Patricia Cornwell - Red Mist

I sit back down on the leather couch.

“They wouldn’t tell him,” I reply logically, repeating myself as I think of Kathleen Lawler’s comments about my reputation and that unlike her, I have one to lose.

I remember being alerted by what seemed an allusion, as if she were warning me and taking pleasure in the thought that some misfortune might be in store for me. I think about the letters, about what she says is in them, and I’m stunned by how hurt I feel. After twenty-something years, it shouldn’t matter, but it does.

“How can he work in criminal intelligence for the friggin’ Bureau of Investigation and not know?” Marino says adamantly, and at times like this I know how much he dislikes Benton.

Marino will never accept that Benton and I are married, that I possibly could be happy, that my seemingly aloof husband has dimension and appeal that Marino will never comprehend.

“Let’s start with how you would know such a thing,” I reply.

“Because the Feds have issued a preservation order to the CFC so nothing is deleted from our server,” he answers. “What that tells me is they’ve been in it for a while. They’re snooping through your e-mails, maybe through other things in there, too.”

“Why don’t I know about a court order issued to my office?” I think of the highly sensitive information on the CFC server, some of it classified as secret or even top secret by the Department of Defense.

“Shit,” Marino says. “How can you be so calm about it? Did you hear what I just told you? The FBI is investigating you. You’re a target.”

“I most certainly would know if I’m a target. I’d be on the verge of indictment for a federal crime, and they’d interview me. They’d put me in front of a grand jury. They would have been in touch with Leonard Brazzo by now. Why has no one told me about a court order?” I repeat.

“Because you’re not supposed to know about it. I’m not supposed to know about it, either.”

“Is Lucy aware of this?”

“She’s the IT person, so she’s the one who got the notice. It’s up to her to make sure no electronic communications are deleted.”

Obviously Lucy told Marino. But she didn’t tell me.

“We don’t delete anything anyway, and a preservation order doesn’t mean anything’s been looked at.” Scare tactics, I think. Marino’s not a lawyer, and Jaime has goaded him into overdrive for some reason that serves her purposes.

“You act like it’s nothing.” His face is incredulous.

“In the first place, my case is being tried in federal court,” I reply. “Of course the Feds, the FBI, might be interested in any electronic records, especially Jack’s records, since we know he got in deep with a number of illegal activities and dangerous people while I was at Dover, not the least of which was his involvement with his daughter, Dawn Kincaid. The FBI already has been looking at his communications, at anything they can find, and they haven’t finished yet. So I would expect a preservation order. But it’s not needed, and what might I delete anyway? An itinerary for a trip to Georgia? I’m surprised Lucy has managed to keep this to herself.”

“All of us could be charged with obstruction of justice,” he says.

“And I’m sure Jaime’s put that worry in your head, too. Has she also talked with Lucy about it?”

“She doesn’t talk to Lucy or even about her.” He confirms my belief that Jaime and Lucy aren’t in touch. “I told Lucy and Bryce they’d be the ones who sent you to jail if they didn’t watch themselves and started telling you things you’re not supposed to know.”

“I appreciate your encouraging them to keep me out of jail.”

“It’s not funny.”

“It certainly isn’t. I don’t like the implication that if I were given information, I’d do something illegal in response, such as deleting records. I’m always under scrutiny, Marino. Every damn day of my life. What has Jaime said to you that’s gotten you so agitated and paranoid?”

“They’re interrogating people about you. Back in April, two FBI agents came to her apartment.”

I feel betrayed, not by the FBI or Benton or even Jaime but by Marino. The letters. I never knew he used to deride me, belittle me to the man I mentored, to my protégé, Jack. I was just getting started, and Marino was poisoning my staff behind my back.

“They wanted to question her about your character because she knows you personally and has a history with you, going back to our Richmond days,” Marino is saying, but what I’m hearing is what Kathleen Lawler said about the letters. “They wanted to corner her before she disappeared into the private sector,” he adds. “And maybe there was a grudge, too. Politics. Her problems with NYPD …”

“Yes, my character.” It boils out of me before I can stop it. “Because I’m such an awful person to work for. So difficult. Someone who can relate to people only if they’re dead.”

“What …?”

“Maybe I’m about to get indicted for being difficult. An awful human being who makes people miserable and ruins them. Maybe I should go to jail for that.”

“What the hell is wrong with you?” He stares at me. “What are you talking about?”

“The letters Jack used to write to Kathleen Lawler,” I reply. “I guess no one’s wanted to show them to me. Because of what you and Jack said about me back in our Richmond days. Comments he made and ones you made that he repeated in letters he wrote to Kathleen.”

“I don’t know anything about any letters.” Marino is sitting forward in his chair, a blank expression on his face. “No way there were any letters in his house that were to or from Kathleen Lawler. I got no idea what she might have from him, assuming it’s true he wrote to her. But I doubt it.”

“Why would you doubt it?” I exclaim, unable to stop myself.

“Jack never stayed single very long, and not one of his wives or girlfriends would have been very happy to know he was exchanging letters with the woman who molested him when he was a kid.”

“They e-mailed each other. We know that for a fact.”

“His wives or girlfriends weren’t going into his e-mail, my guess is,” Marino says. “But letters arriving in the mailbox, letters tucked in drawers or other places, that’s a risk I can’t imagine Jack would take.”

“Don’t try to make me feel better.”

“I’m saying I never saw any letters and that he hid any shit about Kathleen Lawler,” Marino says. “All the years I knew him he never mentioned her or what happened to him at that ranch. And I don’t know what all I said back then in the early days. To be honest, some of it probably wasn’t nice. Sometimes I was a jerk in the beginning, when you first took over as chief, and you shouldn’t listen to bullshit from some piece-of-shit convict. Whether what she said is true or not, Kathleen Lawler wanted to hurt you, and she did.”

I don’t say anything as we stare at each other.

“I don’t know what’s taking Jaime so long.” He abruptly gets up and looks out the window again. “I don’t know why you’re so pissed at me, unless it’s because you’re really pissed at Jack. Fucking son of a bitch. Well, you should be pissed at him. Goddamn worthless lying piece of shit. After all you did for him. Damn good thing Dawn Kincaid got him first, or maybe I would have.”

He continues to stare out the window with his back to me, and I sit quietly. The mood has passed like a violent storm that erupted out of nowhere, and I’m struck by what Marino said a moment ago about Jaime Berger. When I finally speak to his big, broad back, I ask if he meant it literally when he said Jaime has disappeared into the private sector.

“Yeah,” he says, without turning around. “Literally.”