Black Notice (Kay Scarpetta Series #10) by Patricia Cornwell

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The Barnes & Noble Review
In Black Notice, which is the best Kay Scarpetta novel to date, Patricia Cornwell learns what most great novelists — from Dickens. to F. Scott Fitzgerald to Richard Price — learn at some point in their careers. There's nothing wrong with a little soap opera.

Please don't ask me about the plot because it's sort of all over the place. A lover of Kay's dies. Somebody in her office is out to sabotage her career. Her niece Lucy is in a lot of trouble with some very nasty people. And there's a truly terrible killer running around. All of these story elements work, some better than others, but each is serviceable.

But the tone — and heart — of the novel is about betrayal. Kay's friend betrays her in his death. Her mind betrays her in her response to his death. Her superiors betray her in their cynicism and spiritual corruption. Even her niece betrays her in the chances she takes. She tries to find love and fails. And even when she tries to settle for mere piece of mind, she's betrayed. Her office enemies are relentless.

Cornwell has never written this intensely before. In this novel the subtext is far more interesting — and believable — than the surface. The hints of hysteria and paranoia read like an update of Cornell Woolrich. And her sad, lonely battle to salvage some sanity and honor out of what is swirling around her makes for savagely fascinating reading.

This is a triumph for Cornwell — and a feast for her readers.

—Ed Gorman

From the Publisher

The decomposed remains of a stowaway lead Dr. Kay Scarpetta on an international search to Interpol's headquarters in Lyon, France—and on a mission that will pull her in two opposite directions: toward protecting her career or toward the truth.

Publishers Weekly

It's like a splash of cold water on a hot day to be plunged, after the irritating third-person satire of Cornwell's last novel, Southern Cross (1998), back into the bracing narration of medical examiner Kay Scarpetta. As in the nine Scarpettas past (Point of Origin, etc.), here it's not the novel's events, startling as they are, that propel the story so much as the deep-hearted responses of Kay, as real a hero as any in thriller fiction, to the "evil"--her word--that threatens. Evil wears several faces here, from petty to monstrous. Most insidious is the office sabotage--insubordination, thefts, fraudulent e-mails--that's making the grieving Kay look as if she's lost her grip since her lover's murder in Point of Origin. More destructive are the overt attempts by calculating Richmond, Va., deputy police chief Diane Bray to ruin Kay's career as well as that of Kay's old friend, Capt. Pete Marino. Then there's the wild rage at life that's consuming Kay's niece, a DEA agent. Finally--the plot wire that binds the sometimes scattered plot--there are the mutilation killings by the French serial killer self-styled "Loup-Garou"--werewolf. The forensic sequences boom with authority; the brief action sequences explode on the page--in the finale, overbearingly so; the interplay between Kay and Marino is boisterous as always, and there's an atmospheric sidetrip to Paris and an affecting romantic misadventure for lonely Kay. A thunderhead of disquietude hangs over this compulsively readable novel, sometimes loosing storms of suspense; but to Cornwell's considerable credit, the unease arises ultimately not from the steady potential for violence, but from a more profound horror: the vulnerability of a good woman like Kay to a world beset by the corrupt, the cruel, the demonic. One million first printing; $750,000 ad/promo; Literary Guild, Doubleday Book Club and Mystery Guild main selections; unabridged and abridged audio versions; foreign rights sold in eight countries. (July) Copyright 1999 Cahners Business Information.

Library Journal

Kay Scarpetta's on the case when the body of a stowaway is found in a sealed container on a ship arriving in Richmond from Belgium.

The New York Times Book Review - Marilyn Stasio

Scarpetta has a tongue as sharp as a sawtooth, and when she's in one of her cut-'em-up moods, you want to follow her anywhere, from the tattoo parlor to the Paris morgue.

From The Times Literary Supplement. - Lucy Atkins

The impulse that once made public execution so popular probably lies behind Cornwell's enormous popularity. There is a grim fascination in scrutinizing death...The rest of the appeal of these novels is down to Scarpetta herself. She...is hardly sympathetic...But she holds the same power over the reader as an impressive boss does over an underling: she is always professional.

Randy Michael Signor

Let’s get something out of the way: This is the best book yet in Patricia Cornwell’s Kay Scarpetta series. Hands down. No contest.

After a couple of weak entries in the series—and the disturbingly poor non-Scarpetta novels—I had been growing uneasy with each new release. After discovering Cornwell’s first Scarpetta novel, Postmortem, I’d anticipated each new installment with relish, but the last several have been tepid imitations of the earlier work.

But, ho boy, is this one a doozy or what?

I’ve always been somewhat puzzled by my attraction to these books. I like my thrillers and detective fiction to be tough, which translates to brawny guys who shoot first and wisecrack second. But something about Virginia State Medical Examiner Kay Scarpetta appealed to me from the start. Part of it has always been the fascinating forensics information, the application of precise knowledge; it’s Sherlock Holmes territory, the smarty-pants seeing the world in a little more detail than the rest of us. Scarpetta is smart, and smart is always attractive, if not outright sexy. Also, there is considerable believable tension beneath the longstanding relationships: Scarpetta and her niece Lucy, now an agent with the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms; Scarpetta and walking toxic-waste-pile police detective Pete Marino, who is Scarpetta’s polar opposite; Scarpetta and any number of state or Federal bureaucrats; Scarpetta and her late lover, FBI profiler Benton Wesley; and most interesting, Scarpetta and just about any other strong-willed, accomplished woman.

One of the charms of the best crime fiction is its ability to appear commonplace, meaning that the reader can readily believe that whatever happens in the book could in fact be going on right now, quietly (or maybe not so quietly) somewhere. That’s why, when Tom Clancy had a 747 do a kamikaze number into the United States Capitol, wiping out most of Congress, he crossed a line; he was no longer writing about our world but some other, parallel United States. And when Cornwell finished a couple of her recent Scarpetta novels in a similar fashion, she left many of her readers ungrounded in the gritty reality that had in the past given her books their punch.

There is a kind of gilded ordinariness about Cornwell’s best work. The minutiae of forensics evidence is balanced against the finality of homicide, the baser emotions (anger, fear and so on) balanced against the nobleness of the law enforcement officer who represents, at his or her best, the interests of the victims, who can no longer seek justice themselves.

“Black notice” is the term used by Interpol for requests by member nations for a “corpse to be identified.” The corpse to be identified in this book is found inside a container unloaded from a ship recently docked in Richmond from Belgium. Scarpetta concludes that the victim drowned in fresh water; mysterious long, silky blonde hairs cover the inside of the victim’s clothing; and he was beaten and mutilated in bizarre ways. Also, a note in French is found scratched on a box near the corpse: “Bon voyage, le loup-garou.” Now, everyone knows what bon voyage means; it’s the last part that stumps the local police detectives. We soon learn it means werewolf.

At this point I dreaded that Cornwell was sabotaging her star character with absurd plot twists. Not to fear. Black Notice is complex, complicated and harmonious. Where in the past not every element meshed, here everything meshes so smoothly you never notice how truly complex the story is. It’s like driving a luxury car with a powerful engine: You forget how much oomph you’ve got until you look down at the speedometer and see you’ve doubled the national speed limit.

In the preceding Scarpetta tale, her longtime lover Wesley was murdered. This then is the first book to address the effects of his death. They are predictably profound. But what surprises is how well Cornwell incorporates all of the parts of Scarpetta’s life into the weave of this story.

This is a book of transitions. Scarpetta must deal with her grief for Wesley. Detective Marino’s life also seems to be in even more of an uproar than usual. Lucy has been placed undercover in Miami with Drug Enforcement Agency agent Jo Sanders, who also happens to be Lucy’s lover. There is also a palpable tension between Scarpetta and a much-younger ATF agent assigned to Interpol.

But perhaps the most interesting element Cornwell explores (or reveals) is the incredible sense of rage unleashed by the new Deputy Chief—the gorgeous, powerful, wealthy and hugely ambitious Diane Bray. From the start she is at war with Scarpetta. At one point Cornwell has Scarpetta note that one powerful woman’s worst enemy is most often another woman, bringing to mind Cornwell’s much publicized personal problems stemming from an affair with the wife of an FBI agent.

In Cornwell’s Scarpetta novels you can just about count on several things: Lucy will be an integral part of the story (she is, after all, Scarpetta’s surrogate child); Marino will irritate everyone he comes in contact with but will also be the best homicide detective on the scene; and the divide between Scarpetta’s personal and professional life will be a chasm marked with chaos and ennui. Scarpetta is in constant conflict with herself; she seeks emotional release but denies the power of her emotions in general.

In short, Scarpetta is complex and perhaps unknowable, and maybe that’s why we keep coming back. We are enticed to learn more, in spite of all we know already. She is like every good character we have grown fond of who is both a friend and a stranger. We seek her company because we are comfortable, but also because we want to immerse ourselves in her mystery.

Kirkus Reviews

Virginia Chief Medical Examiner Kay Scarpetta has never liked Christmas, and this year, when she's still mourning the death of her FBI lover Benton Wesley (Point of Origin, 1998), looks like her worst holiday season ever. While she can't identify or name the exact cause of death, the corpse found in a sealed shipping container aboard a cargo ship from Belgium is the least of her problems—even though Cornwell leads from strength by presenting one of her most extended (and unnerving) postmortems. Just as Scarpetta and her longtime police ally Capt. Pete Marino are running into industrial-strength flak from Richmond's new Deputy Chief, ambitious, manipulative Diane Bray, someone in Scarpetta's office is sabotaging her more underhandedly: a series of petty thefts is only the nuisance that finally awakens her to a fraud countermanding her orders and masquerading as her over the Internet. And her niece Lucy Farinelli, an agent working out of Alcohol, Tobacco, and Firearms' Miami office, is undercover with a bunch of seriously bad people. The web of evil that binds all these plots together (think drug smuggling; think Interpol; think werewolves) isn't believable for a minute, but expertly mired in Scarpetta's fathomless professional battles, you won't have a minute to think about it till you've turned the last page. It's fascinating to watch Scarpetta and her supporting cast, instead of growing, like V.I. Warshawski, become more and more themselves, like Sherlock Holmes—especially in such a brilliantly paced adventure as this one. (1,000,000 first printing; Literary Guild/Mystery Guild main selection; $750,000 ad/promo)

Product Details

• Table of Contents
• Interviews & Essays
• Read an Excerpt
• Read a Sample Chapter

Table of Contents

Interviews & Essays

Patricia Cornwell: Thank you, it's very nice to be here. I'm looking forward to spending time with all the people who are gathered here. My summer has been very good, but very intense, because up until a week until I left for my book tour, I've been in helicopter school, so I was doing that for almost two months, and in fact I just got my pilot's license a couple of weeks ago, so I'm really tired!

Patricia Cornwell: No, I do consider my readers when I begin any book, because I know they have expectations when they go out to get the new one, and I try to answer question that have been left unresolved, which usually are going to be answered anyway, just by the normal evolution of the story and the characters.

Patricia Cornwell: If you check in the beginning of each book, it lists them in order. But you don't have to read them in order.

Patricia Cornwell: I've actually heard detectives use that expression before. Police have the most ridiculously funny sayings, and where they get them, I just don't know. But it sort of works, doesn't it?

Patricia Cornwell: I didn't choose to. I never know what's going to happen in a book when I start it, and I simply remain faithful to the book and the story, and that's the way that story wanted to go.

Patricia Cornwell: First of all, thank you very much! The hint I can give you about my next Scarpetta book is that Scarpetta is going to become involved with a juvenile offender, who may or may not be committing other serious crimes that are occurring in the book, and Lucy is going to transfer from the ATF Miami field office to the Richmond field office, so she and her aunt will be sharing the same jurisdiction.

Patricia Cornwell: No. After all these years, I still have not sold the rights -- although I have continued to work very closely with Hollywood, but I'm not going to sell the rights until we've put together just the right package, and we're working on it.

Patricia Cornwell: It's interesting you should bring that up, because I've been contemplating at some point showing you more of Marino's very strange relationship with Rocky. That could happen in the book I'm about to start, or it could be in a book down the road, I'm not sure yet.

Patricia Cornwell: None of my characters are based on real people. However, I suppose that there are threads of all the characters that come from wonderful role models that I have come to know, in law enforcement, in science, and medicine.

Patricia Cornwell: It just depends on how much time I need to spend there. For example, in BLACK NOTICE, I went over to France about five times for research, but I'd also been over there many times before. I'll go as often as I need to to feel comfortable with the material.

Patricia Cornwell: I worked in a morgue for six years, and although I have never done an autopsy because I'm not a doctor, I have been present for as many as 1,000 autopsies, and when I was working at the medical examiner's office, would scribe for the doctors during their cases, and do anything they needed me to do to help.

Patricia Cornwell: Nina Salter is my French editor, and she was of great assistance in BLACK NOTICE because of the French scenes. She helped me with all things that are French, and I even persuaded her at one point to go to the Seine and collect a water sample for me, and send it to the United States so I could have scientific testing on it. Otherwise I would have had to fly to Paris again just collect a sample of water.

Patricia Cornwell: I would have disagree about her technical competence and strength, because I feel she showed just as much if not more in BLACK NOTICE as she did in any of the books. The difference probably is that we see her much more vulnerable and emotional in this new book, so maybe she doesn't seem as coolly scientific.

Patricia Cornwell: There is a lot of closeted discrimination in law enforcement. Although a police department or a federal agency may not be forthright in saying that they do not want homosexual officers or agents, there still is a prejudice. Thank goodness things aren't as bad as they used to be, and I think it's even worse for the men (male homosexuals).

Patricia Cornwell: Thank you! From doing tremendous research in forensic science and medicine, which goes back to 1984, the year I first stepped foot in a morgue. I was also fortunate enough that the first forensic pathologist I ever met is a woman.

Patricia Cornwell: No, I don't have any single actor in mind. I just know it needs to be somebody who is very intelligent and very good.

Patricia Cornwell: [laughs] Depends on who's doing which! I would much rather be up in my helicopter than be driving my car in terms of safety.

Patricia Cornwell: I do not write from an outline or any kind of note cards. I only use research notes when I'm writing. So, in that regard, I write my books in very much the way my characters work their cases, because they don't know what's going to happen, either until they follow the evidence. My favorite time of day to write is early morning, and I almost never write at night anymore. That's time for friends and family.

Patricia Cornwell: I think Marino will give himself his diseases -- he doesn't need my help! But it's interesting you should ask that question, because since Lucy is going to be moving to Richmond, I'm quite certain she is going to start dragging him to the gym!

Patricia Cornwell: Black notice is an Interpol term, a computer classification that refers to an unidentified body with suspected international connections. And if you go to Interpol, you'll find they have an entire corridor that's hung with photographs of dead faces of black notices -- people they hope to identify because they suspect they're fugitives. It's interesting, because I could tell that many of them had died violent deaths, so I thought many of them had died the way they lived.

Patricia Cornwell: Well, Scarpetta already does consult with ATF, and will continue to do so, but what will be interesting now is that she and her niece will actively be working cases together if they're within both their jurisdictions. And it's inevitable that Lucy's going to want to give Scarpetta flying lessons when they're flying together. Scarpetta would love flying a helicopter; she just hasn't figured that out yet. I know in my case, it's gotten to be the only time I can completely get away from everything. I love to just go up flying by myself and having absolute silence except for the blades and the tower.

Patricia Cornwell: Well, thank you! And actually Ruth just had her 79th birthday on June 10th, and she hadn't been feeling very well, so I called her up and told her I was bringing my helicopter up to North Carolina and take her on her ride for her birthday. So, we flew her around for about an hour over the Biltmore House and her own house through the mountains, and when we landed, when she found out that I'd been the one flying, she said that had she known that, she never would have gone up. She's still very feisty at her age! (Of course, I didn't have my license then, so I had my instructor, a former state police pilot, sitting next to me. So she was perfectly safe.)

Patricia Cornwell: That's a really interesting question. I can't think of anything I would like to change. That doesn't meant there isn't something I should change, or should never have done at all, but my method is to always keep moving forward. And in fact, I've never reread a single one of my books. Once they're edited and proofread and finished, I move on to my next story, and never reread the old ones again.

Patricia Cornwell: Believe me, if you want something badly enough, you can find time for it!

Patricia Cornwell: I really don't do either. I start with what I think I want to write, but then the story always takes on a life of its own, and it's as if it tells itself to me, and I simply report on it. The process is almost otherworldly, and I don't completely understand it. I don't always know where the voices are coming from, and usually I don't even know how it's going to end until it happens right before my eyes. This is wonderful and a gift and a privilege, but it's also awful because every time I start a book, I have to trust in something beyond me, and I always fear, maybe I can't do it this time.

Patricia Cornwell: Oh, I'm very emotionally attached to my characters. In fact, my writing is not a job; it's a relationship. And if I don't do right by my characters, such as spending a lot of time in their worlds so that I can understand them as I should, then they won't talk to me. It's not so different from being with people. If the day ever came that I did not pay a lot of attention to them by doing what they do and going out to do the hard work, the research, then I guess they would find someone else to write their stories.

Patricia Cornwell: Well, thank you very much for such kind words. And I can promise you that it is my every intention to keep these books coming on a regular basis, and the only thing that could stop me is if something happens to me that would prevent me from doing that. And I'm only 43, so hopefully nothing like that will happen to me any time soon!

Patricia Cornwell: I think Richmond would be an endless source of SOUTHERN CROSS novels, and I'm so glad that you like SOUTHERN CROSS, because I have a special affection for that book, and it means so much to me to have an opportunity to show you my "Far Side" sense of humor! People who know me well know that I'm funny a lot more than I'm serious. And yes, there will be other Andy Brazil/Chief Hammer books to follow. I don't know when they'll be set. But you're right -- the flood wall certainly fits in.

Patricia Cornwell: Once again, the genesis is my research, and I spent months sitting in on juvenile crime commission meetings. And I can remember hearing people on the commission making various points and there was this one person in particular who would go on and on and on and when he was done, I'd say to myself, "What on earth did he just say?" And that's where I got my inspiration for Lelia, and I had a blast writing about her.

Patricia Cornwell: Scarpetta and I would share the same values and opinions, and the essence of her character and her integrity are my own. Like her and like Lucy, I'm a fighter and a crusader for justice. In terms of something else I would have in common with Lucy, I'm a risk taker to a certain degree, and I love challenges. it's very important for me to meet certain challenges, such as learning to fly a helicopter. She and I are both very fitness-minded. I have a regular routine of working out. But like Marino, I can also be a slob, and also sometimes have a very politically incorrect mouth. But most important, what all of us have in common is that each of us have a good heart. We may have our flaws but we care about other people.

Patricia Cornwell: THE PERFECT STORM, HONOR'S VOICE, and CAPOTE, which is a biography of Truman Capote.

Patricia Cornwell: Oh, absolutely! I have to! I do just as much research now, if not more, than I've ever done, and since I'm on the Board of Directors of the new institute, I will be down there more than ever.

Patricia Cornwell: No. It doesn't. I've always been very safety-minded, because death is not an abstraction to me. I've received the best training in the world at the Bell Helicopter Academy in Texas, and I will continue receiving training and executing every precaution to be safe, both to myself and to others. I've actually flown the flight that JFK Jr. did, and I can certainly attest to the fact that after dark in that part of the world, your visibility can vanish in almost a blink of the eye. I flew up there after dark, myself, in recent months, and promised I would never do it again. So, I think what happened to him and his passengers could have happened to anyone, and it's very sad.

Patricia Cornwell: We always have an open door for new talent. And, for those who are not familiar with my new web site which we actually just launched a few days ago, I invite you to come visit me there. We look forward to hearing your comments and suggestions, and it's the first time I've been in a position where I can have real interaction with my readers. I'm going to attempt on a monthly basis to answer Frequently Asked Questions, and although you may not always hear from me directly, I have very industrious people who get your comments and concerns to me, and you do have my ear. The address is patricia-cornwell.com.

Patricia Cornwell: Because I can't imagine writing about something I know nothing of. And if I have Scarpetta doing something in a scene, whether it's scuba diving or even seeing a dead body in the morgue, it would not be possible for me to describe her feelings and anticipate her actions, unless I came from a common context. So instead of writing about my life, I live what I write.

Patricia Cornwell: I want to thank everybody for their interest, and to make sure they know that it really matters to me that they care and that they read my books, and I appreciate them spending their hard-earned money. I never take it lightly.

Read an Excerpt

The narrow road led me through a vacant land of weeds and woods that ended abruptly at a security checkpoint. I felt as if I were crossing the border into an unfriendly country. Beyond was a train yard and hundreds of -boxcar--size orange containers stacked three and four high. A guard who took his job very seriously stepped outside his booth. I rolled down my window.

"May I help you, ma'am?" he asked in a flat military tone.

"I'm Dr. Kay Scarpetta," I replied.

"And who are you here to see?"

"I'm here because there's been a death," I explained. "I'm the medical examiner."

I showed him my credentials. He took them from me and studied them carefully. I had a feeling he -didn't know what a medical examiner was and -wasn't about to ask.

"So -you're the chief," he said, handing the worn black wallet back to me. "The chief of what?"

"I'm the chief medical examiner of Virginia," I replied. "The police are waiting for me."

He stepped back inside his booth and got on the phone as my impatience grew. It seemed every time I needed to enter a secured area, I went through this. I used to assume my being a woman was the reason, and in earlier days this was probably true-at least some of the time. Now I believed the threats of terrorism, crime and lawsuits were the explanation. The guard wrote down a description of my car and the plate number. He handed me a clipboard so I could sign in and gave me a visitor's pass, which I -didn't clip on.

"See that pine tree down there?" he said, pointing.

"I see quite a few pine trees."

"The little bent one. Take a left at it and just head on towards the water, ma'am," he said. "Have a nice day."

I moved on, passing huge tires parked here and there and several red brick buildings with signs out front to identify the U.S. Customs Service and Federal Marine Terminal. The port itself was rows of huge warehouses with orange containers lined up at loading docks like animals feeding from troughs. Moored off the wharf in the James River were two container ships, the Euroclip and the Sirius, each almost twice as long as a football field. Cranes hundreds of feet high were poised above open hatches the size of swimming pools.

Yellow crime-scene tape anchored by traffic cones circled a container that was mounted on a chassis. No one was nearby. In fact, I saw no sign of police except for an unmarked blue Caprice at the edge of the dock apron, the driver, apparently, behind the wheel talking through the window to a man in a white shirt and a tie. Work had stopped. Stevedores in hard hats and reflective vests looked bored as they drank sodas or bottled water or smoked.

I dialed my office and got Fielding on the phone.

"When were we notified about this body?" I asked him.

"Hold on. Let me check the sheet." Paper rustled. "At exactly ten -fifty--three."

"And when was it found?"

"Uh, Anderson -didn't seem to know that."

"How the hell could she not know something like that?"

"Like I said, I think she's new."

"Fielding, there's not a cop in sight except for her, or at least I guess that's her. What exactly did she say to you when she called in the case?"

"DOA, decomposed, asked for you to come to the scene."

"She specifically requested me?" I asked.

"Well, hell. -You're always everybody's first choice. That's nothing new. But she said Marino told her to get you to the scene."

"Marino?" I asked, surprised. "He told her to tell me to respond?"

"Yeah, I thought it was a little ballsy of him."

I remembered Marino's telling me he would drop by the scene, and I got angrier. He gets some rookie to basically give me an order, and then if Marino can fit it in, he might swing by and see how -we're doing?

"Fielding, when's the last time you talked to him?" I asked.
"Weeks. Pissy mood, too."

"Not half as pissy as mine's going to be if and when he finally decides to show up," I promised.

Dockworkers watched me climb out of my car and pop open the trunk. I retrieved my scene case, jumpsuit and shoes, and felt eyes crawl all over me as I walked toward the unmarked car and got more annoyed with each labored step, the heavy case bumping against my leg.

The man in the shirt and tie looked hot and unhappy as he shielded his eyes to gaze up at two television news helicopters slowly circling the port at about four hundred feet.

"Darn reporters," he muttered, turning his eyes to me.

"I'm looking for whoever's in charge of this crime scene," I said.

"That would be me," came a female voice from inside the Caprice.

I bent over and peered through the window at the young woman sitting behind the wheel. She was darkly tanned, her brown hair cut short and slicked back, her nose and jaw strong. Her eyes were hard, and she was dressed in -relaxed--leg faded jeans, -lace--up black leather boots and white -T--shirt. She wore her gun on her hip, her badge on a ball chain tucked into her collar. Air-conditioning was blasting, light rock on the radio surfing over the cop talk on the scanner.

"Detective Anderson, I presume," I said.

"Rene Anderson. The one and only. And you must be the doc -I've heard so much about," she said with the arrogance I associated with most people who -didn't know what the hell they were doing.

"I'm Joe Shaw, the port director," the man introduced himself to me. "You must be who the security guys just called me about."

He was about my age, with blond hair, bright blue eyes and skin lined from years of too much sun. I could tell by the look on his face that he detested Anderson and everything about this day.

"Might you have anything helpful to pass along to me before I get started?" I said to Anderson over loud blowing air and rotating helicopter blades. "For example, why there are no police securing the scene?"

-"Don't need 'em," Anderson said, pushing open her door with her knee. "It's not like just anybody can drive right on back here, as you found out when you tried."

I set the aluminum case on the ground. Anderson came around to my side of the car. I was surprised by how small she was.

"Not much I can tell you," she said to me. "What you see is what we got. A container with a real stinker inside."

"No, there's a lot more you can tell me, Detective Anderson," I said. "How was the body discovered and at what time? Have you seen it? Has anybody gotten near it? Has the scene been contaminated in any way? And the answer to the last one had better be no, or I'm holding you responsible."

She laughed. I began pulling the jumpsuit over my clothes.

"Nobody's even gotten close," she told me. "No volunteers for that one."

"You -don't have to go inside the thing to know what's there," Shaw added.

I changed into the black Reeboks and put on the baseball cap. Anderson was staring at my Mercedes.

"Maybe I should go work for the state," she said.

I looked her up and down.

"I suggest you cover up if -you're going in there," I said to her.

"I gotta make a couple calls," she said, walking off.

"I -don't mean to tell people how to do their jobs," Shaw said to me. "But what the hell's going on here? We got a dead body right over there and the cops send in a little shit like that?"

His jaw muscles were clenching, his face bright red and dripping sweat.

"You know, you -don't make a dime in this business unless things are moving," he went on. "And not a darn thing's moved for more than two and a half hours."

He was working so hard not to swear around me.

"Not that I'm not sorry about someone being dead," he went on. "But I sure would like you folks to do your business and leave." He scowled up at the sky again. "And that includes the media."

"Mr. Shaw, what was being shipped inside the container?" I asked him.

"German camera equipment. You should know the seal on the container's latch -wasn't broken. So it appears the cargo -wasn't tampered with."

"Did the foreign shipper affix the seal?"

"That's right."

"Meaning the body, alive or dead, most likely was inside the container before it was sealed?" I said.

"That's what it looks like. The number matches the one on the entry filed by the customs broker, nothing the least out of the ordinary. In fact, this cargo's already been released by Customs. Was five days ago," Shaw told me. "Which is why it was loaded straight on a chassis. Then we got a whiff and no way that container was going anywhere."

I looked around, taking in the entire scene at once. A light breeze clinked heavy chains against cranes that had been offloading steel beams from the Euroclip, three hatches at a time, when all activity stopped. Forklifts and flatbed trucks had been abandoned. Dockworkers and crew had nothing to do and kept their eyes on us from the tarmac.

Some looked on from the bows of their ships and through the windows of deckhouses. Heat rose from -oil--stained asphalt scattered with wooden frames, spacers and skids, and a CSX train clanked and scraped through a crossing beyond the warehouses. The smell of creosote was strong but could not mask the stench of rotting human flesh that drifted like smoke on the air.

"Where did the ship set sail from?" I asked Shaw as I noticed a marked car parking next to my Mercedes.

"Antwerp, Belgium, two weeks ago," he replied as he looked at the Sirius and the Euroclip. "Foreign flag vessels like all the rest we get. The only American flags we see anymore are if someone raises one as a courtesy," he added with a trace of disappointment.

A man on the Euroclip was standing by the starboard side, looking back at us with binoculars. I thought it strange he was dressed in long sleeves and long pants, as warm as it was.

Shaw squinted. "Darn, this sun is bright."

"What about stowaways?" I asked. "Although I -can't imagine anyone choosing to hide inside a locked container for two weeks on high seas."

"Never had one that I know of. Besides, -we're not the first port of call. Chester, Pennsylvania, is. Most of our ships go from Antwerp to Chester to here, and then straight back to Antwerp. A stowaway's most likely going to bail out in Chester instead of waiting till he gets to Richmond.

-"We're a niche port, Dr. Scarpetta," Shaw went on.

I watched in disbelief as Pete Marino climbed out of the cruiser that had just parked next to my car.

"Last year, maybe a hundred and twenty oceangoing ships and barges called in the port," Shaw was saying.

Marino had been a detective as long as -I'd known him. I had never seen him in uniform.

"If it were me and I was trying to jump ship or was an illegal alien, I think -I'd want to end up in some really big port like Miami or L.A. where I could get lost in the shuffle."

Anderson walked up to us, chewing gum.

"Point is, we -don't break the seal and open them up unless we suspect something illegal, drugs, undeclared cargo," Shaw continued. "Every now and then we preselect a ship for a full shakedown search to keep people honest."

"Glad I -don't have to dress like that anymore," Anderson remarked as Marino headed toward us, his demeanor cocky and pugilistic, the way he always acted when he was insecure and in an especially foul mood.

"Why's he in uniform?" I asked her.

"He got reassigned."

"Clearly."

"There's been a lot of changes in the department since Deputy Chief Bray got here," Anderson said as if she were proud of the fact.

I -couldn't imagine why anyone would throw someone so valuable back into uniform. I wondered how long ago this had happened. I was hurt Marino -hadn't let me know, and I was ashamed I -hadn't found out anyway. It had been weeks, maybe a month, since I had called just to check on him. I -couldn't remember the last time -I'd invited him to drop by my office for coffee or to come to my house for dinner.

"What's going on?" he gruffly said as a greeting.

He -didn't give Anderson a glance.

"I'm Joe Shaw. How you doing?"

"Like shit," Marino sourly replied. "Anderson, you decide to work this one all by yourself? Or is it just the other cops -don't want nothing to do with you?"

She glared at him. She took the gum out of her mouth and tossed it as if he had ruined the flavor.

"You forget to invite anyone to this little party of yours?" he went on. "Jesus!" He was furious.

Marino was strangled by a -short--sleeved white shirt buttoned up to the collar and a -clip--on tie. His big belly was in a shoving match with dark blue uniform pants and a stiff leather duty belt fully loaded with his -Sig--Sauer -nine--millimeter pistol, handcuffs, extra clips, pepper spray and all the rest. His face was flushed. He was dripping sweat, a pair of Oakley sunglasses blacking out his eyes.

"You and I have to talk," I said to him.

I tried to pull him off to the side, but he -wouldn't budge. He tapped a Marlboro out of the pack he always had on him somewhere.

"You like my new outfit?" he sardonically said to me. "Deputy Chief Bray thought I needed new clothes."

"Marino, -you're not needed here," Anderson said to him. "In fact, I -don't think you want anyone to know you even thought about coming here."

"It's captain to you." He blew out his words on gusts of cigarette smoke. "You might want to watch your -smart--ass mouth because I outrank you, babe."

Shaw watched the rude exchange without a word.

"I -don't believe we call female officers babe anymore," Anderson said.

-"I've got a body to look at," I said.

-"We've got to go through the warehouse to get there," Shaw told me.

"Let's go," I said.

He walked Marino and me to a warehouse door that faced the river. Inside was a huge, dimly lit, airless space that was sweet with the smell of tobacco. Thousands of bales of it were wrapped in burlap and stacked on wooden pallets, and there were tons of magfilled sand and orifet that I believed were used in processing steel, and machine parts bound for Trinidad, according to what was stamped on crates.

Several bays down, the container had been backed up to a loading dock. The closer we got to it, the stronger the odor. We stopped at the crime-scene tape draped across the container's open door. The stench was thick and hot, as if every molecule of oxygen had been replaced by it, and I willed my senses to have no opinion. Flies had begun to gather, their ominous noise reminding me of the -high--pitched buzzing of a -remote--control toy plane.

"Were there flies when the container was first opened?" I asked Shaw.

"Not like this," he said.

"How close did you get?" I asked as Marino and Anderson caught up with us.

"Close enough," Shaw said.

"No one went inside it?" I wanted to make sure.

"I can guarantee you that, ma'am." The stench was getting to him.

Marino seemed unfazed. He shook out another cigarette and mumbled around it as he fired the lighter.

"So, Anderson," he said. "I -don't guess it could be livestock, you know, since you -didn't look. Hell, maybe a big dog that accidentally got locked up in there. Sure would be a shame to drag the doc here and get the media all in a lather and then find out it's just some poor ol' wharf dog rotted in there."

He and I both knew there was no dog or pig or horse or any other animal in there. I opened my scene case while Marino and Anderson went on carping at each other. I dropped my car key inside and pulled on several layers of gloves and a surgical mask. I fitted my -thirty--five-millimeter Nikon with a flash and a -twenty--eight-millimeter lens. I loaded -four--hundred--speed film so the photographs -wouldn't be too grainy, and slipped sterile booties over my shoes.

"It's just like when we get bad smells coming from a -closed--up house in the middle of July. We look through the window. Break in if we have to. Make sure what's in there's human before we call the M.E.," Marino continued to instruct his new protégé.

I ducked under the tape and stepped inside the dark container, relieved to find it was only half full of neatly stacked white cartons, leaving plenty of room to move around. I followed the beam of my flashlight deeper, sweeping it from side to side.

Near the back, it illuminated a bottom row of cartons soaked with the reddish purge fluid that leaks from the nose and mouth of a decomposing body. My light followed shoes and lower legs, and a bloated, bearded face jumped out of the dark. Bulging milky eyes stared, the tongue so swollen it protruded from the mouth as if the dead man were mocking me. My covered shoes made sticky sounds wherever I stepped.

The body was fully clothed and propped up in the corner, the container's metal walls bracing it from two sides. Legs were straight out, hands in the lap beneath a carton that apparently had fallen. I moved it out of the way and checked for defense injuries, or for abrasions and broken nails that might suggest he had tried to claw his way out. I saw no blood on his clothes, no sign of obvious injuries or that a struggle had taken place. I looked for food or water, for any provisions or holes made through the container's sides for ventilation, and found nothing.

I made my way between every row of boxes, squatting to shine oblique light on the metal floor, looking for shoe prints. Of course, they were everywhere. I moved an inch at a time, my knees about to give out. I found an empty plastic wastepaper basket. Then I found two silvery coins. I bent close to them. One was a deutsche mark. I -didn't recognize the other one and touched nothing.

Marino seemed a mile away, standing in the container's opening.
"My car key's in my case," I called out to him through the surgical mask.

"Yeah?" he said, peering inside.

"Could you go get the -Luma--Lite? I need the -fiber--optic attachment and the extension cord. Maybe Mr. Shaw can help you find somewhere to plug it in. Has to be a grounded receptacle, -one--fifteen VAC."

"I love it when you talk dirty," he said.

Reprinted from Black Notice by Patricia Cornwell by permission of G. P. Putnam's Sons, a member of Penguin Putnam Inc. Copyright © 1999 by Cornwell Enterprises, Inc. All rights reserved. This excerpt, or any parts thereof, may not be reproduced in any form without permission.

Read a Sample Chapter

Chapter One

The late morning blazed with blue skies and the colors of fall, but none of it was for me. Sunlight and beauty were for other people now, my life stark and without song. I stared out the window at a neighbor raking leaves and felt helpless, broken and gone.

    Benton's words resurrected every awful image I had repressed. I saw beams of light picking out heat-shattered bones in soggy trash and water. Shock rocked me again when confusing shapes turned into a scorched head with no features and clumps of sooty silver hair.

    I was sitting at my kitchen table sipping hot tea that Senator Frank Lord had brewed for me. I was exhausted and lightheaded from storms of nausea that had sent me fleeing to the bathroom twice. I was humiliated, because beyond all things I feared losing control, and I just had.

    "I need to rake the leaves again," I inanely said to my old friend. "December sixth and it's like October. Look out there, Frank. The acorns are big. Have you noticed? Supposedly that means a hard winter, but it doesn't even look like we're going to have winter. I can't remember if you have acorns in Washington."

    "We do," he said. "If you can find a tree or two."

    "Are they big? The acorns, I mean."

    "I'll be sure to look, Kay."

    I covered my face with my hands and sobbed. He got up from the table and came around to my chair. Senator Lord and I had grown up in Miami and had gone to school in the same archdiocese, although I had attended St. Brendan's High School only one year and longafter he was there. Yet that somewhat removed crossing of paths was a sign of what would come.

    When he was the district attorney, I was working for the Dade County Medical Examiner's Office and often testified in his cases. When he was elected a United States senator and then appointed the chairman of the judiciary committee, I was the chief medical examiner of Virginia and he began calling on me to lend my voice in his fight against crime.

    I was stunned when he called me yesterday to say he was coming to see me and had something important to deliver. I barely slept all night. I was devastated when he walked into my kitchen and slipped the simple white envelope out of a pocket of his suit.

    As I sat with him now, it made perfect sense that Benton would have trusted him this much. He knew Senator Lord cared deeply for me and would never let me down. How typical of Benton to have a plan that would be executed perfectly, even though he wasn't around to see it through. How typical of him to predict my behavior after his death and for every word of it to be true.

    "Kay," Senator Lord said, standing over me as I wept in my chair, "I know how hard this must be and wish I could make it all go away. I think one of the hardest things I've ever done was promise Benton I would do this. I never wanted to believe this day would come, but it has and I'm here for you."

    He fell silent, then added, "No one's ever asked me to do anything like this before, and I've been asked a lot of things."

    "He wasn't like other people," I quietly replied as I willed myself to calm down. "You know that, Frank. Thank God you do."

    Senator Lord was a striking man who bore himself with the dignity of his office. He had thick gray hair and intense blue eyes, was tall and lean and dressed, as was typical, in a conservative dark suit accented by a bold, bright tie, cuff links, pocket watch and stickpin. I got up from my chair and took a deep, shaky breath. I snatched several tissues from a box and wiped my face and nose.

    "You were very kind to come here," I said to him.

    "What else can I do for you?" he replied with a sad smile.

    "You've done it all by being here. I can't imagine the trouble you've gone to. Your schedule and all."

    "I must admit I flew in from Florida, and by the way, I checked on Lucy and she's doing great things down there," he said.

    Lucy, my niece, was an agent for the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms, or ATF. Recently, she had been reassigned to the Miami field office, and I hadn't seen her for months.

    "Does she know about the letter?" I asked Senator Lord.

    "No," he answered, looking out the window at a perfect day. "I think that's your call to make. And she's feeling rather neglected by you, I might add."

    "By me?" I said, surprised. "She's the one who can't be reached. At least I'm not undercover chasing gun traffickers and other persons of such fine character. She can't even talk to me unless she's at headquarters or on a pay phone."

    "You're not easy to find, either. You've been elsewhere in your spirit since Benton died. Missing in action, and I don't even think you realize it," he said. "I know. I've tried to reach out to you, too, haven't I?"

    Tears flooded my eyes again.

    "And if I get hold of you, what do you tell me? Everything's fine. Just busy. Not to mention, you haven't come to see me once. Now and then in the old days, you even brought me some of your special soups. You haven't been taking care of those who love you. You haven't been taking care of yourself."

    He had covertly glanced up at the clock several times now. I got up from my chair.

    "Are you heading back to Florida?" I asked in an unsteady voice.

    "Afraid not. Washington," he said. "I'm on Face the Nation again. More of the same. I'm so disgusted by it all, Kay."

    "I wish I could do something to help you," I said to him.

    "It's dirty out there, Kay. If certain people knew I was here alone in your house with you, they'd start some vicious rumor about me. I'm sure of it."

    "I wish you hadn't come here, then."

    "Nothing would have stopped me. And I shouldn't be railing on about Washington. You have enough to deal with."

    "I'll vouch for your sterling character anytime," I said.

    "It wouldn't do any good, if it came to that."

    I walked him through the impeccable house I had designed, past fine furniture and art and the antique medical instruments I collected, and over bright rugs and hardwood floors. Everything was precisely to my taste but not at all the same as it had been when Benton was here. I paid no more attention to my home than I did to myself these days. I had become a heartless custodian of my life, and it was evident everywhere I looked.

    Senator Lord noticed my briefcase open on the great room couch, and case files, mail and memos spilled over the glass coffee table, and legal pads on the floor. Cushions were askew, an ashtray dirty because I'd started smoking again. He didn't lecture me.

    "Kay, do you understand I've got to have limited contact with you after this?" Senator Lord said. "Because of what I just alluded to."

    "God, look at this place," I blurted out in disgust. "I just can't seem to keep up anymore."

    "There've been rumors," he cautiously went on. "I won't go into them. There have been veiled threats." Anger heated his voice. "Just because we're friends."

    "I used to be so neat." I gave a heartbroken laugh. "Benton and I were always squabbling about my house, my shit. My perfectly appointed, perfectly arranged shit." My voice rose as grief and fury flared up higher than before. "If he rearranged or put something in the wrong drawer ... That's what happens when you hit middle age and have lived alone and had everything your own goddamn way."

    "Kay, are you listening to me? I don't want you to feel I don't care if I don't call you very much, if I don't invite you up for lunch or to get your advice about some bill I'm trying to pass."

    "Right now I can't even remember when Tony and I got divorced," I bitterly said. "What? Nineteen eighty-three? He left. So what? I didn't need him or anyone else who followed. I could make my world the way I wanted it, and I did. My career, my possessions, my investments. And look."

    I stood still in the foyer and swept my hand over my beautiful stone house and all that was in it.

    "So what? So fucking what?" I looked Senator Lord in the eye. "Benton could dump garbage in the middle of this fucking house! He could tear the goddamn place down! I just wish none of it had ever mattered, Frank." I wiped away furious tears. "I wish I could do it over and never criticize him once about anything. I just want him here. Oh, God, I want him here. Every morning I wake up not remembering, and then it hits again and I can barely get out of bed."

    Tears ran down my face. It seemed every nerve in my body had gone haywire.

    "You made Benton very happy," Senator Lord said gently and with feeling. "You meant everything to him. He told me how good you were to him, how much you understood the hardships of his life, the awful things he had to see when he was working those atrocious cases for the FBI. Deep down, I know you know that."

    I took a deep breath and leaned against the door.

    "And I know he would want you to be happy now, to have a better life. If you don't, then the end result of loving Benton Wesley will prove damaging and wrong, something that ruined your life. Ultimately, a mistake. Does that make sense?"

    "Yes," I said. "Of course. I know exactly what he would want right now. I know what I want. I don't want it like this. This is almost more than I can bear. At times I've thought I would snap, just fall apart and end up on a ward somewhere. Or maybe in my own damn morgue."

    "Well, you won't." He took my hand in both of his. "If there's anything I know about you, it's that you will prevail against all odds. You always have, and this stretch of your journey happens to be the hardest, but there's a better road ahead. I promise, Kay."

    I hugged him hard.

    "Thank you," I whispered. "Thank you for doing this, for not leaving it in some file somewhere, not remembering, not bothering."

    "Now, you'll call me if you need me?" he pretty much ordered, as I opened the front door. "But you'll keep in mind what I said and promise you won't feel ignored."

    "I understand."

    "I'm always there if you need me. Don't forget that. My office always knows where I am."

    I watched the black Lincoln drive off, then went into my great room and built a fire, although it wasn't cold enough to need one. I was desperate for something warm and alive to fill the emptiness left by Senator Lord's leaving. I read Benton's letter again and again and heard his voice in my mind.

    I envisioned him with sleeves rolled up, veins prominent in strong forearms, his firm, elegant hands holding the silver Mont Blanc fountain pen I had given him for no special reason other than that it was precise and pure like him. Tears would not stop, and I held up the page with his engraved initials so his writing would not smear.

    His penmanship and the way he expressed himself had always been deliberate and spare, and I found his words a comfort and a torment as I obsessively studied them, dissecting, excavating for one more hint of meaning or tone. At intervals, I almost believed he was cryptically telling me his death wasn't real, was part of an intrigue, a plan, something orchestrated by the FBI, the CIA, God only knew. Then the truth returned, bringing its hollow chill to my heart. Benton had been tortured and murdered. DNA, dental charts, personal effects had verified that the unrecognizable remains were his.

    I tried to imagine how I would honor his request tonight and didn't see how I could. It was ludicrous to think of Lucy's flying to Richmond, Virginia, for dinner. I picked up the phone and tried to reach her anyway, because that was what Benton had asked me to do. She called me back on her portable phone about fifteen minutes later.

    "The office said you're looking for me. What's going on?" she said cheerfully.

    "It's hard to explain," I began. "I wish I didn't always have to go through your field office to get to you."

    "Me, too."

    "And I know I can't say much ..." I started to get upset again.

    "What's wrong?" She cut in.

    "Benton wrote a letter ..."

    "We'll talk another time." She interrupted again, and I understood, or at least I assumed I did. Cell phones were not secure.

    "Turn in right there," Lucy said to someone. "I'm sorry," she got back to me. "We're making a pit stop at Los Bobos to get a shot of colada."

    "A what?"

    "High-test caffeine and sugar in a shot glass."

    "Well, it's something he wanted me to read now, on this day. He wanted you ... Never mind. It all seems so silly." I fought to sound as if I were held together just fine.

    "Gotta go," Lucy said to me.

    "Maybe you can call later?"

    "Will do," she said in her same irritating tone.

    "Who are you with?" I prolonged the conversation because I needed her voice, and I didn't want to hang up with the echo of her sudden coolness in my ear.

    "My psycho partner," she said.

    "Tell her hi."

    "She says hi," Lucy said to her partner, Jo, who was Drug Enforcement Agency, or DEA.

    They worked together on a High Intensity Drug Trafficking Area, or HIDTA, squad that had been relentlessly working a series of very vicious home invasions. Jo and Lucy's relationship was a partnership in another way, too, but they were very discreet. I wasn't sure AFT or DEA even knew.

    "Later," Lucy said to me, and the line went dead.