Dead Hunt Part 2

"Clymene O'Riley," said Diane.

"Ah, yes. Ross has spoken with me about her before. He's taken quite a shine to her."

They reached the gate and the guard let them back into the high-security area. Diane didn't ask any questions until they got to the chapel. Rivers seemed to have a hard time breathing, talking, and walking at the same time.

"Here we are," he said.

Diane opened the door to the chapel for him and he proceeded to place his handouts on each desk. Rather than pews, the chapel had rows of metal and plastic cla.s.sroom chairs-the kind with a table attached and a wire basket underneath. The chapel itself had the same shiny tile as the rest of the prison and the same graygreen walls. A single wooden cross stood behind a wooden lectern at the front. Vases of silk flowers- mostly roses, irises and lilies-sat atop tables that lined the walls. Rivers caught her looking at the room.

"Who would invent paint this color, huh?" he said. He shook his head. "Some of the women arranged the flowers. A local florist taught a flower-arranging cla.s.s as part of our skills program." He looked at Diane and grinned. "She had written a nice proposal to the state. Anyway, it was something for them to do. Clymene O'Riley took the course. She did several of the arrangements you see here. What do you want to know about her?"

"Your opinion of her," said Diane.

Rev. Rivers finished placing his handouts on the desktops and motioned for Diane to sit down. He turned one of the desks around to face her and sat down with a deep breath, as if laying out all the handouts had tired him. His light brown hair was disheveled and his brown eyes looked red and strained.

"She's an interesting prisoner. When she asked to work in the chapel she wasn't like the usual prisoner- she didn't tell me how she'd found the Lord and wanted to help do his work. We sat over there in those chairs." He pointed to two vinyl-upholstered wood chairs at a table by the wall. "She told me she was scared and wanted a safe place to work and if I let her work here she would listen to what I had to say with an open mind. I found that refreshing. She told the truth and promised me only what she could give. I've had women promise me they would become nuns." He laughed. "I tell them I'm Protestant, but I'll pa.s.s their desires along to Father Henry."

Diane smiled. "You are also a counselor here? Is that right?"

He nodded. "I'm here all day. We have a rabbi and a priest come to minister to the prisoners too."

Diane glanced down at the handout on the desk in front of her. It was instructions for filling out a job application. Rivers followed her gaze.

"With some of them, small skills like filling out forms, going for a job interview, and creating a budget help them get by on the outside. Clymeme has been a big help. She already has those skills. Sometimes we do role playing and the women pretend they are at a job interview. Clymene is good at interviewing and showing them how to improve. She's fluent in Spanish. I'll tell you, that's a big help."

"And did she listen to you with an open mind?" asked Diane.

Rivers nodded. "She did. She listens and asks a lot of intelligent questions. She's a smart woman. She actually understands everything I have to say."

"Do the other prisoners like her?" asked Diane.

He nodded. "They do. She writes briefs for them. Pretty good at it too. She's gotten one woman a new trial and another one visitation for her kid. That's really a good record."

It certainly was, thought Diane. Now she knew why the DA was so nervous. Apparently there was no end to Clymene's skills.

"And the guards?" asked Diane.

He shrugged. "They like her as much as they like any of the prisoners, I suppose. Probably more because she doesn't cause trouble. There are a couple of guards she is friendly with, I think. Guards are like the rest of us. Cynical. We hear and see a lot."

"You don't seem cynical," said Diane.

"I try not to be. Occasionally we actually get prisoners who are really innocent. It happens more than you think. I try to keep an open mind without becoming gullible. And I try not to take it too hard when they disappoint me. It's not an easy line to walk."

"I can imagine," said Diane, though he seemed to her like a man who felt disappointments deeply.

He shifted in his chair and stared a moment at the handout in front of him. After a moment he looked back up at Diane.

"I'm not familiar with the evidence against Clymene O'Riley. I get the impression from prison talk that it was weak." He gave a faint laugh that barely made it out of his throat. "Something about creative sc.r.a.pbooking?"

Diane grinned at him. "Those ill.u.s.trated her duplicity and pointed to an underlying scheme." Diane took a breath and explained in detail about the sc.r.a.pbooks. Rivers bent forward, resting his arms on the desk, and listened.

"None were true?" he asked.

"Not that we could discover. Almost all the photographs of her were digitally inserted over a background. Those places we could contact-like the car rally in Greece and the archaeology digs-did not have her in their records and had no one who remembered her, though they could verify that her husbands had been there."

"I see," said Rivers. But Diane wasn't sure that he did.

"Clymene's sc.r.a.pbooks were only secondary to the case," said Diane. "The key piece of evidence was the cotton ball, and it was a slam dunk."

Chapter 5.

"The cotton ball?" Rev. Rivers sat up straight in the chair. "I don't know about that."

"Do you know how Clymene's husband died?" asked Diane.

Rev. Rivers frowned and looked at a vase of irises to his right. "Lockjaw, I think she said." He looked back at Diane. "Is that right?"

"Yes. Archer O'Riley flew to Micronesia to work on an archaeological dig. Clymene was supposed to be with him but developed a case of the flu at the last minute. She was to join him later. He arrived feeling sick, headachy, feverish, and a little stiff. He thought he was also coming down with the flu. The archaeology team sent him to a hospital in Guam. On the way he had seizures so severe that he broke one of his vertebrae and his arm was so swollen and inflamed the doctors were going to amputate it."

Rivers winced. "Teta.n.u.s is rare, isn't it? I can't say I've ever heard of anyone dying of it, despite all my mother's warnings about stepping on rusty nails."

"Yes, it's rare. Only about eight people a year die from teta.n.u.s in this country, out of a population of three hundred million," said Diane.

Rivers said nothing for a moment, as if he were searching for the right words. "She . . . she somehow infected him? You proved it? With a cotton ball?" He looked skeptical.

"One cotton ball about that big"-Diane made a circle with her thumb and index finger-"told the entire story. I've never had evidence that good before."

Rivers shifted in the small chair. A few of the but of pulling tons on his shirt looked to be in danger loose. He shifted again.

"I don't know the details of Clymene trial," he said. "All I really know is that she was con husband and suspected of victed of killing her last killing her first husband." Diane started to say they didn't know if Robert Carthwright was her first husband or second, third, or tenth for that matter, but she let that go. The fact was, she didn't know. She did know the evidence supporting the Archer O'Riley murder and she felt it was important for Rev. Rivers to know it.

"Archer O'Riley died just an hour after they got him to the hospital," said Diane.

"Why was murder suspected?" asked Rivers. "It wasn't right away. His body was flown back to the United States, where it was examined by his own doctor, who was concerned about the arm because the site of the infection was where his office had taken a blood sample in a routine checkup just days before." "Naturally, he didn't want liability," said Rivers. "Naturally," repeated Diane.

Clymene had gotten to Rev. Rivers. Diane could see it in his face-the way he blushed at leaping to her defense. She guessed that he hadn't realized it himself until now-until he felt called upon to defend her. Diane imagined that it had been easy for Clymene O'Riley's to win Rivers over, even though he was resistant to prisoners trying to pull the wool over his eyes. He was a man with meager resources, dedicated to making a difference among the prisoners. Successes were probably few and far between. Clymene hadn't told him what he wanted to hear, like so many prisoners do. She told him what he hadn't expected to hear. Making a promise, small though it was, and keeping it set her apart from the prisoners who made pledges he knew they couldn't keep. By his account, Clymene listened, asked questions, and partic.i.p.ated in a meaningful way in his cla.s.ses-actions above and beyond her simple pledge to keep an open mind. A small thing, but an important thing to Rivers. Clymene was good at calcu lating what was important to people.

Saying she was afraid and wanted a safe place to work was probably true. What was it Frank, her whitecollar-crime detective-friend, said? Truth makes the lie believable in a con. Clymene was undoubtably good at using truth to her advantage-just as good as she was at making fiction seem true.

Diane saw now what Clymene was doing-why she hadn't filed an appeal yet. She was gathering her supporters first. The DA said she had a following on the outside consisting of a few friends and people she went to church with. Having the prison chaplain on her side would be a PR coup for her.

"The health department investigated the doctor's office," said Diane. "They found nothing that would account for the infection."

He again shifted uncomfortably in the small chair, putting further strain on his b.u.t.tons. She could see the white T-shirt underneath. "Would they find anything? I mean"-Rivers shrugged his shoulders-"if it was just that one contaminated needle."

"Of course," agreed Diane-just to be agreeable, "that was a possibility. But the investigation didn't stop there."

"Let's move over here to the table," he said, pointing to a honey-colored maple table with a vase of red silk roses. "Either the chairs are getting smaller or I'm getting bigger." He gave a small self-conscious laugh and squirmed out.

They moved to two straight-backed wooden chairs with vinyl-covered padded seats. They were better than the desk chairs, thought Diane, but not by much. "I'm sure the prison saves a lot of money on furniture," said Rivers.

"And paint," said Diane because she knew it would make him laugh.

Rivers' laugh was a little more hearty. "Yes, defi nitely on paint." He sighed. "I'd like to understand this," he said, resting an arm on the table.

Diane nodded. By "this" she understood him to mean the evidence against Clymene.

"Archer O'Riley was old Rosewood-old money.

Many of his friends were old Rosewood." Diane had actually met him once at a contributors' party at the museum. He had come as a guest of Vanessa Van Ross, the museum's biggest patron and good friend to Diane. Clymene hadn't been with him.

Vanessa was the first to light the fire under the police when he died. For reasons Vanessa couldn't explain exactly, she had never liked Clymene. "There was something about her that seemed fake to me,"

was all she could tell Diane.

"One of Archer O'Riley's friends, along with his son, insisted that the police investigate," said Diane.

She didn't say that Vanessa had to convince his son at the time.

"O'Riley's infection had spread more rapidly than normal, so the ME's suspicions were already raised.

Then she found puncture wounds in the bend of his arm that could not be accounted for as a result of the blood sample taken by his doctor. Two of the punctures were not in his vein, but into the muscle tissue.

We-the crime scene team-were asked to search the house. We started in his bedroom," said Diane. Rivers listened without comment. The intensity of his gaze revealed his interest in what Diane had to say. "It had been several days since Archer O'Riley was last in his house, and the room had been cleaned. We didn't expect to find anything. But behind the nightstand on his side of the bed, caught between the stand and the chair rail, we found a cotton ball. It had two distinct creases in it-as from wiping a needleshaped object." Diane made an effort to keep her descriptions objective.

Rivers opened his mouth to speak but said nothing.

He motioned for Diane to proceed. He probably thought the evidence so far was pretty weak, but he leaned forward, resting his elbows on the table. "We a.n.a.lyzed the substances on the cotton ball,"

said Diane.

"And these substances told the story?" said Rivers. Diane nodded. "One crease contained trace amounts of corn syrup, cornstarch, carrageenan, L-cysteine, casein hydrolysate, traces of horse manure, and an ample supply of Clostridium tetani Clostridium tetani, teta.n.u.s bacteria.

The most interesting of these being casein hydrolysate and the horse manure-and the bacteria. The second crease had trace amounts of the same substances but also included Archer O'Riley's blood, rohypnol, and epithelials from Clymene and from her horse." Rivers was frowning now. Diane wasn't sure if it was from trying to understand the string of substances she had just rattled off or from a deep concern about Clymene's guilt.

"Can you walk me through what all those things mean?" he asked.

"Corn syrup, cornstarch, carrageenan, L-cysteine, and casein hydrolysate are ingredients in a baby formula," said Diane.

Rivers raised his eyebrows.

"Casein hydrolysate is a good medium for growing teta.n.u.s. Horse manure is a good place to get the teta.n.u.s bacterium."

"I see," said Rivers. He stared down for a moment at his hands, clasped in front of him on the table. Diane continued before he could say anything-like, How did you connect this to Clymene?

"There was baby formula in the house. O'Riley's son and his wife have a baby, but the baby's mother said she didn't use that particular brand of formula.

Epithelials-skin cells-in the manure were matched to Clymene's own horse."

Rivers looked up at Diane. He looked tired and surprised. "So what you are saying, if I read the evidence right, is that she cultured some teta.n.u.s bacteria, gave her husband the date-rape drug rohypnol to knock him out and keep him from remembering she punctured him with a needle and squirted teta.n.u.s in him."

"Yes," said Diane. "Add that to the fact that she fabricated a false family history for herself, she never gave us her true ident.i.ty that could be verified, and her previous husband died an untimely death, and you can see why she was convicted."

He let out a deep breath. "I must say, I'm disappointed."

Diane could see he was. She felt sorry for him. He was a man wanting to believe in people who were constantly disappointing him.

"So am I," she said. "Clymene is intelligent and gifted. You can't help but wonder what she might have become if she had taken a different path in life." "We'll never know," he said. "She tells people that too much was made of her creative sc.r.a.pbooking.

She's never mentioned the cotton ball."

"You know Clymene loves horses," said Diane.

"She went to a lot of trouble to make sure that hers went to a good home. Yet she never made a sc.r.a.pbook of her riding or of her horse."

Rivers looked at her, frowning, as if trying to understand what that had to do with anything.

"The sc.r.a.pbooks were just tools of her trade, part of the con. Her horse and her riding were true loves for her. She kept them out of the lie."

He nodded and stood. "I'm seeing the picture now.

Thanks for telling me." He reached out and shook her hand as she stood.

"Thank you for speaking with me." Diane wanted to say she was sorry but felt anything she said might be embarra.s.sing to him. Clymene had won him over before he had even realized it. Diane was more convinced than ever that Archer O'Riley wasn't the only person Clymene had killed. She was just too good at her job to have done it only once.

Rivers walked her back to the gate, where she was again let out of the maximum-security section. She was glad to leave the prison and didn't want to go back anytime soon. She had quit human rights work because she was just too sick of ma.s.s graves. That's what prisons were like to her-a ma.s.s grave of the living. It was too depressing.

Chapter 6.

Diane pulled into her parking s.p.a.ce in front of the RiverTrail Museum of Natural History. The building almost always impressed her with its ma.s.sive granite stones and nineteenth-century gothic architecture, looking like a medieval palace. On any ordinary day she would have paused to appreciate the many cars and tour buses that signaled good attendance at the museum. But not today.

On her way back from the prison Diane had stopped at a convenience store to get a cold drink when she saw the headlines on the Rosewood newspaper.

MAJOR SCANDAL AT RIVERTRAIL MUSEUM.

Prominent Board Member Says a.s.sistant Director to be Fired.