The Scarpetta Factor - 17 Angebote vergleichen

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Berkley. Very Good. Paperback. 2010. 592 pages. In this provocative thriller, forensic expert Kay Scarpetta is surrounded by familiar faces, yet traveling down the unfamiliar road of fame.... It is the week before Christmas. A tanking economy has prompted Dr. Kay Scarpetta--despite her busy schedule and her continuing work as the senior forensic analyst f or CNN--to offer her services pro bono to New York City's Office of the Chief Medical Examiner. In no time at all, her increased v isibility seems to precipitate a string of unexpected and unsettl ing events, culminating in an ominous package--possibly a bomb--s howing up at the front desk of the apartment building where she a nd her husband, Benton, live. Soon the apparent threat on Scarpet ta's life finds her embroiled in a surreal plot that includes a f amous actor accused of an unthinkable sex crime and the disappear ance of a beautiful millionaire with whom her niece, Lucy, seems to have shared a secret past. Scarpetta's CNN producer wants he r to launch a TV show called The Scarpetta Factor. Given the biza rre events already in play, she fears that her growing fame will generate the illusion that she has a special factor, a mythical a bility to solve all her cases. She wonders if she will end up lik e other TV personalities: her own stereotype. Editorial Reviews Review Praise for The Scarpetta Factor [An] insistent and gripp ing thriller.--The Star-Ledger A finely crafted, pulse-racing th riller that readers won't wantto put down.--Library Journal Abou t the Author Patricia Cornwell is considered one of the world's b estselling crime writers. Her intrepid medical examiner Kay Scarp etta first appeared on the scene in 1990 with Postmortem--the onl y novel to win the Edgar, Creasey, Anthony, and Macavity awards a nd the French Prix du Roman d'Aventure in a single year--and Crue l and Unusual, which won Britain's prestigious Gold Dagger Award for the best crime novel of 1993. Dr. Kay Scarpetta herself won t he 1999 Sherlock Award for the best detective created by an Ameri can author. Ms. Cornwell's work is translated into 36 languages a cross more than 120 countries. Excerpt. ® Reprinted by permissio n. All rights reserved. Voltaire,Oeuvres Complètes 1785 A frigid wind gusted in from the East River, snatching at Dr. Kay Scarpet ta's coat as she walked quickly along 30th Street. It was one we ek before Christmas without a hint of the holidays in what she th ought of as Manhattan's Tragic Triangle, three vertices connected by wretchedness and death. Behind her was Memorial Park, a volum inous white tent housing the vacuum-packed human remains still un identified or unclaimed from Ground Zero. Ahead on the left was t he Gothic redbrick former Bellevue Psychiatric Hospital, now a sh elter for the homeless. Across from that was the loading dock and bay for the Office of the Chief Medical Examiner, where a gray s teel garage door was open. A truck was backing up, more pallets o f plywood being unloaded. It had been a noisy day at the morgue, a constant hammering in corridors that carried sound like an amph itheater. The mortuary techs were busy assembling plain pine coff ins, adult-size, infant-size, hardly able to keep up with the gro wing demand for city burials at Potter's Field. Economy-related. Everything was. Scarpetta already regretted the cheeseburger and fries in the cardboard box she carried. How long had they been i n the warming cabinet on the serving line of the NYU Medical Scho ol cafeteria? It was late for lunch, almost three p.m., and she w as pretty sure she knew the answer about the palatability of the food, but there was no time to place an order or bother with the salad bar, to eat healthy or even eat something she might actuall y enjoy. So far there had been fifteen cases today, suicides, acc idents, homicides, and indigents who died unattended by a physici an or, even sadder, alone. She had been at work by six A.m. to g et an early start, completing her first two autopsies by nine, SA ving the worst for last-a young woman with injuries and artifacts that were time-consuming and confounding. Scarpetta had spent mo re than five hours on Toni Darien, making meticulously detailed d iagrams and notes, taking dozens of photographs, fixing the whole brain in a bucket of formalin for further studies, collecting an d preserving more than the usual tubes of fluids and sections of organs and tissue, holding on to and documenting everything she p ossibly could in a case that was odd not because it was unusual b ut because it was a contradiction. The twenty-six-year-old woman 's manner and cause of death were depressingly mundane and hadn't required a lengthy postmortem examination to answer the most rud imentary questions. She was a homicide from blunt-force trauma, a single blow to the back of her head by an object that possibly h ad a multicolored painted surface. What didn't make sense was eve rything else. When her body was discovered at the edge of Central Park, some thirty feet off East 110th Street shortly before dawn , it was assumed she had been jogging last night in the rain when she was sexually assaulted and murdered. Her running pants and p anties were around her ankles, her fleece and sports bra pushed a bove her breasts. A Polartec scarf was tied in a double knot tigh tly around her neck, and at first glance it was assumed by the po lice and the OCME's medicolegal investigators who responded to th e scene that she was strangled with an article of her own clothin g. She wasn't. When Scarpetta examined the body in the morgue, s he found nothing to indicate the scarf had caused the death or ev en contributed to it, no sign of asphyxia, no vital reaction such as redness or bruising, only a dry abrasion on the neck, as if t he scarf had been tied around it postmortem. Certainly it was pos sible the killer struck her in the head and at some point later s trangled her, perhaps not realizing she was already dead. But if so, how much time did he spend with her? Based on the contusion, swelling, and hemorrhage to the cerebral cortex of her brain, she had survived for a while, possibly hours. Yet there was very lit tle blood at the scene. It wasn't until the body was turned over that the injury to the back of her head was even noticed, a one-a nd-a-half-inch laceration with significant swelling but only a sl ight weeping of fluid from the wound, the lack of blood blamed on the rain. Scarpetta seriously doubted it. The scalp laceration would have bled heavily, and it was unlikely a rainstorm that was intermittent and at best moderate would have washed most of the blood out of Toni's long, thick hair. Did her assailant fracture her skull, then spend a long interval with her outside on a rainy winter's night before tying a scarf tightly around her neck to m ake sure she didn't live to tell the tale? Or was the ligature pa rt of a sexually violent ritual? Why were livor and rigor mortis arguing loudly with what the crime scene seemed to say? It appear ed she had died in the park late last night, and it appeared she had been dead for as long as thirty-six hours. Scarpetta was baff led by the case. Maybe she was overthinking it. Maybe she wasn't thinking clearly, for that matter, because she was harried and he r blood sugar was low, having eaten nothing all day, only coffee, lots of it. She was about to be late for the three p.m. staff m eeting and needed to be home by six to go to the gym and have din ner with her husband, Benton Wesley, before rushing over to CNN, the last thing she felt like doing. She should never have agreed to appear on The Crispin Report. Why for God's sake had she agree d to go on the air with Carley Crispin and talk about postmortem changes in head hair and the importance of microscopy and other d isciplines of forensic science, which were misunderstood because of the very thing Scarpetta had gotten herself involved in-the en tertainment industry? She carried her boxed lunch through the loa ding dock, piled with cartons and crates of office and morgue sup plies, and metal carts and trollies and plywood. The security gua rd was busy on the phone behind Plexiglas and barely gave her a g lance as she went past. At the top of a ramp she used the swipe card she wore on a lanyard to open a heavy metal door and entered a catacomb of white subway tile with teal-green accents and rail s that seemed to lead everywhere and nowhere. When she first bega n working here as a part-time ME, she got lost quite a lot, endin g up at the anthropology lab instead of the neuropath lab or the cardiopath lab or the men's locker room instead of the women's, o r the decomp room instead of the main autopsy room, or the wrong walk-in refrigerator or stairwell or even on the wrong floor when she boarded the old steel freight elevator. Soon enough she cau ght on to the logic of the layout, to its sensible circular flow, beginning with the bay. Like the loading dock, it was behind a m assive garage door. When a body was delivered by the medical exam iner transport team, the stretcher was unloaded in the bay and pa ssed beneath a radiation detector over the door. If no alarm was triggered indicating the presence of a radioactive material, such as radiopharmaceuticals used in the treatment of some cancers, t he next stop was the floor scale, where the body was weighed and measured. Where it went after that depended on its condition. If it was in bad shape or considered potentially hazardous to the li ving, it went inside the walk-in decomp refrigerator next to the decomp room, where the autopsy would be performed in isolation wi th special ventilation and other protections. If the body was in good shape it was wheeled along a corridor to the right of the b ay, a journey that could at some point include the possibility of various stops relative to the body's stage of deconstruction: th e x-ray suite, the histology specimen storage room, the forensic anthropology lab, two more walk-in refrigerators for fresh bodies that hadn't been examined yet, the lift for those that were to b e viewed and identified upstairs, evidence lockers, the neuropath room, the cardiac path room, the main autopsy room. After a case was completed and the body was ready for release, it ended up fu ll circle back at the bay inside yet another walk-in refrigerator , which was where Toni Darien should be right now, zipped up in a pouch on a storage rack. But she wasn't. She was on a gurney pa rked in front of the stainless-steel refrigerator door, an ID tec h arranging a blue sheet around the neck, up to the chin. What a re we doing? Scarpetta said. We've had a little excitement upsta irs. She's going to be viewed. By whom and why? Mother's in the lobby and won't leave until she sees her. Don't worry. I'll take care of it. The tech's name was Rene, mid-thirties with curly bl ack hair and ebony eyes, and unusually gifted at handling familie s. If she was having a problem with one, it wasn't trivial. Rene could defuse just about anything. I thought the father had made the ID, Scarpetta said. He filled out the paperwork, and then I showed him the picture you uploaded to me-this was right before y ou left for the cafeteria. A few minutes later, the mother walks in and the two of them start arguing in the lobby, and I mean goi ng at it, and finally he storms out. They're divorced? And obvi ously hate each other. She's insisting on seeing the body, won't take no for an answer. Rene's purple nitrile-gloved hands moved a strand of damp hair off the dead woman's brow, rearranging sever al more strands behind the ears, making sure no sutures from the autopsy showed. I know you've got a staff meeting in a few minute s. I'll take care of this. She looked at the cardboard box Scarpe tta was holding. You didn't even eat yet. What have you had today ? Probably nothing, as usual. How much weight have you lost? You' re going to end up in the anthro lab, mistaken for a skeleton. W hat were they arguing about in the lobby? Scarpetta asked. Funer al homes. Mother wants one on Long Island. Father wants one in Ne w Jersey. Mother wants a burial, but the father wants cremation. Both of them fighting over her. Touching the dead body again, as if it were part of the conversation. Then they started blaming ea ch other for everything you can think of. At one point Dr. Edison came out, they were causing such a ruckus. He was the chief med ical examiner and Scarpetta's boss when she worked in the city. I t was still a little hard getting used to being supervised, havin g been either a chief herself or the owner of a private practice for most of her career. But she wouldn't want to be in charge of the New York OCME, not that she'd been asked or likely ever would be. Running an office of this magnitude was like being the mayor of a major metropolis. Well, you know how it works, Scarpetta s aid. A dispute, and the body doesn't go anywhere. We'll put a hol d on her release until Legal instructs us otherwise. You showed t he mother the picture, and then what? I tried, but she wouldn't look at it. She says she wants to see her daughter and isn't leav ing until she does. She's in the family room? That's where I le ft her. I put the folder on your desk, copies of the paperwork. Thanks. I'll look at it when I go upstairs. You get her on the li ft, and I'll take care of things on the other end, Scarpetta said . Maybe you can let Dr. Edison know I'm going to miss the three-o 'clock. In fact, it's already started. Hopefully I'll catch up wi th him before he heads home. He and I need to talk about this cas e. I'll tell him. Rene placed her hands on the steel gurney's pu sh handle. Good luck on TV tonight. Tell him the scene photos ha ve been uploaded to him, but I won't be able to dictate the autop sy protocol or get those photos to him until tomorrow. I saw the commercials for the show. They're cool. Rene was still talking a bout TV. Except I can't stand Carley Crispin and what's the name of that profiler who's on there all the time? Dr. Agee. I'm sick and tired of them talking about Hannah Starr. I'm betting Carley' s going to ask you about it. CNN knows I won't discuss active ca ses. You think she's dead? Because I sure do. Rene's voice follo wed Scarpetta into the elevator. Like what's-her-name in Aruba? N atalee? People vanish for a reason-because somebody wanted them t O. Scarpetta had been promised. Carley Crispin wouldn't do that to her, wouldn't dare. It wasn't as if Scarpetta was simply anoth er expert, an outsider, an infrequent guest, a talking head, she reasoned, as the elevator made its ascent. She was CNN's senior f orensic analyst and had been adamant with executive producer Alex Bachta that she could not discuss or even allude to Hannah Starr , the beautiful financial titan who seemingly had vanished in thi n air the day before Thanksgiving, reportedly last seen leaving a restaurant in Greenwich Village and getting into a yellow cab. I f the worst had happened, if she was dead and her body turned up in New York City, it would be this office's jurisdiction, and Sca rpetta could end up with the case. She got off on the first floo r and followed a long hallway past the Division of Special Operat ions, and through another locked door was the lobby, arranged wit h burgundy and blue upholstered couches and chairs, coffee tables and racks of magazines, and a Christmas tree and menorah in a wi ndow overlooking First Avenue. Carved in marble above the recepti on desk was Taceant colloquia. Effugiat risus. Hic locus est ubi mors gaudet succurrere vitae. Let conversations cease. Let laught er depart. This is the place where death delights to help the liv ing. Music sounded from a radio on the floor behind the desk, the Eagles playing Hotel California. Filene, one of the security gua rds, had decided that an empty lobby was hers to fill with what s he called her tunes. . . . You can check out anytime you like, b ut you can never leave, Filene softly sang along, oblivious to th e irony. There should be someone in the family room? Scarpetta s topped at the desk. Oh, I'm sorry. Filene reached down, turning off the radio. I didn't think she could hear from in there. But t hat's all right. I can go without my tunes. It's just I get so bo red, you know? Sitting and sitting when nothing's going on. What Filene routinely witnessed in this place was never happy, and th at rather than boredom was likely the reason she listened to her upbeat soft rock whenever she could, whether she was working the reception desk or downstairs in the mortuary office. Scarpetta di dn't care, as long as there were no grieving families to overhear music or lyrics that might be provocative or construed as disres pectful. Tell Mrs. Darien I'm on my way, Scarpetta said. I need about fifteen minutes to check a few things and look at the paper work. Let's hold the tunes until she's gone, okay? Off the lobby to the left was the administrative wing she shared with Dr. Edis on, two executive assistants, and the chief of staff, who was on her honeymoon until after the New Year. In a building half a cent ury old with no space to spare, there was no place to put Scarpet ta on the third floor, where the full-time forensic pathologists had their offices. When she was in the city, she parked herself i n what was formerly the chief's conference room on the ground lev el, with a view of the OCME's turquoise-blue brick entrance on Fi rst Avenue. She unlocked her door and stepped inside. She hung he r coat, set her boxed lunch on her desk, and sat in front of her computer. Opening a Web browser, she typed BioGraph into a searc h field. At the top of the screen was the query Did you mean: Bio Graphy. No, she didn't. Biograph Records. Not what she was lookin g for. American Mutoscope and Biograph Company, the oldest movie company in America, founded in 1895 by an inventor who worked for Thomas Edison, a distant ancestor of the chief medical examiner, not sure how many times removed. An interesting coincidence. Not hing for BioGraph with a capital B and a capital G, the way it wa s stamped on the back of the unusual watch Toni Darien was wearin g on her left wrist when her body arrived at the morgue this morn ing. It was snowing hard in Stowe, Vermont, big flakes falling h eavy and wet, piled in the branches of balsam firs and Scotch pin es. The ski lifts traversing the Green Mountains were faint spide ry lines, almost invisible in the storm and at a standstill. Nobo dy skiing in this stuff, nobody doing anything except staying ins ide. Lucy Farinelli's helicopter was stuck in nearby Burlington. At least it was safely in a hangar, but she and New York County Assistant District Attorney Jaime Berger weren't going anywhere f or five hours, maybe longer, not before nine p.m., when the storm was supposed to have cleared to the south. At that point, condit ions should be VFR again, a ceiling greater than three thousand f eet, visibility five miles or more, winds gusting up to thirty kn ots out of the northeast. They'd have a hell of a tailwind headin g home to New York, should get there in time for what they needed to do, but Berger was in a mood, had been in the other room on t he phone all day, not even trying to be nice. The way she looked at it, the weather had trapped them here longer than planned, and since Lucy was a pilot, it was her fault. Didn't matter the fore casters had been wrong, that what began as two distinct small sto rms combined into one over Saskatchewan, Canada, and merged with an arctic air mass to create a bit of a monster. Lucy turned dow n the volume of the YouTube video, Mick Fleetwood's drum solo for World Turning, live in concert in 1987. Can you hear me now? sh e said over the phone to her Aunt Kay. The signal's pretty bad he re, and the weather isn't helping. Much better. How are we doing ? Scarpetta's voice in Lucy's jawbone. I've found nothing so far . Which is weird. Lucy had three MacBooks going, each screen spl it into quadrants, displaying Aviation Weather Center updates, da ta streams from neural network searches, links prompting her that they might lead to websites of interest, Hannah Starr's e-mail, Lucy's e-mail, and security camera footage of the actor Hap Judd wearing scrubs in the Park General Hospital morgue before he was famous. You sure of the name? she asked as she scanned the scree ns, her mind jumping from one preoccupation to the next. All I k now is what's stamped on the steel back of it. Scarpetta's voice, serious and in a hurry. BioGraph. She spelled it again. And a se rial number. Maybe it's not going to be picked up by the usual so ftware that searches the Internet. Like viruses. If you don't alr eady know what you're looking for, you won't find it. It's not l ike antivirus software. The search engines I use aren't software- driven. I do open-source searches. I'm not finding BioGraph becau se it's not on the Net. Nothing published about it. Not on messag e boards or in blogs or in databases, not in anything. Please do n't hack, Scarpetta said. I simply exploit weaknesses in operati ng systems. Yes, and if a back door is unlocked and you walk int o somebody's house, it's not trespassing. No mention of BioGraph or I'd find it. Lucy wasn't going to get into their usual debate about the end justifying the means. I don't see how that's poss ible. This is a very sophisticated-looking watch with a USB port. You have to charge it, likely on a docking station. I suspect it was rather expensive. Not finding it if I search it as a watch or a device or anything. Lucy watched results rolling by, her neu ral net search engines sorting through an infinity of keywords, a nchor text, file types, URLs, title tags, e-mail and IP addresses . I'm looking and not seeing anything even close to what you've d escribed. Got to be some way to know what it is. It isn't. That 's my point, Lucy said. There's no such thing as a BioGraph watch or device, or anything that might remotely fit what Toni Darien was wearing. Her BioGraph watch doesn't exist. What do you mean it doesn't? I mean it doesn't exist on the Internet, within the communication network, or metaphorically in cyberspace. In other words, a BioGraph watch doesn't exist virtually, Lucy said. If I physically look at whatever this thing is, I'll probably figure i t out. Especially if you're right and it's some sort of data-coll ecting device. Can't do that until the labs are done with it. S hit, don't let them get out their screwdrivers and hammers, Lucy said. Being swabbed for DNA, that's all. The police already chec ked for prints. Nothing. Please tell Jaime she can call me when i t's convenient. I hope you're having some fun. Sorry I don't have time to chat right now. If I see her, I'll tell her. She's not with you? Scarpetta probed. The Hannah Starr case and now this. Jaime's a little tied up, has a lot on her mind. You of all peop le know how it is. Lucy wasn't interested in discussing her perso nal life. I hope she's had a happy birthday. Lucy didn't want t o talk about it. What's the weather like there? Windy and cold. Overcast. You're going to get more rain, possibly snow north of the city, Lucy said. It will be cleared out by midnight, because the system is weakening as it heads your way. The two of you are staying put, I hope. If I don't get the chopper out, she'll be looking for a dog-sled. Call me before you leave, and please be careful, Scarpetta said. I've got to go, got to talk to Toni Dari en's mother. I miss you. We'll have dinner, do something soon? S ure, Lucy said. She got off the phone and turned the sound up ag ain on YouTube, Mick Fleetwood still going at it on the drums. Bo th hands on MacBooks as if she was in her own rock concert playin g a solo on keyboards, she clicked on another weather update, cli cked on an e-mail that had just landed in Hannah Starr's in-box. People were bizarre. If you know someone has disappeared and migh t even be dead, why do you continue to send e-mail? Lucy wondered if Hannah Starr's husband, Bobby Fuller, was so stupid it didn't occur to him that the NYPD and the district attorney's office mi ght be monitoring Hannah's e-mail or getting a forensic computer expert like Lucy to do it. For the past three weeks Bobby had bee n sending daily messages to his missing wife. Maybe he knew exact ly what he was doing, wanted law enforcement to see what he was w riting to his bien-aimée, his chouchou, his amore mio,the love of his life. If he'd murdered her, he wouldn't be writing her love notes, right? From: Bobby Fuller Sent: Thursday, December 18, 3 :24 P.M. To: Hannah Subject: Non posso vivere senza di te My L ittle One, I hope you are someplace safe and reading this. My he art is carried by the wings of my soul and finds you wherever you are. Don't forget. I can't eat or sleep. B. Lucy checked his IP address, recognized it at a glance by now. Bobby and Hannah's ap artment in North Miami Beach, where he was pining away while hidi ng from the media in palatial surroundings that Lucy knew all too well-had been in that same apartment with his lovely thief of a wife not that long ago, as a matter of fact. Every time Lucy saw an e-mail from Bobby and tried to get into his head, she wondered how he would really feel if he believed Hannah was dead. Or may be he knew she was dead or knew she wasn't. Maybe he knew exactly what had happened to her because he really did have something to do with it. Lucy had no idea, but when she tried to put herself in Bobby's place and care, she couldn't. All that mattered to her was that Hannah reaped what she sowed or eventually did, sooner rather than later. She deserved any bad fate she might get, had w asted Lucy's time and money and now was stealing something far mo re precious. Three weeks of Hannah. Nothing with Berger. Even whe n she and Lucy were together, they were apart. Lucy was scared. S he was seething. At times she felt she could do something terribl e. She forwarded Bobby's latest e-mail to Berger, who was in the other room, walking around. The sound of her feet on hardwood. L ucy got interested in a website address that had begun to flash i n a quadrant of one of the MacBooks. Now what are we up to? she said to the empty living room of the town house she'd rented for Berger's surprise birthday getaway, a five-star resort with high- speed wireless, fireplaces, feather beds, and linens with an eigh t-hundred thread count. The retreat had everything except what it was intended for-intimacy, romance, fun-and Lucy blamed Hannah, she blamed Hap Judd, she blamed Bobby, blamed everyone. Lucy felt haunted by them and unwanted by Berger. This is ridiculous, Ber ger said as she walked in, referring to the world beyond their wi ndows, everything white, just the shapes of trees and rooflines t hrough snow coming down in veils. Are we ever going to get out of here? Now, what is this? Lucy muttered, clicking on a link. A search by IP address had gotten a hit on a website hosted by the University of Tennessee's Forensic Anthropology Center. Who were you just talking to? Berger asked. My aunt. Now I'm talking to myself. Got to talk to somebody. Berger ignored the dig, wasn't about to apologize for what she'd say she couldn't help. It wasn' t her fault Hannah Starr had disappeared and Hap Judd was a perve rt who might have information, and if that hadn't been enough of a distraction, now a jogger had been raped and murdered in Centra l Park last night. Berger would tell Lucy she needed to be more u nderstanding. She shouldn't be so selfish. She needed to grow up and stop being insecure and demanding. Can we do without the dru ms? Berger's migraines were back. She was getting them often. Lu cy exited YouTube and the living room was silent, no sound but th e gas fire on the hearth, and she said, More of the same sicko st uff. Berger put her glasses on and leaned close to look, and she smelled like Amorvero bath oil, and had no makeup on and she did n't need it. Her short, dark hair was messy and she was sexy as h ell in a black warm-up suit, nothing under it, the jacket unzippe d, exposing plenty of cleavage, not that she meant anything by it . Lucy wasn't sure what Berger meant or where she was much of the time these days, but she wasn't present-not emotionally. Lucy wa nted to put her arms around her, to show her what they used to ha ve, what it used to be like. He's looking at the Body Farm's web site, and I doubt it's because he's thinking of killing himself a nd donating his body to science, Lucy said. Who are you talking about? Berger was reading what was on a MacBook screen, a form wi th the heading: Forensic Anthropology Center University of Tenn essee, Knoxville Body Donation Questionnaire Hap Judd, Lucy sai d. He's gotten linked by his IP address to this website because h e just used a fake name to order . . . Hold on, let's see what th e sleaze is up to. Let's follow the trail. Opening Web pages. To this screen here. FORDISC Software Sales. An interactive computer program that runs under Windows. Classifying and identifying ske letal remains. The guy's really morbid. It's not normal. I'm tell ing you, we're onto something with him. Let's be honest. You're onto something because you're looking for something, Berger said, as if to imply that Lucy wasn't honest. You're trying to find ev idence of what you perceive is the crime. I'm finding evidence b ecause he's leaving it, Lucy said. They had been arguing about Ha p Judd for weeks. I don't know why you're so reticent. Do you thi nk I'm making this stuff up? I want to talk to him about Hannah Starr, and you want to crucify him. You need to scare the hell o ut of him if you want him to talk. Especially without a damn lawy er present. And I've managed to make that happen, to get you what you want. If we ever get out of here and he shows up. Berger mo ved away from the computer screen and decided, Maybe he's playing an anthropologist, an archaeologist, an explorer in his next fil m. Some Raiders of the Lost Ark or another one of those mummy mov ies with tombs and ancient curses. Right, Lucy said. Method acti ng, total immersion in his next twisted character, writing anothe r one of his piss-poor screenplays. That will be his alibi when w e go after him about Park General and his unusual interests. We won't be going after him. I will. You're not going to do anything but show him what you've found in your computer searches. Marino and I will do the talking. Lucy would check with Pete Marino la ter, when there was no threat that Berger could overhear their co nversation. He didn't have any respect for Hap Judd and sure as h ell wasn't afraid of him. Marino had no qualms about investigatin g someone famous or locking him up. Berger seemed intimidated by Judd, and Lucy didn't understand it. She had never known Berger t o be intimidated by anyone. Come here. Lucy pulled her close, sa t her on her lap. What's going on with you? Nuzzling her back, sl iding her hands inside the jacket of the warm-up suit. What's got you so spooked? It's going to be a late night. We should take a nap. Grace Darien had long, dark hair and the same turned-up nos e and full lips as her murdered daughter. Wearing a red wool coat buttoned up to her chin, she looked small and pitiful as she sto od before a window overlooking the black iron fence and dead vine -covered brick of Bellevue. The sky was the color of lead. Mrs. Darien? I'm Dr. Scarpetta. She walked into the family room and cl osed the door. It's possible this is a mistake. Mrs. Darien move d away from the window, her hands shaking badly. I keep thinking this can't be right. It can't be. It's somebody else. How do you know for sure? She sat down at the small wooden table near the wa tercooler, her face stunned and expressionless, a gleam of terror in her eyes. We've made a preliminary identification of your da ughter based on personal effects recovered by the police. Scarpet ta pulled out a chair and sat across from her. Your former husban d also looked at a photograph. The one taken here. Yes. Please let me tell you how sorry I am. Did he get around to mentioning he only sees her once or twice a year? We will compare dental re cords and will do DNA if need be, Scarpetta said. I can write do wn her dentist's information. She still uses my dentist. Grace Da rien dug into her handbag, and a lipstick and a c .

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Patricia Cornwell, Books, Mystery and Suspense, The Scarpetta Factor: Large Print Edition, A New York Times Bestseller -- A tanking economy has prompted Dr. Kay Scarpetta to offer her services pro bono to New York City's Office of the Chief Medical Examiner. In no time at all, her increased visibility seems to precipitate a string of unexpected and unsettling events. She is asked live on the air about the sensational case of Hannah Starr, who has vanished and is presumed dead. Soon Scarpetta's finds herself embroiled in a surreal plot...Given the bizarre events already in play, she fears that her growing fame will generate the illusion that she has a special factor, a mythical ability to solve all her cases. She wonders if she will end up like other TV personalities: her own stereotype.

Lieferung aus: Vereinigte Staaten von Amerika, In Stock.
contemporary,literature and fiction,medical,mystery,mystery thriller and suspense,thrillers,women sleuths, The Scarpetta Factor (A Kay Scarpetta Novel), Patricia Cornwell and James Patterson: Author One-on-One In this Amazon exclusive, we brought together blockbuster authors Patricia Cornwell and James Patterson and asked them to interview each other. Find out what two of the top authors of their genres have to say about their characters, writing process, and more. James Patterson is one of the bestselling writers of all time, with more than 170 million copies of his books sold worldwide. He is the author of two of the most popular detective series of the past decade, featuring Alex Cross and the Women's Murder Club, and he also writes nonfiction and The Maximum Ride series for young readers. Read on to see James Patterson's questions for Patricia Cornwell, or turn the tables to see what Cornwell asked Patterson. Patterson: Here's a chance to say all the great things the critics would about The Scarpetta Factor, if there were any newspapers left that still reviewed books. Or, as they say in the TV interviews: Tell us about this one, Patricia. Cornwell: As was true in the last book (Scarpetta), the new one is set in New York City, and it begins with Kay Scarpetta working on the autopsy of a yo.

Lieferung aus: Vereinigte Staaten von Amerika, Usually ships in 1-2 business days.
Von Händler/Antiquariat, book_it_.
In the extraordinary new novel by Patricia Cornwell-the world's #1 bestselling crime writer-forensic expert Kay Scarpetta is surrounded by familiar faces, yet traveling down the unfamiliar road of fame. A CNN producer wants her to launch a TV show called The Scarpetta Factor. But the glare of the spotlight could make Kay a target for the very killers she would put behind bars... Paperback, Ausgabe: Reprint, Label: Berkley, Berkley, Produktgruppe: Book, Publiziert: 2010-08-31, Freigegeben: 2010-08-31, Studio: Berkley, Verkaufsrang: 116004.

Lieferung aus: Vereinigte Staaten von Amerika, Usually ships in 1-2 business days.
Von Händler/Antiquariat, BigHeartedBooks.
In the extraordinary new novel by Patricia Cornwell-the world's #1 bestselling crime writer-forensic expert Kay Scarpetta is surrounded by familiar faces, yet traveling down the unfamiliar road of fame. A CNN producer wants her to launch a TV show called The Scarpetta Factor. But the glare of the spotlight could make Kay a target for the very killers she would put behind bars... Paperback, Ausgabe: Reprint, Label: Berkley, Berkley, Produktgruppe: Book, Publiziert: 2010-08-31, Freigegeben: 2010-08-31, Studio: Berkley, Verkaufsrang: 116004.

Lieferung aus: Vereinigte Staaten von Amerika, Usually ships in 1-2 business days.
Von Händler/Antiquariat, kaydeebooks.
In the extraordinary new novel by Patricia Cornwell-the world's #1 bestselling crime writer-forensic expert Kay Scarpetta is surrounded by familiar faces, yet traveling down the unfamiliar road of fame. A CNN producer wants her to launch a TV show called The Scarpetta Factor. But the glare of the spotlight could make Kay a target for the very killers she would put behind bars... Paperback, Ausgabe: Reprint, Label: Berkley, Berkley, Produktgruppe: Book, Publiziert: 2010-08-31, Freigegeben: 2010-08-31, Studio: Berkley, Verkaufsrang: 116004.

Lieferung aus: Vereinigte Staaten von Amerika, Shipping costs to: USA.
Von Händler/Antiquariat, BayShore Books LLC.
Doubleday. HARDCOVER. 1/1/2009. 9781615233496 :Good Doubleday Large Print Home Library Edition with minor edge wear on the dust jacket and names crossed off first blank page . Used - Good.

Lieferung aus: Vereinigte Staaten von Amerika, Shipping costs to: USA.
Von Händler/Antiquariat, ParlorBooks.
G. P. Putnam's Sons, 1/1/2009. Hardcover. VeryGood. 1.4000 inches 7.4000 inches 4.2000 inches. Hardcover. Dust jacket has some minor wear. Pages are in nice condition!

Von Händler/Antiquariat, HPB Inc. [65440519], Dallas, TX, U.S.A.
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