Patricia Cornwell - Cruel and Unusual

“Four times.” She looked me straight in the eye.

“My God Lucy.”

“Well, what am I supposed to do? Pete's not going to take me anymore.”

“Lieutenant Marino is very, very busy right now,” I said, and the remark sounded so patronizing that I was embarrassed. “You're aware of the problems,” I added.

“Sure I am. Right now he's got to stay away. And if he stays away from you, he stays away from me. So he's out on the street because there's some maniac on the loose who's killing people like your morgue supervisor and the prison warden. At least Pete can take care of himself. Me? I've been shown how to shoot one lousy time Gee, thanks a lot. That's like giving me one tennis lesson and then entering me in Wimbledon.”

“You're overreacting.”

“No. The problem is you're under reacting.”

“Lucy…”

“How would you feel if I told you that every time I come visit you, I never stop thinking about that night?”

I knew exactly which night she meant, though over the years we had managed to go on as if nothing had happened.

“I would not feel good if I knew you were upset by anything that has to do with me,” I said.

“Anything? What happened was just anything?”

“Of course it wasn't just anything.”

“Sometimes I wake up at night because I dream a gun is going off. Then I listen to the awful silence and remember lying there, staring into the dark. I was so scared I couldn't move, and I wet my bed. And there were sirens and red lights flashing, and neighbors coming out on their porches and looking out their windows. And you wouldn't let me see it when they carried him out, and you wouldn't let me go upstairs. I wish I had, because imagining it has been worse.”

“That man is dead, Lucy. He can't hurt anyone now.”

“There are others just as bad, maybe worse than him.”

“I'm not going to tell you there aren't.”

“What are you doing about it, then?”

“I spend my every waking moment picking up the pieces of the lives destroyed by evil people. What more do you want me to do?”

“If you let something happen to you, I promise I will hate you,” my niece said.

“If something happens to me, I don't suppose it will matter who hates me. But I wouldn't want you to hate anyone because of what it would do to you.”

“Well, I will hate you. I swear.”

“I want you to promise me, Lucy, that you won't lie to me again.”

She did not say a word.

“I don't ever want you to feel that you need to hide anything from me,” I said.

“If I'd told you I wanted to go to the range, would you have let me?”

“Not without Lieutenant Marino or me.”

“Aunt Kay, what if Pete can't catch him?”

“Lieutenant Marino is not the only person on the case,” I said, not answering her question, because I did not know how to answer it.

“Well, I feel sorry for Pete.”

“Why?”

“He has to stop whoever this person is, and he can't even talk to you.”

“I imagine he's taking things in stride, Lucy. He's a pro.”

“That's not what Michele says.”

I glanced over at her.

“I was talking to her this morning. She says that Pete came by the house the other night to see her father. She said that Pete looks awful - his face was as red as a fire truck and he was in a horrible mood. Mr. Wesley tried to get him to go to the doctor or take some time off, but no way.”

I felt miserable. I wanted to call Marino immediately, but I knew it wasn't wise. I changed the subject.

“What else have you and Michele been talking about? Anything new with the State Police computers?”

“Nothing good. We've tried everything we can think of to figure out who Waddell's SID number was switched with. But any records marked for deletion were overwritten long ago on the hard disk. And whoever is responsible for the tampering was swift enough to do full system backups after the records were altered, meaning we can't run SID numbers against an earlier version of CCRE and see who pops up. Generally, you have at least one backup that's three to six months old. But not so in this case.”

“Sounds like an inside job to me.”

I thought how natural it seemed to be home with Lucy. She no longer was a guest or an irascible little girl. “We need to call your mother and Grans,“ I said.

“Do we have to tonight?”

“No. But we do need to talk about your returning to Miami.”

“Classes don't start until the seventh, and it won't make any difference if I miss the first few days.”

“School is very important.”

“It's also very easy.”

“Then you should do something on your own to make it harder.”

“Missing classes will make it harder,” she said.

The next morning I called Rose at eight-thirty, when I knew a staff meeting was in progress across the hall, meaning that Ben Stevens was occupied and would not know I was on the line.

“How are things?” I asked my secretary.

“Awful. Dr. Wyatt couldn't get here from the Roanoke office because they got snow in the mountains and the roads are bad. So yesterday Fielding had four cases with no one to help him. Plus, he was due in court and then got called to a scene. Have you talked to him?”

“We touch base when the poor man has a moment to get to the phone. This might be a good time for us to track down a few of our former fellows and see if one of them might consider coming here to help us hang on for a while. Jansen's doing private path in Charlottesville. You want to try him and see if he wants to give me a call.”

“Certainly. That's a fine idea.”

“Tell me about Stevens,” I said.

“He hasn't been here very much. He signs out in such an abbreviated, vague fashion that no one is ever sure where he's gone. I'm suspicious he's looking for another job.”

“Remind him not to ask me for a recommendation.”

“I wish you'd give him a great one so someone else would take him off our hands.”

“I need for you to call the DNA lab and get Donna to do me a favor. She should have a lab request for the analysis of the fetal tissue from Susan's case.”

Rose was silent. I could feel her getting upset.

“I'm sorry to bring this up,” I said gently.

She took a deep breath. “When did you request the analysis?”

“The request was actually made by Dr. Wright, since he did the post. He would have his copy of the lab request at the Norfolk office, along with the case.”

“You don't want me to call Norfolk and have them make a copy for us?”

“No. This can't wait, and I don't want anyone to know that I've requested a copy. I want it to appear that our office inadvertently got a copy. That's why I want you to deal directly with Donna. Ask her to pull the lab request immediately and I want you to pick it up in person.”

“Then what?”

“Then put it in the box up front where all the other copies of lab requests and reports are left for sorting.”

“You're sure about this?”

“Absolutely,” I said.

I hung up and retrieved a telephone directory, which I was flipping through when Lucy walked into the kitchen. She was barefoot and still wearing the sweat suit she had slept in. Groggily wishing me a good morning, she began rummaging in the refrigerator as I ran my finger down a column of names. There were maybe forty listings for the name Grimes, but no Helens. Of course, when Marino had referred to the guard as Helen the Hun, he was being snide. Maybe Helen wasn't her real name at all. I noted that there were three listings with the initial H., two for the first name and one for a middle name.

“What are you doing?” Lucy asked, setting a glass of orange juice on the table and pulling out a chair.