Four Scarpetta Novels (61 page)

“Where did this beating occur?”

“I was still in New York.”

“Did you receive medical treatment or report this assault to the police?” Berger asks him.

“Oh, that would have been impossible. The top law enforcement people are all in this together, of course. They are the ones who did it to me. I could report nothing. I received no medical treatment. I became a nomad, always hiding. Ruined.”

“What about the name of your dentist?”

“Oh, that was very long ago. I doubt he's still alive. His name was Corps. Maurice Corps. His office was on rue Cabanis, I believe.”

“Corps
as in corpse?” I comment to Berger. “And is
Cabanis
a play
on cannabis, or marijuana?” I am shaking my head in disgust and amazement.

“So you and Susan had sex in her bedroom.” Berger gets back to that on the tape. “Please continue. How long were the two of you in bed?”

“I would say until three o'clock in the morning. Then she told me I had to leave because she needed to get ready for work. So I got dressed and we made arrangements to see each other that night again. We said we would meet at seven at L'Absinthe, a nice French bistro in the neighborhood.”

“You say you got dressed. What about her? Was she dressed when you left her?”

“She had a pair of black satin pajamas. She put those on and kissed me at the door.”

“So you went downstairs? Did you see anyone?”

“Juan, the doorman. I went out and walked for a while. I found a cafe and had breakfast. I was very hungry.” He pauses. “Neil's. That's the name. It is right across the street from Lumi.”

“Do you remember what you ate?”

“Espresso.”

“You were very hungry but all you had was espresso?” Berger lets him know she picks up on the word “hunger” and realizes he is mocking her, jerking her around, fucking with her. Chandonne's hunger wasn't for breakfast. He was enjoying the afterglow of violence, of destroying flesh and blood because he had just left behind a woman he had beaten to death and bitten. No matter what he says, that is what he did. The bastard. The goddamn lying bastard.

“Sir, when did you first learn that Susan was murdered?” Berger asks him.

“She didn't show up for dinner that night.”

“Well, I guess not.”

“Then the next day . . .”

“Would this be December fifth or the sixth?” Berger asks, and she is
stepping up the tempo, indicating to him that she's had it with his games.

“The sixth,” he says. “I read about her in the paper the morning after she was supposed to meet me at L'Absinthe.” He now puts on the act of feeling sad about it. “I was shocked.” He sniffs.

“Obviously, she didn't show up at L'Absinthe the night before. But you're saying you did?”

“I had a glass of wine in the bar and waited. Finally, I left.”

“Did you mention to anyone in the restaurant that you were waiting for her?”

“Yes. I asked the maître d' if she had been by and perhaps left a message for me. They knew who she was because of her being on TV.”

Berger questions him closely about the maître d', asking his name, what Chandonne was wearing that night, how much he had paid for the wine and was it in cash, and when he inquired after Susan, did he give his name. Of course not. She spends five minutes on all this. She mentions to me that the police had been contacted by the bistro and were told that a man had come in and said he was waiting for Susan Pless. All of it was painstakingly checked out back then. It is true. The description of the way the man was dressed is identical to Chandonne's description of how he was dressed that night. This man did order a glass of red wine at the bar and ask if Susan had been by or had left a message, and he did not give his name. This man also fit the description of the man who had been in Lumi with Susan the night before.

“And did you tell anyone you had been with her the night of her murder?” Berger says on tape.

“No. Once I knew what happened, I could say nothing.”

“And what was it that you knew had happened?”

“
They
did it.
They
did that to her. To set me up again.”

“Again?”

“I had women in Paris before all this.
They
did it to them, too.”

“These women were before Susan's death?”

“Maybe one or two before. Then some afterwards, as well. The same thing happened to all of them because I was followed. This is why I went
more and more into hiding, and the stress and hardships made my condition so much worse. It has been a nightmare and I've said nothing. Who would believe me?”

“Good question,” Berger says sharply. “Because you know what? I, for one, don't believe you, sir. You murdered Susan, didn't you, sir?”

“No.”

“You raped her, didn't you, sir?”

“No.”

“You beat her and bit her, didn't you, sir?”

“No. This is why I've told nothing to anybody. Who would believe me? Who would believe people are trying to destroy me all because they think my father is a criminal, a godfather?”

“You never told the police or anyone that you may have been the last person to see Susan alive because you murdered her, didn't you, sir?”

“I told no one. If I had, I would have been blamed for her death, just as you are blaming me. I returned to Paris. I wandered. I hoped they would forget me, but they haven't. You can see they haven't.”

“Sir, are you aware that Susan was covered with bite marks and that your saliva was found on those bite marks and the DNA testing on them and on the seminal fluid found in her vagina matches your DNA?”

He just fixes those black glasses on Berger.

“You know what DNA is, don't you?”

“I would expect my DNA to come up.”

“Because you bit her.”

“I never bit her. But I am very oral. I . . .” He stops.

“You what? What did you do that might explain your saliva being on bite marks you say you didn't inflict?”

“I'm very oral,” he says again. “I suck and lick. All over the body.”

“Where specifically? Do you literally mean every inch of the body?”

“Yes. All of it. I love a woman's body. Every inch of it. Perhaps because I don't have . . . Perhaps because it is so beautiful, and beauty is something I can never have for myself, you see. So I worship them. My women. Their flesh.”

“You lick and kiss their feet, for example?”

“Yes.”

“The bottoms of their feet?”

“Everywhere.”

“Have you ever bitten a woman's breasts?”

“No. She had very beautiful breasts.”

“But you sucked them, licked them?”

“Obsessively.”

“Are breasts important to you?”

“Oh yes. Very much—I am honest about it.”

“You seek out big-breasted women?”

“I have a type I like.”

“What exactly is your type?”

“Very full.” He cups his hands at his chest and sexual tension shines in his face as he describes the type of woman who arouses him. Maybe it is my imagination, but his eyes gleam behind the black Solar Shields. “But not fat. I don't like fat women, no, no. Slender through the waist and hips, but very full.” He cups his hands again, as if he is gripping volleyballs, and veins rope through his arms and his muscles flex.

“And Susan was your type?” Berger is completely unflappable.

“The instant I spotted her in the restaurant, I was attracted,” he replies.

“In Lumi?”

“Yes.”

“Hairs were also found on her body,” Berger then says. “Are you aware that unusual long, baby-fine hair consistent with your unusual baby-fine hair was found on her body? How can that be if you'd shaved? Didn't you just tell me you shaved your entire body?”

“
They
plant things. I'm sure of it.”

“These same people who are out to get you?”

“Yes.”

“And where would they get your hair?”

“There was a period, in Paris some five years ago, when I started getting the sense someone was after me,” he says. “I had a feeling I was being watched, being followed. I had no idea why. But when I was younger I
didn't shave my body always. My back, you can imagine. It is very hard to reach, hard to shave my back, impossible really, so sometimes many, many months would go by, and you see, when I was younger, I was more shy with women and rarely approached them. So I didn't think about shaving as much, would just hide beneath long pants and sleeves and only shave my hands and neck and face.” He touches his cheek. “One day I came home to the apartment where my foster parents lived . . .”

“Your foster parents are still alive at this point? The couple you've mentioned? Who lived near the prison?” she adds with a trace of irony.

“No. But I still was able to live there for a while. It was not expensive and I had work, odd jobs. I come home and I can tell someone has been inside. It was strange. Nothing was missing except the covers on my bed. I think, well, that's not so bad. At least whoever it was took only that. Then it happened again several more times. I realize now it was them. They wanted my hair. That's why they took my bedcovers. Because I lose a lot of hair, you see?” He touches tangles of hair on top of his head. “It is always falling out if I don't shave. It gets caught on things when it's so long.” He holds out an arm to show her, and long hair wafts weightlessly on the air.

“Then you're saying you didn't have long hair when you met Susan? Not even on your back?”

“Not at all. If you found long hairs on her body, then they were put there, you see what I am saying? All the same, I accept that her murder is my fault.”

W
HY IS IT
your fault?” Berger asks Chandonne. “Why would you say that Susan's murder is your fault?”

“Because
they
followed me,” he answers her. “They must have come in just after I left, and then they did that to her.”

“And did they follow you to Richmond, too, sir? Why did you come here?”

“I came because of my brother.”

“Explain that to me,” Berger replies.

“I heard about the body at the port, and I was convinced it was my brother, Thomas.”

“What did your brother do for a living?”

“He was in the shipping business with my father. He was a few years older. Thomas was good to me. I didn't see him much, but he would give me his clothes when he no longer wanted them, and other things, as I've told you. And money. I know the last time I saw him, maybe two months ago in Paris, he was frightened something bad was going to happen to him.”

“Where in Paris was this meeting with Thomas?”

“Faubourg Saint Antoine. He loved to go where the young artists and nightclubs are, and we met in a stone alleyway. Cour des Trois Frères, where the artisans are, you know, not too far from Sans Sanz and the Balanjo and, of course, the Bar Américain, where girls can be paid to keep you company. He gave me money and said he was going to
Belgium, to Antwerp, and then on to this country. I never heard from him again, and next the news came out about the body.”

“And where did you hear this news?”

“I told you I get many newspapers. I pick up what people throw away. And many tourists who don't speak French read the international version of
USA Today
. There was a small story in it about the body found here, and I knew right away it was my brother. I was sure. For this reason, I came to Richmond. I had to know.”

“How did you get here?”

Chandonne sighs. He looks fatigued again. He touches the inflamed, raw skin around his nose. “I don't want to say,” he replies.

“Why don't you want to say?”

“I'm afraid you'll use it against me.”

“Sir, I need you to be truthful with me.”

“I'm a pickpocket. I took a wallet from a man who had his coat draped over a monument in Père-Lachaise, the most famous cemetery in Paris, where some of my family is buried. A
concession à perpétuité
,” he says proudly. “Stupid man. An American. It was a big wallet, the sort people keep passports and plane tickets in. I've done this many times, I regret to tell you. It's part of living on the street, and I've lived on the street more and more since they started after me.”

“These same people again. Federal agents.”

“Yes, yes. Agents, magistrates, everyone. I immediately took the plane because I didn't want to give the man time to report his wallet missing and then have someone stop me at the gate in the airport. It was a return ticket, coach, to New York.”

“You flew out of what airport and when?”

“De Gaulle. That would have been last Thursday.”

“December sixteenth?”

“Yes. I got in early that morning and took a train to Richmond. I had seven hundred dollars because of what I took from the man.”

“Do you still have the wallet and passport?”

“No, never. That would be stupid. I threw them in the trash.”

“Where in the trash?”

“At the train station in New York. I can't tell you exactly where. I got on the train. . . .”

“And during your travels, nobody looked at you? You weren't shaven, sir? No one stared at you or reacted to you?”

“I had my hair in a net under a hat. I wore long sleeves and a high collar.” He hesitates. “I have another thing I do when I look like this, when I have not cleaned off the hair. I wear a mask. The type of mask people put over their nose and mouth if they have severe allergies. And I wear black cotton gloves and large tinted glasses.”

“This is what you wore on the plane and the train?”

“Yes. It works very well. People move away from me and I, in this instance, had an entire row of seats to myself. So I slept.”

“Do you still have the mask, hat, gloves and glasses?”

He stops to think before answering. She has thrown him a curveball and he is uncertain. “I can possibly find them,” he hedges.

“What did you do when you got to Richmond?” Berger asks him.

“I got off the train.”

She questions him about this for several minutes. Where is the train station? Did he take a taxi next? How did he get around? Just what did he think he would do about his brother? His answers are lucid. Everything he describes makes it seem plausible that he might have been where he claims to have been, such as the Amtrak station on Staples Mill Road and in a blue taxicab that let him off at a dump of a motel on Chamberlayne Avenue, where he paid twenty dollars for a room, again using an assumed name and paying cash. From here, he states that he called my office to get information about the unidentified body he says is his brother. “I asked to speak to the doctor but no one would help me,” he is telling Berger.

“Who did you talk to?” she asks him.

“It was a woman. Maybe a clerk.”

“Did this clerk tell you who the doctor is?”

“Yes. A Dr. Scarpetta. So then I asked to speak to him, and the clerk
tells me Dr. Scarpetta is a woman. So I say, okay. May I speak to
her
? And she is busy. I don't leave my name and number, of course, because I must continue to be careful. Maybe I'm followed again. How do I know? And then I get a newspaper and read about a murder here, a lady in a store killed a week earlier, and I'm shocked—frightened.
They
are here.”

“These same people? The ones you say are after you?”

“
They
are here, don't you see? They killed my brother and knew I would come to find him.”

“They certainly are amazing, aren't they, sir? How amazing they are to know you would come all the way to Richmond, Virginia, because you just happen to read a discarded
USA Today
and learn that a body has turned up here, and that you would assume it's Thomas, and that you would steal a passport and wallet and off you'd go.”

“They would know I would come. I love my brother. My brother is all I have in life. He is the only one ever good to me. And I need to find out for Papa. Poor Papa.”

“What about your mother? She wouldn't be upset to find out Thomas is dead?”

“She is drunk so much.”

“Your mother's an alcoholic?”

“She's always drinking.”

“Every day?”

“Every day, all day. And then she gets angry or cries a lot.”

“You don't live with her, yet you know she drinks every day and all day long?”

“Thomas would tell me. It's been her life ever since I can remember. I've always been told she is drunk. The few times I would go to the house, she was drunk. It was mentioned to me once that my condition might have happened because she was drunk when she was pregnant with me.”

Berger looks at me. “Possible?”

“Fetal alcohol syndrome?” I consider. “Not likely. Generally severe mental and physical retardation would result if the mother were a chronic
alcoholic, and cutaneous changes such as hypertrichosis would be the least of the child's problems.”

“Doesn't mean he doesn't believe she caused his condition.”

“He certainly might believe it,” I agree with her.

“Helping to explain his extreme hatred of women.”

“As much as anything can explain his kind of hate,” I reply.

On tape, Berger has returned Chandonne to the subject of his allegedly calling the morgue here in Richmond. “So you tried to get through to Dr. Scarpetta on the phone but couldn't. Then what?”

“Then the next day, Friday, I hear on the TV in my motel room that another woman has been murdered. This time a policewoman. They do a newsbreak, you know, and I'm watching it as it is happening and next thing the cameras focus on a big black car pulling up to the scene and they say it is the medical examiner. It is her, Scarpetta. So I get the idea to go there immediately. I will wait until she is leaving the scene and then I will approach her. I will tell her I must talk to her. So I get a taxi.”

His remarkable memory fails him here. He recalls nothing about the taxi company, not even the color of the car, only that the driver was a “black man.” Probably eighty percent of the taxi drivers in Richmond are black. Chandonne claims that while he is being driven to the scene—and he knows the address because it was on the news—he hears another newsbreak. This time, the public is being warned about the killer, that he may have a strange medical condition which causes him to have a very unusual appearance. The hypertrichotic description fits Chandonne. “I know now, for sure,” he goes on. “They have set the trap and the world thinks I have killed these women in Richmond. So I panic in the back of the taxi, trying to figure out what to do. I say to the taxi driver, ‘Do you know this lady they speak of? Scarpetta?' He says that everyone in the city knows her. I ask where she lives and say I'm a tourist. He takes me to her neighborhood but we don't go in because there are guards and a gate. But I know enough to find her. I get out of the taxi several blocks from there. I'm determined I will find her before it's too late.”

“Too late for what?” Berger asks.

“Before anybody else is killed. I must come back later that night and somehow get her to open the door so I can talk to her. You know, of course, I'm worried they will kill her next. It's their pattern, you see. They did that in Paris, you know. They tried to murder the medical examiner there, a woman. She was very lucky.”

“Sir, let's keep on the subject of what happened here in Richmond. Tell me what happened next. It's what, midmorning on Friday, December seventeenth, last Friday? What did you do after the taxi dropped you off? What did you do the rest of the day?”

“Wandered. Found an abandoned house on the river and went in it just to get out of the weather.”

“Do you know where that house is?”

“I can't tell you, but not far from her neighborhood.”

“From Dr. Scarpetta's neighborhood?”

“Yes.”

“You could find that house again, the one you stayed in, couldn't you, sir?”

“It's under construction. Very big. A mansion no one lives in right now. I know where it is.”

Berger says to me, “The one where they think he was staying the entire time he was here?”

I nod. I am familiar with the house. I think of the poor people it belongs to and can't imagine them ever wanting to live there again. Chandonne says he hid in the abandoned mansion until dark. Several times that night he ventured out, avoiding the guard gate in my neighborhood by simply following the river and railroad tracks that run behind it. He claims to have knocked on my door early evening and got no answer. At this point, Berger asks me when I got home that night. I tell her it was after eight. I had stopped off at Pleasants Hardware store after leaving the office. I wanted to look at tools because I was perplexed by the strange wounds I had found on Diane Bray's body and by bloody transfers made to the mattress when the killer had set down the bloody tool
he had beaten her with. It was during this foraging at Pleasants Hardware that I came across a chipping hammer, and I purchased one and went on home, I tell Berger.

Chandonne goes on to claim he began to get fearful about coming to see me. He claims there were a lot of police cars cruising the neighborhood, and that at one point when he came to my house late, there were two police cruisers parked in front. This was because my alarm had gone off—when Chandonne forced open my garage door so the police would come. Of course, he tells Berger that it wasn't him who set off the alarm. It was
them
—it must have been them, he says. By now, it is getting close to midnight. It is snowing hard. He hides behind trees near my house and waits until the police leave. He says it is his last chance, he has to see me. He believes
they
are in the area and will kill me. So he goes to my front door and knocks.

“What did you knock with?” Berger asks him.

“I recall there was a door knocker. I believe I used that.” He drains the last of his Pepsi and Marino on tape asks him if he wants another one. Chandonne shakes his head and yawns. He is talking about coming into my house to bash my brains out and the bastard is yawning.

“Why didn't you ring the bell?” Berger wants to know. This is important. My doorbell activates the camera system. Had Chandonne rung the bell, I would have been able to see him on a video screen inside the house.

“I don't know,” he replies. “I saw the knocker and used it.”

“Did you say anything?”

“Not at first. Then I heard a woman ask, ‘Who is it?'”

“And what did you say?”

“I told her my name. I said I have information about the body she's trying to identify, and to please let me talk to her.”

“You told her your name? You identified yourself as Jean-Baptiste Chandonne?”

“Yes. I said I was here from Paris and had been trying to get her at her office.” He yawns again. “The most amazing thing happens,” he goes on. “The door suddenly opens and she is there. She tells me to come in,
and the minute I do, she slams the door shut behind me and I can't believe it. She suddenly has this hammer and is trying to hit me.”

“Suddenly has a hammer? Where did she get it? Did it just appear out of thin air?”

“I believe she grabbed it off a table just inside the doorway. I don't know. It happened so fast. And I try to get away from her. I run into the living room, yelling for her to stop, and that's when the terrible thing happened. It was fast. I only remember I was on the other side of the sofa, and then something was flying in my face. It felt like liquid fire in my eyes. I have never felt anything so, so . . .” He sniffs again. “The pain. I was screaming and trying to get it out of my eyes. I was trying to get out of the house. I knew she was going to kill me and suddenly it went into my mind that she is one of them.
Them
. They have got me at last. I walked right into their trap! It was planned all along that she would get my brother's body because she is
them
. Now I would be arrested and they would finally get the opportunity they want, finally, finally.”