From Potter's Field ks-6

by Patricia Cornwell

  Marino rewound the tape and replayed the footage of Carrie and Gault moving the body out of the room. Brown was definitely zipped inside the pouch without the pink note that I had found in the breast pocket of his pajamas. I thought of other notes I had gotten and of all the problems Lucy was having with CAIN. The envelope had been addressed to me and fixed with a stamp as if the author's intention were to mail it.

  'That may be what Carrie couldn't find,' I said. 'Maybe she's been the one sending me the letters. She intended to mail this most recent one, too, explaining why it was addressed and stamped. Then, unbeknownst to her, Gault put it in Brown's pajama pocket.'

  Wesley asked, 'Why would Gault do that?'

  'Perhaps because he knew the effect it would have,' I replied. 'I would see it in the morgue and instantly know that Brown was murdered and Gault was involved.'

  'But what you're saying is that Gault isn't CAIN. You're saying that Carrie Grethen is,' Marino said.

  It was Lucy who spoke. 'Neither of them is CAIN. They are spies.'

  We were silent for a moment.

  'Obviously,' I said, 'Carrie has continued helping Gault with the FBI computer. They are a team. But I think he took the note she wrote to me and did not tell her. I think that's what she was looking for.'

  'Why would she look for it in Brown's bedroom?' Tucker wondered. 'Is there a reason she might have had it in there?'

  'Certainly,' I said. 'She took her clothes off in there. Perhaps it was in a pocket. Play that part, Marino. When Gault is moving the dark clothing off the bed.'

  He went back to that segment, and though we could not specifically see Gault remove the letter from a pocket, he did tamper with Carrie's clothing. He certainly could have gotten her letter at that time. He could have placed it in Brown's pocket later, in the back of the van or perhaps in the morgue.

  'So you're really thinking she's the one who's been sending the notes to you?' Marino asked skeptically.

  'I think it's probable.'

  'But why?' Tucker was confounded. 'Why would she do this to you, Dr. Scarpetta? Do you know her?'

  'I do not,' I said. 'I've only met her, but our last encounter was quite confrontational. And the notes don't seem like something Gault would do. They never have.'

  'She would like to destroy you,' Wesley calmly said. 'She would like to destroy both Lucy and you.'

  'Why?' Janet asked.

  'Because Carrie Grethen is a psychopath,' Wesley said. 'She and Gault are twins. It's interesting that they are now dressing alike. They look alike.'

  'I don't understand what he did with the letter,' Tucker said. 'Why not just ask Carrie for it instead of taking it without telling her?'

  'You're asking me to tell you how Gault's mind works,' Wesley said.

  'Indeed I am.'

  'I don't know why.'

  'But it must mean something.'

  'It does,' Wesley said.

  'What?' Tucker asked.

  'It means she thinks she has a relationship with him. She thinks she can trust him, and she's wrong. It means he will eventually kill her, if he can,' Wesley said as Marino turned on lights.

  Everybody squinted. I looked at Lucy, who had nothing to say, and sensed her anguish in one small way. She had put her glasses on when she did not need them to see unless she was sitting at a computer.

  'Obviously, they're working tag team,' Marino said.

  Janet spoke again. 'Who's in charge?'

  'Gault is,' Marino said. 'That's why he's the one with the gun and she's the one giving the blow job.'

  Tucker pushed back his chair. 'They somehow met Brown. They didn't just show up at his house.'

  'Would he have recognized Gault?' Lucy asked.

  'Maybe not,' Wesley said.

  'I'm thinking they got in touch with him - or she did, anyway - to get drugs.'

  'His phone number is unpublished but not unlisted,' I said.

  'There weren't any significant messages on his answering machine,' Marino added.

  'Well, I want to know the link,' Tucker said. 'How did these two know him?'

  'Drugs would be my guess,' Wesley said. 'It may also be that Gault got interested in the sheriff because of Dr. Scarpetta. Brown shot someone Christmas Eve, and the media covered it ad infinitum. It was no secret that Dr. Scarpetta was there and would end up testifying. In fact, she might have ended up in the jury pool since, ironically, Brown summoned her for jury duty.'

  I thought of what Anna Zenner said about Gault bringing gifts to me.

  'And Gault would have been aware of all this,' Tucker said.

  Wesley said, 'Possibly. If we ever find where he lives, we may discover that he gets the Richmond newspaper by mail.'

  Tucker thought for a while and looked at me. 'Then who killed the officer in New York? Was it this woman with white hair?'

  'No,' I said. 'She could not have kicked him like that. Unless she is a black belt in karate.'

  'And were they working together that night in the tunnel?' Tucker asked.

  'I don't know that she was there,' I said.

  'Well, you were there.'

  'I was,' I said. 'I saw one person.'

  'A person with white hair or red hair?'

  I thought of the figure illuminated in the arch. I remembered the long dark coat and pale face. I had not been able to see the hair.

  'I suspect it was Gault down there that night,' I said. 'I can't prove it. But there is nothing to suggest that he had an accomplice when Jane was killed.'

  'Jane?' Tucker asked.

  Marino said, 'That's what we call the lady he killed in Central Park.'

  Then the implication is he did not form a violent partnership with this Carrie Grethen until he returned to Virginia, after New York.' Tucker continued trying to fit the pieces together.

  'We really don't know,' Wesley said. 'It's never going to be an exact science, Paul. Especially when we're dealing with violent offenders rotting their brains with drugs. The more they decompensate, the more bizarre the behavior.'

  The chief of police leaned forward, looking hard at him. 'Please tell me what the hell you make of all this.'

  'They were connected before. I suspect they met through a spy shop in northern Virginia,' Wesley said. 'That is how CAIN was compromised - is compromised. Now it appears the connection has moved to a different level.'

  'Yeah,' Marino said. 'Bonnie's found Clyde.'

  15

  We drove to my home on streets barely touched by traffic. The late night was perfectly still, snow covering the earth like cotton and absorbing sound. Bare trees were black against white, the moon an indistinct face behind fog. I wanted to go for a walk, but Wesley would not let me.

  'It's late and you've had a traumatic day,' he said as we sat in his BMW, which was parked behind Marino's car in front of my house. 'You don't need to be walking around out here.'

  'You could walk with me.' I felt vulnerable and very tired, and did not want him to leave.

  'Neither of us needs to be walking around out here,' he said as Marino, Janet and Lucy disappeared inside my house. 'You need to go inside and get some sleep.'

  'What will you do?'

  'I have a room.'

  'Where?' I asked as if I had a right to know.

  'Linden Row. Downtown. Go to bed, Kay. Please.'

  He paused, staring out the windshield. 'I wish I could do more, but I can't.'

  'I know you can't and I'm not asking you to. Of course, you can't any more than I could if you needed comfort. If you needed someone. That's when I hate loving you. I hate it so much. I hate it so much when I need you. Like now.' I struggled. 'Oh damn.'

  He put his arms around me and dried my tears. He touched my hair and held my hand as if he loved it with all his heart. 'I could take you downtown with me tonight if that's what you really want.'

  He knew I did not want that because it was impossible. 'No,' I said with a deep breath. 'No, Benton.'

  I got out of his car and scooped up a handful of
snow. I scrubbed my face with it as I walked around to the front door. I did not want anyone to know I had been crying in the dark with Benton Wesley.

  He did not drive off until I had barricaded myself inside my house with Marino, Janet and Lucy. Tucker had ordered an around-the-clock surveillance, and Marino was in charge. He would not entrust our safety to uniformed men parked somewhere in a cruiser or van. He rallied us like Green Berets or guerrillas.

  'All right,' he said as we walked into my kitchen. 'I know Lucy can shoot. Janet, you sure as hell better be able to if you're ever gonna graduate from the Academy.'

  'I could shoot before the Academy,' she said in her quiet, unflappable way.

  'Doc?'

  I was looking inside the refrigerator.

  'I can make pasta with a little olive oil, Parmesan and onion. I've got cheese if anybody wants sandwiches. Or if you give me a chance to thaw it, I've got le piccagge col pesto di ricotta or tortellini verdi. I think there's enough for four if I warm up both.'

  Nobody cared.

  I wanted so much to do something normal.

  'I'm sorry,' I said in despair. 'I haven't been to the store lately.'

  'I need to get into your safe, Doc,' Marino said.

  'I've got bagels.'

  'Hey. Anybody hungry?' Marino asked.

  No one was. I closed the freezer. The gun safe was in the garage.

  'Come on,' I told him.

  He followed me out and I opened it for him.

  'Do you mind telling me what you're doing?' I asked.

  'I'm arming us,' he said as he picked up one handgun after another and looked at my stash of ammunition. 'Damn, you must own stock in Green Top.'

  Green Top was an area gun shop that catered not to felons, but to normal citizens who enjoyed sports and home security. I reminded Marino of this, although I could not deny that by normal standards I owned too many guns and too much ammunition.

  'I didn't know you had all this,' Marino went on, half inside my large, heavy safe. 'When the hell did you get all this? I wasn't with you.'

  'I do shop alone now and then,' I said sharply. 'Believe it or not, I am perfectly capable of buying groceries, clothing and guns all by myself. And I'm very tired, Marino. Let's wind this up.'

  'Where are your shotguns?'

  'What do you want?'

  'What do you have?'

  'Remingtons. A Marine Magnum. An 870 Express Security.'

  'That'll do.'

  'Would you like me to see if I can round up some plastic explosives?' I said. 'Maybe I can put my hands on a grenade launcher.'

  He pulled out a Glock nine-millimeter. 'So you're into combat Tupperware, too.'

  'I've used it in the indoor range for test fires,' I said. That's what I've used most of these guns for. I've got several papers to present at various meetings. This is making me crazy. Are you going into my dresser drawers next?'

  Marino tucked the Glock in the back of his pants. 'Let's see. And I'm gonna swipe your stainless steel Smith and Wesson nine-mil and your Colt. Janet likes Colts.'

  I closed the safe and angrily spun the dial. Marino and I returned to the house and I went upstairs because I did not want to see him pass out ammunition and guns. I could not cope with the thought of Lucy downstairs with a pump shotgun, and I wondered if anything would faze or frighten Gault. I was to the point of thinking he was the living dead and no weapon known to us could stop him. In my bedroom I turned out lights and stood before the window. My breath condensed on glass as I stared at a night lit up by snow. I remembered occasions when I had not been in Richmond long and woke up to a world quiet and white like this. Several times, the city was paralyzed and I could not go to work. I remembered walking my neighborhood, kicking snow up in the air and throwing snowballs at trees. I remembered watching children pull sleds along streets.

  I wiped fog off the glass and was too sad to tell anyone my feelings. Across the street, holiday candles glowed in every window of every house but mine. The street was bright but empty. Not a single car went by. I knew Marino would stay up half the night with his female SWAT team. They would be disappointed. Gault would not come here. I was beginning to have an instinct about him. What Anna had said about him was probably right.

  In bed I read until I fell to sleep, and I woke up at five. Quietly, I went downstairs, thinking it would be my luck to die from a shotgun blast inside my own home. But the door to one guest bedroom was shut, and Marino was snoring on the couch. I sneaked into the garage and backed my Mercedes out. It did wonderfully on the soft, dry snow. I felt like a bird and I flew.

  I drove fast on Gary Street and thought it was fun when I fishtailed. No one else was out. I shifted the car into low gear and plowed through drifts in International Safeway's parking lot. The grocery store was always open, and I went in for fresh orange juice, cream cheese, bacon and eggs. I was wearing a hat and no one paid me any mind.

  By the time I returned to my car, I was the happiest I had been in weeks. I sang with the radio all the way home and skidded when I safely could. I drove into the garage, and Marino was there with his flat black Benelli shotgun.

  'What the hell do you think you're doing!' he exclaimed as I shut the garage door.

  'I'm getting groceries.' My euphoria fled.

  'Je-sus Christ. I can't believe you just did that,' he yelled at me.

  'What do you think this is?' I lost my temper. Tatty Hearst? Am I kidnapped now? Should we just lock me inside a closet?'

  'Get in the house.' Marino was very upset.

  I stared coldly at him. 'This is my house. Not your house. Not Tucker's house. Not Benton's house. This, goddam it, is my house. And I will get in it when I please.'

  'Good. And you can die in it just like you can die anywhere else.'

  I followed him into the kitchen. I yanked items out of the grocery bag and slammed them on the counter. I cracked eggs into a bowl and shoved shells down the disposal. I snapped on the gas burner and beat the hell out of omelets with onions and fontina cheese. I made coffee and swore because I had forgotten low-fat Cremora. I tore off squares of paper towel because I had no napkins, either.

  'You can set the table in the living room and start the fire,' I said, grinding fresh pepper into frothy eggs.

  'The fire's been started since last night.'

  'Are Lucy and Janet awake?' I was beginning to feel better.

  'I got no idea.'

  I rubbed olive oil into a frying pan. 'Then go knock on their door.'

  'They're in the same bedroom,' he said.

  'Oh for God's sake, Marino.' I turned around and looked at him in exasperation.

  We ate breakfast at seven-thirty and read the newspaper, which was wet.

  'What are you going to do today?' Lucy asked me as if we were on vacation, perhaps at some lovely resort in the Alps.

  She was dressed in her same fatigues, sitting on an ottoman before the fire. The nickel-plated Remington was nearby on the floor. It was loaded with seven rounds.

  'I have errands to run and phone calls to make,' I said.

  Marino had put on blue jeans and a sweatshirt. He watched me suspiciously as he slurped coffee.

  I met his eyes. 'I'm going downtown.'

  He did not respond. 'Benton's already headed out.'

  I felt my cheeks get hot.

  'I already tried to call him and he already checked out of the hotel.' Marino glanced at his watch. 'That would have been about two hours ago, around six.'

  'When I mentioned downtown,' I said evenly, 'I was referring to my office.'

  'What you need to do, Doc, is drive north to Quantico and check into their security floor for a while. Seriously. At least for the weekend.'

  'I agree,' I said. 'But not until I've taken care of a few matters here.'

  'Then take Lucy and Janet with you.'

  Lucy was looking out the sliding glass doors now, and Janet was still reading the paper.

  'No,' I said. 'They can stay here until we head out to Quant
ico.'

  'It's not a good idea.'

  'Marino, unless I've been arrested for something I know nothing about, I'm leaving here in less than thirty minutes and going to my office. And I'm going there alone.'

  Janet lowered the paper and said to Marino, 'There comes a point when you've got to go on with your life.'

  'This is a security matter,' Marino dismissed her.

  Janet's expression did not change. 'No, it isn't. This is a matter of your acting like a man.'

  Marino looked puzzled.

  'You're being overly protective,' she added reasonably. 'And you want to be in charge and control everything.'

  Marino did not seem angry because she was soft-spoken. 'You got a better idea?' he asked.

  'Dr. Scarpetta can take care of herself,' Janet said. 'But she shouldn't be alone in this house at night.'

  'He won't come here,' I said.

  Janet got up and stretched. 'He probably won't,' she said. 'But Carrie would.'

  Lucy turned away from the glass doors. Outside, the morning was blinding, and water dripped from eaves.

  'Why can't I go into the office with you?' my niece wanted to know.

  'There's nothing for you to do,' I said. 'You'd be bored.'

  'I can work on the computer,'

  Later, I drove Lucy and Janet to work with me and left them at the office with Fielding, my deputy chief. At eleven a.m., roads were slushy in the Slip, and businesses were opening late. Dressed in waterproof boots and a long jacket, I waited on a sidewalk to cross Franklin Street. Road crews were spreading salt, and traffic was sporadic this Friday before New Year's Eve.

  James Galleries occupied the upper floor in a former tobacco warehouse near Laura Ashley and a record store. I entered a side door, followed a dim hallway and got on an elevator too small to carry more than three people my size. I pushed the button for the third floor, and soon the elevator opened onto another dimly lit hallway, at the end of which were glass doors with the name of the gallery painted on them in black calligraphy.

  James had opened his gallery after moving to Richmond from New York. I had purchased a mono-print and a carved bird from him once, and the art glass in my dining room had come from him as well. Then I quit shopping here about a year ago after a local artist came up with inappropriate silk-screened lab coats in honor of me. They included blood and bones, cartoons and crime scenes, and when I asked James not to carry them, he increased his order.