Body of Evidence (29 page)

"If the letters were from Beryl Madison, why would Miss Harper burn them?"

"I don't know," I replied, and I knew Ethridge was thinking about his nemesis Sparacino again.

Sparacino had moved quickly. I had seen the lawsuit, all thirty-three pages of it. Sparacino was suing me, the police, the governor. The last time I had checked in with Rose, she had informed me that People magazine had called, and one of its photographers was out front taking pictures of my building the other day after being refused entrance beyond the lobby. I was becoming notorious. I was also becoming expert at refusing comment and making myself scarce.

"You think we're dealing with a psycho, don't you?" Ethridge asked me point-blank.

Orange acrylic fiber connected with hijackers or not, that was what I thought, and I told him so.

He looked down at his half-eaten food and when he lifted his eyes I was undone by what I saw in them. Sadness, disappointment. A terrible reluctance.

"Kay," he began, "there's no easy way to say this to you."

I reached for a biscuit.

"You need to know. No matter what is really going on or why, no matter your beliefs and private opinions, you need to hear this."

I decided I would rather smoke than eat, and got out my cigarettes.

"I have a contact. Suffice it to say he is privy to Justice Department activities--"

"This is about Sparacino," I interrupted.

"It's about Mark James," he said.

I couldn't have been more unnerved had the attorney general just sworn at me.

I asked, "What about Mark?"

"I'm wondering if I should ask you that, Kay."

"What do you mean, exactly?"

"The two of you were seen together in New York several weeks ago. At Gallagher's."

An awkward pause as he coughed and added inanely, "I haven't been there in years."

I stared at the smoke drifting up from my cigarette.

"As I remember it, the steaks are pretty good...."

"Stop it, Tom," I said quietly.

"A lot of good-hearted Irishmen in that place who don't hold back on the booze or the banter--"

"Stop it, goddamn it," I said a little too loudly.

Senator Partin stared straight at our table, his eyes mildly curious as they briefly alighted on Ethridge, then me. Our waiter was suddenly pouring more coffee and inquiring if we needed anything. I was uncomfortably warm.

"Don't bullshit me, Tom," I said. "Who saw me?"

He waved it off. "What matters is how you know him."

"I've known him for a very long time."

"That's not an answer."

"Since law school."

"You were close?"

"Yes."

"Lovers?"

"Jesus, Tom."

"I'm sorry, Kay. It's important."

Dabbing his lips with his napkin, he reached for his coffee, his eyes drifting around the dining room. Ethridge was very ill at ease. "Let's just say that the two of you were together most of the night in New York. At the Omni."

My cheeks were burning.

"I don't give a damn about your personal life, Kay. I doubt anybody else does, either. Except in this one instance. You see, I'm very sorry."

He cleared his throat, finally giving me his eyes again. "Dammit. Mark's pal, Sparacino, is being investigated by the Justice Department--"

"His pal?"

"It's very serious, Kay," Ethridge went on. "I don't know what Mark James was like when you knew him in law school, but I do know what's become of him since. I know his record. After you were spotted with him, I did some investigating. He got in serious trouble in Tallahassee seven years ago. Racketeering. Fraud. Crimes for which he was convicted and for which he actually spent time in prison. It was after all this that he ended up with Sparacino, who is suspected of being tied in with organized crime."

I felt as if a vise were rapidly squeezing the blood from my heart, and I must have become pale because Ethridge quickly handed me my glass of water and waited patiently until I composed myself. But when I met his eyes again, he picked up where he had interrupted his damaging testimony.

"Mark has never worked for Orndorff & Berger, Kay. The firm has never even heard of him. Which doesn't surprise me. Mark James couldn't possibly practice law. He was disbarred. It appears he is simply Sparacino's personal aide."

"Does Sparacino work for Orndorff & Berger?" I managed to ask.

"He's their entertainment lawyer. That much is true," he answered.

I said nothing, tears fighting to break out.

"Stay away from him, Kay," Ethridge said, his voice a rough caress in its attempt to be tender. "For God's sake, break it off. Whatever you've got going with him, break it off."

"I don't have anything going with him," I said shakily.

"When's the last time you had contact with him?"

"Several weeks ago. He called. We talked no more than thirty seconds."

He nodded as if he had expected as much. "The paranoid life. One of the poisonous fruits of criminal activity.

I doubt Mark James is given to long telephone conversations, and I doubt he'll approach you at all unless there is something he wants. Tell me how it is you were with him in New York."

"He wanted to see me. He wanted to warn me about Sparacino." I added lamely, "Or this is what he said."

"And did he warn you about him?"

"Yes."

"What did he say?"

"The very sorts of things you've already mentioned about Sparacino."

"Why did Mark tell you this?"

"He said he wanted to protect me."

"Do you believe that?"

*

"I don't know what the hell I believe," I said.

"Are you in love with this man?"

I stared mutely at the attorney general, my eyes turning to stone.

He said very quietly, "I need to know how vulnerable you are. Please don't think I'm enjoying this, Kay."

"Please don't think I'm enjoying this either, Torn," I said, an edge to my voice.

Ethridge removed his napkin from his lap and folded it neatly, deliberately, before tucking it under the rim of his plate.

"I have reason to fear," he said, so softly I had to lean forward to hear him, "that Mark fames could do you terrible damage, Kay. There is reason to suspect he's behind the break-in at your office--"

"What reason?"

I cut him off, my voice rising. "What are you talking about? What proof--" The words caught in my throat, as Senator Partin and his young companion were suddenly at our table. I hadn't noticed them get up and head toward us. I could tell by the look on their faces they realized they had intruded upon a tense conversation.

"John, good to see you."

Ethridge was pushing back his chair. "You know the chief medical examiner, Kay Scarpetta, don't you?"

"Of course, of course. Yes, how are you, Dr. Scarpetta?"

The senator was shaking my hand, smiling, his eyes distant. "And this is my son, Scott."

I noticed that Scott had not inherited his father's rugged, rather coarse features or short, stocky build. The young man was incredibly handsome, tall, fit, his fine face framed by a crown of magnificent black hair. He was in his twenties, with a quiet burning insolence in his eyes that bothered me. The cordial conversation did not ease my disconcertedness, nor did I feel any better when father and son finally left us alone again.

"I've seen him somewhere before," I said to Ethridge after the waiter refilled our coffees. "Who? John?"

"No, no--of course I've seen the senator before. I'm talking about his son. Scott. He looks very familiar."

"You've probably seen him on TV," he replied, stealing a distracted glance at his watch. "He's an actor, or trying to be one, at any rate. I think he's had a few minor roles in a couple of the soaps."

"Oh, my God," I muttered.

"Maybe a couple of bit parts in movies, too. He was out in California, now lives in New York."

"No," I said, stunned.

Ethridge put down his coffee cup and fixed calm eyes on me. "How did he know we were having breakfast here this morning, Tom?"

I asked, working hard to keep my voice steady as the images came back to me. Gallagher's. The lone young man drinking beer several tables away from where Mark and I had been sitting.

"I don't know how he knew," Ethridge replied, his eyes glinting with a secret satisfaction. "Suffice it to say that I'm not surprised, Kay. Young Partin's been shadowing me for days."

"He's not your Justice Department contact..."

"Good God, no," Ethridge said flatly.

"Sparacino?"

"I would think so. That would make the most sense, wouldn't it, Kay?"

"Why?"

He began studying the check, then said, 'To make sure he knows what's going on. To spy. To intimidate."

He glanced up at me. "Take your choice."

Scott Partin had struck me as one of these self-contained young men often a study in sullen splendor. I remembered he had been reading the New York Times and gloomily drinking a beer. I had been vaguely aware of him only because extremely beautiful people, like gorgeous arrangements of flowers, are difficult not to notice.

I felt a compulsion to tell Marino all about it as we rode the elevator down to the first floor of my building later that morning.

"I'm certain," I repeated. "He was sitting two tables over from us at Gallagher's."

"And he wasn't with nobody?"

"Correct. He was reading, drinking a beer. I don't think he was eating, but I really don't remember," I replied as we cut through a large storage room smelling of cardboard and dust.

My mind and heart were racing, trying to outrun yet another one of Mark's lies. Mark had said that Sparacino didn't know I was coming to New York, that it was coincidence when Sparacino appeared at the steak house. That couldn't be true. Young Partin had been sent to spy on me that night, and that could have happened only if Sparacino knew I was there with Mark.

"Well, there's another way to look at it," Marino said as we walked through the dusty bowels of my building. "Let's say one of the ways he stays alive in the Big Apple is he does some part-time snitching for Sparacino, okay? Could be Partin was sent to tail Mark, not you. Remember, Sparacino recommended the steak house to Mark-- or at least this is what Mark told you. So Sparacino had reason to know Mark was going to eat there that night. Sparacino tells Partin to be there, check out what Mark's up to. Partin does, is sitting alone drinking a brew when the two of you walk in. Maybe at some point he slips out to call Sparacino, give him the scoop. Bingo! Next thing you know, Sparacino's walking in."

I wanted to believe it.

"Just a theory," Marino added.

I knew I could not believe it. The truth, I harshly reminded myself, was that Mark had betrayed me, that he was the criminal Ethridge had described.

"You got to consider all the possibilities," Marino concluded.

"Of course," I muttered.

Down another narrow corridor, we stopped before a heavy metal door. Finding the right key, I let us inside the range where the firearms examiners conducted test fires on virtually every weapon known to man. It was a drab, lead-contaminated cinderblock room, one entire wall covered by a pegboard and lined with scores of handguns and machine pistols confiscated by the courts and eventually released to the lab. Propped up in racks were shotguns and rifles. The far wall was heavy steel reinforced in the center and pitted by thousands of rounds fired over the years. Marino headed for a corner where nude manikin torsos, hips, heads, and legs were commingled in a heap ghoulishly reminiscent of an Auschwitz common grave.

"You prefer light meat, don't you?" he asked, selecting a pale flesh-colored male chest.

I ignored him as I opened my carrying case and got out the stainless-steel Ruger. Plastic clacked as he rummaged, finally selecting a Caucasian head with brown-painted hair and eyes. This went on top of the chest, both of which Marino set on top of a cardboard box against the steel wall some thirty paces away.

"You get one clip to make him history," Marino said.

Loading wadcutters into my revolver, I glanced up as Marino withdrew a 9-millimeter pistol out of the back of his trousers. Cocking back the slide, he pulled out the clip, then snapped it back in place.

"Merry Christmas," he said, offering it to me, safety on, butt first.

"No, thank you," I said as politely as possible.

"Five pops with your piece and you're out of business."

"If I miss."

"Shit, Doc. Everybody misses a few. Problem is, with your Ruger there, a few's all you got."

"I'd rather have a few well-placed shots with mine. All that thing does is spray lead."

"It's a hell of a lot more firepower," he said.

"I know. About a hundred foot-pounds more at fifty feet than I've got with mine if I'm using Silvertips Plus ammo."