related to her?” I slide a clipboard close, a pen attached by a plastic string.

“Her scumbag billionaire father owns the Oz theme park you and I are familiar with. It’s abandoned now, and a couple ofhours ago we found the body of a missing person there,” Lucy informs me in a reluctant tone, and I sense something coming I won’t want to hear. “I’m afraid it’s someone we know. You especially know,” she adds awkwardly, and I’m touched by dread.

I jot down today’s date, April 16. The time is 11:40A.M.as she explains that Nobel laureate Sal Giordano was abducted last night near the Virginia and West Virginia border. He’s been violently killed, she says to my shock and horror, my inner voice already arguing.

It can’t be him.

“I’m really sorry, Aunt Kay. I know you two were close…”

There must be some mistake.

An acclaimed astrophysicist, he’s an advisor to the White House and other top officials in the U.S. and internationally. Sal and I serve on several of the same government task forces and committees. We see each other regularly and have a history.

This can’t be right.

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