Patricia Cornwell - From Potter's Field

Gault was unhealthily pale, every vertebra and rib clearly defined. Apparently, he had lost a lot of weight and muscle tone, and I thought about the cocaine in his hair, which now was white, and as he shifted his position I saw his full breasts.

My eyes shot across the table as Lucy stiffened.

I felt Marino look at me as Carrie Grethen worked to give her client ecstasy. It seemed drugs had interfered, and no matter what she did, Sheriff Brown could not rise to receive what would prove to be the most he ever paid for pleasure. Lucy bravely kept her eyes on the television screen. She stared, shocked, as her former lover performed one lewd act after another on this big-bellied, intoxicated man.

The ending seemed predictable. Carrie would produce a gun and blow him away. But not so. Eighteen minutes into the video, footsteps sounded in Brown's bedroom, and her accomplice walked in. Temple Gault was dressed in a black suit and also wearing gloves. He seemed to have no clue that his every blink and sniffle were on camera. He stopped at the foot of the bed and watched. Brown had his eyes shut. I wasn't sure if he was conscious.

'Time's up,' Gault said impatiently.

His intense blue eyes seemed to penetrate the screen. They looked right into our conference room. He had not dyed his hair. It was still carrot red, long and slicked back from his forehead and behind his ears. He unbuttoned his jacket and withdrew a Clock nine-millimeter pistol. Nonchalantly, he walked toward the head of the bed.

Carrie looked on as Gault placed the barrel of the pistol between the sheriff's eyes. She placed her hands over her ears. My stomach tightened and I clenched my fists as Gault depressed the trigger, and the gun recoiled as if horrified by what it had just done. We sat in shock as the sheriff's agonal jerks and twitches stopped. Carrie dismounted.

'Oh damn,' Gault said, looking down at his chest. 'I got splashed.'

She snatched the handkerchief out of the breast pocket of his suit jacket and dabbed his neck and lapels.

'It won't show. It's a good thing you wore black.'

'Go put something on,' he said as if her nudity disgusted him. His voice was adolescent and uneven, and he was not loud.

He went to the foot of the bed and picked up the dark clothing.

'What about his watch?' She looked down at the bed. 'It's a Rolex. It's real, baby, and it's gold. The bracelet's real, too.'

Gault snapped, 'Get dressed now.'

'I don't want to get dirty,' she said.

She dropped the bloody handkerchief on the floor where the police would later find it.

'Then bring the bags in,' he ordered.

He seemed to be fooling with the clothing as he placed it on the dresser, but the angle of the camera made it impossible for us to see him well. She came back with the bags.

Together they disposed of Brown's body in a way that seemed careful and well planned. First, they dressed him in pajamas, for reasons we did not understand. Blood spilled on the pajama top as Gault pulled the garbage bag over the sheriff's head and tied it with a shoelace that came from a running shoe in the closet.

They lowered the body from the bed into the black pouch on the floor, Gault holding Brown under the arms while Carrie got his ankles. They tucked him in and zipped it up. We saw them carry Lament Brown out and heard them on the stairs. Minutes later, Carrie ducked back in, got the clothing and left. Then the bedroom was empty.

Tucker tensely said, 'Certainly we can't ask for better evidence. Did the gloves come from the morgue?'

'Most likely from the van they stole,' I answered. 'We keep a box of gloves in each van.'

'It's not quite over,' Marino said.

He began advancing the film, speeding past scene after scene of the empty bedroom, until suddenly a figure was there. Marino rewound and the figure quickly walked backward out of the room.

Marino said, 'Look what happens exactly an hour and eleven minutes later.' He hit the play button again.

Carrie Grethen walked into the bedroom, dressed like Gault. Were it not for her white hair, I might have thought she was him.

'What? She's got on his suit?' Tucker asked, amazed.

'Not his suit,' I said. 'She's got on one like it, but it's not the suit Gault was wearing.'

'How can you tell?' Tucker said.

'There's a handkerchief in the pocket. She took Gault's handkerchief to wipe blood off him. And if you go back you'll see his jacket had no flaps on the pockets, but hers does.'

'Yeah,' Marino said. 'That's right.'

Carrie looked around the room, on the floor, on the bed, as if she had lost something. She was agitated and angry, and I was certain she was on the wrong side of a cocaine high. She looked around a minute longer, then left.

'I wonder what that was about,' Tucker said.

'Hold on,' Marino told us.

He advanced the film and Carrie was back. She searched some more, scowling, pulling covers back from the bed and looking under the bloody pillow. She got down on the floor and looked under the bed. She spewed a stream of profanities, eyes casting about.

'Hurry up,' Gault's impatient voice sounded from somewhere beyond the room.

She looked in the dresser mirror and smoothed her hair. For an instant, she was staring straight into the camera at close range, and I was startled by her deterioration. I once had thought her beautiful, with her clean complexion, perfect features and long brown hair. The creature standing before us now was gaunt and glassy eyed, with harsh white hair. She buttoned the suit jacket and walked off.

'What do you make of that?' Tucker asked Marino.

'I don't know. I've looked at it a dozen times and can't figure it out.'

'She's misplaced something,' Wesley said. 'That seems obvious.'

'Maybe it was just a last check,' Marino said. 'To make certain nothing was overlooked.'

'Like a video camera,' Tucker wryly said.

'She didn't care if something was overlooked,' Wesley said. 'She left Gault's bloody handkerchief on the floor.'

'But both of them was wearing gloves,' Marino said. 'I'd say they were pretty careful.'

'Was any money stolen from the house?' Wesley asked.

Marino said, 'We don't know how much. But Brown's wallet was cleaned out. He was probably missing guns, drugs, cash.'

'Wait a minute,' I said. 'The envelope.'

'What envelope?' Tucker asked.

'They didn't put it in his pocket. We watched them dress him and zip him up inside the pouch, but no envelope. Rewind it,' I said. 'Go back to that part to make certain I'm right.'

Marino rewound the tape and replayed the footage of Carrie and Gault moving the body out of the room. Brown was definitely zipped inside the pouch without the pink note that I had found in the breast pocket of his pajamas. I thought of other notes I had gotten and of all the problems Lucy was having with CAIN. The envelope had been addressed to me and fixed with a stamp as if the author's intention were to mail it.

'That may be what Carrie couldn't find,' I said. 'Maybe she's been the one sending me the letters. She intended to mail this most recent one, too, explaining why it was addressed and stamped. Then, unbeknownst to her, Gault put it in Brown's pajama pocket.'

Wesley asked, 'Why would Gault do that?'

'Perhaps because he knew the effect it would have,' I replied. 'I would see it in the morgue and instantly know that Brown was murdered and Gault was involved.'

'But what you're saying is that Gault isn't CAIN. You're saying that Carrie Grethen is,' Marino said.

It was Lucy who spoke. 'Neither of them is CAIN. They are spies.'

We were silent for a moment.

'Obviously,' I said, 'Carrie has continued helping Gault with the FBI computer. They are a team. But I think he took the note she wrote to me and did not tell her. I think that's what she was looking for.'