Body of Evidence ks-2

by Patricia Cornwell

  I interrupted him. "Mr. Hunt-"

  "Please call me Al."

  "Al, then," I said. "Why did you want to see me? If you have information, why aren't you talking to Lieutenant Marino?"

  The color rose to his cheeks and he looked uncomfortably down at his hands.

  "What I have to say doesn't really belong in the category of police information," he said "I thought you might understand."

  "Why would you think that? You don't know me," I answered.

  "You took care of Beryl. As a rule, women are more intuitive, more compassionate than men," he said.

  Perhaps it was that simple. Perhaps Hunt was here because he believed I would not humiliate him. He was staring at me now, a wounded, woebegone look in his eyes that was on the verge of becoming panic.

  He asked, "Have you ever known something with certainty, Dr. Scarpetta, even though there is absolutely no evidence to support your belief?"

  "I'm not clairvoyant, if that's what you're asking," I replied.

  "You're being the scientist."

  "I am a scientist."

  "But you've had the feeling," he insisted, his eyes desperate now. "You know very well what I mean, don't you?"

  "Yes," I said. "I think I know what you mean, Al."

  He seemed relieved and took a deep breath. "I know things, Dr. Scarpetta. I know who murdered Beryl."

  I didn't react at all.

  "I know him, know what he thinks, feels, why he did it," he said with emotion. "If I tell you, will you promise to treat what I say with great care, consider it seriously and not- Well, I don't want you running to the police. They wouldn't understand. You see that, don't you?"

  "I will very carefully consider what you have to say," I replied.

  He leaned forward on the couch, his eyes luminous in his wan El Greco face. I instinctively moved my right hand closer to my pocket. I could feel the rubber grip of the revolver against the side of my palm.

  "The police already don't understand," he said. "They aren't capable of understanding me. Why I left psychology, for example. The police wouldn't understand that. I have a master's degree. And what? I worked as a nurse and now I'm working in a car wash? You don't really think the police are going to understand that, do you?"

  I didn't respond.

  "When I was a kid I dreamed of being a psychologist, a social worker, maybe even a psychiatrist," he went on. "It all came so naturally to me. It was what I should be, what my talents directed that I should be."

  "But you're not," I reminded him. "Why?"

  "Because it would have destroyed me," he said, averting his eyes. "It isn't something I have control over, what happens to me. I relate so completely to other people's problems and idiosyncrasies that the person who is me gets lost, suffocates. I didn't realize how dramatic this was until I spent time on a forensic unit. For the criminally insane. Uh, it was part of my research, my research for my thesis."

  He was getting increasingly distracted. "I'll never forget. Frankie. Frankie was a paranoid schizophrenic. He beat his mother to death with a stick of firewood. I got to know Frankie. I very gently walked him through his life until we reached that winter's afternoon.

  "I said to him, 'Frankie, Frankie, what little thing was it? What pushed that button? Do you remember what was going through your mind, through your nerves?'

  "He said he was sitting in the chair he always sat in before the fire, watching the flames burn down, when they began whispering to him. Whispering terrible, mocking things. When his mother walked in she looked at him the way she always did, but this time he saw it in her eyes. The voices got so loud he couldn't think and next thing he was wet and sticky and she didn't have a face anymore. He came to when the voices were still. I couldn't sleep for many nights after that. Every time I'd close my eyes I'd see Frankie crying, covered with his mother's blood. I understood him. I understood what he'd done. Whoever I talked to, whatever story I heard, it affected me the same way."

  I was sitting calmly, my powers of imagination switched off, the scientist, the clinician deliberately donned like a suit of clothes.

  I asked him, "Have you ever felt like killing anyone, Al?"

  "Everybody's felt that way at some point," he said as our eyes met.

  "Everybody? Do you really think so?"

  "Yes. Every person has the capacity. Absolutely."

  "Who have you felt like killing?" I asked.

  "I don't own a gun or anything else, uh, dangerous," he answered. "Because I don't ever want to be vulnerable to an impulse. Once you can envision yourself doing something, once you can relate to the mechanism behind the deed, the door is cracked. It can happen. Virtually every heinous event that occurs in this world was first conceived in thought. We aren't good or bad, one or the other."

  His voice was trembling. "Even those classified as insane have their own reasons for why they do what they do."

  "What was the reason behind what happened to Beryl?" I asked.

  My thoughts were precise and clearly stated. And yet I was sick inside as I tried to block the images: the black stains on the walls, the stab wounds clustered over her breast, her books standing primly on the library shelf quietly waiting to be read. "The person who did this loved her," he said. "A rather brutal way to show it, don't you think?"

  "Love can be brutal," he said. "Did you love her?"

  "We were very much alike."

  "In what way?"

  "Out of sync."

  He was studying his hands again. "Alone and sensitive and misunderstood. And this served to make her distant, very guarded and unapproachable. I know nothing about her-I'm saying, no one's ever told me anything about her. But I sensed the being inside her. I intuited that she was very aware of who she was, of her worth. But she was deeply angered by the price she paid for being different. She was wounded. I don't know by what. Something had hurt her. This made me care for her. I wanted to reach out because I knew I would have understood her."

  "Why didn't you reach out to her?"

  I asked. "The circumstances weren't right. Maybe if I'd met her somewhere else," he replied.

  "Tell me about the person who did this to her, Al," I said. "Would he have reached out to her had the circumstances ever been right?"

  "No."

  "No?"

  "The circumstances would never have been right because he is inadequate and knows it," Hunt said. His sudden transformation was disconcerting. Now he was the psychologist. His voice was calmer. He was concentrating very hard, tightly clasping his hands in his lap.

  He was saying, "He has a very low opinion of himself and is unable to express feelings in a constructive manner. Attraction turns to obsession, love becomes pathological. When he loves, he has to possess because he feels so insecure and unworthy, is so easily threatened. When his secret love is not returned, he becomes increasingly obsessed. He becomes so fixated his ability to react and function becomes limited. It's like Frankie hearing the voices. Something else drives him. He no longer has control."

  "Is he intelligent?" I asked.

  "Reasonably so."

  "What about education?"

  "His problems are such that he isn't able to function in the capacity he is intellectually capable of."

  "Why her?" I asked him. "Why did he select Beryl Madison?"

  "She has freedom, fame, he doesn't have," Hunt replied, his eyes glazed. "He thinks he's attracted to her, but it's more than that. He wants to possess those qualities he lacks. He wants to possess her in a sense, he wants to be her."

  "Then you're saying he knew Beryl was a writer?" I asked.

  "There is very little you can keep from him. One way or another, he would have found out she's a writer. He would know so much about her that when she began to pick up on it, she would have felt terribly violated and profoundly afraid."

  "Tell me about that night," I said. "What happened the night she died, Al?"

  "I know only what I've read in the papers."

  "What have you p
ieced together from reading what has been in the papers?"

  I asked.

  "She was home," he said, staring off. "And it was getting late in the evening when he appeared at her door. Most likely she let him in. At some point before midnight he left her house and the burglar alarm went off. She was stabbed to death. There was an implication of sexual assault. That's as much as I've read."

  "Do you have any theories as to what might have gone on?"

  I asked blandly. "Speculations that go above and beyond what you've read?"

  He leaned forward in the chair, his demeanor dramatically changing again. His eyes got hot with emotion. His lower lip began to quiver.

  "I see scenes in my mind," he said.

  "Such as?"

  "Things I wouldn't want to tell the police."

  "I'm not the police," I said.

  "They wouldn't understand," he said. "These things I see and feel without having any reason to know them. It's like Frankie."

  He blinked back tears. "It's like the others. I could see what happened and understand it, even though I wasn't always given the details. But you don't always need the details. Nor are you likely to get them in most instances. You know why that is, don't you?"

  "I'm not sure…"

  "Because the Frankies in the world don't know the details, either! It's like a bad accident you can't remember. The awareness returns like waking up from a bad dream and you find yourself staring at the wreckage. The mother who no longer has a face. Or the Beryl who is bloody and dead. The Frankies wake up when they're running or a cop they don't remember calling pulls up in front of the house."

  "Are you telling me Beryl's killer doesn't remember exactly what he did?"

  I asked carefully.

  He nodded.

  "You're quite sure of that?"

  "Your most skilled psychiatrist could question him for a million years and there would never be an accurate replay," Hunt said. "The truth will never be known. It has to be re-created and, to an extent, inferred."

  "Which is what you've done. Re-created and inferred." I said.

  He wet his bottom lip, his breathing tremulous. "Do you want me to tell you what I see?"

  "Yes," I answered.

  "Much time had elapsed since his first contact with her," he began. "But she had no awareness of him as a person, though she may have seen him somewhere in the past-seen him without having any idea. His frustration, his obsessiveness had driven him to her doorstep. Something kicked that off, made it an overwhelming need to confront her."

  "What?" I asked. "What kicked it off?"

  "I don't know."

  "What was he feeling when he decided to come after her?"

  Hunt closed his eyes and said, "Anger. Anger because he couldn't make things work the way he wanted."

  "Anger because he couldn't have a relationship with Beryl?" I asked.

  Eyes still shut, Hunt slowly shook his head from side to side and said, "No. Maybe that's what was closest to the surface. But the root was much deeper. Anger because nothing worked the way he wanted it to in the beginning."

  "When he was a child?" I asked.

  "Yes."

  "Was he abused?"

  "He was emotionally," Hunt said.

  "By whom?"

  Eyes still shut, he answered, "His mother. When he killed Beryl he killed his mother."

  "Do you study forensic psychiatry books, Al? Do you read about these things?" I asked.

  He opened his eyes and stared at me as if he had not heard what I had said.

  He went on, emotionally, "You have to appreciate how many times he had imagined the moment. It wasn't impulsive in the sense he simply rushed to her house without premeditation. The timing may have been impulsive, but his method had been planned with meticulous detail. He absolutely couldn't afford for her to be alarmed and refuse him entrance into her house. She'd call the police, give them a description. And even if he wasn't apprehended, his mask had been ripped off and he'd never be able to come near her again. He had created a scheme that was guaranteed not to fail, something that would not excite her suspicions. When he appeared at her door that night, he inspired trust. And she let him in."

  In my mind I saw the man in Beryl's foyer, but I could not see his face or the color of his hair, just an indistinct figure and the glinting of the long steel blade as he introduced himself with the weapon he used to murder her.

  "This is when it deteriorated for him," Hunt continued. "He won't remember what happened next. Her panic, her terror, are not pleasant for him. He had not completely thought out this part of his ritual. When she ran, tried to get away from him, when he saw the panic in her eyes, he fully realized her rejection of him. He realized the horrible thing he was doing, and his contempt for himself was acted out as contempt for her. Rage. He quickly lost control of her while he was reduced to the lowest form. A killer. A destroyer. A mindless savage tearing and cutting and inflicting pain. Her screams, her blood were awful for him. And the more he razed and defaced this temple where he had worshiped for so long, the more he couldn't bear the sight of it."

  He looked at me and there was nobody home behind his eyes. His face was drained of all emotion when he asked, "Can you relate to this, Dr. Scarpetta?"

  "I'm listening" was all I said.

  "He is in all of us," he said.

  "Does he feel remorse, Al?"

  "He is beyond that," he said. "I don't think he feels good about what he did or even completely realizes what he did. He was left with confused emotions. In his mind he will not let her die. He wonders about her, relives his contacts with her, and fantasizes that his relationship with her was the deepest, most profound of all because she was thinking about him when she breathed her last and this is the ultimate closeness to another human being. In his fantasies he imagines she continues to think about him after death. But the rational part of him is unsatisfied and frustrated. No one can completely belong to another person, and this is what he begins to discover."

  "What do you mean?" I asked. "His deed could not possibly produce the desired effect," Hunt answered. "He is unsure of the closeness- just as he was never sure of his mother's closeness. The distrust again. And there are other people now who have a more legitimate reason to have a relationship with Beryl than he does."

  "Like who?"

  'The police." His eyes focused on me. "And you."

  "Because we're investigating her murder?" I asked, a chill running up my spine. "Yes."

  "Because she has become a preoccupation for us, and our relationship with her is more public than his?" I said.

  "Yes."

  "Where does this lead?"

  I then asked. "Gary Harper is dead."

  "He killed Harper?"

  "Yes."

  "Why?"

  I nervously lit a cigarette. "What he did to Beryl was a love thing," Hunt responded. "What he did to Harper was a hate thing. He is into hate things now. Anybody connected to Beryl is in danger. And this is what I wanted to tell Lieutenant Marino, the police. But I knew it wouldn't do any good. He- They would just think I have a loose screw."

  "Who is he?" I asked. "Who killed Beryl?"

  Al Hunt moved to the edge of the couch and rubbed his face in his hands. When he looked up, his cheeks were splotched red. "Jim Jim," he whispered. "Jim Jim?"

  I asked, mystified.

  "1 don't know."

  His voice broke. "I keep hearing that name in my head, hearing it and hearing it…"

  I sat very still.

  "It was so long ago I was at Valhalla Hospital," he said.

  "The forensic unit?" I broke out. "Was this Jim Jim a patient while you were there?"

  "I'm not sure."

  The emotions were gathering in his eyes like a storm. "I hear his name and I see that place. My thoughts drift back to its dark memories. Like I'm being sucked down a drain. It was so long ago. So much blacked out now, Jim Jim. Jim Jim. Like a train chugging. The sound won't stop. I have headaches because of the so
und."

  "When was this?" I demanded.

  "Ten years ago," he cried.

  Hunt couldn't have been working on a master's thesis then, I realized. He would have been only in his late teens.

  "Al," I said, "you weren't doing research in the forensic unit. You were a patient there, weren't you?"

  He covered his face with his hands and wept. When he finally was in sufficient control, he refused to talk anymore. Obviously deeply distressed, he mumbled he was late for an appointment and practically ran out the door. My heart was racing and wouldn't slow down. I fixed myself a cup of coffee and paced the kitchen, trying to figure out what to do next. I jumped when the telephone rang.

  "Kay Scarpetta, please."

  "Speaking."

  "This is John with Amtrak. I've finally got your information, ma'am. Let's see… Sterling Harper had a round-trip ticket on The Virginian for October twenty-seventh, returning on the thirty-first. According to my records, she was on the train, or at least somebody with her tickets was. You want the times?"

  "Yes, please," I said, and I wrote them down. "What stations?"

  He answered, "Originating in Fredericksburg, destination Baltimore."

  I tried to call Marino. He was on the street. It was evening when he returned my call with news of his own.

  "Do you want me to come?" I asked, stunned.

  "Don't see no point in it," Marino's voice came over the line. "No question what he did. He wrote a note and pinned it to his undershorts. Said he was sorry, he couldn't take it no more. That's pretty much it. Nothing suspicious about the scene. We're about to clear on out. And Doc Coleman's here," he added, referring to one of my local medical examiners.

  Shortly after Al Hunt left my house he drove to his own, a brick colonial in Ginter Park where he lived with his parents. He took a pad of paper and a pen from his father's study. He descended the stairs leading to the basement and removed his narrow black-leather belt. He left his shoes and trousers on the floor. When his mother went down later to put in a load of wash, she found her only son hanging from a pipe inside the laundry room.