Patricia Cornwell - Postmortem

Silence.

Marino: "A knife, Matt. We found a knife, a survival knife with a whetstone in the sheath and a compass in the handle."

Confused: "Oh. Uh-huh. I got it several years ago. One of those mail-order knives you could get for five-ninety-five or something. Uh, I used to take it with me when I went hiking. It's got fishing line, matches inside the handle."

Marino: "Where did you see it last?"

"On the desk. It's been on the desk. I think Lori was using it as a letter opener. I don't know. It's just been sitting there for months. Maybe it made her feel better to have it out. Being alone at night and all. I told her we could get a dog. But she's allergic."

Marino: "If I hear what you're saying, Matt, you're telling me the knife was on the desk last time you saw it. That would have been when? Last Saturday, Sunday, when you was home, the weekend when you replaced the screen in the bathroom window?"

No response.

Marino: "You know any reason your wife might've had to move the knife, like maybe tuck it in a drawer or something? She ever done that in the past?"

"I don't think so. It's been on the desk, near the lamp for months."

Marino: "Can you explain why we found this knife in the bottom dresser drawer, underneath some sweaters and beside a box of condoms? Your dresser drawer, I'm guessing?"

Silence.

"No. I can't explain it. That's where you found it?"

Marino: "Yes."

"The condoms. They've been in there a long time." A hollow laugh that was almost a gasp. "From before Lori went on the pill."

Marino: "You sure about that? About the condoms?"

"Of course I'm sure. She went on the pill about three months after we got married. We got married just before we moved here. Less than two years ago."

Marino: "Now, Matt, I've got to ask you several questions of a personal nature, and I want you to understand I'm not picking on you or trying to embarrass you. But I have reasons. There's things we got to know, for your own good, too. Okay?"

Silence.

I could hear Marino lighting a cigarette. "All right then. The condoms. Did you have any relations outside your marriage, with anybody else, I'm saying?"

"Absolutely not."

Marino: "You was living out of town during the week. Now me, I would have been tempted-"

"Well, I'm not you. Lori was everything to me. I had nothing with anybody else."

Marino: "No one in the play with you, maybe?"

"No."

Marino: "See, the point is, we do these little things. I mean, they're human nature, okay? A good-looking guy like you. Hey, the women probably throw themselves at you. Who could blame you? But if you was seeing someone, we need to know. There could possibly be a connection."

Almost inaudibly, "No. I've told you, no. There could be no connection unless you're accusing me of something."

Becker: "No one's accusing you of anything, Matt."

There was the sound of something sliding across the table. The ashtray, perhaps.

And Marino was asking, "When was the last time you had sex with your wife?"

Silence.

Petersen's voice was shaking. "Jesus Christ."

Marino: "I know it's your business, personal. But you need to tell us. We got our reasons."

"Sunday morning. Last Sunday."

Marino: "You know there will be tests run, Matt. Scientists will be examining everything so we can get blood types, make other comparisons. We need samples from you just like we needed your prints. So we can sort things out and know what's yours, what's hers, and what maybe's from-"

The tape abruptly ended. I blinked and my eyes focused for what seemed the first time in hours.

Marino reached for the recorder, turned it off and retrieved his tapes.

He concluded, "After that we took him down to Richmond General and got the suspect kit. Betty's examining his blood even as we speak to see how it compares."

I nodded, glancing at the wall clock. It was noon. I felt sick.

"Something, huh?"

Marino stifled a yawn. "You see it, don't you? I'm telling you, the guy's off. I mean there's something off about any guy who can sit there after finding his wife like that and talk the way he does. Most of 'em, they don't talk much. He would have rattled on till Christmas if I'd let 'im. A lot of pretty words and poetry, you ask me. He's slick. You want my opinion, that's it. He's so slick it gives me the willies."

I slipped off my glasses and kneaded my temples. My brain was heated up, the muscles in my neck on fire. The silk blouse beneath my lab coat was damp. My circuits were so overloaded that what I wanted to do was place my head on my arms and sleep.

"His world is words, Marino," I heard myself say. "An artist would have painted the picture for you. Matt painted it with words. This is how he exists, how he expresses himself, through words and more words. To think a thought is to express it verbally for people like him."

I put my glasses back on and looked at Marino. He was perplexed, his meaty, shopworn face flushed.

"Well, take the bit about the knife, Doc. It's got his prints on it, even though he says his wife's the one who's been using it for months. It's got that sparkle crap on the handle, just like he had on his hands. And the knife was in his dresser drawer, like maybe someone was hiding it. Now that gives you a pause, don't you think?"

"I think it is possible the knife was on top of Lori's desk just as it had been, that she rarely used it and had no reason to touch the blade when she did if she simply opened letters with it, occasionally."

I was seeing this in my head, so vividly I almost believed the images were memories of an event that had actually occurred. "I think it's possible the killer saw the knife too. Perhaps he took it out of the sheath to look at it. Perhaps he used it-"

"Why?"

"Why not?" I asked.

A shrug.

"To jerk everyone around, perhaps," I suggested. "Perversity, if nothing else. We have no idea what went on, for God's sake.

He may have asked her about the knife, tormented her with her own-or her husband's own-weapon. And if she talked with him as I suspect she did, then he may have learned the knife belongs to her husband. He thinks, 'I'll use it. I'll put it in a drawer where the cops are sure to find it.'

Or maybe he doesn't think much about it at all. Maybe his reason was utilitarian. In other words, maybe it was a bigger knife than the one he'd brought in with him, it caught his eye, appealed to him, he used it, didn't want to take it out with him, stuck it in a drawer hoping we wouldn't know he'd used it and it was that simple."

"Or maybe Matt did it all," Marino flatly said.

"Matt? Think about it. Could a husband rape and bind his wife? Could he fracture her ribs and break her fingers? Could he slowly strangle her to death? This is someone he loves or once loved. Someone he sleeps with, eats with, talks to, lives with. A person, Sergeant. Not a stranger or depersonalized object of lust and violence. How are you going to connect a husband murdering his wife with the first three stranglings?"

Clearly, he'd already thought about this. "They occurred after midnight, on early Saturday mornings. Right about the time Matt was getting home from Charlottesville. Maybe his wife got suspicious about him for some reason and he decides he's got to whack her. Maybe he does her like the others to make us think the serial killer did her. Or maybe the wife's who he was after all along, and he does the other three first to make it look like his wife was done by this anonymous and same killer."

"A wonderful plot for Agatha Christie."

I was pushing back my chair and getting up. "But as you know in real life murder is usually depressingly simple. I think these murders are simple. They are exactly what they appear to be, impersonal random murders committed by someone who stalks his victims long enough to figure out when to strike."