Kay Scarpet - The Last Precinct Part 35

"Well, I'll be d.a.m.ned, there's even a photo of you and Bray out in the parking lot at Luong's scene, at the convenience store. Both of you look like you hate each other's guts....

"Marino!" I raise my voice. It is all I can do to concentrate on my driving. "Okay, enough!"

A pause, then, "I'm sorry, Doc. Jesus, I know it's awful, but I didn't get a chance to look at much beyond the front page before I got hold of you. I had no idea. I'm sorry. I just never seen nothing like this unless somebody really famous suddenly dies."

Tears smart. I don't point out the irony of what he just said. I feel as if I have died.

"Let me look at this Lucy stuff," Marino is saying. "Pretty much what you'd expect. She's your niece but you've always been more like her mother, uh, graduated all-that-laude-s.h.i.t from UVA, her DUI car wreck, fact she's gay, flies a helicopter, FBI, ATF, yeah, yeah, yeah. And that she almost shot Chandonne in your front yard. I guess that's the f.u.c.king point." Marino returns to his irritated self. As much as he picks on Lucy, he doesn't like it one bit if anybody else does. "Don't say she's on admin leave or that you're hiding out at Anna's house. Least there's something those a.s.sholes haven't dug up."

I inch closer to West Gary Street. "Where are you?" I ask him.

"HQ. About to head your way," he replies. "Because you're gonna have quite a welcome party." He means the press. "Thought you might like a little company. Plus, I got some stuff to go over with you. Also thought we might try a little trick, Doc. I'll get to your office first and ditch my car. You pull in front on Jackson Street instead of going around to the back lot off Fourth, hop out and go in and I'll park your car. Word from the troopsthere's about thirty reporters, photographers, TV guys camping out at your parking place, waiting for you to show up."

I start to agree with him and then have second thoughts. No, I say. I am not about to start the charade of hiding, ducking and holding up files or my coat to hide my face from cameras as if I am a crime boss. Absolutely not. I tell Marino I will see him at my office, but I will park as usual and deal with the media. For one thing, my stubbornness has kicked in. For another, I don't see what I have to lose by going about my business as usual and simply telling the truth, and the d.a.m.n truth is I didn't kill Diane Bray. I never even thought about it, although I certainly disliked her more than anyone else I have ever met in my life.

On 9th Street I stop at a red light and put on my suit jacket. I check myself in the rearview mirror to make sure I look reasonably glued together. I put on a dab of lipstick and comb my fingers through my hair. I turn on the radio, bracing myself for the first news spot. I antic.i.p.ate that local stations will interrupt their programs frequently to remind everybody that I am the first scandal of the new millennium.

"... So, I gotta say this, Jim. I mean, talk about someone who could get away with the perfect murder. ..."

"No kidding. You know, I interviewed her once...."

I switch to a different station and then another one as I am mocked and degraded or simply reported on because someone has leaked to the media what is supposed to be the most secret and sacred of all legal proceedings. I wonder who violated his code of silence, and what is even sadder, several names come to mind. I don't trust Righter. I don't trust anyone he has contacted for telephone or bank records. But I have another suspect in mindJay Talleyand I am betting that he has been subpoenaed, too. I compose myself as I pull into my parking lot and see the television and radio vans lining 4th Street and the dozens of people waiting for me with cameras, microphones and notepads.

NOT ONE OF THE REPORTERS NOTICES MY DARK BLUE.

Explorer because they aren't expecting it, and this is when I realize I have made a serious tactical error. I have been driving a rental car for days and it didn't occur to me until this moment that I might be asked why. I turn into my reserved s.p.a.ce by the front door and am sighted. The pack moves toward me like hunters after big game, and I will myself to go into my role. I am the chief. I am reserved, poised and unafraid. I have done nothing wrong. I climb out and take my time gathering my briefcase and a stack of folders out of the backseat. My elbow aches beneath layers of elasticized wrappings, and cameras click and microphones point at me like guns c.o.c.king and finding their mark.

"Dr. Scarpetta? Can you comment about... ?"

"Dr. Scarpetta ... ?"

"When did you find out a special grand jury is investigating you?"

"Isn't it true you and Diane Bray were at odds ... ?"

"Where's your car?"

"Can you confirm that you've basically been run out of your home and don't even have your own car right now?"

"Will you resign?"

I face them on the sidewalk. I am silent but steady as I wait for them to get quiet. When they realize I intend to address their questions I catch surprised looks and their aggression quickly settles down. I recognize many faces but can't remember names. I am not sure I have ever known the names of the media's real troops who gather the news behind the scenes. I remind myself they are simply doing their jobs and there is no reason for me to take any of this personally. That's right, nothing personal. Rude, inhumane, inappropriate, insensitive and largely inaccurate, but not personal. "I've no prepared statement," I start to say.

"Where were you the night Diane Bray was murdered ... ?"

"Please," I interrupt them. "Like you, I've recently learned there is a special grand jury investigation into her murder, and I ask you to honor the very necessary confidentiality of such a proceeding. Please understand why I'm not at liberty to discuss it with you."

"But did you ... ?"

"Isn't it true you aren't driving your own car because the police have it?"

Questions and accusations rip the morning air like shrapnel as I walk toward my building. 1 have nothing more to say. I am the chief. I am poised and calm and unafraid. I did nothing wrong. There is one reporter whom I do remember, because how could I forget a tall, white-haired, chisel-featured African American whose name is Washington George? He wears a long leather trench coat and presses behind me as I struggle to open the gla.s.s door leading inside the building.

"Can I just ask you one thing?" he says. "You remember me? That's not my question." A smile. "I'm Washington George. I work for the AP."

"I remember you."

"Here, let me help you with that." He holds the door and we go inside the lobby, where the security guard looks at me, and I know that look now. My notoriety is reflected in people's eyes. My heart sinks. "Good morning, Jeff," I say as I walk past the console.

A nod.

I pa.s.s my plastic ID over the electronic eye and the door leading into my side of the building unlocks. Washington George is still with me, and he is saying something about information he has that he thinks I need to know, but I am not listening. A woman sits in my reception area. She huddles in a chair and seems sad and small amid polished granite and gla.s.s blocks. This is not a good place to be. I always ache for anyone who finds himself in my reception area. "Is someone helping you?" I ask her.

She is dressed in a black skirt and nurses' shoes, a dark raincoat pulled tightly around her. She hugs her pocketbook as if someone might steal it. "I'm just waiting," she says in a hushed voice.

"Who are you here to see?"

"Well, I don't rightly know," she stammers, her eyes swimming in tears. Sobs well up inside her and her nose begins to run. "It's about my boy. Do you think I might see him? I don't understand what y'all are doing to him in there." Her chin trembles and she wipes her nose on the back of her hand. "I just need to see him."

Fielding left me a message about today's cases, and I know that one of them is a teenage boy who supposedly hanged himself. What was the name? White? I ask her and she nods. Benny, she gives me his first name. I presume she is Mrs. White and she nods again and explains that she and her son changed their last name to White after she got remarried a few years back. I tell her to come on with meand now she is crying hardand we will find out what is going on with Benny. Whatever Washington George has to tell me will have to wait.

"I don't think you're going to want it to wait," he replies.

"All right, all right. Come on in with me and I'll get to you as soon as I can." I am saying this as I let us into my office with another pa.s.s of my ID key. Cleta is entering cases into our computer, and she instantly blushes when she sees me.

"Good morning," she tries to be her usual cheerful self. But she has that look in her eye, the look I've grown to hate and fear. I can only imagine what my staff has been saying among themselves this morning, and it doesn't escape my attention that the newspaper is folded on top of Cleta's desk and she has tried to cover it with her sweater. Cleta has put on weight over the holidays and has dark circles under her eyes. I am making everybody miserable.

"Who's taking care of Benny White?" I ask her.

"I think Dr. Fielding is." She looks at Mrs. White and gets up from her workstation. "Can I take your coat? What about some coffee?"

I tell Cleta to take Mrs. White to my conference room and Washington George can wait in the medical library. I find my secretary, Rose. I am so relieved to see her that I forget about my troubles, nor does she reflect them to me by giving me a lookthat secretive, curious, embarra.s.sed look. Rose is just Rose. If anything, disaster irons more starch in her than usual. She meets my eyes and shakes her head. "I'm so disgusted I could spit nails," she says when I show up in her doorway. "The most ridiculous hogwash I've ever heard of my entire life." She picks up her copy of the paper and shakes it at me as if I am a bad dog. "Don't you let this bother you, Dr. Scarpetta." As if it is that simple. "More chicken c.r.a.p than Kentucky Fried, that d.a.m.n Buford Righter. He can't come out and just tell you to your face, can he? So you have to find out this way?" Shaking the paper again.

"Rose, is Jack in the morgue?" I ask.

"Oh G.o.d, working on that poor kid." Rose gets off the subject of me, and her indignation turns to pity. "Lord, Lord. Have you seen him?"

"I just got here ..."

"Looks like a little choir boy. Just the most beautiful blue-eyed blond. Lord, Lord. If that was my child ..."

I interrupt Rose by putting a finger to my lips as I hear Cleta coming up the hallway with the boy's poor mother. I mouth his mother to Rose and she gets quiet. Her eyes linger on mine. She is fidgety and high-strung this morning, and dressed severely in black, her hair pulled back and pinned up, reminding me of Grant Wood's American Gothic. "I'm okay," I tell her quietly.

"Well, I don't believe that." Her eyes get dewy and she nervously busies herself with paperwork.

Jean-Baptiste Chandonne has decimated my entire staff. Everyone who knows and depends on me is dismayed, bewildered. They don't completely trust me anymore and secretly anguish over what will happen to their lives and jobs. I am reminded of my worst moment in school when I was twelve like Lucy, precocious, the youngest in my cla.s.s. My father died that school year on December 23, and the only thing good I can find in his waiting until two days before Christmas is at least the neighbors were winding down from work, most of them home and cooking and baking. In the good Italian-Catholic tradition, my father's life was celebrated with abundance. For several days, our house was filled with laughter, tears, food, drink and song.

When I returned to school after the New Year, I became even more relentless in my cerebral conquests and explorations. Making perfect scores on tests was no longer enough. I was desperate for attention, desperate to please, and begged the nuns for special projects, any project, I didn't care what. Eventually, I was hanging around the parochial school all afternoon, beating chalkboard erasers on the school steps, helping the teachers grade tests, putting together bulletin boards. I got very good with scissors and staplers. When there was a need to cut out letters of the alphabet or numbers and exactly a.s.semble them into words, sentences, calendars, the nuns came looking for me.

Martha was a girl in my math cla.s.s who sat in front of me and never spoke. She glanced back at me a lot, cold but curious, always trying to catch a peek at the grades circled in red on top of my folded homework and tests, hopeful she had scored better than I had. One day, after an especially difficult algebra test, I noticed that Sister Teresa's demeanor toward me decidedly chilled. She waited until I was cleaning erasers again, squatting outside on stucco steps, pounding, creating clouds of chalk dust in the winter tropical sun, and I looked up. There she was in her habit, towering over me like a giant, frowning Antarctic bird wearing a crucifix. Someone had accused me of cheating on my algebra test, and although Sister Teresa did not identify the source of this lie, I had no doubt of the culprit: Martha. The only way I could prove my innocence was to take the test again and make another perfect score.

Sister Teresa watched me closely after that. I dared never let my eyes stray from what I was doing at my desk. Several days pa.s.sed. I was emptying the trash baskets, just the two of us alone in the cla.s.sroom, and she told me I must pray constantly that G.o.d would keep me free of sin. I must thank our Heavenly Father for the great gifts I have and look to Him to keep me honest, because I was so smart I could get away with a lot of things. G.o.d knows everything, Sister Teresa said. I can't fool G.o.d. I protested that I was honest and not trying to fool G.o.d and she could ask G.o.d herself. I began to cry. "I am not a cheater," I sobbed. "I want my daddy."

When I was at Johns Hopkins in my first year of medical school, I wrote Sister Teresa a letter and recounted that wrenching, unfair incident. I reiterated my innocence, still bothered, still furious that I had been falsely accused and the nuns didn't defend me and never seemed quite as sure of me afterward.

As I stand in Rose's office now, more than twenty years later, I think about what Jaime Berger said the first time we met. She promised that the hurt had only begun. Of course, she was right. "Before everybody leaves today," I say to my secretary, "I'd like to talk to them. If you'd pa.s.s that along, Rose. We'll see how the day goes and find a time. I'm going to check on Benny White. Please make sure his mother is all right, and I'll be in shortly to talk to her."

I head down the hallway past the break room and find Washington George in the medical library. "I just have a minute," I tell him in a distracted way.

He is scanning books on a shelf, notepad down by his side like a gun he might use. "I heard a rumor," he says. "If you know it's true, maybe you can verify it. If you don't know, well, maybe you should. Buford Righter's not going to be the prosecutor in your special grand jury hearing."

"I know nothing about it," I reply, masking the indignation I always feel when the press knows details before I do. "But we've worked a lot of cases together," I add. "I wouldn't expect him to want to deal with this himself."

"I guess so, and what I understand is a special prosecutor has been appointed. That's the part I'm getting to. You aware of this?" He tries to read my face.

"No." I am trying to read his face, too, hoping to catch a foreshadowing that might prevent me from being broadsided.

"No one's indicated to you that Jaime Berger's been appointed to get you indicted, Dr. Scarpetta?" He stares me in the eye. "From what I understand, that's one of the reasons she came to town. You've been going through the Luong and Bray cases with her and all that, but I have it from a very good source it's a setup. She's been undercover, I guess you would say. Righter set it up before Chandonne allegedly showed up at your house. I understand Berger's been in the picture for weeks."

All I can think to say is, "Allegedly?" I am shocked, "Well," Washington George says, "I a.s.sume by your reaction that you haven't heard any of this."

"I don't guess you can tell me who your reliable source is," I respond.

"Naw." He smiles a little, somewhat sheepishly. "So you can't confirm?

"Of course I can't," I say as I gather my wits about me.

"Look, I'm going to keep digging, but I want you to know I like you and you've always been nice enough to me." He goes on. I am barely hearing a word of it. All I can think of is Berger spending hours with me in the dark, in her car, in my house, in Bray's house, and all along she was making mental notes to use against me in the special grand jury hearing. G.o.d, no wonder she seems to know so much about my life. She has probably been through my phone records, bank statements, credit reports and interviewed everyone who knows me. "Washington," I say, "I've got the mother of some poor person who just died, and I can't stand here and talk to you any longer." I walk off. I don't care if he thinks I am rude.

I cut through the ladies' room and in the changing area I put on a lab coat and slip paper covers over my shoes. The autopsy suite is full of sounds, every table occupied with the unfortunate. Jack Fielding is splashed with blood. He has already opened up Mrs. White's son and is inserting a syringe with a fourteen-gauge needle into the aorta to draw blood. Jack gives me a rather frantic, wild-eyed look when I walk over to his table. The morning news is all over his face.

"Later." I raise my hand before he can ask a question. "His mother's in my office." I indicate the body.

"s.h.i.t," Fielding says. "s.h.i.t is all I gotta say about this entire f.u.c.king world."

"She wants to see him." I take a rag from a bag on a gurney and wipe the boy's delicately pretty face. His hair is the color of hay and, except for his suffused face, his skin is like rose milk. He has fuzz on his upper lip and the first hint of pubic hair, his hormones just beginning to stir, preparing for an adult life he was not destined to have. A narrow, dark furrow around the neck angles up to the right ear where the rope was knotted. Otherwise, his strong, young body bears no evidence of violence, no hint that he should have had any reason in the world not to live. Suicides can be very challenging. Contrary to popular belief, people rarely leave notes. People don't al-ways talk about their feelings in life and sometimes their dead bodies don't have much to say, either.

"G.o.dd.a.m.n," Jack mutters.

"What do we know about this?" I ask him.

"Just that he started acting weird at school right about Christmas." Jack picks up the hose and rinses out the chest cavity until it gleams like the inside of a tulip. "Dad died of lung cancer a few years ago." Water slaps. "That d.a.m.n Stanfield, Jesus Christ. What we got out there? Some kind of special? Three f.u.c.king cases from him in four f.u.c.king weeks." Jack rinses off the bloc of organs. They shimmer in deep hues on the cutting board, waiting for their ultimate violation. "He keeps turning up like a f.u.c.king bad penny." Jack grabs a large surgical knife from the cart. "So this kid goes to church yesterday, comes home and hangs himself in the woods."

The more times Jack Fielding uses the word "f.u.c.k," the more upset he is. He is extremely upset. "What about Stanfield?" I ask darkly. "I thought he was quitting."

"I wish he would. The guy's an idiot. He calls about this case and guess what else? Apparently, he goes to the scene. The kid's hanging from a tree and Stanfield cuts him down."

I have a feeling I know what's coming.

"He cuts through the knot"

I was right. "He took photographs first, let's hope."

"Over there." He nods at the counter on the other side of the room.

I go to look at the photographs. They are painful. It appears Benny didn't even stop to change clothes when he came home from church, but went straight into the woods, threw a nylon rope over a tree branch, looped one end and threaded the other end through it. Then he made another loop with a simple slip knot and put it over his head. In the photographs, he is dressed in a navy blue suit and a white shirt. A red-and-blue-striped clip-on tie is on the ground, either dislodged by the rope or maybe he took it off first. He is kneeling, arms dangling by his sides, his head bent, a typical position for suicidal hangings. I don't have many cases where people are fully suspended, their feet off the ground. The point is to put enough compression on the blood vessels of the neck so that insufficient oxygenated blood reaches the brain. It takes only 4.4 pounds of pressure to compress the jugular veins, and a little more than twice that to occlude the carotids. The weight of the head against the noose is enough. Unconsciousness is quick. Death takes minutes.

"Let's do this." I get back to Jack. "Cover him up. We'll put some plasticized sheets over him so blood won't soak through. And let's give his mother a viewing before you do anything else to him."

He takes a deep breath and tosses his scalpel back on the cart.

"I'll go talk to her and see what else we can find out." I walk off. "Buzz Rose when you're ready. Thanks, Jack." I pause to meet his eyes. "We'll talk later? We've never had that cup of coffee. We never even wished each other Merry Christmas."

I find Mrs. White in my conference room. She has stopped crying and is in a deep, depressed s.p.a.ce, staring without blinking, lifeless. She barely focuses on me when I walk in and shut the door. I tell her I just looked at Benny and am going to give her a chance to see him in a few minutes. Her eyes fill with tears again and she wants to know if he suffered. I tell her he would have slipped into unconsciousness rapidly. She wants to know if he died because he couldn't breathe. I reply that we don't know all the answers right now, but it is unlikely that his airway was obstructed.

Benny may have died from hypoxic brain damage, but I am more inclined to suspect that the compression of blood vessels caused a vasovagal response. In other words, his heart slowed down and he died. When I mention he was kneeling, she suggests that maybe he was praying for the Lord to take him home. Maybe, I reply. He very well could have been praying. I comfort Mrs. White as best I can. She informs me that a hunter was looking for a deer he shot earlier and found her son's body, and Benny couldn't have been dead very long because he disappeared right after church, about twelve-thirty, and the police came by her house around five. They told her the hunter found Benny at around two. So at least he wasn't out there all by himself for very long, she keeps saying. And it was a good thing he had his New Testament in his suit pocket because it had his name and address in it. That was how the police figured out who he was and located his family.

"Mrs. White," I say, "was something going on with Benny of late? What about at church yesterday morning? Anything happen that you know about?"

"Well, he's been moody." She is steadier now. She is talking about Benny as if he is sitting out in the reception area waiting for her. "He'll be twelve next month, and you know how that goes."

"What do you mean by 'moody'?"

"He would go in his room a lot and shut the door. Stay in there listening to music with the headphones on. He gets a smart mouth now and again, and he didn't used to be that way. I've been concerned." Her voice catches. She blinks, suddenly remembering where she is and why. "I just don't know why he had to do something like that!" Tears seem to spurt out of her eyes. "I know there're some boys at church he's been having a hard time with. They tease him a lot, calling him pretty boy"

"Did anyone tease him yesterday?" I ask.

"That very well could be. They're all in Sunday School together. And there's been a lot of talk, you know, about those killings in the area." She pauses again. She doesn't want to continue down a path that leads to a subject both foreign and aberrant to her.

"The two men killed right before Christmas?"

"Uh huh. The ones they say were cursed, because that's not how America started, you know. With people doing things like that."

"Cursed? Who says they were cursed?"

"It's the talk. A lot of talk," she goes on, taking a deep breath. "With Jamestown being just down the road. There's always been stories about people seeing ghosts of John Smith and Pocahontas and all the rest of it. Then these men are murdered right near there, near Jamestown Island, and all this talk about them being, well, you know. Being unnatural, which is why someone killed them, I guess. Or at least that's what I hear."

"Did you and Benny talk about all this?" My heart is getting heavier by the moment.

"Some. I mean, everybody's been talking about those men killed and burned and tortured. People've been locking their doors more than usual. It's been spooky, I must admit. So Benny and I've discussed it, yes we have. To tell you the truth, he's been a lot moodier since all that happened. So maybe that's what had him upset." Silence. She stares at the tabletop. She can't decide which tense to use when she talks about her dead son. "That and the other boys calling him pretty. Benny hated that, and I don't blame him. I'm always telling him, Just wait until you grow up and are handsomer than all the rest. And the girls are just lining up. That'll teach 'em." She smiles a little and starts crying again. "He's real touchy about it. And you know how children can tease."

"Possibly he got teased a lot yesterday at church?" I guide her along. "Do you think maybe the boys made comments about so-called hate crimes, about gays and maybe implied ... ?"

"Well," she blurts out. "Well, yes. About curses against people who are unnatural and wicked. The Bible makes itself very clear. 'G.o.d gave them up to their own l.u.s.t,' " she quotes.

"Any possibility Benny's been worried about his s.e.xuality, Mrs. White?" I am very gentle but firm. "That's pretty normal for kids entering adolescence. A lot of s.e.xual ident.i.ty confusion, that sort of thing. Especially these days. The world's a complicated place, much more complicated than it used to be." The phone rings. "Excuse me a minute."

Jack is on the line. Benny is ready to be viewed. "And Marino's in here looking for you. Says he's got important information."