The Body Farm ks-5

by Patricia Cornwell

  "My, don't you have an active imagination?" She laughed and her eyes got harder.

  "And I might advise you to be very careful making accusations like that."

  "I'm not interested in your advice. Miss. Grethen. I'm interested only in giving you a warning. It will soon be proven that Lucy did not break into ERF. You were smart but not smart enough, and you made one fatal oversight." She was silent, but I could see her mind racing behind her icy facade. Her curiosity was desperate.

  "I don't know what you're talking about," she said with self-confidence that was beginning to waver.

  "You may be good with computers, but you are not a forensic scientist. The case against you is very simple. " I put forth my theory with the certitude of any good lawyer who knows how to play the game.

  "You asked Lucy to assist you in a so-called research project involving the biometric lock system at ERF."

  "Research project? There is no research project," she said hatefully.

  "And that's the point. Miss. Grethen. There is no research project. You lied to her so you could get her to let you make a cast of her thumb in liquid rubber." She laughed shortly.

  "My goodness. You've been watching too much James Bond. You don't really think anyone would believe" - I cut her off.

  "This rubber thumb you made was then used to get into the lock system so you and whoever else could commit what amounts to industrial espionage. But you made one mistake." Her face was livid.

  "Would you like to hear what that mistake was?" Still, she said nothing, but she wanted to know. I could feel her paranoia radiating like heat.

  "You see. Miss. Grethen," I went on in the same reasonable tone.

  "When you make a cast of a finger, the print impression on it is actually a reversal or mirror image of the original one. So the print of your rubber thumb was an inversion of Lucy's print. In other words, it was backward. And an examination of the print that was scanned into the system at three in the morning will show this quite clearly." She swallowed hard, and what she said next validated all that I conjectured.

  "You can't prove it was me who did that."

  "Oh, we will prove it. But there's a more important bit of information for you to go away with this day." I leaned closer. I could smell her coffee breath.

  "You took advantage of my niece's feelings for you. You took advantage of her youth and naivete and decency."

  I leaned so close I was in her face.

  "Don't you ever come near Lucy again. Don't you ever speak to her. Don't you ever call her again. Don't you ever think about her. " My hand in my coat pocket gripped my. 38. 1 almost wanted her to make me use it.

  "And if I find out you were the one who ran her off the road," I went on in a quiet voice that rang like cold surgical steel, "I will personally track you down. You will be haunted by me the rest of your wretched life. I will always be there when you come up for parole. I will tell parole board after parole board and governor after governor that you are a character disorder who is a menace to society. Do you understand?"

  "Go to hell," she said.

  "I will never go to hell," I said. "But you are already there."

  She abruptly got up, and her angry strides carried her back into the spy shop. I watched a man follow her in and begin to speak to her as I sat on the bench, my heart beating hard. I did not know why he made me pause. There was something about the sharpness of his profile at a glance, the V-shape of his lean, strong back, and the unnatural blackness of his slicked hair. Dressed in a splendid midnight-blue silk suit, he carried what looked like an alligator skin briefcase. I was about to walk away when he turned toward me, and for an electric instance our eyes met. His were piercing blue.

  I did not run. I was like a squirrel in the middle of a road that starts to dash this way and that only to end up where it began. I began walking as fast as I could, then began to run, and the sound of water falling was like feet falling as I imagined him in pursuit. I did not go to a pay phone because I was afraid to stop. I thought my heart would burst as it hammered harder and harder.

  I sprinted through the parking lot, my hands shaking as I unlocked my car. I did not reach for the phone until I was moving fast and did not see him.

  "Benton! Oh my God!"

  "Kay? Jesus, what is it?" His alarmed voice crackled horribly over the phone, for northern Virginia is notorious for too much cellular traffic.

  "Gault!" I breathlessly exclaimed as I slammed on my brakes just before rear-ending a Toyota.

  "I saw Gault!"

  "You saw Gault? Where?"

  "In Eye Spy."

  "In what? What did you say?"

  "The shop Carrie Grethen works in. The one she's been connected to. He was there, Benton! I saw him walk in as I was leaving, and he started talking to her, and then he saw me and I ran."

  "Slow down, Kay!" Wesley's voice was tense. I couldn't recall him ever sounding this tense.

  "Where are you now?"

  "I'm on 1-95 South. I'm fine."

  "Just keep driving, for God's sake. Don't stop for anything. Do you think he saw you get into your car?"

  "I don't think so. Shit, I don't know!"

  "Kay," he said with authority.

  "Calm down." He spoke slowly.

  "I want you to calm down. I don't want you getting into an accident. I'm going to make calls. We'll find him." But I knew we wouldn't. I knew by the time the first agent or cop got the first call, Gault would be gone. He had recognized me. I had seen it in his cold blue stare. He would know exactly what I would do the minute I could, and he would disappear again.

  "I thought you said he was in England," I stupidly said.

  "I said we believe he was," Wesley said.

  "Don't you see, Benton?" I went on because my mind would not stop. Connections were being made left and right.

  "He's involved in this. He's involved in what happened at ERF. It may be he's the one who sent Carrie Grethen, who got her to do what she did. His spy."

  Wesley was silent as this sank in. It was a thought so terrible that he did not want to think it. His voice began to break up. I knew he was getting frantic, too, because conversations like this one should not be conducted over a car phone.

  "To get what?" he crackled.

  "What would he want to get into there?"

  I knew. I knew exactly what.

  "CAIN," I said as the line went dead.

  16

  I got back to Richmond and did not sense Gault's malignant shadow at my heels. He had other agendas and demons to fight, and had not chosen to come after me, I believed. Even so, I reset the alarm the moment I entered my house. I went nowhere, not even to the bathroom, without my gun. At shortly after two p. m. " I drove to MCV, and Lucy traveled by wheelchair to my car. She insisted on wheeling herself despite my insistence that I propel her prudently, as a loving aunt would. She would have none of my help. But as soon as we got home she succumbed to my attentions and I tucked her in bed, where she sat up dozing.

  I put on a pot of Zuppa di Aglio Fresco, a fresh garlic soup popular in the hills of Brisighella, where it has been fed to babies and the elderly for many years. That and ravioli filled with sweet squash and chestnuts would do the trick, and it lifted my mood when a fire was blazing in the living room and wonderful aromas filled the air. It was true that when I went long periods without cooking, it felt as if no one lived in my lovely home or cared. It almost seemed my house got sad. Later, beneath a sky threatening rain, I drove to the airport to meet my sister's plane. I had not seen her for a while, and she was not the same. She never was from visit to visit, for Dorothy was acutely insecure, which was why she could be so mean, and she had a habit of changing her hair and dress regularly. This late afternoon as I stood at the US Air gate, I scanned faces of passengers coming off the jetway, leaving myself open for anything familiar.

  I recognized her by her nose and the dimple in her chin, since neither was easily altered. She wore her hair black and close to her head like a lea
ther helmet, her eyes behind large glasses, a bright red scarf thrown around her neck. Fashionably thin in jodhpurs and lace-up boots, she strode straight to me and kissed my cheek.

  "Kay, it's so wonderful to see you. You look tired."

  "How's Mother?"

  "Her hip, you know. What are you driving?"

  "A rental car."

  "Well, the first thing that went through my mind was your being without your Mercedes. I couldn't possibly imagine being without mine."

  Dorothy had a 190E that she had gotten while dating a Miami cop. The car had been confiscated from a drug dealer and was sold at auction for a pittance. It was dark blue with spoilers and custom pinstripes.

  "Do you have luggage?" I asked.

  "Just this. How fast was she driving?"

  "Lucy doesn't remember anything."

  "You can't imagine how I felt when the phone rang. My God. My heart literally stopped." It was raining and I had not brought an umbrella.

  "No one can relate unless they've experienced the same thing. That moment. That simply awful moment when you don't know exactly what's happened, but you can tell the news is bad about someone you love. I hope you're not parked too far from here. Maybe it's best if I just wait."

  "I'll have to leave the lot, pay, then come back around." I could see my car from where we stood on the sidewalk.

  "It will take ten or fifteen minutes."

  "That's perfectly all right. Don't you worry about me. I'll just stand inside and watch for you. I need to use the ladies' room. It must be so nice not to have to worry about some things anymore." She did not elaborate until she was in the car and we were on our way.

  "Do you take hormones?"

  "For what?" It was raining very hard, large drops hammering the roof like a stampeding herd of small animals.

  "The change." Dorothy pulled a plastic bag out of her purse and began nibbling on a gingersnap.

  "What change?"

  "You know. Hot flashes, moods. I know a woman who started getting them the minute she turned forty. The mind's a powerful thing."

  I turned on the radio.

  "We were offered some dreadful snack, and you know how I get when I don't eat." She ate another gingersnap.

  "Only twenty-five calories and I allow myself eight a day, so we'll need to stop and get some. And apples, of course. You're so lucky. You don't seem to have to worry about your weight at all, but then I imagine if I did what you do I probably wouldn't have much of an appetite, either."

  "Dorothy, there's a treatment center in Rhode Island that I want to talk to you about." She sighed.

  "I'm worried sick about Lucy."

  "It's a four-week program."

  "I just don't know if I could stand the thought of her being all the way up there, locked up like that." She ate another cookie.

  "Well, you're going to have to stand it, Dorothy. This is very serious."

  "I doubt she'll go. You know how stubborn she can be." She thought for a minute.

  "Well, maybe it would be a good thing." She sighed again.

  "Maybe while she's there they can fix a few other things."

  "What other things, Dorothy?"

  "I might as well tell you that I don't know what to do about her. I just don't understand what went wrong, Kay." She began to cry.

  "With all due respect, you can't imagine what it's like to have a child turn out this way. Bent like a twig. I don't know what happened. Certainly, it's not from any example set at home. I'll take the blame for some things, but not for this."

  I turned the radio off and looked over at her.

  "What are you talking about?" I was struck again by how much I disliked my sister. It made no sense to me that she was my sister, for I failed to find anything in common between us except our mother and memories of once living in the same house.

  "I can't believe you haven't wondered about it, or maybe to you it somehow seems normal." Her emotions gathered momentum as our encounter tumbled farther downhill.

  "And I'd be less than honest if I didn't tell you I've worried about your influence in that department, Kay, not that I'm judging because certainly your personal life is your own business and some things you can't help." She blew her nose as tears flowed and rain fell hard.

  "Damn! This is so difficult."

  "Dorothy, for God's sake. What on earth are you talking about?"

  "She watches every goddam thing you do. If you brush your teeth a certain way, you can rest assured she's going to do the same thing. And for the record I've been very understanding when not everybody would. Aunt Kay this and Aunt Kay that. All these years. "

  "Dorothy…"

  "Not once have I complained or tried to pry her away from your bosom, so to speak. I've always just wanted what's best for her, and so I indulged her little case of hero worship."

  "Dorothy…"

  "You have no idea of the sacrifice." She blew her nose loudly.

  "It wasn't like it wasn't bad enough that I was always being compared to you in school, and putting up with Mother's comments because you were always so fucking perfect at everything.

  "I mean, goddam. Cooking, fixing things, taking care of the car, paying the bills. You were just a regular man of the house when we were growing up. And then you became my daughter's father-if that doesn't take the cake."

  "Dorothy!" But she would not stop.

  "And I can't compete with that. I certainly can't be her other I will concede that you're more of a man than I am. Oh yes. You win the hell out of that one hands down. Dr. Scarpetta, Esquire. I mean, shit. It's so unfair, and then you get the tits in the family to boot. The man in the family gets the big tits!"

  "Dorothy, shut up."

  "No, I won't and you can't make me," she whispered furiously. We were back in our small room with the small bed we shared,-where we learned to hate each other quietly while Father was dying. We were at the kitchen table silently eating macaroni again while he dominated our lives from his sickbed down the hall. Now we were about to walk into my house where Lucy was hurt, and I marveled that Dorothy did not recognize a script that was as old and predictable as we were.

  "Just what exactly are you trying to blame me for?" I said as I opened the garage door.

  "Let's put it this way. Lucy's not dating is not something she got from me.

  That's for damn sure."

  I switched off the engine and looked at her.

  "Nobody appreciates and enjoys men more than I do, and next time you start to criticize me as a mother, you ought to take a hard look at your contributions to Lucy's development.

  I mean, who the hell's she like? "

  "Lucy's not like anyone I know," I said.

  "Bullshit. She's your spitting image. And now she's a drunk, and I think she's queer." She burst into tears again.

  "Are you suggesting I'm a lesbian?" I was beyond anger.

  "Well, she got it from someone."

  "I think you should go inside now." She opened her door and looked surprised when I made no move to get out of the car.

  "Aren't you coming in?"

  I gave her the key and the alarm code.

  "I'm going to the grocery store," I said. At Ukrop's I bought gingersnaps and apples, and wandered the aisles for a while because I did not want to go home. In truth, I never enjoyed Lucy when her mother was around, and this visit certainly had started worse than usual.

  I understood some of what Dorothy felt, and her insults and jealousies came as no great surprise because they were not new. It was not her behavior that had me feeling so bad but, rather, the reminder that I was alone. As I passed cookies, candies, dips, and spreadable cheeses, I wished what I had could be cured by an eating hinge. Or if filling up with Scotch could have filled up the empty spaces, I might have done that. Instead, I went home with one small bag and served dinner to my pitifully small family. Afterward, Dorothy retired to a chair before the fire. She read and sipped Rumple Minze while I got Lucy ready for bed.

  "Are you hurt
ing?" I asked.

  "Not too much. But I can't stay awake. All of a sudden my eyes cross."

  "Sleep is exactly what you need."

  "I have these awful dreams."

  "Do you want to tell me about them?"

  "Someone's coming after me, chasing me, usually in a car. And I hear noises from the wreck that wake me up."

  "What sort of noises?"

  "Metal clanging. The air bag going off. Sirens. Sometimes it's like I'm asleep but not asleep and all these images dance behind my eyes. I see lights throbbing red on the pavement and men in yellow slickers. I thrash around and sweat."

  "It's normal for you to experience posttraumatic stress, and it may go on for a while."

  "Aunt Kay, am I going to be arrested?" Her frightened eyes stared out from bruises that broke my heart.

  "You're going to be fine, but there's something I want to suggest that you probably won't like."

  I told her about the private treatment center in Newport, Rhode Island, and she began to cry.

  "Lucy, with a DUI conviction you're likely to have to do this anyway as part of your sentencing. Wouldn't it be better to decide on your own and get it over with?" She gingerly dabbed her eyes.

  "I can't believe this is happening to me. Everything I've ever dreamed of is gone."

  "That couldn't be further from the truth. You are alive. No one else was hurt. Your problems can be fixed, and I want to help you do that. But you need to trust me and listen. " She stared down at her hands on top of the covers, tears flowing.

  "And I need for you to be honest with me, too." She did not look at me.

  "Lucy, you didn't eat at the Outback-not unless they've suddenly added spaghetti to their menu. There was spaghetti all over the inside of the car that I assume is from your carrying out leftovers. Where did you go that night?" She looked me in the eye.

  "Antonio's."

  "In Stafford?" She nodded.

  "Why did you lie?"