Cruel and Unusual ks-4

by Patricia Cornwell

  He impatiently changed the subject. “You got a copy of the fax you told me about?”

  I went to my study and returned with my briefcase. Snapping it open, I handed him the printout of the message Vander had discovered with the image enhancer.

  “This was on the blank sheet of paper we found on Jennifer Deighton's bed, right?” he asked.

  “That's correct.”

  “I still can’t figure out why she had a blank sheet of paper on her bed with a crystal on top of it. What were they doing there?”

  “I don't know,” I said. “What about the messages on her answering machine? Anything?”

  “We're still running them down… We've got a lot of people to interview.”

  He slipped a pack of Marlboros out of his shirt pocket and blew out a loud breath of air. “Damn.” He slapped the pack on top of the coffee table. “You're going to nag me every time I light up one of these now, aren't you?”

  “No, I'll just stare at it. But I won't say a word.”

  “You remember that interview of you that was on PBS a couple months back?”

  “Vaguely.”

  “Jennifer Deighton taped it. The tape was in her VCR and we started playing it and there you were.”

  “What?” I asked, amazed.

  “Of course, you weren't the only thing featured on that particular program. There was also some crap about an archaeology dig and a Hollywood movie they filmed around here.”

  “Why would she tape me?”

  “It's just another piece that's not fitting with anything else yet. Except the calls made from her phone the hang ups. It looks like Deighton was thinking about you before she was whacked.”

  “What else have you found out about her?”

  “I gotta smoke. You want me to go outside?”

  “Of course not.”

  “It gets weirder,” he said. “While going through her office, we came across a divorce decree. Appears she was married in 1961, got divorced two years later, and changed her name back to Deighton. Then she moved from Florida to Richmond. The name of her ex is Willie Travers, and he's one of these health nut types - you know, into whole health. Hell, I can't think of the name.”

  “Holistic medicine?”

  “That's it Still lives in Florida, Fort Myers Beach. I got him on the phone. Hard as hell to get much out of him, but I managed to find out a few things. He says he and Miss Deighton continued feeling friendly toward each other after they split and, in fact, continued seeing each other.”

  “He came up here?”

  “Travers said she'd go down there to see him, in Florida. They'd get together, as he put it, 'for old times' sake.' Last time she was down there was this past November, around Thanksgiving. I also pried out of him a little bit about Deighton's brother and sister. The sister's a lot younger, married, lives out West. The brother's the eldest, in his mid-fifties, and manages a grocery store. He had throat cancer a couple years back and his voice box was cutout”

  “Wait a minute,” I said.

  “Yeah. You know what that sounds like. You'd know it if you heard it. No way the guy who called you at the office was John Deighton. It was somebody else who had personal reasons for being interested in Jennifer Deighton's autopsy findings. He knew enough to get the name right. He knew enough to get it straight that he's supposed to be from Columbia, South Carolina. But he didn't know about the real John Deighton's health problems, didn't know he should sound like he's talking through a machine.”

  “Does Travers know his ex-wife's death is a homicide?” I asked.

  “I told him the medical examiner is still running tests.”

  “And he was in Florida when she died?”

  “Allegedly. I'd like to know where your friend Nicholas Grueman was when she died.”

  “He has never been a friend,” I said. “How will you approach him?”

  “I won’t for a while. You only get one shot with someone like Grueman. How old is he?”

  “Somewhere in his sixties,” I said.

  “He a big guy?”

  “I haven't seen him since I was in law school.”

  I got up to stir the fire.

  “Back then Grueman's build was trim bordering on thin. I would describe his height as average.”

  Marino did not say anything.

  “Jennifer Deighton weighed one-eighty,” I reminded him. “It appears her killer yoked her and then carried her body out to her car.”

  “All right. So maybe Grueman had help. You want a far out scenario? Try this one on for size. Grueman represented Ronnie Waddell, who wasn't exactly a pencil-neck. Or maybe we should say, isn't exactly a pencil-neck. Waddell's print was found inside Jennifer Deighton's house. Maybe Grueman did go to see her and he didn't go alone.”

  I stared into the fire.

  “By the way, I didn't see nothing in Jennifer Deighton's house that could have been the source of the feather you found,” he added. “You asked me to check.”

  Just then, his pager sounded. Snapping it off his belt, he squinted at the narrow screen.

  “Damn,” he complained, heading into the kitchen the phone.

  “What's going… What?”

  I heard him say. “Oh, Christ. You sure?”

  He was silent for a moment. He sounded very tense when he said, “Don't bother. I'm standing fifteen feet from her.”

  Marino ran a red light at West Cary and Windsor Way, and headed east. Grille lights flashed and scanner lights danced in the white Ford LTD. Ten-codes crackled over the radio as I envisioned Susan curled up in the wing chair, her terry cloth robe pulled tightly around her to ward off a chill that had nothing to do with the temperature in the room. I remembered the expression on her face shifting constantly like clouds, her eyes revealing no secrets to me.

  I was shivering and could not seem to catch my breath. My heart beat hard in my throat. Police had found Susan's car in an alleyway off Strawberry Street. She was in the driver's seat, dead. It was unknown what she had been doing in that part of town or what might have motivated her assailant.

  “What else did she say when you talked with her last night?”

  Marino asked.

  Nothing significant would come to mind.

  “She was tense,” I said. “Something was bothering her.”

  “What? You got any guesses?”

  “I don't know what.”

  My hands shook as I fumbled with my medical bag and checked the contents again. Camera, gloves, and everything else were accounted for. I remembered Susan once saying that if anyone tried to abduct or rape her, they'd have to kill her first.

  There had been a number of late afternoons when it was just the two of us cleaning up and filling out paperwork. We had had many personal conversations about being a woman and loving men, and what it would be like to be a like to be a mother. Once we had talked about death and Susan confessed she was afraid of it.

  "I'm not talking about hell, either, the fire and brimstone my father preaches about. I'm not afraid of that," she said adamantly. "I'm just afraid of this being all there is.”

  "This isn't all there is," I said.

  "How do you know?”

  "Something's gone. You look at their faces and you can tell: Their energy has departed. The spirit didn't die. Just the body did.”

  "But how do you know?” she asked again.

  Easing, up on the accelerator, Marino turned onto Strawberry Street. I glanced in my side mirror. Another police car was behind us, light bar flashing red and blue. We passed restaurants and a small grocery store. Nothing was open, and the few cars out pulled over to let us pass. Near the Strawberry StreetCafe, the narrow street was lined with cruisers and marked units, and an ambulance was blocking the entrance of an alleyway. Two television trucks had parked a little farther down. Reporters moved restlessly along the perimeter cordoned off in yellow tape. Marino parked and our, doors opened at the same time. Instantly, cameras pointed our way.

  I watched where Marino
stepped and was right behind him. Shutters whirred, film advanced, and microphones were raised Marino's long strides did not pause and he did not answer anyone. I averted my face.

  Rounding the ambulance, we ducked under the tape. The old burgundy Toyota was parked head-in midway along a narrow stretch of cobblestone covered with churned-up, dirty snow. Ugly brick walls pressed in from either side and blocked out the low sun's slanted rays. Police were taking photographs, talking, and looking around. Water slowly dripped from roofs and rusting fire escapes. The smell of garbage wafted on the damp, stirring air.

  it barely registered that the young Latin-looking officer talking on a portable radio was someone I had recently met. Tom Lucero watched us as he mumbled something and got off the air. From where I stood, all I could see through the Toyota's open driver's door was a left hip and arm. A shock went through me as I recognized the black wool coat, the brush-gold wedding band, Wind black plastic watch. Wedged between the windshield and the dash was her red medical examiner's Plate.

  "Tags come back to Jason Story. I guess that's her husband.” Lucero said to Marino. "She's got identification on her in her purse. The name on the driver's license is Susan Dawson Story, a twenty-eight-year-old white female.”

  "What about money?”

  '"Eleven dollars in her billfold and a couple of credit cards. Nothing so far to suggest robbery. You recognize her?”

  Marino leaned forward to get a better look His jaw muscles bunched. "Yeah. I recognize her. This how the car was found?”

  "We opened the driver's door. That's it," Lucero said, stuffing the portable radio in a pocket.

  "The engine was off, doors unlocked?”

  They were. Like I told you on the phone, Fritz spotted the car while on routine patrol. Uh, around fifteen hundred hours, and he noticed the M.E.’s tag in the window.”

  He glanced at me. "If you go around to the passenger's side and look in, you can see blood in the area of her right ear. Someone did a real neat job.”

  Marino backed away and scanned the messy snow. Don't look like we'll have much luck with footprints.”

  "You got that right. It's melting like ice cream. Was when we got here.”

  "And cartridge cases?”

  “Zip.”

  "Her family know?”

  "Not yet: I thought you might want to handle this one," Lucero said.

  "Just make damn sure who she is and where she worked don't leak out to the media before the family knows. Jesus.”

  Marino turned his attention to me: "What do you want to do here?”

  "I don't want to touch anything inside the car," I muttered, surveying the surroundings as I got out my camera. I was alert and thinking clearly but my hands would not stop shaking. "Give me a minute to look, then let's get her on a stretcher.”

  "You guys ready for the doc?”

  Marino asked Lucero. "We're ready.”

  Susan was dressed in faded blue jeans and scuffed lace-up boots, her black wool coat buttoned to her chin. My heart constricted as I noticed the red silk scarf peeking out of her collar. She wore sunglasses and leaned back in the driver's seat as if she had gotten comfortable and dozed off: On the light gray upholstery behind her neck was a reddish stain. I moved around to the other side of the car and saw the blood Lucero had mentioned. As I began taking photographs, I paused then leaned closer to her face, detecting the faint fragrance of a distinctive masculine cologne. Her seat belt, I noted, was unfastened.

  I did not touch her head until the squad had arrived and Susan's body was on a stretcher inside the back of an ambulance. I climbed in and spent several minutes looking for bullet wounds. I found one in the right temple, another in the hollow at the back of the neck, just below the hairline. I ran my gloved fingers through her chestnut hair, looking for more blood and not finding it.

  Marino climbed into the back of the ambulance. "How many times was she shot?”

  he asked me.

  "I've found two entrances. No exits; though I can feel one bullet beneath the skin over her left temporal bone.”

  He glanced tensely at his watch. "The Dawsons don't live too far from here. In Glenburnie.”

  "The Dawsons?”

  I peeled off my gloves.

  "Her parents. I've got to talk to them. Now. Before some toad leaks something and they end up hearing about this on the damn radio or TV. I'll get a marked unit to take you home.”

  “No,” I said.”

  I'll go with you. I think I should.”

  Streetlights were coming on as we drove away. Marino stared hard at the road, his face dangerously red.

  “Damn!” he blurted, pounding his fit on the steering wheel. “Goddam! Shooting her in the head. Shooting a pregnant woman.”

  I stared out the side window, my shattered thoughts filled with fragmented images and distortion.

  I cleared my throat. “Has her husband been located?”

  “No answer at their crib. Maybe he's with her parents. God, I hate this job. Christ, I don't want to do this. Merry friggin' Christmas. I knock on your door and you're screwed because I'm going to tell you something that will ruin your life.”

  “You have not ruined anybody's life”

  “Yeah, well, get ready, 'cause I'm about to.”

  He turned onto Albemarle. Supercans had been rolled to the edge of the street and were surrounded by leaf bags bulging with Christmas trash. Windows glowed warmly, multi-colored tree lights filling some of them. A young father was pulling his small son along the sidewalk on a fishtailing sled. They smiled and waved at us as we passed. Glenburnie was the neighborhood of middle-class families, of young professionals, single, married, and gay. In the warm months, people sat on their porches and cooked out in their yards. They had parries and hailed each other from the sheet.

  The Dawsons' modest house was Tudor style, comfortably weathered with neatly pruned evergreens in front. Windows upstairs and down were lit up, an old station wagon parked by the curb.

  The bell was answered by a woman's voice on the other side of the door. “Who is it?”

  “Mrs. Dawson?”

  “Yes?”

  “Detective Marino, Richmond RD. I need to talk with you,” he said loudly, holding his badge up to the peephole.

  Locks clicked free as my pulse raced. During my various medical rotations, I had experienced patients screaming in pain as they begged me not to let them die. I had reassured them falsely, “You're going to be just fine,” as they died gripping my hand. I had said “I'm sorry” to loved ones desperate in small, airless rooms where even chaplains felt lost. But I had never delivered death to someone's door on Christmas Day.

  The only resemblance I could see between Mrs. Dawson and her daughter was the strong curve of their jaws. Mrs. Dawson was sharp-featured, with short, frosted hair. She could not have weighed more than a hundred pounds and reminded me of a frightened bird. When Marino introduced me, panic filled her eyes.

  “What's happened?” she barely said.

  “I'm afraid I have very bad news for you, Mrs. Dawson,” Marino said. “It's your daughter, Susan. I'm afraid she's been killed.”

  Small feet sounded in a nearby room, and a little girl appeared in a doorway to the right of us. She stopped and regarded us with wide blue eyes.

  “Hailey, where's Grandpa?” Mrs. Dawson's voice quavered, her face ashen now.

  “Upstairs.”

  Hailey was a tiny tomboy in blue jeans and leather sneakers that looked brand-new. Her blond hair shone like gold and she wore glasses to straighten a lazy left eye. I guessed she was, at the most, eight.

  “You go tell him to come downstairs,” Mrs. Dawson said. “And you and Charlie stay up there until I come get you.”

  The child hesitated in the doorway, inserting two fingers into her mouth. She stared wary at Marino and me.

  “Hailey, go on now!”

  Hailey left with an abrupt burst of energy.

  We sat in the kitchen with Susan's mother. Her back did
not touch the chair. She did not weep until her husband walked in minutes later.

  “Oh, Mack,” she said in a weak voice. “Oh, Mack.” She began to sob.

  He put his arm around her, pulling her close. His face blanched and he pressed his lips together as Marino explained what had happened.

  “Yes, I know where Strawberry Street is,” Susan's father said. “I don't know why she would have gone there. To my knowledge, it's not an area where she normally went. Nothing would have been open today. I don't know.”

  “Do you know where her husband, Jason Story, is?” Marino asked.

  “He's here.”

  “Here?”

  Marino glanced around.

  “Upstairs, asleep Jason's not feeling well.”

  “The children are whose?”

  “Tom and Marie's. Tom's our son. They're visiting for the holidays and left early this afternoon. For Tidewater. To visit friends. They should be home anytime.”

  He reached for his wife's hand. “Millie, these people have a lot of questions to ask. You'd better get Jason.”

  “I tell you what,” Marino said. “I'd rather talk to him alone for a minute. Maybe you could take me to him?”

  Mrs. Dawson nodded, hiding her face in her hands.

  “I think you best check on Charlie and Hailey,” her husband said to her. “See if you can get your sister on the phone. Maybe she can come.”

  His pale blue eyes followed his wife and Marino out of the kitchen. Susan's father was tall, with fine bones, his dark brown hair thick, with very little gray. His gestures were economical, his emotions well contained. Susan had gotten her looks from him and perhaps her disposition.

  “Her car is old. She has nothing of value to steal, and I know she would not have been involved. Not in drugs or anything.” He searched my face.

  “We don't know why this happened, Reverend Dawson.”

  “She was pregnant” he said, the words catching in his throat. “How could anyone?”

  “I don't know”' I said. “I don't know how.”

  He coughed. “She did not own a gun.”

  For a moment, I did not know what he meant. Then I realized, and reassured him, “No. The police did not find a gun. There's no evidence she did this to herself.”