Read Black notice for Free Online Page B

expression puckered with resentment and jealousy when Bray motioned for me to step away from them. We moved to the edge of the dock, where the Sirius towered above us and barely stirred in the ruffled muddy-blue current.
    "I'm so sorry I didn't recognize your name at first," she began.
    I didn't say a word.
    "That's very ungracious of me," she went on.
    I remained silent.
    "I should have gotten around to meeting you before now. I've been so busy. So here we are. And it's a good thing, really. Perfect timing, you might say"-she smiled-"that we should meet like this."
    Diane Bray was a haughty beauty with black hair and perfect features. Her -figure was stunning. Dockworkers could not take their eyes off her.
    "You see," she went on in her same cool tone, "I have this little problem. I supervise Captain Marino, yet he seems to think he works for you."
    "Nonsense." I finally spoke.
    She sighed.
    "You have just robbed the city of the most experienced, decent homicide detective it's ever known, Chief Bray," I told her. "And I should know."
    "I'm sure you should."
    "Just what is it you're trying to accomplish?" I asked.
    "It's time for young blood, for detectives who don't mind turning on a computer, using e-mail. Are you aware that Marino doesn't even know how to use word processing? Still hammers on a typewriter with two fingers?"
    I couldn't believe she was saying this to me.
    "Not to mention the very small problem that he's unteachable and insubordinate, his behavior a disgrace to the department," she went on.
    Anderson had walked off, leaving Marino alone by the car, leaning against it, smoking. His arms and shoulders were thick and hairy, and his trousers, belted under his gut, were about to fall off. I knew he was humiliated because he refused to look our way.
    "Why are there no crime-scene techs here?" I asked Bray.
    One dockworker elbowed another and cupped his hands under his chest, fondling air as if it were Bray's big breasts.
    "Why are you here?" I then asked her.
    "Because I was alerted that Marino was," she replied. "He's been warned. I wanted to find out for myself if he was so blatantly disregarding my orders."
    "He's here because someone had to be."
    "He's here because he chose to be." She fixed her eyes on me. "And because you chose to be. That's really why, now isn't it, Dr. Scarpetta? Marino's your own personal detective. Has been for years." .
    Her eyes bored into places even I couldn't see, and she seemed to wind her way through sacred parts of me and sense the meaning of my many walls. She took in my face and my body and I wasn't sure if she was comparing what I had to hers, or if she was assessing something she might decide she wanted.
    "Leave him alone," I told her. "You're trying to kill his spirit. That's what this is all about. Because you can't control him."
    "No one has ever been able to control him;' she replied. "That's why he was given to me."
    "Given to you?"
    "Detective Anderson is new blood. God knows, this department needs new blood."
    "Detective Anderson is unskilled, unschooled and a coward," I replied.
    "Certainly with your continents of experience, you can tolerate someone new and do a little mentoring, Kay?"
    "There's no cure for someone who doesn't care."
    "I suspect you've been listening to Marino. According to him, no one is skilled, schooled or cares enough to do what he does."
    I'd had it with her. I adjusted my position to take full advantage of the shift in the wind. I stepped closer to her because I was going to rub her nose in a little dose of reality.
    "Don't you ever do this to me again, Chief Bray," I said. "Don't you ever call me or anyone in my office to a scene and then saddle us with some fuckup who can't be bothered collecting evidence. And don't call me Kay."
    She stepped away from my stinking presence, but not before I caught her flinch.
    "We'll do lunch sometime," she said, dismissing me as she summoned her driver.
    "Simmons? What time is my next appointment?" she asked,