Cause of Death (27 page)

I entered an apartment not so different from where I had visited my niece last year. The space was small with bed and sink, and crowded bookcases. Heart of pine floors were bare, with no art on whitewashed walls except a single poster of Anthony Hopkins. Lucy's technical preoccupations had taken over tables, desk and even several chairs. Other equipment, like the fax machine and what looked like a small robot, was out cold on the floor.

Additional telephone lines had been installed, and these were connected to modems winking with green lights. But I did not get the impression that my niece was living here alone, for on the sink were two toothbrushes, and solution for contact lenses that she did not wear. Both sides of the twin bed were unmade, and on top of it was a briefcase I did not recognize, either.

"Here." She lifted a printer off a chair and put me close to the fire. "Sorry everything's such a mess." She wore a bright orange UVA sweatshirt and jeans, and her hair was wet. "I can heat up some water," she said, and she was very distracted.

"If you're offering tea, I accept," I said.

I watched her closely as she filled a pot with water and plugged it in. Nearby, on a dresser top were FBI credentials, a pistol and car keys. I spotted file folders and pieces of paper scribbled with notes, and I spotted unfamiliar clothing hanging inside the closet. -Tell me about T. C.,- I said.

Lucy opened a tea bag. "A German major. She's spending the next six weeks in Munich. So she said I could stay here."

"That was very nice of her. Would you like me to help you pack up her things or at least make room for your%?"

"You don't need to do any work at all right now."

I glanced toward the window, hearing someone.

"You still take your tea black?" Lucy said.

The fire crackled, smoking wood shifted, and I wasn't surprised when the door opened and another woman walked in. But I was not expecting Janet, and she was not expecting me.

"Dr. Scarpetta," he said in surprise as she glanced at Lucy. "How great of you to drop by."

She was carrying shower items, a baseball cap pulled over wet hair that was almost to her shoulders. Dressed in sweats and tennis shoes, she was lovely and healthy, and like Lucy, seemed even younger because she was on a university campus again.

"Please join us," Lucy said to her as she handed me a mug of tea.

"We were out running.- Janet smiled. "Sorry about the hair. So what brings you here?" she asked as she sat on the floor.

"I need some help with a case," was all I said. "Are you taking this virtual reality course too?" I studied both of their faces.

"Right," Janet said. "Lucy and I are here together. As you may or may not know, I was transferred to the Washington Field Office late last year."

"Lucy mentioned it."

"I've been assigned to white-collar crime," she went on.

"Especially anything that might be related to a violation of the 10C."

"Which is?" I asked.

It was Lucy who replied as she sat next to me, "Interception of Communication statute. We've got the only group in the country with experts who can handle these cases."

"Then the Bureau has sent both of you here for training because of this group." I tried to understand. "But I guess I don't see what virtual reality might have to do with hackers breaking into major databases," I added.

Janet was silent as she took off her cap and combed her hair, staring into the fire. I could tell she was very uncomfortable, and I wondered how much of it had to do with what had happened in Aspen over the holidays. My niece moved to the hearth and sat facing me.

"We're not here for a class, Aunt Kay," she said with quiet seriousness. "That's how it's supposed to look to everybody else. Now, I'm going to tell you this when I shouldn't, but it's too late for any more lies."

"You don't have to tell me," I said. "I understand."

"No." Her eyes were intense. "I want you to understand what's going on. And to give you a quick, dirty summary, last fall Commonwealth Power and Light began experiencing problems when what appeared to be a hacker started getting inside their computer system. The attempts were frequent-sometimes four or five times a day. But there was no success in identifying this individual until he left tracks in an audit log after accessing and printing customer billing information. We were called, and remotely we managed to trace the perpetrator to UVA."

"Then you haven't caught whoever it is," I said.

"No." It was Janet who spoke. "We interviewed the graduate student whose I. D. it was, but he definitely isn't the hacker. We have reasons to be very sure of that."

"Point is," said Lucy, "several other I. D.s have been stolen from students here since, and the perpetrator was also trying to access CP&L along with the university computer and one in Pittsburgh."

"Was?" I asked.

"Actually, he's been pretty quiet lately, which makes it harder for us," Janet said. "Mostly, we've been chasing him through the university computer."

"Right," Lucy said. "We haven't tracked him in CP&L's computer for almost a week. I figure because of the holidays."

"Why might someone be doing this?" I asked. "Do you have a theory?"

"A power trip, no pun intended," Janet simply said ' "Maybe so he can turn lights on and off throughout Virginia and the Carolinas. Who knows?"

"But what we believe is that whoever's doing it is on campus, and is getting in via the Internet and another link called Telnet," Lucy said, adding confidently, "We'll get him."

"You mind if I ask why all the secrecy?" I said to my niece. "Could you not just tell me you were on a case you couldn't discuss?"

She hesitated before responding, "You're on the faculty here, Aunt Kay."

This was true, and I had not even thought of that. Though I was only a visiting professor in pathology and legal medicine, I decided Lucy's point was well taken, and I supposed I did not blame her for keeping this from me for yet another reason. She wanted her independence, especially in this place where for the duration of her undergraduate studies it had been well known that she was related to me.

I looked at her. "Is this why you left Richmond so abruptly the other night?"

"I got paged."

"By me," Janet said. "I was flying in from Aspen, got delayed, et cetera. Lucy picked me up at the airport and we came back here."

"And were there any other attempted break-ins over the holidays?"

"Some. The system is constantly being monitored," Lucy said. "We're not alone in this by any means. We've just been assigned an undercover post here so we can do some hands-on detective work."

"Why don't you walk me to the Rotunda." I got up, and so did they. "Marino should be back with the car." I hugged Janet and her hair smelled like lemon. "You take care and come see me more often," I said to her. "I consider you family. Lord knows it's about time I had some help in taking care of this one." I smiled as I put my arm around Lucy.

Outside in the sun, the afternoon was warm enough for only sweaters, and I wished I could stay longer. Lucy did not linger during our brief walk, and I could tell she was anxious about anyone seeing us together.

"It's just like the old days," I said lightly to hide my hurt.

"How's that?" she asked.

"Your ambivalence about being seen with me."

"That's not true. I used to be proud of it."

"And now you're not," I said with irony.

"Maybe I'd like you to feel proud to be seen with me,"

she said. "Instead of it always the other way. That's what I meant."

"I am proud of you and always have been, even when you were such a mess that sometimes I wanted to lock you in the basement."

"I believe that's called child abuse."

"No, the jury would vote for aunt abuse in your case.

Trust me," I said. "And I'm glad you and Janet seem to be getting along. I'm glad she's back from Aspen and the two of you are together."

My niece stopped and looked at me, squinting in the sun.

"Thanks for what you said to her. Right now, especially, that meant a lot."

"I spoke the truth, that's all," I said. "Maybe someday her family will speak it, too."

We were in sight of Marino's car, and he was sitting in it, as usual, and puffing away.

Lucy walked up to his door. "Hey Pete," she said, "you need to wash your ride."

"No, I don't," he grumbled as he immediately tossed the cigarette and got out.

He looked around, and the sight of him hitching up his pants and inspecting his car because he could not help himself was too much. Lucy and I both laughed, and then he tried not to smile. In truth, he secretly enjoyed it when we teased. We bantered a little bit more, and then Lucy left as a late-model gold Lexus with tinted glass drove past. It was the same one we had seen earlier on the road, the driver obliterated by glare.

"This is beginning to get on my nerves." Marino's eyes followed the car.

"Maybe you should run the plate number," I stated the obvious.

"Oh, I already done that." He started the car and began backing out. -DMV's down."

DMV was the Department of Motor Vehicles computer, and it was down a lot, it seemed. We headed back up to the reactor facility, and when we got there, Marino again refused to go inside. So I left him in the parking lot, and this time the young man in the control room behind glass told me I could enter unescorted.

"He's down in the basement," he said with eyes on his computer screen.

I found Matthews in the low background counting room again, sitting before a computer screen displaying a spectrum in black and white.

"Oh, hello," he said, when he realized I was beside him.

"Looks like you've had some luck," I said. "Although I'm not sure what I'm seeing. And I might be too early."

"No, no, you're not too early. These vertical lines here indicate the energies of the significant gamma rays detected. One line equals one energy. But most of the lines we're seeing here are for background radiation." He showed me on the screen. "You know, even the lead bricks don't get rid of all of that."

I sat next to him.

"I guess what I'm trying to show you, Dr. Scarpetta, is that the sample you brought in isn't giving off high-energy gamma rays when it decays. If you look here on this energy spectrum--he was staring at the screen--it looks like this characteristic gamma ray on the spectrum is for uranium two-thirty-five." He tapped a spike on the glass.

"Okay," I said. "And what does that mean?"

"That's the good stuff." He looked over at me.

"Such as is used in nuclear reactors," I said.

"Exactly. That's what we use to make fuel pellets or rods. But as you probably know, only point three percent of uranium is two-thirty-five. The rest is depleted."

"Right. The rest is uranium two-thirty-eight," I said.

"And that's what we've got here."

"If it isn't giving off high-energy gamma rays," I said.

How can you tell that from this energy spectrum?"

"Because what the germanium crystal is detecting is uranium two-thirty-five. And since the percentage of it is so low, this indicates that the sample we're dealing with must be depleted uranium."

"It couldn't be spent fuel from a reactor," I thought out loud.

"No, it couldn't," he said. "There's no fission material mixed in with your sample. No strontium, cesium, iodine, barium. You would have already seen those with SEM."

"No isotopes like that came up," I agreed. "Only uranium and other nonessential elements that you might expect with soil tracked in on the bottom of someone's shoes."

I looked at peaks and valleys of what could have been a scary cardiogram while Matthews made notes.

"Would you like printouts of all of this?" he asked.

"Please. What is depleted uranium used for?"

"Generally, it's worthless." He hit several keys.

"if it didn't come from a nuclear power plant, then from where?"

"Most likely a facility that does isotopic separation."

"Such as Oak Ridge, Tennessee," I suggested.

"Well, they don't do that anymore. But they certainly did for decades, and they must have warehouses of uranium metal. Now there also are plants in Portsmouth, Ohio, and Paducah, Kentucky."

"Dr. Matthews," I said. "It appears someone had depleted uranium metal on the bottom of his shoes and tracked it into a car. Can you give me any logical explanation as to how or why?"

"No." His expression was blank. "I don't think I can."

I thought of the jagged and spherical shapes the scanning electron microscope had revealed to me, and tried again.

"Why would someone melt uranium two-thirty-eight? Why would they shape it with a machine?"

Still, he did not seem to have a clue.

"is depleted uranium used for anything at all?" I then asked.

"In general, big industry doesn't use uranium metal," he answered. "Not even in nuclear power plants, because in those the fuel rods or pellets are uranium oxide, a ceramic."