Body of Evidence ks-2

by Patricia Cornwell

  "This one's on the house," he said, waving off the ten-dollar bill I extended to him. "Any doctor who smokes and knows her rum's all right by me."

  Reaching under the bar, he got out his own pack.

  "I tell ya," he went on, shaking out the match, "I get so damn tired of hearing all this self-righteous shit about smoking and all the rest of it. You know what I mean? People make you feel like a damn criminal. Me, I say live and let live. That's my motto."

  "Yes. I know exactly what you mean,' I said as we took long, hungry drags.

  "Always something they got to judge you for. You know, what you eat, what you drink, who you date."

  "People certainly can be extremely judgmental and unkind," I answered.

  "Amen to that."

  He sat back down in the shade of his bottle-lined shelter while the sun baked the top of my head. "Okay," he said, "so you're Straw's doctor. What is it you're trying to find out, if you don't mind my asking?"

  "There are various circumstances that occurred prior to her death that are very confusing," I said. "I'm hoping her friends might be able to clarify a few points for me-"

  "Wait a minute," he interrupted, sitting up straighter in his chair. "When you say doctor, like what kind of doctor do you mean?"

  "I examined her…"

  "When?"

  "After her death."

  "Oh, shit. You telling me you're a mortician?" he asked in disbelief.

  "I'm a forensic pathologist."

  "A coroner?"

  "More or less."

  "Well, I'll be damned." He looked me up and down. "I sure as hell never would've guessed that one."

  I didn't know if I had just been paid a compliment or not.

  "Do they always send-what did you call it? - a forensic pathologist like you around, you know, tracking down information like you're doing?"

  "Nobody sent me. I came of my own accord."

  "Why?" he asked, his eyes dark with suspicion again. "You came one hell of a long way."

  "I care about what happened to her. I care very much."

  "You're telling me the cops didn't send you?"

  "The cops don't have the authority to send me anywhere."

  "Good." He laughed. "I like that."

  I reached for my drink.

  "Bunch of bullies. Think they're all junior Rambos."

  He stubbed out his cigarette. "Came in here with their damn rubber gloves on. Jesus Christ. Just how do you think that looked to our customers? Went to see Brent -he was one of our waiters. He's dying, man, and what do they do? The assholes wear surgical masks and stand back ten feet from his bed like he's Typhoid Mary while they're asking him shit. I swear to God, even if I'd known a thing about what happened to Beryl, I wouldn't have given them the time of day."

  The name hit me like a two-by-four, and when our eyes met, I knew he realized the significance of what he had just said.

  "Beryl?" I asked.

  He leaned back silently in his chair.

  I pressed him. "You knew her name was Beryl?"

  "Like I said, the cops were here asking questions, talking about her."

  Uncomfortably, he lit another cigarette, unable to meet my eyes. My bartender friend was a very poor liar.

  "Did they talk to you?"

  "Nope. I made myself scarce when I saw what was going on."

  "Why?"

  "I told you. I don't like cops. I've got a Barracuda, a beat-up piece of shit I've had since I was a kid. For some reason, they've always got to pop me. Always giving me tickets for one thing or another, throwing their weight around with their big guns and Ray Bans, like they think they're stars in their own TV series or something."

  "You knew her name when she was here," I said quietly. "You knew her name was Beryl Madison long before the police came."

  "So what if I did? What's the big deal?"

  "She was very secretive about it," I replied with feeling. "She didn't want people down here to know who she was. She didn't tell people who she was. She paid for everything in cash so she wouldn't have to use credit cards, checks, anything that might identify her. She was terrified. She was running. She didn't want to die."

  He was staring wide-eyed at me.

  "Please tell me what you know. Please. I have a feeling you were her friend."

  He got up, saying nothing, and stepped out from behind the bar. His back to me, he began collecting the empty bottles and other trash the young people had scattered over the deck.

  I sipped my drink in silence and stared past him at the water. In the distance a bronzed young man was unfurling a deep blue sail as he prepared to set out to sea. Palm fronds whispered in the breeze and a black Labrador retriever danced along the shore, darting in and out of the surf.

  "Zulu," I muttered, staring numbly at the dog.

  The bartender stopped what he was doing and looked up at me. "What did you say?"

  "Zulu," I repeated. "Beryl mentioned Zulu and your cats in one of her letters. She said Louie's stray animals eat better than any human."

  "What letters?"

  "She wrote several letters while she was here. We found them in her bedroom after she was murdered. She said the people here had become like family. She thought this was the most beautiful place in the world. I wish she'd never returned to Richmond. I wish she'd stayed right here."

  The voice drifting out of me sounded as if it were coming from somebody else, and my vision was blurring. Poor sleep habits, accumulated stress, and the rum were ganging up on me. The sun seemed to dry up what little blood I had left flowing to my brain.

  When the bartender finally returned to his chikee hut, he spoke with quiet emotion. "I don't know what to tell you. But yeah, I was Beryl's friend."

  Turning to him, I replied, "Thank you. I'd like to think I was her friend, too. That I am her friend."

  He looked down awkwardly, but not before I detected a softening of his face.

  "You can never be real sure who's all right and who ain't," he commented. "It's real hard to know these days, that's for damn sure."

  His meaning slowly penetrated my fatigue. "Have there been people asking about Beryl who aren't nil right? People other than the police? People other than me?"

  He poured himself a Coke.

  "Have there been? Who? "I repeated, suddenly alarmed. "Don't know his name."

  He took a big swallow of his drink. "Some good-looking guy. Young, maybe in his twenties. Dark. Fancy clothes, designer shades. Looked like he just stepped out of GQ. I guess this was a couple weeks ago. He said he was a private investigator, shit like that."

  Senator Partin's son.

  "He wanted to know where Beryl lived while she was here," he went on,

  "Did you tell him?"

  "Hell, I didn't even talk to him."

  "Did anybody tell him?" I persisted.

  "Not likely."

  "Why isn't it likely, and are you ever going to tell me your name?"

  "It's not likely because nobody knew except me and a buddy," he said. "And I'll tell you my name if you tell me yours."

  "Kay Scarpetta."

  "Pleased to meet you. My name's Peter. Peter Jones. My friends call me PJ."

  PJ lived two blocks from Louie's in a tiny house completely overcome by a tropical jungle. The foliage was so dense I'm not sure I would have known the paint-eroded frame house was there had it not been for the Barracuda parked in front. One look at the car told me exactly why the police continually hassled its owner. The thing was a piece of subway graffiti on oversize wheels, with spoilers, headers, a rear end jacked up high, and a homemade paint job of hallucinatory shapes and designs in the psychedelic colors of the sixties.

  "That's my baby," PJ said, affectionately thumping the hood.

  "It's something else, all right," I said.

  "Had her since I was sixteen."

  "And you should keep her forever," I said sincerely as I ducked under branches and followed him into the cool, dark shade.

  "It's not mu
ch," he apologized, unlocking the door. "Just one extra bedroom and John upstairs where Beryl stayed. One of these days, I guess I'll rent it out again. But I'm pretty picky about my tenants."

  The living room was a hodgepodge of junkyard furniture: a couch and overstuffed chair in ugly shades of pink and green, several mismatched lamps fashioned from odd things like conch shells and coral, and a coffee table constructed from what appeared to have been an oak door in a former life. Scattered about were painted coconuts, starfish, newspapers, shoes, and beer cans, the damp air sour with decay.

  "How did Beryl find out about the room you were renting?" I asked, sitting on the couch.

  "At Louie's," he replied, switching on several lamps. "Her first few nights here she was staying at Ocean Key, a pretty nice hotel on Duval. I guess she figured out in a hurry that was going to cost her some bucks if she planned to stick around a while."

  He sat down in the overstuffed chair. "It was maybe the third time she'd come to Louie's for lunch. She would just get a salad and sit there and stare out at the water. She wasn't working on anything then. She would just sit. It was kind of weird the way she would hang around. I mean we're talking hours, like most of the afternoon. Finally, and like I said, I think it was the third time she'd come to Louie's, she wandered down to the bar and was leaning against the railing, looking out at the view. I guess I felt sorry for her."

  "Why?" I asked.

  He shrugged. "She looked so damn lost, I guess. Depressed or something. I could tell. So I started talking to her. She wasn't what I'd call easy, that's for sure."

  "She wasn't easy to get to know," I agreed.

  "She was hard as hell to hold a friendly conversation with. I asked her a couple of simple questions, like 'This your first visit here?' Or Where are you from?' That sort of thing. And sometimes she wouldn't even answer me. It's like I wasn't there. But it was funny. Something told me to hang in there with her. I asked her what she liked to drink. We started talking about different kinds. It sort of loosened her up, caught her interest. Next thing, I'm letting her try out a few favorites on the house. First a Corona with a twist of lime, which she went nuts over. Then the Barbancourt, like I fixed you. That was real special."

  "No doubt that loosened her up quite a bit," I remarked.

  He smiled. "Yeah, you got that straight. I mixed it pretty strong. We started shooting the breeze about other things, and next thing you know she's asking me about places to stay in the area. That's when I told her I had a room, and I invited her to come see it, told her to stop by later if she wanted. It was a Sunday, and I'm always off early on Sundays."

  "And she came by that night?" I inquired.

  "It really surprised me. I sort of figured she wouldn't show. But she did, found the place without a hitch. By then Walt was home. He used to stay at the Square selling his shit until dark. He'd just come in, and the three of us started talking and hitting it off. Next thing, we're walking around Old Town, and end up in Sloppy Joe's. Being a writer and all, she really flipped out, went on and on about Hemingway. She was one smart lady, I'll tell you that."

  "Walt was selling silver jewelry," I said. "In Mallory Square."

  "How'd you know that?" PJ asked, surprised.

  "The letters Beryl wrote," I reminded him.

  He stared off in sadness for a moment.

  "She also mentioned Sloppy Joe's. I got the impression she was very fond of you and Walt."

  "Yeah, the three of us could put away some beer." He picked a magazine off the floor and tossed it on the coffee table.

  "You both may have been the only friends she had."

  "Beryl was something."

  He looked at me. "She was something. I'd never met anybody like her before, and probably won't again. Once you got past that wall of hers, she was some fine lady. Smart as shit," he said again, resting his head on the back of the chair and staring up at the paint-peeled ceiling. "I used to love to hear her talk. She could say things just like that."

  He snapped his fingers. "In a way I couldn't if I had ten years to think about it. My sister's the same way. She teaches school in Denver. English. I've never been real quick with words. Before I bartended I did a lot of things with my hands. Construction, bricklaying, carpentry. Dabbled a little in pottery until I about starved to death. I came here because of Walt. Met him in Mississippi, of all places. In a bus station, if you can fucking believe that. We started talking, rode all the way to Louisiana together. A couple months later, we're both down here. It's so weird."

  He looked at me. "I mean, that was almost ten years ago. And all I got left is this dump."

  "Your life is far from over, PJ," I said gently.

  "Yeah." His face turned up to the ceiling, he shut his eyes.

  "Where is Walt now?"

  "Lauderdale, last I heard."

  "I'm very sorry," I said.

  "It happens. What can I say?"

  There was a moment of silence and I decided it was time to take a chance.

  "Beryl was writing a book while she was here."

  "You got that straight. When she wasn't trapping around with the two of us, she was working on that damn book."

  "It's disappeared," I said.

  He didn't respond.

  "The so-called private investigator you mentioned and various other people are keenly interested in it. You know that already. I believe you do."

  He remained silent, his eyes shut.

  "You have no good reason to trust me, PJ, but I hope you'll listen," I went on in a low voice. "I've got to find that manuscript, the manuscript Beryl was working on while she was here. I think she didn't take it back to Richmond with her when she left Key West. Can you help me?"

  Opening his eyes, he peered over at me. "With all due respect, Dr. Scarpetta, saying I did know, why should I? Why should I break a promise?"

  "Did you promise her you'd never tell where it is?" I asked.

  "Doesn't matter, and I asked you first," he answered.

  Taking a deep breath, I looked down at the dirty gold shag carpet beneath my feet as I leaned forward on the couch.

  "I know of no good reason for you to break a promise to a friend, PJ," I said.

  "Bullshit. You wouldn't ask me if you didn't know of a good reason."

  "Did Beryl tell you about him?" I asked.

  "You mean the asshole hassling her?"

  "Yes."

  "Yeah. I knew about it." He suddenly got up. "I don't know about you, but I'm ready for a beer."

  "Please," I said, believing it was important I accept his hospitality despite my better judgment. I was still woozy from the rum.

  Returning from the kitchen, he handed me a sweating bottle of ice-cold Corona, a wedge of lime floating in the long neck. It tasted wonderful.

  PJ sat down and began talking again. "Straw, I mean Beryl, I guess I may as well call her Beryl, was scared shitless. To be honest, when I heard about what happened, I wasn't really surprised. I mean, it freaked me. But I wasn't really surprised. I told her to stay here. I told her to screw the rent, that she could stay. Walt and me, well, I guess it was funny, but it got to where she was sort of like our sister. The fuckhead screwed me, too."

  "I beg your pardon?" I asked, startled by his sudden anger.

  "That's when Walt left. It was after we heard about it. I don't know. He changed, Walt did. I can't say that what happened to her was the only reason. We had our problems. But it did something to him. He got distant and wouldn't talk anymore. Then, one morning, he left. He just left."

  "This was when? Several weeks ago, when you found out from the police, when they came to Louie's?"

  He nodded.

  "It's screwed me, too, PJ," I said. "It's totally screwed me, too."

  "What do you mean? How the hell's it screwed you, other than causing you a lot of trouble?"

  "I'm living Beryl's nightmare." I was barely able to say it.

  He took a swallow of beer, his eyes intense on me.

  "Right now I sup
pose I'm running, too-for the same reason she was."

  "Man, you're making my brain bleed," he said, shaking his head. "What are you talking about?"

  "Did you see the photograph on the front page of this morning's Herald!"

  I asked. "A photograph of a police car burning in Richmond."

  "Yeah," he said, puzzled. "I sort of remember it."

  "That was in front of my house, PJ. The detective was inside my living room talking to me when his car was torched. It's not the first thing that's happened. You see, he's after me, too."

  "Who is, for Christ's sake?" he asked, even though I could tell he knew.

  "The man who murdered Beryl," I said with great difficulty. "The man who then butchered Beryl's mentor, Gary Harper, whom you may have heard her mention."

  "Lots of times. Shit. I'm not believing this."

  "Please help me, PJ."

  "I don't know how I can." He became so upset he jumped out of the chair and started pacing. "Why would the pig come after you?"

  "He suffers delusional jealousy. He's obsessive. He's a paranoid schizophrenic. He seems to hate anyone connected with Beryl. I don't know why, PJ. But I have to find out who he is. I have to find him," I said.

  "I don't know who the hell he is. Or where the hell he is. If I did, I'd find him and tear his fucking head off!"

  "I need that manuscript, PJ," I said.

  "What the fuck does her manuscript have to do with it?" he protested.

  So I told him. I told him about Gary Harper and his necklace. I told him about the phone calls and the fibers, and the autobiographical work Beryl was writing that I had been accused of stealing. I revealed everything I could think of about the cases while my soul withered in fear. I had never, not even once, discussed the details of a case with anyone other than the investigators or attorneys involved. When I was finished, PJ silently left the room. When he returned, he was carrying an army knapsack, which he placed in my lap.

  "There," he said."

  I swore to God I would never do this. I'm sorry, Beryl," he muttered. "I'm sorry."

  Opening the canvas flap, I carefully pulled out what must have been close to a thousand typed pages scribbled with handwritten notes, and four computer diskettes, all of it bound in thick rubber bands.