Four Scarpetta Novels (129 page)

A
FRAGILE WEDGEWOOD TEACUP
lightly clinks against a saucer.

Mrs. Guidon and Scarpetta sit at a kitchen table made of a centuries-old butcher block that Scarpetta finds repulsive. She can't help but imagine how many chickens and other animals were slaughtered and chopped up on the worn, sloping wood with its hack marks, cracks and discoloration. It is an unpleasant by-product of her profession that she knows too much, and it is almost impossible to kill bacteria on porous materials such as wood.

“How many times must I demand to know why I'm here and how you managed to get me here?” Scarpetta's eyes are intense.

“I find it charming that Albert seems to have decided you are his friend,” Mrs. Guidon remarks. “I try very hard to encourage him. He wants nothing to do with school sports or any other activities that might expose him to children his own age. He thinks he belongs right here at this table”—she taps the butcher block with her small, milky white knuckles—“talking to you and me as if he is our peer.”

After years of dealing with people who refuse to answer questions or can't or are in denial, Scarpetta is skilled at catching truths as they
subtly show themselves. “Why doesn't he associate with children his own age?” she inquires.

“Who knows? It is a mystery. He has always been odd, really, preferring to stay home and do homework, entertaining himself with those peculiar games children play these days. Cards with those awful creatures on them. Cards and computers, cards and more cards.” Her gestures are dramatic, her French accent heavy, her English stilted and faltering. “He has been more this way as he gets older. Isolated and playing the card games. Often, he is home, stays in his room with the door shut and will not come out.” Suddenly, she softens and seems caring.

Every detail Scarpetta observes is conflicting and disturbing, the kitchen an argument of anachronisms that seem a metaphor for this house and the people who live in it. Behind her is a cavernous fireplace, with formidable hand-forged andirons capable of bearing a load of wood large enough to heat up a room three times this size. A door leads outside, and next to it is a complicated alarm system keypad and an Aiphone with a video screen for the cameras that no doubt guard every entrance. Another keypad, this one much larger, indicates the old mansion is a smart house with multiple modems that allow the occupants to remotely control heating, cooling, lights, entertainment centers and gas fireplaces, and even turn appliances off and on. Yet the appliances and thermostats Scarpetta has seen so far have not been upgraded for what she estimates is at least thirty years.

A knife holder on the granite countertop is empty, and there are no knives in the porcelain sink, not a knife anywhere in sight. Yet hanging over the fireplace is a rack of nineteenth-century swords, and on the heavy chestnut mantel is a revolver with rubber grips, most likely a .38, in a black leather holster.

Mrs. Guidon follows Scarpetta's eyes, and for an instant, her face registers anger. She has made an oversight, a telling mistake. Leaving the revolver in plain view was not intentional. “I'm sure it hasn't escaped your notice that Mr. Dard is very security-conscious.” She sighs, shrugging, as
if taking her guest into her confidence and hinting that Mr. Dard is ridiculously cautious and paranoid. “Baton Rouge is high-crime. I'm sure you know that. Living in a house like this and having wealth causes concerns, although I'm not the type to be looking over my shoulder all the time.”

Scarpetta hides how much she dislikes Mrs. Guidon and is infuriated about what Albert's life must be like. She wonders how far she can go to pry loose the secrets that haunt this very old estate.

“Albert seems very unhappy and misses his dog,” she says. “Perhaps you should get him another one. Especially if he's lonely and has no friends.”

“With him, I believe it is genetics. His mother—my sister—wasn't well.” Mrs. Guidon pauses, then adds, “Of course, you know that.”

“Why don't you tell me what I'm supposed to know. You seem to know so much about me.”

“Now, you are perceptive,” Mrs. Guidon replies with a touch of condescension. “But not as cautious as I would have guessed. Albert called me on your cell phone, remember? That was careless for someone of your reputation.”

“What do you know of my reputation?”

“Caller ID came back to your name, and I am aware you haven't suddenly arrived in Baton Rouge for a little vacation. Charlotte's case is complicated. No one seems to have any idea what happened to her or why she went to a horrible motel frequented by truck drivers and the dregs of society. So Dr. Lanier has solicited your assistance, no? But I, at least, am relieved and grateful, and let's just say it was planned that you would sit next to Albert and drive him home, and here you are.” She lifts her teacup. “All things happen for a reason, as you must know.”

“How could you possibly have orchestrated all this?” Scarpetta pushes her, warns her, making it clear that she has had enough. “I don't suppose U.S. Attorney Weldon Winn is involved with your scheming, since he just happened to sit next to me, too.”

“There is much you don't know. Mr. Winn is a close family friend.”

“What family? Albert's father didn't show up at the airport. Albert doesn't seem to even know where he is. What did any of you suppose would happen to a young boy traveling alone?”

“He wasn't alone. He was with you. And now you are here. I wanted to meet you. Perfect.”

“Family friend?”
Scarpetta repeats. “Then why did Albert not know Weldon Winn, if he is such a good family friend?”

“Albert has never met him.”

“That makes no sense.”

“That's not for you to say.”

“I'll say whatever I want, since you seemed to have assigned Albert to me and were certain he would be safe with me—a perfect stranger—and that I would bring him home. How could you be sure I would take it upon myself to look after him or that I'm trustworthy?” Scarpetta pushes back her chair and gets up, and it scrapes loudly against heart-of-pine flooring. “He lost his mother, who the hell knows about the father, and he's lost his dog, and next he's abandoned and frightened. In my business, this is called child neglect, child abuse.” Her anger flashes.

“I am Charlotte's sister.” Mrs. Guidon gets up, too.

“All you've done is manipulate me. Or try to. I'm leaving now.”

“Please let me show you around first,” Mrs. Guidon says. “Particularly

le cave.”

“How could you possibly have a wine cellar in an area where the water table is so high that plantation houses have to be built on pillars?” Scarpetta asks.

“So you are not always observant. This house is on an elevation, built in 1793. The original owner found the perfect location for what he had in mind. He was a Frenchman, a wine connoisseur who often traveled back to France. Slaves constructed a wine cellar, like the ones he knew in France, and I doubt there is another one like it in this country.” She walks to the door leading outside and opens it. “You simply must see it. Baton Rouge's best-kept secret.”

Scarpetta stands where she is. “No.”

Mrs. Guidon lowers her voice and is almost gentle when she explains, “You are wrong about Albert. I was circling the airport. I saw the two of you on the sidewalk. Had you left him, I would have picked him up, but based on what I know about you, you would not leave him. You are too caring, too decent. And you are wary about the evils in this world.” She states this not with feeling but as fact.

“How could you have been circling the airport? I called you at home . . .”

“Programmed to roll over to my cell phone. I actually was looking at you when you called me.” This amuses her. “I got to the house no more than fifteen minutes before you did, Dr. Scarpetta. I don't blame you for being angry and confused, but I wanted to talk to you when Jason wasn't here. Albert's father. Believe me, you are very fortunate that he isn't here.” She hesitates, holding the kitchen door open wide. “When he's around, there is no such thing as privacy. Please come.” She motions to her.

Scarpetta looks at the keypads by the kitchen door. Outside, shadows fall in a black curtain from trees lush with new leaves. The woods are damp and earthy beneath a waning moon.

“I will let you out this way, then. The driveway is just to the side. But you must promise to come back and see the cave,” she says.

“I'll go out the front.” Scarpetta starts walking that way.

B
ENTON DROVE AROUND
for a while, then checked into the Radisson under the assumed name of Tony Wilson.

Inside his suite, he sits on the bed, his door secured with the dead-bolt lock and burglar chain. He requested a block on his telephone, not that he is expecting calls. The clerks at reception seemed to understand. He is a wealthy man from Los Angeles and wants privacy. The hotel is the finest one in Baton Rouge, its staff accustomed to accommodating a lot of people from all over who don't use the valets, preferring to come and go discreetly. They don't want to be bothered and rarely stay long.

Benton connects his laptop to the modem line in his room. He enters his code to release the lock of the new black briefcase he deliberately scuffed by scraping it against furniture and sliding it across the floor. He takes off his ankle holster and places his .357 magnum Smith & Wesson 340PD on the bed. It is double-action, loaded with five rounds of Speer Gold Dot 125-grain.

From the briefcase he removes two pistols: a pocket-friendly .40-cal- iber Glock 27, capacity ten rounds, including one in the chamber. The ammunition is Hydra-Shok: 135-grain, center-post hollow-point with a notched jacket, velocity 1,190 feet per second, high-energy and with
efficient stopping power, punches into the enemy and splays like a razor-sharp flower.

His second and most important pistol is the P 226 SL Sig Sauer nine-millimeter, capacity sixteen rounds, including one in the chamber. The ammunition is also Hydra-Shok: 124-grain, center-post hollow-point with notched jacket, velocity 1,120 feet per second, deep penetration and stopping power.

It is conceivable he can carry the three guns at once. He's done it before, the .357 Smith & Wesson in his ankle holster, the .40-caliber Glock in a shoulder holster, and the nine-millimeter Sig Sauer in the waistband at the small of his back.

Extra magazines for the pistols and extra cartridges for the .357 magnum go in a designer leather butt pack. Benton dresses in a loose-fitting London Fog jacket and baggy jeans that are slightly too long, a cap, tinted glasses and the rubber-soled Prada shoes. He could be a tourist. He could work in Baton Rouge and barely merit notice in this city of transients, where hundreds of professors, some of them eccentric, and thousands of oblivious students and preoccupied visiting scholars of all ages and nationalities abound. He could be straight. He could be gay. He could be both.

T
HE NEXT MORNING,
muddy, sluggish water carries Scarpetta's eye to a riverboat casino, to the USS
Kidd
battleship and on to the distant Old Mississippi Bridge, then back to Dr. Sam Lanier.

In the few minutes she spent with him last night when she finally arrived at his door and he quickly escorted her to his guest house in back without walking her through the main house because he didn't want to awaken his wife, she decided she liked him. She worries that she shouldn't.

“In Charlotte Dard's case,” she says, “how involved did you and your office get with the family in terms of trying to counsel or question them?”

“Not as much as I would have liked. I tried.” The light in his eyes dims, and his mouth tightens. “I did talk to the sister, Mrs. Guidon. Briefly. She's an odd one. Anyway, orientation time. Let me show you where you are.”

His abrupt change of subject strikes her as paranoid, as if he worries that someone might be listening. Swiveling around in his chair, he points west out the window.

“People are always jumping from the Old Mississippi Bridge. Can't tell you how many times I've fished bodies out of the river because some poor soul takes a leap—takes his time, too, while the police try to talk him
down and people in their cars start yelling ‘Go ahead and jump!' because he's slowing up traffic. Can you believe that?

“Now, down there straight ahead, I had a guy dressed in a shower curtain with an AK-47, tried to get on the USS
Kidd
to kill all the Russians. He got intercepted,” he drolly adds. “Death and mental health are part of the same department, and we do all the pickups—commit about three thousand cases a year.”

“And that works how, exactly?” Scarpetta inquires. “A family member requests an order of protective custody?”

“Almost always. But the police can request it. And if the coroner—in this case, me—believes the person is gravely disabled and acutely dangerous to himself or others and is unwilling or unable to seek medical attention, deputies are sent in.”

“The coroner is elected. It helps if he's on good terms with the mayor, the police, the sheriff, LSU, Southern University, the district attorney, judges, the U.S. Attorney, not to mention influential members of the community.” She pauses. “People in power can certainly influence the public on how to cast its votes. So the police recommend someone should be removed to a psychiatric hospital, and the local coroner agrees. In my world, that's called a conflict of interest.”

“It's worse than that. The coroner also determines competency to stand trial.”

“So you oversee the autopsy of a murder victim, determine cause and manner of death, then, if the alleged killer is caught, you decide if he's competent to stand trial.”

“Do the DNA swab in the exam room. Then sits right here in my office, a cop on either side, attorney present. And I interview him. Or her.”

“Dr. Lanier, you have the most bizarre coroner system I've ever heard of, and it doesn't sound to me as if you have any protection, should the powers that be decide they can't control you.”

“Welcome to Louisiana. And if the powers that be try to tell me how to do my job, I tell them to kiss my ass.”

“And your crime rate? I know it's bad.”

“Worse than bad. Terrible,” he replies. “By far, Baton Rouge has the highest rate of unsolved homicides in the entire country.”

“Why?”

“Clearly, Baton Rouge is a very violent city. I'm not sure why.”

“And the police?”

“Listen, I have a lot of respect for street cops. Most of them try very hard. But then you've got the people in charge who squash the good guys and encourage the assholes. Politics.” His chair creaks as he leans back in it. “We've got a serial murderer running around down here. Have probably had more than one running around down here over the decades.” He shrugs in a manner that is anything but easygoing or accepting. “Politics. How many times do I need to say the word?”

“Organized crime?”

“Fifth largest port in the country, the second largest petrochemical industry, and Louisiana produces some sixteen percent of the nation's oil. Come on.” He gets up from his desk. “Lunch. Everybody's got to eat, and I have a feeling you haven't done much of that lately. You look pretty damn beat-up, and your suit's hanging a little loose around the waist.”

Scarpetta can't begin to tell him how much she has grown to hate her black suit.

Three clerks glance up as Scarpetta and Dr. Lanier walk out of his office.

“You coming back?” an overweight woman with gray hair asks her boss, a cool steel edge to her voice.

Scarpetta is fairly sure this is the clerk Dr. Lanier has complained about.

“Who knows?” he responds in what Scarpetta would call the flat affect of an expert witness testifying in court.

She can tell he doesn't like her. Old, ugly specters hover between them. He seems relieved when the outer office door opens and a tall, good-looking man in navy range pants and a dark blue coroner's jacket walks
in. His presence is a high energy that is several steps ahead of him, and the overweight clerk's eyes fasten on his face like dark, angry wasps.

Eric Murphy, the chief death investigator, welcomes Scarpetta to
Luysiana.
“Where are we going to lunch?” he asks.

“No matter what, you have to eat,” Dr. Lanier says at the elevator. “I insist, and this is the place to do it. Like I said, I can't get rid of her.”

He absently stabs the button for the parking garage.

“Hell, she's been working in this office longer than I have. Sort of an inherited sinkhole that gets passed on from one coroner to the next.”

The elevator doors open inside a large parking garage. Car doors shut in muffled counterpoint as people head out to lunch, and Dr. Lanier points his key at what he calls his
unit,
a black Chevrolet Caprice with a blue light in the dash, a two-way radio, a police scanner and a special turbo-charged V-8 engine that is “required for all high-speed chases,” he boasts, as Scarpetta helps herself to a backseat door and slides into the seat.

“You can't be sitting in back. It doesn't look right,” Eric complains, holding open the front passenger door. “You're our guest, ma'am.”

“Oh, please don't call me
ma'am.
I'm Kay. And my legs are shorter, which means I sit in the back.”

“Call me anything you like,” Eric cheerfully replies. “Everybody else does.”

“From now on, I'm Sam. No more of this doctor shit.”

“Don't be calling me doctor, either,” Eric says. “For the good reason that I'm not one.”

He gets inside the car, giving up on telling Scarpetta where to sit.

“Hell, the only time you were a doctor was when you were, what?” Dr. Lanier starts the engine. “Ten, maybe twelve years old, and molesting all the little girls in your neighborhood? Jesus God, I hate parking between concrete damn pillars.”

“They have a way of moving in on you, don't they, Sam?” Eric turns around and winks at Scarpetta. “They grab at his ve-hicle on a regular
basis. Look over there.” He points at a concrete support gouged and streaked with black paint. “If you were working that crime scene, what would you conclude?” He peels cellophane off a pack of Dentyne chewing gum. “Let me give you a clue. That used to be the coroner's parking place, but not so long ago, the coroner—guess which one, and there's only one—complained it was way too narrow, and he'd be goddamned if he was parking there.”

“Now, don't tell all my secrets.” Dr. Lanier slowly creeps out of his spot. “Besides, it was my wife who did that bit of damage. She's a worse driver than I am, for the record.”

“She's a death investigator, too.” Eric turns around again. “Works for nothing, which is pretty much what the rest of us do.”

“Shit.” Dr. Lanier accelerates his high-speed-chase unit more than necessary inside a parking deck. “You get paid a hell of a lot more than you deserve.”

“Can we talk now?” Scarpetta asks.

“I'm pretty sure we can. Maybe people get into my office, hell if I know. But nobody touches my car, or my Harley,” Dr. Lanier replies.

In a firm, even voice, Scarpetta confronts him. “I happened to fly here with the Dards' young son sitting on one side of me and your U.S. Attorney, Weldon Winn, on the other. In fact, I ended up having to drive Albert Dard home. You want to tell me what that's about?”

“Scares the hell out of me.”

“The boy just happens to be in Miami, is suddenly whisked to the airport yesterday morning and routed through Houston and just happens to be on my flight to Baton Rouge. Just as Winn happens to be on my flight. And by the way, you don't strike me as the sort who gets scared.”

“Two things. One, you don't know me. Two, you don't know here.”

“Where was Albert eight years ago when his mother died in that motel room?” Scarpetta asks. “Where was his father, and why is this mysterious father, quote,
gone all the time,
as the boy put it?”

“That I don't know. What I can tell you is I'm familiar with Albert. Last year, I had to examine the kid in the ER, was given a
heads-up,
in other words, especially in light of his wealthy family and the mysterious death of his mother. He was committed to a private psychiatric hospital in New Orleans.”

“What on Earth for?” Scarpetta asks, adding, “A psychiatric history, and his family lets him travel alone?”

“But then he wasn't alone, according to what you've told me. His uncle put him in the hands of airline attendants, who also, no doubt, saw to it that he got to his proper gate in Houston. Then, best of all, you took care of him the rest of the time. He's not psychotic.

“The story is, three years ago last October, his aunt called nine-one-one and said her nephew—he was seven at the time, I believe—was bleeding badly and claimed to have been assaulted when he was out riding his bicycle. Story is, he was hysterical, scared out of his mind. Well, nobody assaulted that poor little kid, Kay. You said I could call you that. There was no evidence whatsoever of that. In fact, he's a cutter. Into self-mutilation. Apparently, that started up again with him not long before I examined him in the ER. Which was a pretty damn awful experience.”

Scarpetta recalls the absence of knives in the Dard kitchen.

“You're absolutely certain his injuries were self-inflicted?” she asks.

“I try not to be absolutely certain of anything. I don't know of much that's an absolute certainty except death,” Dr. Lanier replies. “But I found a lot of hesitation cuts. Just scratches, really. That's significant for someone getting started in this unfortunate pattern of self-destruction. His cuts were minor, all in places within reach but not readily visible to others. Stomach. Thighs. Buttocks.”

“That would explain why I saw no scars when I was sitting next to him on the plane,” Scarpetta remarks. “I would have noticed.”

“What really disturbs me is the obvious,” he says. “Somebody wants you here in Baton Rouge. Why?”

“You tell me. You tell me who leaked my travel plans, because it seems
the most likely suspect is you—or whoever else in your office knew I was coming.”

“I can see why you'd think that. No question about it. I knew enough to arrange the whole damn scenario, assuming I'm on friendly terms with Weldon Winn. And I'm not, can't stand the son of a bitch. He's dirtier than a landfill and got a lot of money. His explanation is he grew up with money. Well, guess what, he's from Myrtle Beach, South Carolina. His father managed a golf course, and his mother worked like a dog as a nurse's aid. The son of a bitch isn't from shit.”

“How do you know all this?”

“Ask Eric.”

The death investigator turns around and smiles. “I started out with the FBI. Now and then, I can find my way out of a paper bag and look for things.”

“Point is, Weldon Winn is involved, deeply involved, with illegal activities,” Dr. Lanier continues. “Now, how anyone will ever prove that, or even care, is another matter. What is a fact is that a number of people arrested here over the years have somehow managed to escape Project Exile, didn't get the automatic five years in federal prison added to their sentences for possession of a firearm while committing a crime. Our U.S. Attorney somehow overlooked those cases, as did the committee that's supposed to track them.

“One of the reasons I'm given so much grief in my lovely city is because I won't kowtow to the politicians. I'm up for reelection next year, and I've got a whole Noah's ark full of assholes who would love for me not to be coroner anymore. I'm not appreciated by any of the bad guys, don't socialize with them. I consider that a compliment.”

Scarpetta says, “You and I talked on the phone. Your office arranged my rental car.”