Four Scarpetta Novels (75 page)

“Thus adding to her vulnerability.” Berger takes photographs of the Ex-Lax inside the medicine cabinet.

“Yes. She would have been alarmed and paranoid if she was in the middle of her ritual. And her first thought would have been about what she was doing—not about any imminent danger.”

“Distracted.” Berger bends over and photographs the toilet bowl.

“Extremely distracted.”

“So she hurries to finish what she's doing, vomiting, ” Berger reconstructs. “She rushes out of here and shuts the door and goes to the front door. She's assuming it's Anderson who's out there knocking three times. Very possibly, Bray's rattled and annoyed and might even start saying something angry as she opens the door and . . .” Berger steps back out in the hallway, her mouth grimly set. “She's dead.”

She lets this scenario hang pregnantly as we seek out the laundry room. She knows I can relate to the distraction and mind-searing horror of opening the front door and having Chandonne suddenly rush in from the darkness like a creature out of hell. Berger opens hall closet doors, then finds a door that leads to the basement. The laundry area is down here, and I feel strangely unsettled and unnerved as we walk about in the harsh glare of naked overhead lightbulbs that are turned on by tugging strings. I have never been in this part of the house, either. I have never seen the bright red Jaguar I have heard so much about. It is absurdly out of place in this dark, cluttered, dismal space. The car is gorgeously bold and an on-the-nose symbol of the power Bray craved and flaunted. I am reminded of what Anderson angrily said about her being Bray's “gofer.” I seriously doubt Bray ever drove to the carwash herself.

The basement garage looks the way I imagine it did when Bray bought the house: a dusty, dark, concrete space frozen in time. There is no sign of improvements. Tools hanging on a pegboard and a push lawn mower are old and rusting. Spare tires lean against a wall. The washer and dryer are not new and although I feel certain the police checked them, I see no sign of it. Both machines are full. Whenever Bray did laundry last, she didn't bother to empty either the washer or dryer, and lingerie, jeans and towels are hopelessly wrinkled and smell sour. Socks, more towels and work-out clothes in the washer were never put through the cycle. I pull out a Speedo running shirt. “Did she belong to a gym?” I ask.

“Good question. Vain and obsessive as she was, I suspect she did something to keep in shape.” Berger digs through clothes in the washer
and pulls out a pair of panties that are spotted with blood in the crotch. “Talk about airing someone's dirty laundry,” she ruefully comments. “Even I feel like a voyeur sometimes. So maybe she had her period recently. Not that it necessarily has anything to do with the price of tea in China.”

“It might have,” I reply. “Depends on how it affected her moods. PMS could certainly make her eating disorder worse, and mood swings couldn't have helped her volatile relationship with Anderson.”

“Pretty amazing to think about the common, mundane things that can lead to catastrophe.” Berger drops the panties back into the machine. “I had a case one time. This man has to pee and decides to pull off Bleecker Street and relieve himself in an alleyway. He can't see what he's doing until another car goes by and illuminates the alleyway just enough for the poor old guy to realize he's peeing on a bloody dead body. The guy peeing has a heart attack. A little later, a cop investigates this car illegally parked, goes in the alleyway and finds a dead Hispanic with multiple stab wounds. Next to him is a dead older white male with his dick hanging out of his unzipped pants.” Berger goes to a sink and rinses her hands, shakes them dry. “Took a little while to figure that one out,” she says.

W
E FINISH WITH
Bray's house at half past nine, and although I am tired, it would be impossible for me to even think about sleeping. I am energized in a strung-out way. My mind is lit up like a huge city at night and I almost feel feverish. I would never want to admit to anyone how much I actually enjoy working with Berger. She misses nothing. She keeps even more to herself. She has me intrigued. I have tasted the forbidden fruit of straying from my bureaucratic boundaries and I like it. I am flexing muscles I rarely get to use because she is not limiting my areas of expertise, and she is not territorial or insecure. Maybe I also want her to respect me, too. She has encountered me at my lowest point, when I am accused. She returns the house key to Eric Bray, who has no questions for us. He doesn't even seem curious but just wants to be on his way.

“How are you feeling?” Berger asks me as we drive off. “Holding up?”

“Holding up,” I affirm.

She turns on an overhead light and squints at a Post-it on the dash. She dials a number on her car phone, leaving it on speaker. Her own recorded announcement comes on and she hits a code to see how many messages she has. Eight. And she picks up the handset so I can't hear them. This seems odd. Is there some reason she wanted me to know how many messages she has? I am alone with my thoughts for the next few minutes as she drives through my neighborhood, the phone against her ear. She goes through messages quickly and I suspect we share the same impatient habit. If someone is long-winded, I tend to delete the message before it is finished. Berger, I bet, does the same thing. We follow
Sulgrave Road through the heart of Windsor Farms, passing the Virginia House and Agecroft Hall—ancient Tudor mansions that were dismantled and crated in England and shipped over here by wealthy Richmonders back in an era when this part of the city was one huge estate.

We approach the guard booth for Lockgreen, my neighborhood. Rita steps out of the booth and I know instantly by her bland expression that she has seen this Mercedes SUV and its driver before. “Hi,” Berger says to her. “I have Dr. Scarpetta.”

Rita bends over and her face shines in the open window. She is happy to see me. “Welcome back,” she says with a hint of relief. “You're home for good, I hope? It doesn't seem right, you not being here. Seems real quiet these days.”

“Coming home in the morning.” I experience ambivalence, even fear, as I hear myself say the words. “Merry Christmas, Rita. It looks like all of us are working tonight.”

“Gotta do what you gotta do.”

Guilt pinches my heart as we drive off. This will be the first Christmas when I haven't remembered the guards in some way. Usually, I bake bread for them or send food to whoever's sad lot it is to be sitting in that small booth when he should be home with family. I have gotten quiet. Berger senses I am troubled. “It's very important that you tell me your feelings,” she quietly says. “I know it's completely against your nature and violates every rule you have laid down in your life.” We follow the street toward the river. “I understand all too well.”

“Murder makes everybody selfish,” I tell her.

“No kidding.”

“It causes unbearable anger and pain,” I continue. “You think only of yourself. I've done much statistical analysis with our computer database, and one day I'm trying to pull up the case of a woman who was raped and murdered. I hit on three cases with the same last name and discover the rest of her family: a brother who died of a drug overdose some years after the murder, then the father who committed suicide several years after that, the mother who got killed in a car accident. We've begun an ambitious study at the Institute, doing an analysis of what happens to
the people left behind. They get divorced. They become substance abusers. Are treated for mental illness. Lose their jobs. Move.”

“Violence certainly poisons the lake,” Berger rather banally replies.

“I'm tired of being selfish. That's what I'm feeling,” I say. “Christmas Eve, and what have I done for anybody? Not even for Rita. Here she's working past midnight, has several jobs because she has children. Well, I hate this. He's hurt so many people. He continues to hurt people. We've had two off-the-wall murders that I believe are related. Torture. International connections. Guns, drugs. Bed covers missing.” I look over at Berger. “When the hell is it going to stop?”

She turns into my driveway, making no pretense that she doesn't know exactly which one it is. “The reality is, not soon enough,” she answers me.

Like Bray's house, mine is completely dark. Someone has turned off all the lights, including the floodlights that are politely hidden in trees or in eaves and pointed down at the ground so they don't light up my property like a baseball park and completely offend my neighbors. I don't feel welcome. I dread walking inside and facing what Chandonne, what the police, have done to my private world. I sit for a moment and stare out my window as my heart sinks lower. Anger. Pain. I am deeply offended.

“What are you feeling?” Berger asks as she stares out at my house.

“What am I feeling?” I bitterly repeat. “So much for
Più si prende e peggio si mangia
.” I get out and angrily shut the car door.

Loosely translated, the Italian proverb means
the more you pay, the worse you eat
. Italian country life is supposed to be simple and sweet. It is supposed to be uncomplicated. The best food is made of fresh ingredients and people don't rush away from the table or care about matters that really aren't important. To my neighbors, my sturdy house is a fortress with every security system known to the human race. To me, what I built is a
casa colonica
, a quaint farmhouse of varying shades of creamy gray stone with brown shutters that warm me with reassuring, gentle thoughts of the people I come from. I only wish I had roofed my house with
coppi
, or curved terra-cotta tiles, instead of slate, but I didn't
want a red dragon's back on top of rustic stone. If I couldn't reasonably find materials that were old, at least I chose ones that blend with the earth.

The essence of who I am is ruined. The simple beauty and safety of my life is sullied. I tremble inside. My vision blurs with tears as I climb the front steps and stand beneath the overhead lamp that Chandonne unscrewed. The night air bites and clouds have absorbed the moon. It feels like it might snow again. I blink and take in several breaths of cold air in an effort to calm myself and shove down overwhelming emotion. Berger, at least, has the good grace to give me a moment of peace. She has dropped back as I insert my key into the deadbolt lock. I step inside the dark, cool foyer and enter the alarm code as an awareness raises the hair on the back of my neck. I flip on lights and blink at the steel Medeco key in my hand and my pulse picks up. This is crazy. It can't be. No way. Berger is quietly coming through the door behind me. She looks around at the stucco walls and vaulted ceilings. Paintings are crooked. Rich Persian rugs are rumpled and disturbed and filthy. Nothing has been restored to its original order. It seems contemptuous that no one bothered to clean up dusting powder and tracked-in mud, but this isn't why I have a look on my face that pins Berger's complete attention.

“What is it?” she says, her hands poised to open her fur coat.

“I need to make a quick phone call,” I tell her.

 

I DON
'
T TELL
Berger what I am thinking. I dont't let on what I fear. I don't divulge that when I stepped back outside the house to use my cell phone in private, I called Marino and asked him to come here right now.

“Everything all right?” Berger asks when I return and shut the front door.

I don't answer her. Of course, everything isn't all right. “Where do you want me to start?” I remind her we have work to do.

She wants me to reconstruct exactly what happened the night Chandonne tried to murder me, and we wander into the great room. I begin
with the white cotton sectional sofa in front of the fireplace. I was sitting there last Friday night, going through bills, the television turned down low. Periodically, a newsbreak would come on, warning the public about the serial killer who calls himself Le Loup-Garou. Information had been released about his supposed genetic disorder, his extreme deformity, and as I remember that evening it almost seems absurd to imagine a very serious anchor on a local channel talking about a man who is maybe six feet tall, has weird teeth and a body covered with long baby-fine hair. People were advised not to open the door if they weren't sure who was there.

“At about eleven,” I tell Berger, “I switched over to NBC, I think, to watch the late news and moments later my burglar alarm went off. The zone for the garage had been violated, according to the display on the keypad, and when the service called, I told them they'd better dispatch the police because I had no idea why the thing had gone off.”

“So your garage has an alarm system,” Berger repeats. “Why the garage? Why do you think he tried to break into it?”

“To deliberately set off the alarm so the police would come,” I repeat my belief. “They show up. They leave. Then he shows up. He impersonates the police and I open my door. No matter what anybody says or what I heard on the videotape when you interviewed him, he spoke English, perfect English. He had no accent at all.”

“Didn't sound like the man in the videotape,” she agrees.

“No. Certainly not.”

“So you didn't recognize his voice in that tape.”

“I didn't,” I reply.

“You don't think he was really trying to get inside your garage, then. That this was just for the purpose of setting off the alarm,” Berger probes, as usual writing nothing down.

“I doubt it. I think he was trying to do exactly what I said.”

“And how do you suppose he knew your garage had an alarm system?” Berger inquires. “Rather unusual. Most homes don't have an alarm system in the garage.”

“I don't know if he knew or how he knew.”

“He could have tried a back door instead, for example, and been assured that the alarm would go off, assuming you had it on. And I fully believe he knew you would have it on. We can assume he knows you are a very security-minded woman, especially in light of the murders going on around here.”

“I have no clue what would go through his mind,” I say rather tersely.

Berger paces. She stops in front of the stone fireplace. It gapes empty and dark and makes my house seem unlived-in and neglected like Bray's. Berger points a finger at me, “You
do
know what he thinks,” she confronts me. “Just as he was gathering intelligence on you and getting a feel for how you think and what your patterns are, you were doing the same thing to him. You read about him in the wounds of the bodies. You were communicating with him through his victims, through the crime scenes, through everything you learned in France.”