Patricia Cornwell - Red Mist

“I hope you got me the barbecue shrimp,” Marino says from his chair.

“And fries,” Berger says, as if she and Marino are comfortable companions. “And the mac-and-cheese with truffle oil.”

“I’ll pass.” He makes a face.

“It’s good to try new things.”

“Forget truffles or truffle oil or whatever. I don’t need to try anything that smells like ass.” Marino retrieves a brown expansion file from the stack on the floor by the desk, a file labeled with a sticker that has BLR written on it in black Magic Marker.

“Would you like some help?” I ask Jaime, but I don’t get up. I sense she doesn’t want me in her space, or maybe it’s simply that I’m the one feeling distant and untouchable.

“Please stay put. I can open bags and put food on plates. I’m not the cook you are, but I can at least do that.”

“Your sushi’s in the refrigerator,” Marino says.

“My sushi? Okay, why not.” She opens the refrigerator door and retrieves the containers Marino placed inside. “They have my credit card on file because I confess I’m addicted. At least three nights a week. I probably should worry about mercury. You still don’t eat sushi, Kay?”

“I still don’t. No, thank you.”

“I think I’ll serve the bisque in mugs, if nobody minds. How far did you get?” She looks at Marino. “Tell me where you left off.”

“Far enough to know how much trouble it must have been for the two of you to make this evening possible,” I answer for him.

“I really do apologize,” Jaime again says, but she doesn’t sound sorry.

She sounds very sure of her right to do exactly what she’s done.

“Frankly, it’s my prerogative to make certain you understand what’s happening. I simply had to be extraordinarily careful how I did it.” She glances up at me as she moves about in the kitchen. “I feel it’s my moral responsibility to watch your back. Obviously, I’ll always err on the side of discretion and deemed it unwise to call you, e-mail you, or contact you directly. If asked I can truthfully say I didn’t. You called me. But who will know that fact unless you decide to share it?”

“If I decide to share what? That an inmate slipped me a note and I drove off to find the nearest pay phone as if I’m in summer camp on a scavenger hunt?” I reply.

“I interviewed Kathleen yesterday and was reminded she was looking forward to seeing you today.”

“Was reminded?” I say to her, as I look at Marino. “I’m sure you knew anyway. Curtis Roberts is probably an associate of yours. You know, the lawyer with the Georgia Innocence Project who called Leonard Brazzo.”

“I can truthfully say you contacted me while you were in the area on your own business,” Jaime repeats.

“Business you set up for me so you could get me here,” I reply. “There’s nothing truthful about any of this.”

“Marino didn’t brief you or divulge anything he shouldn’t have,” she continues to make her case. “He didn’t pass along any invitations to you that might be unwise right now under the circumstances. No one passed on anything that might have negative consequences.”

“Someone certainly did. That’s why I’m sitting here,” I answer.

“In a privileged conversation with a witness in a case I’m working, I conveyed that I was hoping you would get in touch with me,” she says, completely justified, at least in her mind.

“I seriously doubt much at the GPFW isn’t monitored or recorded,” I point out.

“I wrote a note on my legal pad asking Kathleen to give you my cell phone number and the instruction to call me on a pay phone,” Jaime says. “She read the note as we sat at the table. Nothing was said out loud. Nothing was observed, and the legal pad left with me. Kathleen’s happy to help me in any way possible.”

“Because she’s convinced she’s going to get a reduced sentence, according to the warden,” I comment.

“It would be a good idea for you to dispose of any notes anyone might have given you.”

“From which I’m to conclude you were told not to talk to me and you’re worried about the security of my communications,” I get to the bottom line. “My office and home phones, my cell phone, my e-mail.”

“Not exactly told not to talk,” Jaime says. “Federal agents always encourage witnesses and other parties of interest not to communicate with the subject of an investigation. But I wasn’t ordered not to talk to you, and as long as they don’t know I did, and I prefer they don’t, there shouldn’t be any repercussions. And I think we’ve succeeded in that and are over that hurdle. Tomorrow’s a different day and a different story, a different mission altogether. If they find out at some point we were together at Colin Dengate’s office, it’s of no consequence. They can’t stop us from working a case together while you happened to be in the area.”

“Working a case,” I repeat.

“Jerk-offs,” Marino says, and he’s come to like the FBI a lot less since he left law enforcement and no longer has the power to arrest anyone. His hostility also has to do with Benton.

“If one can avoid it, it’s always best not to annoy the FBI,” Berger adds, as she gets plates and mugs out of a cabinet. “If I annoy them, it doesn’t help you. And some of this is about Farbman, about the problems he’s caused and is capable of causing.”

Dan Farbman is the deputy commissioner of public information for NYPD, and I’m aware that he and Jaime have crossed swords in the past. When I worked for the New York City Office of the Chief Medical Examiner a few years ago, I didn’t get along with him all that well, either. But I don’t know about anything recent or what Deputy Commissioner Farbman could have to do with any potential problems I might have with the Department of Justice. I say as much to Jaime. I tell her I don’t see what Farbman could possibly have to do with me.

“What’s happened in Massachusetts and Dawn Kincaid’s subsequent arrest and indictments have nothing to do with NYPD or Farbman,” I add, as I watch Marino sliding paperwork out of the file, flipping through it, and finding what looks like some sort of official form, lines of it highlighted in orange.

“Yours is a federal case,” Jaime says to me. “An attack on a medical examiner affiliated with the Department of Defense, and it’s accepted that this attack was directed at a federal official and therefore is federal jurisdiction and will be tried in federal court. Which is a good thing. But it also makes you and your case of interest to the FBI.”

“I’m well aware.”

“The talk is that the commissioner may be the next director of the FBI, meaning Farbman thinks he’ll go with him to be in charge of media relations. Were you aware of that?”

“I may have heard rumors.”

“Unless I can block Farbman’s appointment, which I fully intend to do. We don’t need our national crime statistics and terrorist alerts tampered with next. He’s not exactly a fan of mine.”

“He never was.”

“Now it’s worse. I’d say our relationship is in critical condition— only I intend to be the one who survives,” she says. “He won’t forgive me for accusing him of lying about NYPD crime stats, accusing him of data cheating. And as you might recall, you had your run-ins with him, too, for the same reason.” She arranges plates on the stone peninsula.

“I never actually accused him or anyone at NYPD of data cheating.”

“Well, I have, and it’s hard for me to imagine you’re surprised that he’s been doing it.” She finds serving spoons in a drawer.

“He’s always had a habit of presenting statistics and slanting stories in ways that are politically favorable. But I hadn’t heard he’s been accused of data cheating,” I reply.