Red Mist (8 page)

In other articles I skim, her defense counsel claimed she had an accomplice and it was this person who actually committed
the homicides.
Lola Daggette never entered the Jordan mansion but was
to wait outside while her accomplice committed a burglary, her lawyers said.
The sole basis for the defense was the alleged
existence of an accomplice who has never been physically described or identified, someone who borrowed a set of Lola’s clothing
and afterward instructed her to dispose of it or clean it, possibly with the intention of setting her up to be charged with
the crimes.
Lola never took the stand, and I can see why a jury would have convened less than three hours before finding her
guilty.

She was set to die this past April but was granted a stay after a botched execution resulted in a second dose of deadly chemicals
and it took twice the usual time for the condemned to die.
As a result, a federal judge blocked the executions of Lola Daggette
and five male inmates at Coastal State Prison, asserting that he needed an opportunity to decide whether Georgia’s lethal
injection procedures place the condemned at risk of a prolonged and painful death, thus constituting punishment that was cruel
and unusual.
Georgia executions are supposed to resume this October, with Lola Daggette’s believed to be scheduled first.

I sit in the van in the rain, baffled.
If Lola Daggette didn’t commit the murders but knows who did, why would she protect
the real killer all these years?
Months away from her execution and she’s still not talking?
Or maybe she is.
Jaime Berger
has been in Savannah.
She’s interviewed Lola Daggette.
Possibly she’s interviewed Kathleen Lawler, with whom she may have
made promises of an early release, but how is any of this the jurisdiction of a Manhattan assistant DA, unless the Jordan
homicides and possibly Dawn Kincaid somehow connect to a sex crime in New York City?

More to the point, if Jaime has any interest in Kathleen and her
diabolical daughter, Dawn, why wouldn’t Jaime have contacted me?
Apparently she just did, I’m reminded, as I look at the tiny
piece of creased paper on the seat next to me, and I then think of the violent events of this past February, when I was almost
killed.
There was no break in Jaime’s silence.
She didn’t call.
She didn’t send an e-mail.
She didn’t check on me.
While we
were never close friends, her seeming indifference was painful and surprising.

Returning the iPad to my briefcase, I retrieve my Visa card from my wallet and climb out of the van, the rain falling in big,
cool drops on my bare head.
I pick up the receiver of the pay phone and enter zero and the number Kathleen Lawler wrote on
the kite.
I swipe my credit card, and the call goes through.
Jaime Berger answers on the second ring.

I
t’s Kay Scarpetta—” I start to say, and she cuts me off in her crisp, strong voice.

“You’re still staying the night, I hope.”

“Excuse me?”
She must think I’m someone else.
“Jaime?
It’s Kay—”

“Your hotel is within walking distance of me.”
Jaime Berger sounds as if she’s in a hurry, not rude but impersonal and brusque
and not about to let me get in a word.
“Check in first, and we’ll have a bite to eat.”

It’s obvious she doesn’t want to talk, that maybe she’s not alone.
This is absurd.
You don’t agree to meet someone when you
don’t know what it’s about, I tell myself.

“Where?”
I ask.

Jaime gives me an address that is several blocks off Savannah’s riverfront.
“I’ll look forward to it,” she adds.
“See you
shortly.”

I call Lucy next as a man in cutoff jeans and a baseball cap climbs out of a dusty gold Suburban.
He doesn’t give me a glance
as he walks in my direction and slides a wallet out of his back pocket.

“I need to ask you something,” I say immediately when my niece answers, and it’s an effort not to sound frustrated.
“You know
it’s never my intention to pry or interfere with your personal life.”

“That’s not a question,” Lucy says.

“I hesitated to call you about this, but now I really must.
It doesn’t seem to be a secret that I’m down here.
Do you understand
what I’m getting at?”
I turn my back to the man in the baseball cap as he gets cash out of the ATM next to me.

“Maybe you could be a little less mysterious.
It sounds like you’re inside a metal drum.”

“I’m using a pay phone outside a gun store.
And it’s raining.”

“What the hell are you doing at a gun store?
What’s wrong?”

“Jaime,” I then say.
“Nothing’s wrong.
That I know of.”

After a long pause, my niece asks, “What’s happened?”

I can tell by her hesitation and the tone of her voice that she isn’t going to have information for me.
She doesn’t know that
Jaime is in Savannah.
Lucy isn’t the reason Jaime somehow knows I’m here and why and where I’m staying.

“I’m just making sure you didn’t perhaps mention to her that I was coming down to Savannah,” I reply.

“Why would I do that?
What’s going on?”

“I’m not sure what’s going on.
In fact, a more accurate answer is I don’t know.
But you haven’t talked to her recently.”

“No.”

“Any reason Marino would have?”

“Why would he?
What damn reason would he have to contact her?”
Lucy says, as if it would be a massive betrayal for Marino,
who used to work for Jaime, to talk to her about anything.
“To have some friendly chat and divulge private information about
what you’re doing?
No way.
Wouldn’t make sense,” she adds, and her jealousy is palpable.

It doesn’t matter how attractive and formidable my niece is, she doesn’t believe she will ever be the most important person
to anyone.
I used to call her my green-eyed monster because she has the greenest eyes I’ve ever seen and can be monstrously
immature, insecure, and jealous.
She’s not to be trifled with when she gets that way.
Hacking into computers is as effortless
as opening a cupboard for her, and she’s not bothered by spying or paying people back for what she perceives as crimes against
her or someone she loves.

“I certainly hope he wouldn’t divulge information to her or anyone,” I reply, and I wish the man in the baseball cap would
finish up at the ATM.
It occurs to me he might be listening to my conversation.
“Well, if Marino’s said something,” I add,
“I’ll find out soon enough.”

I can hear Lucy typing on a keyboard.
“We’ll just see.
I’m in his e-mail.
No.
Doesn’t look like anything to or from her.”

Lucy is the CFC’s systems administrator and can get into any electronic communications or files on the server, including mine.
She can get into virtually anything she wants, period.

“Not recently,” she then says, and I imagine her executing searches, scrolling through Marino’s e-mails.
“Don’t see anything
for this year.”

She’s indicating she sees no evidence that Marino has e-mailed Jaime since she and Lucy broke up.
But that doesn’t mean Marino
and Jaime haven’t had contact by phone or some other means.
He’s not naïve.
He knows Lucy can look at anything on the CFC
computer.
He also knows that even if she didn’t have legal access, she’d look anyway, if that’s what she feels like doing.
If Marino’s been in contact with Jaime and hasn’t mentioned it to me, it’s going to bother me considerably.

“Would you mind asking him about it?”
I say to Lucy as I rub my temples, my head throbbing.

She does mind.
I can hear her resistance when she says, “Sure.
I can talk to him, but he’s still on vacation.”

“Then interrupt his fishing trip, please.”

I hang up as the man in the baseball cap disappears inside the gun store, and I decide he wasn’t paying attention to me, that
I’m of no interest and am acting slightly paranoid.
I follow the sidewalk past the hardware store, noticing what appears to
be the same black Mercedes wagon with the Navy Diver bumper sticker parked in front of Monck’s Pharmacy.
Small and overstocked,
with no other customers in sight, it is reminiscent of a country store with aisles of home-care supplies such as walking aids,
vascular stockings, and seat-lift chairs.
Friendly signs posted everywhere promise customized medications and same-day delivery
right to your doorstep,
and I scan shelves for pain relievers as I try to come up with any possible reason why Jaime Berger might have an interest
in Lola Daggette.

What I don’t doubt is that Jaime is relentless.
If Lola Daggette has information that is important for some reason, Jaime
will do everything she can to make sure the convicted killer doesn’t take it
to the grave.
I can think of no other explanation for Jaime’s visiting the GPFW, but what I can’t fathom is how I factor in
and why.
Well, you’re about to find out,
I tell myself, as I carry a bottle of Advil gel-caps to the counter, where no one is working.
In a couple of hours you’ll know what there is to know.
I decide water would be a good idea and return to the refrigerated section, selecting an iced tea instead, and I return to
the counter and I wait.

An older man in a lab coat is busy counting pills in back, filling prescriptions, and I don’t see anyone else, and I wait.
I open the Advil and take three gelcaps, washing them down with the iced tea as my impatience grows.

“Excuse me,” I announce myself.

The pharmacist barely glances at me and calls out to someone behind him, “Robbi, can you get the register?”
When no one answers,
he stops what he’s doing and comes to the counter.

“I sure am sorry.
I didn’t realize I’m the only one here.
Guess everybody’s out making deliveries, or maybe it’s break time
again.
Who knows?”
He smiles at me as he takes my Visa card.
“Will there be anything else?”

It has stopped raining when I return to the van, and I notice that the black Mercedes wagon is gone.
The sun breaks through
the clouds as I drive away, and the wet pavement is bright in the sunlight.
Then the old city comes into view, low brick and
stone buildings spreading out to the Savannah River, and in the distance, silhouetted against the churning sky, is the familiar
cable-stayed Talmadge Memorial Bridge, which would take me into South Carolina, were that my destination.
I imagine splendid
haunts such as Hilton Head and Charleston, envisioning the oceanfront condo Benton used to have
in Sea Pines, and the historic carriage house with its lush garden that once was mine.

So much of my past is rooted in the Deep South, and my mood is nostalgic and edgy as I reach the gray granite Customhouse
and the gold-domed City Hall, then my hotel, a stolid Hyatt Regency on the river, where tugs and tour boats are moored.
On
the opposite shore is the posh Westin Resort, and farther down, cranes look like gigantic praying mantises perched above shipyards
and warehouses, the water flat and the gray-green of old glass.

I climb out of the van and apologize to a valet who looks very Caribbean in his white jacket and black Bermuda shorts.
I warn
him about my cranky, undependable rental vehicle and feel obliged to let him know it wasn’t what I reserved and that it wanders
all over the road and the brakes are bad, while I grab my overnight bag and other belongings.
A hot breeze stirs live oaks,
magnolias, and palms, and traffic bumping over brick pavers sounds like the rain, which has completely stopped, the sky patched
with hints of blue as the sun sinks and shadows spread.
This part of the world, where I’ve been so many times before, should
be a welcome respite and a rich indulgence.
Instead it feels unsafe.
It feels like something to fear.
I wish Benton were here.
I wish I hadn’t come, that I had listened to him.
I must find Jaime Berger without delay.

The lobby is typical of most Hyatts I’ve stayed in, an expansive atrium surrounded by rooms on six floors, and as I ride the
glass elevator up, I replay the exchange I just had with the clerk at the front desk, a young woman who claimed my reservation
had been canceled hours earlier.
When I said that wasn’t possible, she replied that she had taken the call herself not long
after she started her shift at noon.
A man called and canceled.
Whoever it was had my reservation number and the correct information and was very apologetic.

I asked the clerk if whoever did this was from my office in Cambridge, and she said she thought so.
I asked if his name was
Bryce Clark, and she wasn’t sure, and then I suggested it probably was my office calling to confirm, not to cancel, and there
had been a misunderstanding.
No, she shook her head.
Absolutely not.
The clerk said the person called to cancel with the explanation
that Dr.
Scarpetta was very disappointed she couldn’t make it to Savannah because it’s one of her favorite cities, and he
hoped there would be no charge for the room even through he was canceling at the last minute.
Supposedly I’d missed my connection
in Atlanta and therefore couldn’t possibly get here in time for the appointment I had.
The man was quite chatty, the clerk
said, convincing me it was my extroverted chief of staff, Bryce, who has yet to call me back.

The canceled room is like the cargo van, like the note from Kathleen Lawler and the pay phone, like everything else that’s
happened today, and I tell myself I’ll know what it’s all about soon enough.
I unlock my door and enter a room overlooking
the river as a container ship as tall as the hotel silently glides past, headed out to sea, and I try to reach Benton, but
he’s not answering.
I send him a text message letting him know I’m heading out for a meeting, and I give him the address Jaime
gave me, because someone I trust needs to know where I’ll be.
But I tell him nothing else, not who I’m going to see or that
I’m uneasy and suspicious of just about everyone.
Unpacking my overnight bag, I deliberate about changing my clothes and decide
not to bother.

Jaime Berger is on a mission in the Lowcountry, and apparently
she put Kathleen Lawler up to the task of arranging a meeting with me while I’m here.
Indeed, Jaime may have used her to lure
me here to begin with.
But no matter how much I dissect the information I have, it all seems far-fetched, and I can’t stop
sorting through it in hopes it will make sense.
But it seems impossibly illogical.
If Jaime is behind my coming to the GPFW
today and knows I’m spending the night in this hotel, then why would she need an inmate to sneak a cell phone number to me?
Why wouldn’t Jaime simply call me herself?
My cell phone number hasn’t changed.
Hers hasn’t, either.
She has my e-mail address.

She could have reached me directly any number of ways, and why a pay phone?
What was that about?
The cargo van, my canceled
reservation, and I think about what Tara Grimm said to me.
Coincidences.
I’m not someone who believes in them, and she’s right, at least about the events of late.
There are too many coincidences
for them to be random and meaningless.
They add up to something, but I really can’t imagine what, and I may as well stop driving
myself crazy about it.
I brush my teeth and wash my face, in the mood for a long hot shower or bath that I don’t have time
for right now.