Patricia Cornwell - Cruel and Unusual

Then on Thursday, January 6, Patterson called me at home and requested that I come downtown to his office to talk.

"I'm sure we can dear all this up," he said amicably. "I just need to ask you a few questions.”

The implication was that if I cooperated, then something worse might be derailed, and I marveled that Patterson would consider, for even a moment, that such a shopworn maneuver would work with me. When the Commonwealth's Attorney wants to chat, he's on a fishing expedition that does not involve letting anything go. The same is true of the police. In good Gruemanian fashion, I told Patterson no, and the next morning was subpoenaed to appear before the special grand jury on January 20. This was followed by a subpoena duces tecum for my financial records. First Grueman claimed the Fifth, then filed a motion to quash the subpoena. A week later, we had no choice but to comply unless I wished to be held in contempt of court. About this same time, Governor Norring appointed Fielding acting chief medical examiner of Virginia.

"There's another TV van I just saw it go by," Lucy said from the dining room, where she stood staring out the window.

"Come on in and eat lunch," I called out to her from the kitchen. "Your soup is getting cold.”

Silence.

"Aunt Kay?”

She sounded excited.

"What is it?”

'You'll never guess who just pulled up."

From the window over the sink; I watched the white Ford LTD park in front. The driver's door opened, and Marino climbed out. He hitched up his trousers and adjusted his tie, his eyes taking in everything around him. As I watched him follow the sidewalk to my porch, I was so powerfully touched that it startled me.

"I'm not sure if I should be glad to see you or not," I said when I opened the door.

"Hey, don't worry. I'm not here to arrest you, Doc.’

"Please come in.”

"Hi, Pete," Lucy said cheerfully.

"Aren't you supposed to be in school or something?”

“No.?”

“What? Down there in South America they give you January off?”

"That's right. Because of the bad weather," my niece said. "When it drops below seventy degrees, everything shuts down.”

Marino smiled. He looked about the worst I had ever seen him.

Moments later I had built a fire in the living room, and Lucy had left to run errands.

"How have you been?” I asked.

"Are you going to make me smoke outside?”

I slid an ashtray closer to him.

"Marino, you have suitcases under your eyes, your face is flushed, and it's not warm enough in here for you to be perspiring.”

"I can tell you've missed me.”

He pulled a dingy handkerchief from his back pocket and mopped his brow. Then he lit a cigarette and stated into the fire. "Patterson's being an asshole, Doc. He wants to scorch you.”

"Let him try.”

"He will, and you'd better be ready.”

"He has no case against me, Marino.”

"He has a fingerprint found on an envelope inside Susan's house.”

“I can explain that:" "But you can't prove it, and then there's his little trump card. And I swear I shouldn't be telling you this, but I'm going to.

“What trump card?”

"You remember Tom Lucero?”

"1 know who he is," I said. "I don't know him.”

"Well, he can be a charmer and he's a pretty damn good cop, to be honest. Turns out he's been snooping around Signet Bank and talked up one of the tellers until she slipped him information about you. Now, he wasn't supposed to ask and she wasn't supposed to tell. But she told him she remembered you writing a big deck for cash sometime before Thanksgiving. According to her, it was for ten grand.”

I stared stonily at him.

"I mean, you can't really blame Lucero. He's just doing his job. But Patterson knows what to look for as he ages through your financial. He's going to hammer you hard when you get before the special grand jury.”

I did not say a word.

"Doc.” He leaned forward and met my eyes. "Don't you think you ought to tally about it?”

"No.”

Getting up, he went to the fireplace and nudged the curtain open far enough to flick the cigarette inside.

"Shit, Doc, “ he said quietly. "I don't want you indicted.”

"I shouldn't drink coffee and I know you shouldn't, but I feel like having something. Do you like hot chocolate?”

“I'll drink some coffee.”

I got up to fix it. My thoughts buzzed sluggishly like a housefly in the fall. My rage had nowhere to go. I made a pot of decaf and hoped Marino would not know the difference.

"How is your blood pressure?” I asked him.

"You want to know the truth? Some days if I was a kettle I’d be whistling.”

"I don't know what I'm going to do with you.”

He perched on the edge of the hearth. The fire sounded like the wind, and reflected flames danced in brass.

"For one thing," I went on, "you probably shouldn't even be here. I don't want you having any problems.”

"Hey, fuck the CA, the city, the governor, and all of them, " he said with sudden anger.

"Marino; we can't give in. Someone knows who this killer is. Have you talked to the officer who showed us around the penitentiary? Officer Roberts?”

"Yo. The conversation went exactly nowhere.”

"Well, I didn't fare a whole lot better with your friend Helen Grimes.”

"That must've been a treat.”

"Are you aware that she no longer works for the pen?”

"She never did any work there that I know of. Helen the Hun was lazy as hell unless she was patting down one of the lady guests. Then she got industrious. Donahue liked her, don't ask me why. After he got whacked, she got reassigned to guard tower duty in Greensville and suddenly developed a knee problem or something.

“I have a feeling she knows a lot more than she let m" I said "Especially if she and Donahue were friendly with each other.”

Marino sipped his coffee and looked out the sliding glass doors. The ground was frosted white, and snowflakes seemed to be falling faster. I thought of the snowy night I was summoned to Jennifer Deighton's house, and images flashed in my mind of an overweight woman in curlers sitting in a chair in tie middle of her living room. If the killer had interrogated her, he had done so for a reason. What was it he had been sent to find?

“Do you think the killer was after letters when' he appeared at Jennifer Deighton's house?” I asked Marino.

"I think he was after something that had to do with Waddell. Letters, poems. Things he may have mailed to her over the years.”

"Do you think this person found what he was looking for?”

"Let's just put it this way, he may have looked around, but he was so tidy we couldn't tell.”

"Well, I don't think he found a thing," T said.

Marino looked skeptically at me as he lit another cigarette. "Based on what?”

"Based on the scene. She was in her nightgown and curlers. It appears she had been reading in bed. That doesn't sound like someone who is expecting company," "I'll go along with that.”

"Then someone appears at her door and she must have let him in, because there was no sign of forcible entry and no sign of a struggle. I think what may have happened next is this person demanded that she turn over to him whatever it was he was looking for, and she wouldn't. He gets angry, gets a chair from the dining room, and sets it in the middle of her living room. He sits her in it and basically tortures her. He asks questions, and when she doesn't tell him what he wants to hear he tightens the choke hold. This goes on until it goes too far. He carries her out and puts her in her car.”

"If he was going in and out of the kitchen, that might explain why that door was unlocked when we arrived," Marino considered.

"It might. In summary, I don't think he intended for her to die when she did, and after he tried to disguise her death. He probably didn't hang around very long. Maybe he got scared, or maybe he simply lost interest in his assignment. I doubt he rummaged through her house at all, and I also doubt that he would have found anything if he had.”