At Risk wg-1

by Patricia Cornwell

“No need and there’s no room,” Win says, looking down through the opening at the top of Sammy’s graying head. “Doesn’t look like anybody’s been staying here, working here. Or if they were, they moved out and cleaned up pretty well. For sure, someone or maybe more than one person has been walking around.”

  Win pulls a pair of latex gloves out of a pocket, puts them on, starts opening drawers, all of them. He gets down on his hands and knees, looks under the dresser, looks under the bed, something telling him to look everywhere, not sure what for or why except that if someone has been in and out of the apartment, obviously since it was cleaned and vacuumed last, then why? And who pried open the locked door downstairs? Did someone come here after Lamont was almost murdered, and if so, what was the person looking for? He opens a closet, opens cabinets under the sinks in the kitchenette and the bathroom, stands in the middle of the living room, looks around some more, his attention wandering to the oven. He walks to it and opens the door.

  On the bottom rack is a thick manila envelope with the handwritten address of the DA’s office and a Knoxville return address, lots of stamps pasted on crooked, hastily, more postage than needed.

  “Jesus Christ,” he says.

  The envelope has been slit open, and he looks at the letter opener on the desk, the one that reminds him of a dagger. He pulls out a thick case file bound with rubber bands.

  “You’re shittin’ me!” he exclaims.

  Sammy’s feet sound on the pull-down stairs.

  “The case. She’s had it here all along.” Then he’s not so sure. “Or someone has.”

  “Huh?” Sammy’s baffled face appears in the opening.

  “The Finlay case file.”

  Sammy holds on to a rope railing, doesn’t climb up any farther, says, “Huh?” again.

  Win holds up the file, says, “She’s had it for three damn months. Since before I started the Academy, before she’d even told me I was going. Christ.”

  “That doesn’t make sense. If Knoxville PD sent it to her, wouldn’t they have mentioned that when you started looking for it?”

  “No name.” Win is reading the label again. “Just the address, which I don’t recognize. Postmark June tenth. Zip code’s 37921, the Western Avenue — Middlebrook Pike area. Hold on.”

  He calls Sykes, gets his answer, goes calm the way he does when everything is unraveling. The return address is Jimmy Barber’s.

  “Looks like his Roller Derby wife dug in the basement long before you did,” Win says to Sykes. “Sent the Finlay file up here where it’s been hiding in an oven.”

  “A what? The bitch lied to me!”

  “That depends. Did you ever tell her exactly what you were looking for?” Win asks.

  Silence.

  “Sykes? You there? Did you tell her?”

  “Well, not exactly,” she says.

  * * *

  At half past two, he parks Nana’s old Buick behind her house, can see her wind chimes in daylight, their long, hollow tubes moving in the trees and from the eaves and not quite as magical as they are at night.

  Another car is parked near the basketball hoop, almost in the bushes, an old red Miata. He needs a landline and right now his apartment seems like a bad idea. He has a feeling about it and has decided to heed it, wouldn’t be far-fetched to suppose cops or someone who pries open locks might be patrolling his neighborhood. He knocks, then walks in through the back door, into the kitchen, where Nana sits across from a distraught young woman who is cutting the deck of tarot cards into three stacks. Nana has made hot tea, a house specialty, with sticks of cinnamon and fresh slivers of lemon peel. He notices a jar of Tennessee honey on the counter, a spoon nearby.

  “Guess what we tried, my darling,” Nana says to him, reaching for a card. “Your special honey made by joyful bees. This is Suzy. We’re taking care of that husband of hers who thinks he doesn’t have to abide by the restraining order.”

  “He been arrested?” Win asks Suzy, in her twenties, delicate-looking, face puffy from crying.

  “My boy’s a detective,” Nana proudly says, sipping her tea as nails click and Miss Dog wanders in.

  Win sits on the floor, starts petting her, and she wants her tummy scratched, and Suzy is saying, “Twice. Don’t do any good. Matt just bails himself out, shows up like last night at my mama’s house, waiting behind the hedge, and gets in my face as I’m getting out of the car. He’ll kill me. I know it. People don’t understand.”

  “We’ll see about that,” Nana warns.

  Win asks her where her mama lives, notices Miss Dog is looking remarkably improved. Her sightless eyes seem full of light. She seems to be smiling.

  “Just down the road,” Suzy tells him with a question in her voice. “You should know.” She looks at Miss Dog.

  He gets it. Suzy’s mother is Miss Dog’s owner. That figures. “Miss Dog’s not going anywhere,” he says, and that’s that.

  “I don’t care, won’t say a word. Mama’s awful to her. Matt’s worse. I’ve been telling her the same thing you have. She’s gonna get run over by a car.”

  “Miss Dog’s doing just fine,” Nana says. “She slept in my bed last night with both the cats.”

  “So Mama doesn’t protect you from Matt.” Win gets off the floor.

  “Nothing she can do. He cruises past her house all he wants. Walks right in if he wants. She doesn’t do anything.”

  Win heads into the living room to use the phone. He sits among his grandmother’s crystals and mystical clutter and asks to speak to Dr. Reid, a geneticist who works for the DNA lab in California that is analyzing the bloody clothing in the Finlay case. He’s told Dr. Reid is on a conference call, can get back with Win in half an hour, and he walks out of the house, starts walking toward Miss Dog’s house, her former house. He’s seen Matt before, pretty sure of it, small, fat, lots of tattoos, the type to be an abusive bully.

  His cell phone rings. Sykes.

  “Don’t bother me. I’m about to get into a fight,” he says.

  “I’ll make this quick, then.”

  “No sense of humor today?”

  “Well, I didn’t want to tell you. But if you and me aren’t back in class by Monday, we’re getting kicked out of the Academy.”

  It will disappoint her more than it will disappoint him. The Massachusetts State Police has its own crime scene investigators, doesn’t need Win out there gathering evidence himself, and he doesn’t give a damn about being director of the crime labs or anything else at the moment. It enters his mind that maybe he’s lost his enthusiasm because he suspects the only reason he was sent down South to school was to set him up to work the Finlay case, to position him for selfish, political, and, at this point, unknown purposes. And he’s no longer sure who is behind what.

  “Win?” Sykes is asking.

  The house is in sight, about a block up ahead on the left, a white Chevy truck in the drive.

  “Don’t worry,” Win says. “I’ll take care of it.”

  “You can’t take care of it! I’m going to be in so much trouble with the TBI, probably get fired. I wish you wouldn’t keep saying you’ll fix something you can’t, Win!”

  “I told you I’m going to take care of it,” he says, walking faster as Matt emerges from the back of the house, heading to the pickup truck, that brazen, stupid loser.

  “I should tell you the other thing,” Sykes says dejectedly. “I checked with Ms. Trailer-Park Barber. Soused again, by the way. And you were right.”

  “And?” Win begins to trot.

  “She sent the case to the DA’s office about two months ago, said some guy, sounded young, kind of rude, called her, gave her instructions. She didn’t mention it to me because I didn’t ask, says a lot of people call about stuff. I’m sorry.”

  “Gotta go,” Win says, running fast.

  He grabs the truck’s door as it is shutting, and the fat little bully looks at him, shocked, then furious.

  “Get your damn hands off my truck!”

&nbs
p; He’s mean, stupid, stinks like beer and cigarettes, his breath so bad Win can smell it as he opens the door wide, stands between it and the front seat. He looks into the small, cruel eyes of Suzy’s worthless husband, who’s probably been hanging around here, waiting for her to show up or, if nothing else, waiting for her to drive past and see him and speed off in terror.

  “Who are you and what do you want!” Matt yells.

  Win just stares at him, a trick he learned a long time ago on the school playground, after he got bigger, got tired of being picked on. The longer you stare at somebody and don’t say anything, the more freaked out the person gets, and Matt’s eyes seem to be retreating like little clams digging into the sand, hiding. He’s not so tough now. Win stands there, blocking the door, staring at him.

  “Man, you’re crazy,” Matt says, beginning to panic.

  Silence.

  “Now just go on, I’m not doing nothing to nobody.” He’s spitting as he talks, so scared he just might soil himself.

  Silence.

  Then Win says, “I hear you’re into kicking dogs and abusing your wife.”

  “That’s a lie!”

  Silence.

  “Whoever said that’s lying!”

  Silence.

  Then, “I just want you to remember my face,” Win says very quietly, staring, not a trace of emotion. “You bother Suzy one more time, ever hurt an animal one more time, and this face is going to be the last one you ever see.”

  12

  Win gets the frustrating news that the DNA analysis isn’t completed yet. He explains that the situation is urgent, asks how quickly the analysis can be finished. Maybe in another day or so. He asks exactly what the results might mean.

  “A genealogical history,” Dr. Reid explains over the phone. “Based on four major biogeographical ancestry groups, sub-Saharan African, Indo-European, East Asian, or Native American, or an admixture.”

  Win sits in Nana’s favorite rocking chair by the open window, and wind chimes quietly chime, light, sweetly.

  “… Technology based on SNPs,” Dr. Reid is explaining. “Single Nucleotide Polymorphisms. Different from normal DNA screening that requires the analysis of millions of base pairs of genes when looking for patterns, many of them irrelevant. Basically, what we’re interested in are the some two thousand ancestry information markers….”

  Win listens to a typical scientist typically overexplaining, going on and on about some beta version of some machine that is 99.99 percent accurate, about some test that can predict human eye color from DNA with 95 percent accuracy, about Harvard Medical School and a license the lab has with it to develop some anemia drug…

  “Whoa.” Win stops rocking. “What do drugs have to do with this?”

  “Pharmacogenetics. When we started doing ancestral profiling, it wasn’t to work criminal cases. The original objective was to assist pharmaceutical companies with determining how genetics can be applied to developing drugs.”

  “You’ve got something going on with Harvard Medical School?” Win gets a feeling, a strong one.

  “Maybe you’ve heard of PROHEMOGEN? For the treatment of anemia associated with renal failure, cancer chemotherapy, Zidovudine-treated HIV. Can help reduce the need for blood transfusion.”

  A breeze stirs the trees beyond Nana’s window and the chimes seem to chime louder.

  “Dr. Reid,” Win says, “you mind telling me how long ago the sample was submitted in the Finlay case.”

  “I believe about two months or so ago.”

  “It takes that long?”

  “Theoretically, five days, a week, but it’s a question of priorities. We’re currently analyzing DNA in a hundred or so other active criminal cases, several of them serial rapists, serial murderers. I was told there was no rush.”

  “I understand. Twenty years ago. The guy we’re talking about probably isn’t killing people anymore.”

  “It’s not a guy. The first thing we always do is run a standard STR panel, which happens to give us gender from one of those markers. Both DNA sources are from females.”

  “Both? What?”

  “Samples from areas of clothing around the neck, under the arms, the crotch, where you might find cells from sweat, skin shedding, gave us a profile of a female who has a different DNA profile from the bloodstains, which have always been assumed to be the victim’s and are,” he says. “That much they got right back then.”

  * * *

  The storage facility where the country club keeps decades of records is a massive complex of cinder-block units connected like train cars over a two-acre lot.

  Although the units are temperature-controlled, they have no lighting, and Sykes runs the narrow beam of her small flashlight over white cartons while Missy checks her inventory list so she can tell what’s inside.

  “E-three,” Sykes reads.

  “November 1985,” Missy says. “Getting close.”

  They move on. It is stuffy in here, dusty, and Sykes is getting tired of digging through old boxes in dark, claustrophobic spaces while Win runs around New England doing who knows what.

  “E-eight,” she reads.

  “June 1985. Looks like they’re a bit out of order.”

  “You know what?” Sykes decides, lifting another heavy box off metal shelving. “Let’s just get them for the whole year.”

  * * *

  The doorman of the historic brick building in Beacon Hill isn’t inclined to let Win do what he wants, which is to appear at Lamont’s door unannounced.

  “I’m sorry, sir,” says the older man in his gray uniform, a bored doorman who spends most of his time behind a desk, obviously reading newspapers. There’s a stack of them under his chair. “I have to ring her first. What’s your name?”

  Numb-nut. You just told me she’s home.

  “All right. I guess you leave me no choice.” Win sighs, reaching inside his jacket pocket, slipping out his wallet, flipping it open, showing his creds. “But I really need you to keep quiet about this. I’m in the middle of an extremely sensitive investigation.”

  The doorman takes a long time looking at Win’s shield, his ID card, then looks closely at his face, something odd and uncertain in his own, maybe a glint of excitement, then, “You’re that…? The one I’ve been reading about. I recognize you now.”

  “I can’t talk about it,” Win says.

  “You want my opinion, you did what you had to do. Damn right. Kids these days, worthless hoodlums.”

  “I can’t talk about it,” Win says as a woman in her fifties enters the lobby, yellow designer suit, a Chanelian, as Win calls rich women who have to flaunt those huge Chanel double C’s.

  “Good afternoon.” The doorman politely nods at her, almost bows.

  She dismisses Win’s existence, then does a sharp double take, stares openly at him, smiles at him, a little flirtation going. He smiles back, watches her head to the elevator.

  “I’ll just ride up with her,” Win says to the doorman, doesn’t give him a chance to protest.

  He strides across the lobby as polished brass elevator doors part and steps aboard a mahogany vessel that is about to carry him on a mission Monique Lamont isn’t likely to appreciate or forget.

  “They really need to replace this. How many times do I need to tell them? As if the building can’t afford a new elevator,” the Chanelian says, tapping the button for the eighth floor, looking him over as if he’s a trunk show and she might just buy everything in it.

  The elevator creaks like the Titanic sinking. Lamont is staying in this building but no one seems to know which apartment. There isn’t one in her name.

  “You live in the building? Don’t believe I’ve seen you before,” the Chanelian says.

  “Just visiting.” He looks confused, staring at the elevator buttons. “She said the penthouse, but there seem to be two of them. PH and PH two. Or maybe it was…?” He starts digging in his pockets, as if looking for notes.

  The elevator stops. The doors take
their time opening. The Chanelian doesn’t move, gets thoughtful, replies, “If you tell me who you’re here to see, perhaps I can help you.”

  He clears his throat, lowers his voice, leans closer, her perfume piercing his sinuses like an ice pick. “Monique Lamont, but please keep that confidential.”

  Her eyes light up, she nods. “Tenth floor, south corner. But she doesn’t live here. Just visits. Often. Probably to have a little privacy. Everyone is entitled to a life.” Her eyes on his. “If you know what I mean.”

  “You know her?” he asks.

  “Know of. She’s rather hard to miss. And people talk. And you? You look familiar.”

  Win sticks out his arm, keeps the doors from closing, replies, “A lot of people say that. Have a nice rest of the day.”

  The Chanelian doesn’t like being dismissed, walks off, doesn’t look back. Win gets out his cell phone, calls Sammy.

  “Do me a favor. Lamont’s apartment.” He gives Sammy the address. “Find out who owns it, who leases it, whatever.”

  He gets off on the tenth floor, where there are two doors on either side of a small marble foyer, and he rings the bell for 10 SC. He rings it three times before Lamont’s wary voice sounds on the other side.

  “Who is it?”

  “It’s me, Win,” he says. “Open the door, Monique.”

  Locks unlock, the heavy wooden door opens, Lamont on the other side, looking like hell, looking like she just got out of the shower.

  “What do you want? You had no right coming here,” she says furiously, pushing damp hair out of her face. “How did you get in?”

  He moves past her, stands beneath a Baccarat chandelier, looks around at ornate molding and wainscoting and rich, old wood.

  “Nice place you’ve got here. Worth what? A couple mil? Four or five, maybe six?” he says.

  * * *

  Sykes sits inside an office at a club she could never afford and wonders if Vivian Finlay thought she was better than everybody else and would have dismissed Sykes as a klutzy country girl who probably doesn’t know which fork to use for salad. The truth about crime victims is, a lot of them are unlikable.