Flesh and Blood: A Scarpetta Novel (Scarpetta Novels Book 22)

by Patricia Cornwell

  I zoom in on the wooden floor. The scuffing isn’t due to normal wear and tear. There are deep scrapes and gouges, and I ask Marino about the bent handle on the tennis trophy inside the brown paper bag on the desk. It appears that someone deliberately vandalized Leo’s awards and I wonder if this was discussed when Marino was at the house.

  “He says he did it,” he replies.

  “He ruined his own awards?”

  “That’s what he said. He’d get angry and couldn’t control himself and he’d break something.”

  “Do you believe him?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “What would be the point in vandalizing something that sets him apart in an extraordinary way?”

  “To give the impression that they don’t mean anything to him. To act like a big guy because he’s a wimp, five-six or seven, maybe one-thirty soaking wet.”

  I ask if Leo’s family was home when Marino was there.

  “Watching TV in the living room,” he says.

  “What was their demeanor?”

  “Scared but uncooperative.”

  “And the mother?” I ask.

  “Sitting in the kitchen crying. But totally defensive about the father who’s a worthless tool, a mean bastard.”

  “Did you find a firearm or anything firearms related?” I ask.

  “The father’s got an old .38 special. Unregistered in Massachusetts and I could get him for that too.”

  “Loaded?”

  “No. I didn’t find any ammo.”

  “Is Leo suggesting he might have used his father’s .38 to kill Jamal Nari?”

  “He’s a clever piece of shit. He just says it was a gun he dropped in the sewer. He says he doesn’t know what kind it was.”

  “Where does he say he got it?”

  “He bought it on the street.”

  “He says it was a handgun?”

  “Exactly. The possibility of a rifle hasn’t come up. I don’t think he has any idea that’s what was used.”

  “Did you ask him what type of ammunition was loaded in this handgun?”

  “He says he didn’t know. That it was loaded when he bought it and the person who sold it to him for sixty bucks said it was badass ammo that would explode someone’s head like a watermelon. By the way this person is someone Leo doesn’t know and can’t describe.”

  “I think we get the picture,” I reply. “One lie after another.”

  Marino clicks the mouse and another photograph opens up on the display. “There was no visible blood so I used Bluestar in the bathrooms, figuring Leo must have cleaned himself up. This bathroom here is the one near the bedroom with the bunk beds.” He clicks back several photographs to remind me, then returns to the bathroom.

  The chemical reagent causes nonvisible blood to luminesce, and areas of the sink glow a pale sapphire blue, on the handles, around the drain. Splotches and streaks on the tile floor are a ghostly blue like spirit light.

  “Someone cleaned up,” I agree, “but the question is who and when? And are we to assume he conveniently carried the tennis trophy all the way back. On his bicycle?”

  “That’s his story.” Marino displays another photograph and as he moves I smell cedar and lemon, a cologne called Guilty that Lucy bought for him because she liked the irony of the name. He must have splashed it on when he changed his clothes. “He claims he had the trophy in his backpack,” he says.

  “Did you find this backpack he mentioned?” I ask.

  “Yeah.” He shows me photographs before and after he sprayed the inside of it, checking for transferred blood that isn’t visible without a special light or chemical.

  “Nothing luminesced,” I observe. “So it’s not likely he put a bloody tennis trophy inside.”

  “Nope.”

  More photographs, these of laundry machines in the basement, a front-load washer, then several of Marino’s gloved hand holding a white tank top. It’s heavily stained with blood that’s a dark rusty brown around the edges and a brighter red in the middle. In other photographs he’s holding a pair of blue shorts and a large bath towel, also bloody.

  “The blood looks damp,” I comment.

  “It would have dried more slowly from being inside the washing machine with the lid closed. But yeah this didn’t happen early this morning like he claims.”

  “And he also claims he was wearing a tank top and shorts when he allegedly was attacked with a tennis trophy?”

  “Remember when we saw him at around quarter of noon?” Marino answers with a question.

  “He had on a sweatshirt and long pants.”

  “Because it wasn’t that warm,” Marino says.

  “And his story is that he was in shorts and a tank top when he showed up at the apartment with the tennis trophy at around eight this morning. No matter how much you emphasized how illogical this is he wouldn’t budge.”

  “It’s ridiculous, right?”

  “The problem is false confessions more often than not lead to wrongful convictions. Leo Gantz may have a teenaged brain, but he’s anything but stupid. Why is he doing this?”

  “Maybe I don’t care why,” Marino says.

  “Did you photograph the entire house?”

  “Sure.”

  “Continue to take me through it please.”

  He shows me the kitchen, the living room, a den, the parents’ bedroom, dark upholstered furniture that looks cheap and tired. A lot of clutter, magazines, newspapers, and dishes are piled in the sink. I ask him to return me to the bathroom where the reagent reacted positively, presuming blood.

  I click through photographs for a moment. I zoom in and out in an area of brown tile flooring near the walk-in shower. The walls are brown tile too. The toilet and sink are black, and the dark surfaces are fortunate for us. Whoever cleaned up missed some bloodstains and didn’t completely eradicate others.

  Faint bluish smears and coin-sized stains start at the glass shower door and end at the sink. I click on more photographs, enlarging them over luminescent rings, the outer edges of blood drops that were wiped away while the centers were still wet. Most of them are perfectly round because they fell straight down. It’s consistent with someone upright and bleeding. I find the partial shapes of bare feet, and on the wall to the left of the shower stall two handprints glow bluely. The glass shower door is open, the frame is metal with sharp edges and the tile inside is wet.

  “He didn’t just clean up in here,” I say to Marino as I get up from his chair. “This is where it happened.”

  THROUGH ONE-WAY GLASS I watch Benton talking with Leo Gantz, the two of them sitting at a simple wooden table, their ergonomic chairs angled, not directly facing each other, casual and nonconfrontational.

  The interview room is small and bare, and it appears they are alone, that their conversation is private and not adversarial. I can tell by Leo’s demeanor that he’s not hostile but he’s also not opening up or trusting. In a flashy warm-up suit and black tennis shoes, no socks, he leans back in his chair, his fingers tensely gripping the armrests, one leg nervously jumping, then the other, a black cap on his head. I wonder if he has a clue he’s being video-recorded by a concealed camera or that someone like me is observing him and listening.

  “We’re about to wind this up.” Benton’s voice is amplified through speakers in the corners of the adjoining observation room where Marino and I sit. “But I need to draw your attention to an important fact.”

  Leo Gantz shrugs, his long red hair loose and unkempt around his shoulders, and I can see a sandy reddish stubble over his lip and scattered over his jaw and chin. The black baseball cap conceals the wound allegedly inflicted by Jamal Nari.

  “Despite any consequences for you, and they aren’t good ones, Leo, your falsely confessing means the person who really did this gets a free pass. The police will stop looki
ng.”

  “He doesn’t give a shit,” Marino says from a corner where he has a chair turned backward, straddling it. “You think he gives a shit about anything besides himself?”

  “I’m telling the truth.” Leo is looking directly at me, and it’s unnerving.

  I keep reminding myself I’m far enough back from the one-way glass to prevent him from detecting the faintest shadow or change in light caused by my slightest movement.

  “You’re not telling the truth,” Benton says flatly. “And if you end up wrongly convicted the real killer gets away and might hurt somebody else. Are you protecting the person who murdered Jamal Nari?”

  “I’m not protecting anyone.”

  “You realize you could spend the rest of your life in prison without parole.”

  “So what.” He shrugs.

  “You say that now.”

  “Hell yeah I’m saying it now.” His left knee is jumping.

  “Do you know who Doctor Kay Scarpetta is?”

  Leo shakes his head and shrugs.

  “She’s an expert in injuries,” Benton says and Leo shrugs again. “Her office is here in Cambridge and you may have seen her in the area.”

  “What area?”

  “Around.” Benton is vague.

  “Maybe I’ve seen you around too.”

  “It’s possible.”

  “Are you rich?”

  “We’re not here to talk about me, Leo.”

  “The FBI must pay pretty good for you to drive an Audi R-Eight. Or maybe—maybe . . . ! I get it oh yeah! It’s an undercover car and you’re cruising Cambridge looking for terrorists.” His tone is mocking. “Maybe you’ll catch them this time before they blow people up. But hey then again probably not. The FBI only catches people who didn’t do anything.”

  “Like you?”

  “I’ve done plenty.”

  “I want you to tell Doctor Scarpetta exactly what happened to your head,” Benton says.

  “It’s like ten times now I’ve told the same thing.”

  “So we’ll make it eleven.” Benton smiles pleasantly. “Doctor Scarpetta isn’t on anybody’s side.”

  “You’re funny as hell.” Leo laughs derisively, almost hysterically as his leg jumps nervously.

  “She’s agreed to help out by taking a look at your injury, which is significant.” Obviously Benton has seen it. “She may also recommend that you get stitches.”

  “No way I’m getting stitches.”

  “Or a few staples.”

  “Fuck that.”

  “Let’s see what she says. I’m going to step out and bring her in.” Benton rolls his chair back from the table.

  CHAPTER 32

  HE STANDS UP AND absently smoothes his suit jacket while Leo leans back and stares up at the ceiling as if he’s desperately bored. Benton walks out of the interview room and shuts the door behind him. Instantly I know that Leo Gantz is clueless about what is going on.

  He may be a good liar but he’s a novice when it comes to a criminal investigation, and he takes off his cap. He digs into a pocket of his warm-up pants and pulls out a yellow bandana that is spotted with blood. He touches it to the upper left side of his head, the temporal scalp several inches above his ear, and he checks to see if he’s still bleeding. Then he presses much too hard to make sure he is, and he winces. He blows out a big long breath, rubs his face, twitchy and anxious. He has no idea he has an audience.

  The door to the observation room opens and Benton steps inside.

  “Well?” Marino asks. “You get anything I didn’t?”

  “I’m not sure what you got exactly but he’s not changing his story regardless of any incentive offered by my indicating his details are inconsistent with the facts of the case.”

  “What facts did you give him?” Marino wants to know, and as if on cue Leo yawns loudly and props his feet on top of the table.

  “It’s not what I gave him it’s what I asked him,” Benton replies. “Leo wants people to think he committed murder. He wants to feel powerful because he feels the opposite. He feels he has no control and he wants to be locked up. He’s also punishing someone.”

  On the other side of the window Leo tilts the bill of his cap low and crosses his arms across his belly as if he’s about to take a nap.

  “Why the hell would he want to be locked up? I mean he must know his little game has gone too far,” Marino says.

  “He needs to feel powerful and he’s afraid.”

  “Afraid of what? To go home? Because his father’s a son of a bitch and his brother’s an asshole? He’s more afraid of them than going to prison? Because he’ll be charged with murder as an adult. We’ve locked up ones younger than him in Cedar Junction. I hope he likes making license plates.”

  A maximum security state prison where no fifteen-year-old should be, and I hate to think what would happen to him.

  “His home is an abusive environment,” Benton agrees. “But there’s something else. I suspect when he found out Jamal Nari was murdered it frightened him.”

  “Why wouldn’t it?” I reply.

  “It’s not just one thing. That’s what makes situations like this so difficult. We’re talking about a series of events that happened fast and now here he is,” Benton says.

  Suddenly Leo stands up again, looking around, stretching, scratching his jaw. He grabs a Pepsi can off the table, shakes it to see if there’s anything in it and crushes it in one hand.

  “One reason I say this is because the abusive home isn’t new,” Benton continues. “His father’s had several DUIs and there have been domestic calls on and off over the years. Leo is used to his dysfunctional home life. It’s all he knows. Something changed and here he is,” Benton repeats.

  “Yeah,” Marino says. “What’s changed is he’s confessed to a murder he didn’t commit and he’s all over the news. And oh yeah, he also lied about Joanna Cather having sex with him, not caring if he ruins her life.”

  “We don’t know what went on between them.” Benton watches Leo through the glass.

  “Sure we do. Nothing. That’s what went on,” Marino says. “Another story that didn’t add up. He helps her carry the groceries in and they have sex on the couch. It’s like the gun being dropped in the sewer. He didn’t have details because all of it is bullshit.”

  “He has strong emotions about Joanna. He’s deeply conflicted,” Benton says. “He’s hurt Joanna, someone who was kind to him, and he may have been coerced to do it because his family needs money. I think Leo feels that he’s in danger.”

  “How the hell can you know what he feels?” Marino doesn’t hide his frustration or irritation.

  “Because I do,” Benton says. “I know what he feels. I just don’t know exactly why. And I know he’s scared.”

  “He’s scared because he lied about a murdered man’s wife. Leo came on to her and she rejected him. That’s the real story.”

  “I suspect the story about them having sex wasn’t his idea. And we need to take his fear very seriously.” Benton won’t back down.

  Leo bats the crumpled Pepsi can into a wastepaper basket, his hand flat like a tennis racket, plucking the can out and doing it again, brushing up, top spin.

  “He’s seen you around our neighborhood,” I say to Benton. “There’s no telling who else he’s seen. Rand Bloom and who else I wonder?”

  “You should hold Leo in your lockup for now.” Benton directs this to Marino.

  “He can stay in jail until he rots. Be my guest.”

  “I’m talking about a few days at most. Tonight for sure. Best case is at some point tomorrow I can get him into East House at McLean, their inpatient adolescent program where he’ll be safely detained while being assessed and treated.”

  “Don’t tell him he’s going to a cushy hospital, okay?” Marino says to me
. “Don’t reassure him about a damn thing.”

  Benton meets my eyes indicating it’s time, and I pick up my silver case.

  “Does he know you found blood?” I ask Marino as Benton opens the door.

  “I didn’t tell him shit.”

  “Did he observe you spraying a chemical?”

  “I made all of them hold in the kitchen while I was checking the bathrooms and the laundry area.”

  Out that door and Benton opens the one to the interview room. I walk in.

  I SET MY MEDICAL kit on top of the table and Leo drops his feet to the floor. We are alone. We can’t hear or see anyone but the reverse isn’t true.

  “I don’t believe it.” Leo stands up and stares at me, his eyes surprised beneath the bill of his black cap. “You?” he says.

  “I’m Doctor Scarpetta.” I’m taken aback by how small and nonthreatening he seems.

  When I saw him with the leaf blower this morning and even moments ago through the one-way glass he seemed bigger, more formidable. Suddenly he’s a wiry boy, unkempt and lost, his defiance a bunker he won’t be able to hide behind much longer. Males are his enemy on and off the court. Females are another matter, and Marino couldn’t have been a worse choice for being sent to the Gantz house. But Benton knew that. It’s why he did it. Now it’s my turn.

  “I know who you are,” Leo says.

  “Have we met?” I ask.

  “I’ve seen you working in your yard. You have a lot of roses. I know exactly which house is yours. He’s your husband, the FBI agent, the guy in the fancy suit.”

  “That’s right.”

  “He drives that black R-Eight, a V-ten with titanium wheels. Sweet. I knew I’d seen him before but I couldn’t place it until now. I’ve seen him with you.”

  “It sounds like you’re into cars.”

  “You name it, I know it. Is the Ferrari yours?” He’s fidgety, gesturing a lot.

  “I don’t own a Ferrari.” I smile.

  “Well it’s somebody’s, Jesus Christ.” He’s animated and talking fast. “I knocked on your door one time to see if you needed someone to cut your grass, rake leaves, wash cars, whatever. And the Ferrari was in your driveway. I couldn’t believe it. You don’t see cars like that around here.”