The Body Farm ks-5

by Patricia Cornwell

  "That's because it's fifty-three, which is about what it is outside."

  "You're welcome to come across the street and use my office," I said with a sly smile.

  "Well, now, that's got to be the warmest spot in town. What can I do to help you, Kay?"

  "I need to track down a SIDS that allegedly occurred in California around twelve years ago. The infant's name is Mary Jo Steiner, the parents' names Denesa and Charles."

  She made the connection immediately but was too professional to probe.

  "Do you know Denesa Steiner's maiden name?"

  "Where in California?"

  "I don't know that, either," I said.

  "Any possibility you can find out? The more information, the better."

  "I'd rather you try running what I've got. If that fails, I'll see what else I can find out."

  "You said an alleged SIDS. There's some suspicion that maybe it wasn't a SIDS? I need to know in case it might have been coded another way."

  "Supposedly, the child was a year old when she died. And that bothers me considerably. As you know, the peak age for SIDS is three to four months old. Over six months old, and SIDS is unlikely. After a year, you're almost always talking about some other subtle form of sudden death. So yes, the death could have been coded a different way." She played with her tea bag.

  "If this was Idaho, I'd just call Jane and she could run the nosology code for SIDS and have an answer for me in ninety seconds. But California's got thirty-two million people. It's one of the hardest states. It might take a special run. Come on, I'll walk you out. That will be my exercise for the day. "

  "Is the registrar in Sacramento?" We followed a depressing corridor busy with desperate citizens in need of social services.

  "Yes. I'm going to call him as soon as I go back upstairs."

  "I assume you know him, then."

  "Oh, sure." She laughed.

  "There are only fifty of us. We have no one to talk to but each other." That night I took Lucy to La Petite France, where I surrendered to Chef Paul, who sentenced us to languid hours of fruit-marinated lamb kabobs and a bottle of 1986 Chateau Gruaud Larose. I promised her crema di cioccolata eletta when we got home, a lovely chocolate mousse with pistachio and mars ala that I kept in the freezer for culinary emergencies. But before that we drove to Shocko Bottom and walked along cobblestones beneath lamplight in a part of the city that not so long ago I would not have ventured near. We were close to the river, and the sky was midnight blue with stars flung wide. I thought of Benton and then I thought of Marino for very different reasons.

  "Aunt Kay," Lucy said as we entered Chetti's for cappuccino, "can I get a lawyer?"

  "For what purpose?" I asked, although I knew.

  "Even if the FBI can't prove what they're saying I did, they'll still slam me for the rest of my life." Pain could not hide behind her steady voice.

  "Tell me what you want."

  "A big gun."

  "I'll find you one," I said.

  I did not return to North Carolina on Monday as I had planned but flew to Washington instead. There were rounds to make at FBI headquarters, but more than anything I needed to see an old friend. Senator Frank Lord and I had attended the same Catholic high school in Miami, although not at the same time. He was quite a lot older than I, and our friendship did not begin until I was working for the Dade County Medical Examiner's Office and he was the district attorney. When he became governor, then senator, I was long gone from the southern city of my birth. He and I did not become reconnected until he was appointed chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee. Lord had asked me to be an adviser as he fought to pass the most formidable crime bill in the history of the nation, and I had solicited his help, too. Unbeknownst to Lucy, he had been her patron saint, for without his intervention, she probably would not have been granted either permission or academic credit for her internship this fall. I wasn't certain how to tell him the news. At almost noon, I waited for him on a polished cotton couch in a parlor with rich red walls and Persian rugs and a splendid crystal chandelier. Outside, voices carried along the marble corridor, and an occasional tourist peeked through the doorway in hopes of catching a glimpse of a politician or some other important person inside the Senate dining room. Lord arrived on time and full of energy, and gave me a quick, stiff hug. He was a kind, unassuming man shy about showing affection.

  "I got lipstick on your face." I wiped a smudge off his jaw.

  "Oh, you should leave it so my colleagues have something to talk about."

  "I suspect they have plenty to talk about anyway."

  "Kay, it's wonderful to see you," he said, escorting me into the dining room.

  "You may not think it's so wonderful," I said.

  "Of course I will." We picked a table before a stained-glass window of George Washington on a horse, and I did not look at the menu because it never changed.

  Senator Lord was a distinguished man with thick gray hair and deep blue eyes. He was quite tall and lean, and had a penchant for elegant silk ties and old-fashioned finery such as vests, cuff links, pocket watches and stickpins.

  "What brings you to D.C.?" he asked, placing his linen napkin in his lap.

  "I have evidence to discuss at the FBI labs," I said. He nodded.

  "You're working on that awful case in North Carolina."

  "Yes."

  "That psycho must be stopped. Do you think he's there?"

  "I don't know."

  "Because I'm just wondering why he would be," Lord went on.

  "It would seem he would have moved on to another place where he could lay low for a while. Well, I suppose logic has little to do with the decisions these evil people make."

  "Frank," I said, "Lucy's in a lot of trouble."

  "I can tell something's wrong," he said matter-of factly

  "I see it in your face." He listened to me for half an hour as I told him everything, and I was so grateful for his patience. I knew he had to vote several times that day and that many people wanted slivers of his time.

  "You're a good man," I said with feeling.

  "And I have let you down. I asked you for a favor, which is something I almost never do, and the situation has ended in disgrace. "

  "Did she do it?" he asked, and he had scarcely touched his grilled vegetables.

  "I don't know," I replied.

  "The evidence is incriminating." I cleared my throat.

  "She says she didn't do it."

  "Has she always told you the truth?"

  "I thought so. But I've also been discovering of late that there are many important facets to her that she has not told me."

  "Have you asked?"

  "She's made it clear that some things aren't my business. And I shouldn't judge."

  "If you're afraid of being judgmental, Kay, then you probably already are. And Lucy would sense this no matter what you say or don't say."

  "I've never enjoyed being the one who criticizes and corrects her," I said, depressed.

  "But her mother, Dorothy, who is my only sibling, is too male dependent and self-centered to deal with the reality of a daughter."

  "And now Lucy is in trouble, and you are wondering how much of it is your fault."

  "I'm not conscious of wondering that."

  "We rarely are conscious of those primitive anxieties that creep out from under reason. And the only way to banish them is to rum on all the lights. Do you think you're strong enough to do that?"

  "Yes."

  "Let me remind you that if you ask, you also must be able to live with the answers."

  "I know."

  "Let's just suppose for a moment that Lucy's innocent," said Senator Lord.

  "Then what?" I asked.

  "If Lucy didn't violate security, obviously someone else did. My question is why?"

  "My question is how," I said. He gestured for the waitress to bring coffee.

  "What we really must determine is motive. And what would Lucy's motive be? What would anybody's mo
tive be?" Money was the easy answer, but I did not think that was it and told him so.

  "Money is power, Kay, and everything is about power. We fallen creatures can never get enough of it."

  "Yes, the forbidden fruit."

  "Of course. All crime stems from it," he said.

  "Every day that tragic truth is carried in on a stretcher," I agreed.

  "Which tells you what about the problem at hand?" He stirred sugar into his coffee.

  "It tells me motive."

  "Well, of course. Power, that's it. Please, what would you like me to do?" my old friend asked.

  "Lucy will not be charged with any crime unless it is proven that she stole from ERF. But as we speak, her future is ruined-at least in terms of a career in law enforcement or any other one that might involve a background investigation."

  "Have they proven that she was the one who got in at three in the morning?"

  "They have as much proof as they need, Frank. And that's the problem.

  I'm not certain how hard they'll work to clear her name, if she is innocent.

  "If?"

  "I'm trying to keep an open mind." I reached for my coffee and decided that the last thing I needed was more physical stimulation. My heart was racing and I could not keep my hands still.

  "I can talk to the director," Lord said.

  "All I want is someone behind the scenes making sure this thing is thoroughly investigated. With Lucy gone, they may not think it matters, especially since there is so much else to cope with. And she's just a college student, for God's sake. So why should they care?"

  "I would hope the Bureau would care more than that," he said, his mouth grim.

  "I understand bureaucracies. I've worked in them all my life."

  "As have I."

  "Then you must be clear on what I'm saying."

  "I am."

  "They want her in Richmond with me until next semester," I said.

  "Then that is their verdict." He reached for his coffee again.

  "Exactly. And that's easy for them, but what about my niece? She's only twenty-one years old. Her dream has just blown up mid flight What is she supposed to do? Go back to UVA after Christmas and pretend nothing went wrong?"

  "Listen." He touched my arm with a tenderness that always made me wish he were my father.

  "I will do what I can without the impropriety of meddling with an administrative problem. Trust me on that front?"

  "I do."

  "In the meantime, if you don't mind a little personal advice?" He motioned for the waitress as he glanced at his watch.

  "Well, I'm late." He looked back at me.

  "Your biggest problem is a domestic one."

  "I disagree," I said with feeling.

  "You can disagree all you like." He smiled at the waitress as she gave him the check.

  "You're the closest thing to a mother Lucy has ever had. How are you going to help her through this?"

  "I thought I was doing that today."

  "And I thought you were doing this because you wanted to see me. Excuse me? " He motioned for the waitress.

  "I don't think this is our check. We didn't have four entrees."

  "Let me see. Oh, my. Oh, I sure am sorry. Senator Lord. It's the table there."

  "In that case, make Senator Kennedy pay both tabs. His and mine." He handed her both bills.

  "He won't object. He believes in tax and spend." The waitress was a big woman in a black dress and white apron, and hair stiffened into a black pageboy. She smiled and suddenly felt fine about her mistake.

  "Yes, sir! I sure will tell the senator that."

  "And you tell him to add on a generous tip, Missouri," he said as she walked off.

  "You tell him I said so." Missouri Rivers wasn't a day younger than seventy, and since she'd left Raleigh decades ago on a northbound train, she had seen senators feast and fast, resign and get reelected, fall in love and fall from glory. She knew when to interrupt and get on with the business of serving food, and when to refill tea or simply disappear. She knew the secrets of the heart hidden so well in this lovely room, for the true measure of a human being is the way he treated people like her when no one was observing. She loved Senator Lord.

  I knew that from the soft light in her eyes when she looked at him or heard his name.

  "I'm just encouraging you to spend some time with Lucy," he continued.

  "And don't get caught up in slaying other people's dragons, especially her dragons."

  "I don't believe she can slay this dragon alone."

  "My point is that Lucy doesn't need to know from you we had this conversation today. She doesn't need to know from you that I will pick up the phone on her behalf as soon as I return to my office. If anybody tells her anything, let it be me."

  "Agreed," I said.

  A little later I caught a taxi outside the Russell Building and found Benton Wesley where he said he would be at precisely two-fifteen. He was sitting on a bench in the amphitheater outside FBI headquarters, and though he seemed engrossed in a novel, he sensed me long before I was about to call his name.

  A group taking a tour paid no attention to us as they walked past, and Wesley closed his book and slipped it into the pocket of his coat as he got up.

  "How was your trip?" he asked.

  "By the time I get to and from National, it takes as long to fly as it does to drive."

  "You flew?" He held the door to the lobby for me.

  "I'm letting Lucy use my car." He slipped off his sunglasses and got each of us a visitor's pass.

  "You know the director of the crime labs, Jack Cartwright?"

  "We've met."

  "We're going to his office for a quick and dirty briefing," he said.

  "Then there's a place I want to take you."

  "Where might that be?"

  "A place that's difficult to go to."

  "Benton, if you're going to be cryptic, then I'll have no choice but to retaliate by speaking Latin."

  "And you know how much I hate it when you do that." We inserted our visitor's passes into a turnstile and followed a long corridor to an elevator. Every time I came to headquarters I was reminded of how much I did not like the place. People rarely gave me eye contact or smiled, and it seemed everything and everyone hid behind various shades of white and gray. Endless corridors connected a labyrinth of laboratories that I could never find when left to my own devices, and worse, people who worked here did not seem to know how to get anywhere, either. Jack Cartwright had an office with a view, and sunlight filled his windows, reminding me of the splendid days I missed when I was working hard and worried.

  "Benton, Kay, good afternoon." Cartwright shook our hands.

  "Please have a seat. And this is George Kilby and Seth Richards from the labs. Have you met? "

  "No. How do you do?" I said to Kilby and Richards, who were young, serious, and soberly attired.

  "Would anybody like coffee?" Nobody did, and Cartwright seemed eager to get on with our business. He was an attractive man whose formidable desk bore testimony to the way he got things done. Every document, envelope, and telephone message was in its proper place, and on top of a legal pad was an old silver Parker fountain pen that only a purist would use. I noticed he had plants in his windows and photographs of his wife and daughters on the sills. Outside sunlight winked on windshields as cars moved in congested herds, and vendors hawked T-shirts, ice cream, and drinks.

  "We've been working on the Steiner case," Cart- wright began, "and there are a number of interesting developments so far. I will start with what is probably most important, and that's the typing of the skin found in the freezer.

  "Although our DNA analysis is not finished, we can tell you with certainty that the tissue is human and the ABO grouping is 0-positive. As I'm sure you know, the victim, Emily Steiner, was also 0-positive. And the size and shape of the tissue are consistent with her wounds. "

  "I'm wondering if you've been able to determine what sort of cutting instru
ment was used to excise the tissue," I said, taking notes.

  "A sharp cutting instrument with a single edge."

  "Which could be just about any type of knife," Wesley said. Cartwright went on.

  "You can see where the point penetrated the flesh first as the assailant began to cut. So we're talking about a knife with a point and a single edge. That's as much as we can narrow it down. And by the way" -he looked at Wesley"-we've found no human blood on any of the knives you had sent in. Uh, the things from the Ferguson house." Wesley nodded, his face impervious as he listened.

  "Okay, trace evidence," Cartwright resumed.

  "And this is where it begins to get interesting. We have some unusual microscopic material that came from Emily Steiner's body and hair, and also from the bottoms of her shoes. We've got several blue acrylic fibers consistent with the blanket from her bed, plus green cotton fibers consistent with the green corduroy coat she wore to the youth group meeting at her church.

  "There are some other wool fibers that we don't know the origin of.

  Plus we found dust mites, which could have come from anywhere. But what couldn't have come from anywhere is this. " Cartwright swiveled around in his chair and turned on a video display on the credenza behind him. The screen was filled with four different sections of some sort of cellular material that brought to mind honeycomb, only this had peculiar areas stained amber.

  "What you're looking at," Cartwright told us, "are sections of a plant called Sambucus simpson ii which is simply a woody shrub indigenous to the coastal plains and lagoons of southern Florida. What's fascinating are these dark spots right here." He pointed to the stained areas.

  "George" -he looked at one of the young scientists"-this is your bailiwick."

  "Those are tannin sacs." George Kilby moved closer to us, joining the discussion.

  "You can see them especially well here on this radial section."

  "What exactly is a tannin sac?" Wesley wanted to know.

  "It's a vessel that transports material up and down the plant's stem."

  "What sort of material?"

  "Generally waste products that result from cellular activities. And just so you know, what you're looking at here is the pith. That's the part of the plant that has these tannin sacs."