Cruel and Unusual ks-4

by Patricia Cornwell

  “I should think that anyone who has had any association with Ronnie Waddell, either legitimately or otherwise, would feel very threatened,” I replied..

  “Right. If a cop killer is on the loose and you are a cop, you know you may be next. I could walk out your door tonight and this guy's waiting in the shadows to gun me down. He could be out in his car somewhere, looking for Marino or trying to find my house: He could be fantasizing about taking out Grueman.”

  “Or me.”

  Wesley got up and began rearranging the fire again.

  “Do you think it would be wise for me to send Lucy back to Miami?” I asked.

  “Christ, Kay, I don't know what to tell you. She doesn't want to go home. That comes across loud and clear. You might feel better if she returned to Miami tonight. For that matter, I might feel better if you went with her. In fact, everybody - you, Marino, Grueman, Vander, Connie, Michele, me - would probably feel better if all of us left town. But then who would be left?”

  “He would.” I said. “Whoever he is.”

  Wesley.glanced at his watch and set his.glass on the coffee table. “None of us should interfere with each other,” he said. “We can't afford to.”

  “Benton, I have to clear my name.”

  “It is exactly what I would do. Where do you want to start?”

  “With a feather.”

  “Please explain.”

  “It's possible that this killer went out and bought some specialty item filled with eiderdown, but I'd say there's a good chance he stole it.”

  “That's a plausible theory.”

  “We can't trace the item unless we have its label or some other piece to trace back to a manufacturer, but there may be another way. Maybe something could appear in the newspaper.”

  “I don't think we want the killer to know he's leaking feathers everywhere. He's sure to get rid of the item in question.”

  “I agree. But that doesn't preclude your getting one of your journalist sources to run some trumped-up little feature about the eider duck and its prized down, and how items filled with it are so expensive that they've become a hot commodity for thieves. Maybe this could be-tied in with the ski season or something.”

  “What? In hopes someone out there will call and say that his car was broken into and his down-filled jacket was stolen?”

  “Yes. If the reporter quotes some detective who supposedly has been assigned to the thefts; this gives readers someone they can call. You know, people read a story and say ‘The same thing happened to me.’ Their impulse is to help. They warn to feels important. So they pick up the phone”.

  “I'll have to give it some thought.”

  'Admittedly it's a long shot.”

  We began walking to the door. “I spoke briefly with Michele before leaving the Homestead,” Wesley said. “She and Lucy have already been conferring. Michele says your niece is quite frightening.”

  “She's been a holy terror since the day she was born”

  He smiled. “Michele didn't mean it like that: She says that Lucy's intellect is frightening.”

  “Sometimes I worry that it's too much wattage for such a fragile vessel.”

  “I'm not certain she's all that fragile. Remember, I just spent the better part of two days with her. I’m very impressed with Lucy on many fronts.”

  “Don't you go trying to recruit her for the Bureau.”

  “I'll wait until she finishes college` That will take her, what? All of a year?”

  Lucy did not emerge from my study, until Wesley had driven off and I was carrying our glasses into the kitchen.

  “Did you enjoy yourself?” I asked her.

  “Well, I hear you got along famously with the Wesleys.”

  I turned off the faucet and sat at the, table where I’d left my legal pad.

  “They're nice people.” “

  Rumor has it they think you're nice, too.”

  She opened the refrigerator door and idly stared; inside. “Why was Pete here earlier?”

  It seemed odd to hear Marino referred to by his first name. I supposed he and Lucy had moved from a state of cold war to detente when he had taken her shooting”

  “What makes you think he was here?” I asked.

  “I smelled cigarettes when I came in the house. I assume he was here unless you're smoking again.”

  She shut the refrigerator door and came over to the table.

  “I'm not smoking again, and Marino was here briefly.”

  “What did he want?”

  “He wanted to ask me a lot of questions,” I said.

  “About what?”

  “Why do you need to know the details?”

  Her eyes moved from my face to the stack of financial files to the legal pad filled with my indecipherable penmanship. “It doesn't matter why since you obviously don't want to tell me.”

  “It's complicated, Lucy.”

  “You always say something's complicated when you want to shut me out,” she said as she turned and walked away.

  I felt as if my world were falling apart, the people in it scattering like dry seeds in the wind. When I watched parents with their children, I marveled over the gracefulness of their interactions and secretly feared I lacked an instinct that couldn't be learned: I found my niece in my study sitting before the computer. Columns of numbers combined with letters of the alphabet were on the screen, and embedded here and there were fragments of what I assumed were data. She was making computations with a pencil on graph paper, and did not look up as I moved next to her.

  “Lucy, your mother has had many men in and out of your house; and I am well aware of how that has made you feel. But this is not your house and I am not your mother. It is not necessary for you to feel threatened by my male colleagues and friends. It is not necessary for you to constantly be looking for evidence that some man was here, and it is unfounded for you to be suspicious of my relationship with Marino or Wesley or anyone else.”

  She did not respond.

  I placed my hand on her shoulder. “I may not be the constant presence in your life that I wish I could be, but you are very important to me.”

  Erasing a number and brushing rubber particles off the paper, she said, “Are you going to get charged with a crime?”

  “Of course not. I haven't committed any crimes.”

  I leaned closer to the monitor.

  “What you're looking at is a hex dump,” she said.

  “You were right. It's hieroglyphics.”

  Placing her fingers on the keyboard, Lucy began moving the cursor as she explained, “What I'm doing here is trying to get the exact position of the SID number. That's the State Identification Number, which is the unique identifier. Every person in the system has a SID nun including you, since your prints are in AFIS, too. Fourth generation language, like SQL, I could a query by a column name. But in hexadecimal the language is technical and mathematical. There are no column names, only positions in the record layout. In other words, if I wanted to go to Miami, in SQL I would simply tell the computer I want to go to Miami. But in hexadecimal, I would have to say that I want to go position that is this many degrees north of the, equator and this many degrees east of the prime meridian. “So to extend the geographical analogy, I'm figuring out the longitude and latitude of the SID number also of the number that indicates the record type. Then I can write a program to search for any SID number wheel the record is a type two, which means a deletion, or y type three, which is an update. I'll run this program through each journal tape.”

  “You're, assuming that if a record has been tampered with, then, what was changed was the SID?” I asked.

  “Let's just say it would be a whole lot easier to with the SID number than it would be to mess with the actual fingerprint images on the optical disk record, that's really all you've got in AFIS - the SID number the corresponding prints. The person's name, his and other personal information are in his CCH, Computerized Criminal History, which resides at CCRE, or the Central C
riminal Records Exchange:”

  “As I understand it the records in CCRE are linked to the prints in AFIS by the SID numbers,” I said.

  “Exactly.”

  Lucy was still working when I went to bed I fell right to sleep, only to awaken at two A.M. I did not drift off again until five, and my alarm roused me less than an hour later. I drove downtown in the dark and listened as one of the local radio announcers gave a news update. He reported that police had questioned me, and I had refused to disclose information pertaining to my financial records. He went on to remind everyone that Susan Story had deposited thirty five hundred dollars in her checking account just weeks before her murder.

  When I got to the office, I had barely taken off my coat when Marino called.

  “The damn major can't keep his mouth shut,” he said right off.

  “Obviously.”

  “Shit, I'm sorry.”

  “It's not your fault. I know you have to report to him.”

  Marino hesitated. “I need to ask you about your guns. You don't own a twenty-two, right?”

  “You know all about my handguns. I. have a Ruger and a Smith and Wesson. And if you pass that along to Major Cunningham, I'm sure I'll hear about it on the radio within the hour.”

  “Doc, he wants them submitted to the firearms lab.”

  For an instant, I thought Marino was joking…

  “He thinks you should be willing to submit them for examination,” he added. “He thinks it's a good idea to show right away that the bullets recovered from Susan, the Heath kid, and Donahue couldn't have been fired from your guns.”

  “Did you tell the major that the revolvers I have are thirty-eights?” I asked, incensed.

  “Yes.”

  “And he knows that twenty-two slugs were recovered from the bodies?”

  “Yeah. I went round and round with him about it.

  “Well, ask him for me if he knows of an adapter that would make it possible to use twenty-two rim fire cartridges in a thirty-eight revolver. If he does, tell him he ought to present a paper on it at the next American Academy of Forensic Sciences meeting.”

  “I really don't think you want me to tell him that.”

  'This is nothing but politics, publicity ploys. It's not even rational.”

  Marino did not comment.

  “Look,” I said evenly, “I have broken no laws. I am not submitting my financial records, firearms, or anything else to anyone until I have been appropriately advised. I understand that you must do your job, and I want you to do your job. What I want is to be left alone so I can do mine. I have three cases downstairs and Fielding's off to court.”

  But I was not to be left alone, and this was made clear when Marino and I concluded our conversation and Rose appeared in my office. Her face was pale, her eyes frightened.

  “The governor wants to see you,” she said.

  “When?” I asked as my heart slapped.

  “At nine.’

  It was already eight-forty.

  “Rose, what does he want?”

  “The person who called didn't say.”

  Fetching my coat and umbrella, I walked out into a winter rain that was just beginning to freeze. As I hurried along 14th Street, I tried to recall the last tine I had spoken to Governor Joe Norring and decided it was almost a year ago at a blacktie reception at the Virginia Museum. He was Republican, Episcopalian; and held a law degree from UVA. I was Italian, Catholic, born in: Miami, and schooled in the North. In my heart I was a Democrat.

  The Capitol resides on Shockhoe Hill and is surrounded by an ornamental iron fence erected in the early nineteenth century to keep out trespassing cattle. The white brick building Jefferson designed is typical of his architecture, a pure symmetry of cornices and unfluted columns with Ionic capitals inspired by a Roman temple. Benches line the granite steps leading up through the grounds, and as freezing rain fell relentlessly I thought of my annual spring resolution to take a lunch hour away from my desk, and sit here in the sun. Rut I had yet to do it. Countless days of my life had been lost to artificial light and windowless, confined spaces that deed any architectural rubric.

  Inside tree Capitol, I found a ladies' room and attempted to bolster my Confidence by making repairs.

  Despite my efforts with lipstick and brush, the mirror had nothing reassuring to say. Bedraggled and unsettled, I took the elevator to the top of the Rotunda, where previous governors gaze sternly from oil portraits three floors above Houdon's marble statue -of George Washington. Midway along the south wall, journalists milled about with notepads, cameras, and microphones. I# did not-occur to me that I was their quarry until, as I approached, video cameras were mounted on shoulders, microphones were drawn like swords, and shutters began clicking with the rapidity of automatic weapons.

  “Why won't you disclose your finances?”

  “Dr: Scarpetta:..”

  “Did you give money to Susan Story?”

  “What kind of handgun do you own?”

  “Doctor“

  “Is it true that personnel records have disappeared from your office?”

  They chummed the water with their accusations and questions as I fixed my attention straight ahead, my thoughts paralyzed. Microphones jabbed at my chin, bodies brushed against me, and lights flashed in my eyes. It seemed to take forever to reach the heavy mahogany door and escape into the genteel stillness behind it.

  “Good morning,” said the receptionist from her fine wood fortress beneath a portrait of John Tyler.

  Across the room, at a desk before a window, a plainclothes, Executive Protection Unit officer glanced at me, his face inscrutable.

  “How did the press know about this?”

  I asked the receptionist.

  “Pardon?”

  She was an older woman, dressed in tweed.

  “How did they know I was meeting with the governor this morning?”

  “I'm sorry. I wouldn't know.”

  I settled on a pale blue love seat. Walls were papered in the same pale blue; the furniture was antique, with chair seats covered in needlepoint depicting the state seal. Ten minutes slowly passed. A door opened and a young man I recognized as Norring's press secretary stepped inside and smiled at me.

  “Dr. Scarpetta, the governor will see you now.”

  He was slight of build, blond, and dressed in a navy suit and yellow suspenders.

  “I apologize for making you wait. Unbelievable weather we're having. And I understand it's supposed to drop into the teens tonight. The streets will be glass in the morning.”

  He ushered me through one well-appointed office after another, where secretaries concentrated behind computer screens and aides moved about silently and with purpose. Knocking lightly on a formidable door, he tuned the brass knob and stepped aside, chivalrously touching my back as I preceded him into the private space of the most powerful man in Virginia. Governor Norring did not get up from his padded leather chair behind his uncluttered burled walnut desk. Two chairs were arranged across from him and I was shown to one while he continued perusing a document.

  “Word you like something to drink?” the press secretary asked me.

  “No, thank you:” He left softly shutting the door.

  The governor placed the document on the desk and leaned back in his chair. He was a distinguished-looking titan with just enough irregularity of his features to cause one to take him seriously; and he was impossible to miss when he walked into a room. Like George Washington, who was six foot two in a day of short men, Nofing was well above average height; his hair thick and dark at an age when men are balding of going gray.

  “Doctor, I've been wondering if there might be a way to extinguish this fire of controversy before it's completely out of control.”

  He spoke with the soothing cadences of Virginian conversation.

  “Governor Norring I certainly hope there is.”

  “Then please help me understand why you are not cooperates with the police.”

 
; “I wish to seek the advice of an attorney, and have not had a chance to do so. I don't view this as a lack of co-operation.”

  “It certainly is your right not to incriminate yourself,” he said slowly. “But the very suggestion of your invoking the Fifth only darkens the cloud of suspicion surrounding you. I'm certain you must be aware of that.”

  “I'm aware that I will probably be criticized no matter what I do right now. It is reasonable and prudent for me to protect myself.”

  “Were you making payments to your morgue supervisor, Susan Story?”

  “No, sir, I was not. I have done nothing wrong.”

  “Dr. Scarpetta.”

  He leaned forward in his chair and laced his fingers on top of the desk. “It is my understanding that you are unwilling to cooperate by turning over any records that might substantiate these claims you've made.”

  “I have not been informed that I am a suspect in any crime, nor have I received Miranda warnings. I have waived no rights. I have had no opportunity to seek counsel. At this moment, it is not my intention to open the files of my professional and personal life to the police or anyone else.”

  “Then, in summary, you are refusing to make full disclosure,” he said.

  When a state official is accused of conflict of interests or any other manner of unethical behavior, there are only two defenses, full disclosure or resignation. The latter yawned before me like an abyss. It was dear that the governor's intention was to maneuver me over the edge.

  “You are a forensic pathologist of national stature and the chief medical examiner of this, Commonwealth,” he went on. “You've enjoyed a very distinguished career and an impeccable reputation in the law enforcement community. But in the matter before us, you are showing poor judgment. You are not being meticulous about avoiding any appearance of impropriety.”