Five Scarpetta Novels Read Free Page A

divers.”
    â€œThat’s right.” I walked with him along the pier.
    â€œI sure as hell don’t know what you expect to see.”
    â€œI learned long ago to have no expectations, Captain Green.”
    As we passed old, tired ships, I noticed many fine metal lines leading from them into the water. “What are those?” I asked.
    â€œCPs—cathodic protectors,” he answered. “They’re electrically charged to reduce corrosion.”
    â€œI certainly hope someone has turned them off.”
    â€œAn electrician’s on the way. He’ll turn off the whole pier.”
    â€œSo the diver could have run into CPs. I doubt it would have been easy to see them.”
    â€œIt wouldn’t matter. The charge is very mild,” he said as if anyone should know that. “It’s like getting zapped with a nine-volt battery. CPs didn’t kill him. You can already mark that one off your list.”
    We had stopped at the end of the pier where the rear of the partially submerged submarine was in plain view. Anchored no more than twenty feet from it was the dark green aluminum johnboat with its long black hose leading from the compressor, which was nestled in an inner tube on the passenger’s side. The floor of the boat was scattered with tools, scuba equipment and other objects that I suspected had been rather carelessly gone through by someone. My chest tightened, for I was angrier than I would show.
    â€œHe probably just drowned,” Green was saying. “Almost every diving death I’ve seen was a drowning. You die in water as shallow as this, that’s what it’s going to be.”
    â€œI certainly find his equipment unusual.” I ignored his medical pontifications.
    He stared at the johnboat barely stirred by the current. “A hookah. Yeah, it’s unusual for around here.”
    â€œWas it running when the boat was found?”
    â€œOut of gas.”
    â€œWhat can you tell me about it? Homemade?”
    â€œCommercial,” he said. “A five-horsepower gasoline-driven compressor that draws in surface air through a low-pressure hose connected to a second-stage regulator. He could have stayed down four, five hours. As long as his fuel lasted.” He continued to stare off.
    â€œFour or five hours? For what?” I looked at him. “I canunderstand that if you’re collecting lobsters or abalone.”
    He was silent.
    â€œWhat is down there?” I said. “And don’t tell me Civil War artifacts because we both know you’re not going to find those here.”
    â€œIn truth, not a damn thing’s down there.”
    â€œWell,” I said, “he thought something was.”
    â€œUnfortunately for him, he thought wrong. Look at those clouds moving in. We’re definitely going to get it.” He flipped his coat collar up around his ears. “I assume you’re a certified diver.”
    â€œFor many years.”
    â€œI’m going to need to see your dive card.”
    I looked out at the johnboat and the submarine nearby as I wondered just how uncooperative these people intended to be.
    â€œYou’ve got to have that with you if you’re going in,” he said. “I thought you would have known that.”
    â€œAnd I thought the military did not run this shipyard.”
    â€œI know the rules here. It doesn’t matter who runs it.” He stared at me.
    â€œI see.” I stared back. “And I suppose I’m going to need a permit if I want to park my car on this pier so I don’t have to carry my gear half a mile.”
    â€œYou do need a permit to park on the pier.”
    â€œWell, I don’t have one of those. I don’t have my PADI advanced and rescue dive cards or my dive log. I don’t have my licenses to practice medicine in Virginia, Maryland or Florida.”
    I spoke very smoothly and quietly, and because he could not rattle me, he became more