Patricia Cornwell - Red Mist

“Contact that you’ve orchestrated.” I remind her that I’m no fool. “I’m here because of you.” She wanted me in a weakened position.

“No one twisted your arm to come here.”

“No one needed to,” I reply. “You knew I would, so you set me up for it.”

“Well, I certainly thought you might come, and I recommend you have no further contact with Kathleen. Not any type at all,” Jaime instructs me, as if she’s now my lawyer. “While I think a criminal case against you is a stretch, I worry about litigation,” she goes on painting inflammatory scenarios.

“If a burglar injures himself while ransacking your house, he sues,” I reply. “Everybody sues. Litigation is the new national industry and has become the inevitable aftermath of virtually any criminal act. First someone tries to rob, rape, or kill you. Or maybe they succeed. Then they sue you or your estate for good measure.”

“I’m not trying to aggravate or scare you or put you in a compromising situation.” She places her chopsticks and napkin on her empty plate.

“Of course you are.”

“You think I’m bluffing.”

“I didn’t say that.”

“When the FBI came by my apartment, Kay, they wanted to know if I’d ever observed instability, violence, any traits in you that might have given me concern. Are you truthful? Do you abuse alcohol or drugs? Isn’t it true you’ve been known to brag that you could get away with the perfect murder?”

“Of course I’ve never bragged about such a thing. And what happened in my garage was far from perfect.”

“Then you’re admitting you intended to murder Dawn Kincaid.”

“I’m admitting that if I thought I was going to be attacked, I would have armed myself with more than a flashlight I found in a kitchen drawer. I’m admitting that the entire event wouldn’t have happened had I been paying attention, if I’d not been so distracted and sleep-deprived.”

“The FBI wanted to know if I was aware of your relationship with Jack Fielding,” Jaime tells me. “Had the two of you ever been lovers, and might you have been possessive or unnaturally attached to him or felt spurned by him and given to jealous rages?”

She takes another sip of Scotch, and I’m tempted to get up and help myself. But it wouldn’t be smart. I can’t afford to make myself more vulnerable to her than I already am or to be foggy tomorrow.

“And they brought up this fanciful story about self-defense?” I ask.

“No. They wouldn’t do anything as generous as that. The FBI is extremely skilled at getting information and not inclined to return the favor. They wouldn’t tell me why they were asking about you.”

“This isn’t quid pro quo,” I again say.

“I should think you’d want to help someone who is about to be executed for a crime she didn’t commit,” Jaime replies. “Maybe, in light of the situation you find yourself in, you can relate more than ever to being falsely accused of killing someone or attempting to,” she adds with emphasis.

“I don’t need to be falsely accused of a crime in order to have a sense of right and wrong,” I answer.

“Lola will die in a horrific way,” she says. “They won’t make it painless or merciful. Dr. Clarence Jordan was from old Savannah money, a good Christian, a moral man, generous to a fault. Known for giving free medical care to people in need or volunteering in the ER, the soup kitchen, the food bank on Thanksgiving, on Christmas Eve. A saint, according to some.”

I suppose it’s possible a man of great faith, a saint, might not bother setting his burglar alarm. I wonder if he installed the alarm system himself, or did a previous owner of his historic home?

“Do you know details of the alarm system in the Jordan house?” I ask.

“It doesn’t appear to have been set the early morning of the murders.”

“Does that bother you?”

“The question continues to interest me. Why wasn’t it set?”

“Lola’s offered no explanation?”

“She wasn’t the one who broke in,” Jaime reminds me. “I have no credible explanation.”

“Has anybody tried to determine if it was habit of the Jordans not to set the alarm?”

“There’s no one alive to state as fact what their habits might have been,” Jaime says. “But I’ve had Marino looking into it, among other things.”

“If the alarm was active and connected by a telephone line to an alarm company, there should be records of whether it was routinely armed and disarmed,” I reply. “There should be a record of false alarms, trouble on the line, anything that might indicate the Jordan family was using it and paying a monthly bill.”

“A very good point, and one that isn’t satisfactorily addressed in the records I’ve reviewed,” Jaime answers. “Or through interviews.”

“Have you talked to the investigator?”

“GBI Special Agent Billy Long retired five years ago and says his reports and records speak for themselves.”

“You talked to him yourself?”

“Marino did. According to Investigator Long, the alarm wasn’t set that night and the assumption was that the Jordans were trusting and not particularly security-conscious,” Jaime says. “And that they were tired of false alarms.”

“So they stopped setting it entirely, even at night? That seems a bit extreme.”

“Careless but maybe understandable,” she replies. “Two five-year-olds, and you can imagine what happens. They open doors and the alarm goes off. After the police show up a few times, you get tired of it and get complacent about setting it. You have a deadbolt that requires a key and are more worried about small children being locked in if there’s a fire. So you give in to the very bad habit of leaving the key in the deadbolt lock, making it possible for an intruder to break out the glass and reach in and open the door from the inside.”

“And these explanations for the Jordans’ seeming carelessness are based on what?” I ask.

“Based on Special Agent Long’s assumptions at the time,” Jaime says, as I dig myself deeper into a case that I shouldn’t want any part of.

Because I’ve been tricked.

Jaime Berger pulled a number of stunts to make sure I’m sitting in this very living room and having this very conversation.

“Unfortunately, assumptions are easy to make when you believe a case is already solved,” I say.

“Yes. They had the Jordans’ DNA on bloody clothing that Lola Daggette was washing in the bathroom of her halfway house,” Jaime agrees.

“I can see why the GBI, why the prosecutor, wouldn’t have been unduly caught up in the details of the alarm system,” I remark.

“I’m curious about why you’re caught up in these details.” She reaches for her glass.

“An intruder knowing or not knowing whether the alarm was set tells us something about this person.” I get in deeper, as Jaime knew I would. “Do you happen to know if the keypad was visible from outside the door? Could an intruder have looked through the glass and seen the alarm was or wasn’t set?”

“It’s not easy to tell from the photographs. But I think it’s possible someone could have looked through the glass and seen the light on the keypad was either green or red, indicating the status of the alarm.”

“These details are important,” I explain. “They tell us something about the mind-set of the killer. Was the Jordan house random? Was it luck of the draw? Did someone break out the glass of the kitchen door and unlock it, deciding, if an alarm went off, to run like hell? Or did this individual have reason to know there was a good chance the alarm wasn’t going to be set? Or could the person see it wasn’t set? I assume the Jordan house still exists?”