At Risk wg-1

by Patricia Cornwell

  “Hope you haven’t been waiting long,” she apologizes.

  If she cared about inconveniencing him, she wouldn’t have ordered him to fly all the way here for dinner, interrupted his training at the National Forensic Academy, interrupted his life, as usual. She’s carrying a plastic bag that has the name of a liquor store on it.

  “Meetings, and the traffic was awful,” she says, forty-five minutes late.

  “Actually, I just got here.” Win gets up, his suit covered with water spots that couldn’t possibly have dried if he’d only just come in out of the rain.

  She slips off her coat and it’s hard not to notice what’s beneath it. Lamont wears a suit better than any woman he knows. It’s a shame Mother Nature wasted such good looks on her. Her name is French and she looks French, dark and exotic, sexy and seductive in a dangerous way. Had life turned out differently and Win had gone to Harvard and she wasn’t so driven and selfish, they would probably get along fine and end up in bed.

  She eyes his gym bag, frowns a little, says, “Now that’s obsessive. You somehow fit in a workout between the airport and here?”

  “Had to bring some stuff.” He self-consciously shifts the bag to his other hand, careful not to clank the glass items inside it, items a tough cop like him shouldn’t carry, especially not around a tough DA like Lamont.

  “You can leave it in the cloakroom. Over there by the men’s room. You don’t have a gun in it, do you?”

  “Just an Uzi. The only thing they’ll let you carry on planes anymore.”

  “You can hang this up while you’re at it.” She hands him her coat. “And this is for you.”

  She hands him the bag, he peeks inside, sees a bottle of Booker’s bourbon in its wooden crate, expensive stuff, his favorite.

  “How did you know?”

  “I know a lot about my staff, make that my mission.”

  It rankles him to be referred to as staff. “Thanks,” he mutters.

  Inside the cloakroom, he carefully tucks the bag out of sight on top of a shelf, then follows Lamont into a dining room with candles and white cloths and waiters in white jackets. He tries not to think about his spotted suit and soaked shoes as he and Lamont sit across from each other at a corner table. It is dark out, lamps along Quincy Street blurry through the rain and fog, and people heading into the club for dinner. They don’t have spots on their clothes, belong here, probably went to school here, maybe teach here, are the sort of people Monique Lamont dates or has as friends.

  “At Risk,” she starts in. “Our governor’s new crime initiative, which he has handed off to me.” She shakes open a linen napkin and drapes it over her lap as the waiter appears. “A glass of sauvignon blanc. The one from South Africa I had last time. And sparkling water.”

  “Iced tea,” Win says. “What crime initiative?”

  “Indulge yourself,” she says with a smile. “We’re honest tonight.”

  “Booker’s. On the rocks,” he tells the waiter.

  “DNA is as old as time,” she starts in. “And ancestral DNA can take the John Doe out of John Doe cases. You familiar with the new technology they’re doing in some of these private labs?”

  “Sure. DNAPrint Genomics in Sarasota. I’ve heard about a number of serial murder cases they’ve helped solve…”

  She goes on without him: “Biological samples left in cases where we have no idea who the perpetrator is and come up with nothing in database searches. We retest using this cutting-edge technology. We find out, for example, the suspect turns out to be male, eighty-two percent European, eighteen percent Native American, so we know he looks white and quite possibly we even know his hair and eye color.”

  “The At Risk part? Besides the fact the governor has to call some new initiative something, I suppose.”

  “It’s obvious, Win. Every time we get another offender out of circulation, society is less at risk. The name is my idea, it’s my responsibility, my project, and I intend to give it my full attention.”

  “With all due respect, Monique, couldn’t you have just e-mailed me all this? I had to fly up here in a rainstorm all the way from Tennessee so you could tell me about the governor’s latest publicity stunt?”

  “I’ll be brutally candid,” she interrupts him, nothing new.

  “You’re good at brutal.” He smiles at her, the waiter suddenly back with their drinks, treating Lamont like royalty.

  “Let’s be frank,” she says. “You’re reasonably intelligent. And a media dream.”

  It’s not the first time he’s thought about quitting the Massachusetts State Police. He picks up his bourbon, wishes he had ordered a double.

  “There was a case in Knoxville twenty years ago….” she continues.

  “Knoxville?”

  The waiter hovers to take their order. Win hasn’t even looked at the menu.

  “The bisque to start with.” Lamont orders. “Salmon. Another sauvignon blanc. Give him that nice Oregon pinot.”

  “Whatever your steak is, rare,” Win says. “A salad with balsamic vinegar. No potato. Let me see. It’s just chance I happen to be sent down south to Knoxville, and suddenly you’ve decided to solve some cold case from down there.”

  “An elderly woman beaten to death,” Lamont continues. “Apparently a burglary gone bad. Possible attempt at sexual assault, nude, her panties down around her knees.”

  “Seminal fluid?” He can’t help himself. Politics or not, cases pull him in like black holes.

  “I don’t know the details.” She reaches into her bag, pulls out a manila envelope, hands it to him.

  “Why Knoxville?” He won’t let it go, his paranoia clutching him harder.

  “Needed was a murder and someone special to work on it. You’re in Knoxville, why not see what unsolved cases they might have, and there we are. This one apparently sensational at the time, now as cold and forgotten as the victim.”

  “There are plenty of unsolved cases in Massachusetts.” He looks at her, studies her, not sure what’s really going on.

  “This one should be easy.”

  “I wouldn’t count on that.”

  “It works out well for a number of reasons. A failure down there won’t be as obvious as one up here,” she says. “The way we play it, while you were attending the Academy, you heard about the case and suggested Massachusetts could assist, try this new DNA analysis, help them out….”

  “So you want me to lie,” he says.

  “I want you to be diplomatic, smart,” she says.

  Win opens the envelope and slides out copies of newspaper articles, the autopsy and lab reports, none of them very good quality, probably from microfilm.

  “Science,” she says with confidence. “If it’s true there’s a God gene, then maybe there’s also a Devil gene,” she adds. Lamont loves her cryptic quasi-brilliant pronouncements.

  She is almost quotable.

  “I’m looking for the devil that got away, looking for his ancestral DNA.”

  “I’m not sure why you’re not using the lab in Florida that’s known for all this.” Win looks over the blurry copy of the autopsy report and adds, “Vivian Finlay. Sequoyah Hills. Knoxville old money on the river, can’t touch a house for under a million. Someone really beat the hell out of her.”

  Although there are no photographs included in the records Lamont has given him, the autopsy protocol makes several things clear. Vivian Finlay survived long enough to have substantial tissue response, her face lacerated and bruised, her eyes swollen shut. When her scalp was reflected back, it revealed huge contusions, a cranium with punched-out areas caused by the repeated violent blows of a weapon that had at least one round surface.

  “If we’re testing for DNA, then there must be evidence. Who’s had it all this time?” he asks.

  “All I know is the FBI did the lab work back then.”

  “FBI? What interest did the Feds have?”

  “I meant the state authorities,” she says.

  “TBI. Tennessee B
ureau of Investigation.”

  “I don’t think they were doing DNA back then.”

  “Nope. The dark ages when they still did good ol’-fashioned serology, ABO typing. Exactly what was analyzed and who’s had it all this time?” he tries again.

  “Bloody clothing. As I understand it, it was still in the evidence room at the Knoxville PD, was sent to the lab in California…”

  “California?”

  “This has all been carefully researched by Huber.”

  Win indicates the photocopies she gave him, then asks, “This is everything?”

  “Apparently the Knoxville morgue’s moved since then, their old records in storage somewhere. What you’ve got is what Toby tracked down.”

  “Meaning what he had the ME’s office print out from microfilm. What a sleuth,” he says sarcastically. “I don’t know why in the world you have an idiot like that…”

  “You know why.”

  “Don’t know how Huber could have an idiot son like that. You should be careful doing favors for the director of the crime labs no matter how great a guy he is, Monique. Could be construed as a conflict of interest…”

  “How about leaving that to me,” she says coldly.

  “All I can say is Huber owes you big-time if he’s dumped Toby on you.”

  “Okay. We said we’re honest tonight?” She looks him in the eye, holds his gaze. “It was a bad call on my part. You’re right. Toby’s useless, a disaster.”

  “What I need is the police file. Maybe Toby the disaster got a photocopy of that, too, in the course of his arduous and thorough research?”

  “I suppose you can take care of that yourself when you return to Knoxville. Toby just left for vacation.”

  “Poor guy. Probably exhausted from working so hard.”

  Lamont watches the waiter return with his silver tray and two glasses of wine, says, “You’ll like the pinot. A Drouhin, the daughter, actually.”

  He slowly swirls it, smells it, tastes it. “Have you forgotten? You sent me to the Academy because it’s the, and I quote you, Harvard of Forensic Science. I’ve got one month left.”

  “I’m sure they’ll accommodate you, Win. Nobody said anything about your dropping out. In fact, this is going to make the NFA look good, too.”

  “So I’ll work it in my sleep. So let’s see.” He sips his wine. “You’re using the NFA, using the Knoxville Police Department, using me, using everyone for political gain. Tell me something, Monique.” He pushes his luck, his eyes intense on hers. “Do you really give a damn about this dead old lady?”

  “Headline: BIG-SHOT MASSACHUSETTS DETECTIVE HELPS OUT SMALL-TOWN POLICE DEPARTMENT, SOLVES TWENTY-YEAR-OLD CASE, VINDICATES OLD WOMAN MURDERED FOR SPARE CHANGE.”

  “Spare change?”

  “It’s in one of the newspaper articles I gave you,” she says. “Mrs. Finlay collected silver coins. Had a box of them on her dresser. The only thing missing, as far as anybody knows.”

  * * *

  It is still raining when they leave the Harvard Faculty Club and follow old brick pavers to Quincy Street.

  “Where now?” Lamont asks, half hidden by a big, black umbrella.

  Win notices her tapered fingers tightly curled around the umbrella’s wooden handle. Her nails are neatly squared, no polish, and she wears a large white-gold watch with a black crocodile band, a Breguet, and a Harvard signet ring. Doesn’t matter what she earns as a DA and for the occasional class she teaches at the law school, Lamont comes from family money — a lot of it, from what he hears — and has a historic home near Harvard Square and the British racing green Range Rover parked across the dark, wet street.

  “I’m all set,” he says as if she offered him a ride. “I’ll walk to the Square and grab a taxi. Or maybe stroll over to the Charles, see if they’ve got any good jazz going on at the Regattabar. You like Coco Montoya?”

  “Not tonight.”

  “I didn’t say he was playing tonight.”

  He wasn’t inviting her, either.

  She is digging into her coat pockets, getting impatient, looking for something, says, “Keep me informed, Win. Every detail.”

  “I’ll go where the evidence goes. And a fine point that shouldn’t get lost in all the excitement, I can’t go where the evidence doesn’t go.”

  She digs in her expensive handbag, exasperated.

  “And I hate to emphasize the obvious,” he says as rain falls on his bare head, trickles down his collar. “I don’t see what good your At Risk initiative is going to do if we can’t solve the case.”

  “At the very least, we’ll get an ancestral DNA profile, say the case was reopened as a result. That in itself is newsworthy and compassionate, and we’ll never admit to failure, just continue to keep the case open. A work in progress. You graduate from the NFA, return to your usual assignments. Eventually everybody will forget about the case all over again….”

  “And by then maybe you’ll be governor,” he says.

  “Don’t be so cynical. I’m not the cold-blooded person you seem determined to paint me to be. Where the hell are my keys?”

  “In your hand.”

  “My house keys.”

  “Want me to go with you, make sure you get in all right?”

  “I’ve got a spare in a key box,” she says, and abruptly leaves him in the rain.

  3

  Win looks up and down the street, watching people moving with purpose along sidewalks, watching cars drive by, water spitting out from the tires, watching Lamont drive off.

  He walks toward the Square, where the cafés and coffee shops are crowded despite the weather, and he ducks into Peet’s and squeezes between people, mostly students, the privileged and self-consumed. When he orders a latte, the girl behind the counter gawks so openly at him, her face turns red. He’s used to it, usually is somewhat flattered, amused, but not tonight. He can’t stop thinking about Lamont and the way she makes him feel about himself.

  He carries his latte through Harvard Square, where the Red Line train comes in and most people traveling on it aren’t enrolled at Harvard, maybe don’t even know that Harvard isn’t just the local college. He loiters on the sidewalk along John F. Kennedy Street, squinting at oncoming headlights, and the rain slashing the bright lights reminds him of pencil marks, of childish drawings of falling rain, like the ones he used to draw when he was a boy, when he drew something besides crime scenes and ugly conclusions about people.

  “Tremont and Broadway,” he says as he climbs into a cab, carefully setting the gym bag on the vinyl bench seat.

  The driver is the shape of a head talking without turning around, a Middle Eastern accent.

  “Tray-mond? Where?”

  “Tre-mont and Broad-way, you can drop me off on the corn-er. You don’t know the way, you can stop and I’m getting out.”

  “Tray-mont. Is close to where?”

  “In-man Square,” he says loudly. “Head that way. You can’t find it, I’ll walk and you don’t get paid.”

  The driver stomps on the brake. He turns around, his dark face and dark eyes glowering at him.

  “You don’t pay, you get out!”

  “You see this?” Win snatches out his wallet, shoves his Massachusetts State Police shield closer to the driver’s face. “You want tickets the rest of your life? Your inspection sticker’s expired. You realize that? One of your taillights is burned out. You aware of that? Just take me to Broadway. Think you can find the damn City Hall Annex? I’ll direct you from there.”

  They ride in silence. Win sits in back, his hands clenched in his lap because he just had dinner with Monique Lamont, who’s running for governor and oddly expects him to make Governor Crawley, who’s running for reelection, look good so she’ll look good, the two of them looking good when they run against each other. Politics. Christ. As if either one of them really cares about some murdered old lady down in the boonies of Tennessee. He gets more resentful by the moment as he sits in the dark and the taxi driver drives
, having no idea where he’s going unless Win tells him.

  “That’s Tremont there, take a right,” Win finally says, pointing. “Just up there on the left. Okay, you can let me out here.”

  The house pains him every time he sees it, two-story, paint-peeled wood siding that is overgrown with ivy. Like the woman who lives inside, Win’s family home has seen nothing but bad times for the last fifty years. He climbs out of the cab and hears the chiming of wind chimes in the dark backyard. He sets his latte on the taxi’s roof, digs in a pocket, and throws a crumpled ten-dollar bill through the driver’s window.

  “Hey! It’s twelve dollars!”

  “Hey! Get a GPS,” he says as the wind chimes play their magical, airy music, as the taxi speeds off and the latte slides off the roof and pops open on the road, and milky coffee streams over the black pavement, and the chimes sweetly chime as if excited to see him.

  The thick, moist air stirs and sweet, light chimes sound from the shadows and the trees, from doors and windows he can’t see, chimes sound from everywhere because his grandmother believes chimes should chime all the time to ward off bad spirits, and he’s never said, Well if it really works, then how do you explain our lives? He digs a key out of his pocket and unlocks the front door, pushes it open.

  “Nana? It’s me,” he calls out.

  Inside the foyer are the same family photographs and paintings of Jesus and crucifixes crowded over the horsehair plaster, all dusty. He shuts the door, locks it, sets his keys on an old oak table that he’s looked at most of his life.

  “Nana?”

  The TV is on in the living room, turned up high, sirens screaming, Nana and her cop shows. The volume seems higher since he was here last, maybe because he’s gotten used to quiet. Anxiety touches him as he follows the sound to the living room where nothing has changed since he was a boy except that Nana continues to accumulate crystals and stones and statues of cats and dragons and Saint Michael the Archangel and magical wreaths and bundles of herbs and incense, hundreds of all of it everywhere.

  “Oh!” she exclaims when the sound of him finally jettisons her out of some Hill Street Blues rerun.