Blow Fly (36 page)

T
ODAY FOR THE FIRST TIME
in more than five years, Benton speaks to Senator Frank Lord, both of them using pay phones.

It strikes Benton as almost comical, as he envisions the ever-immaculately groomed and impeccably dressed Senator Lord driving from his Northern Virginia home, on his way to the Capitol, and pulling off at a gas station to use a pay phone. Benton orchestrated the conversation after receiving a very unexpected e-mail from the senator late last night.

Trouble,
it read.
Tomorrow 7:15. Leave me a number.

Benton e-mailed back the number of the pay phone he's using right now, having picked it out in advance last night. Always go for the simplest, most obvious plan, if possible. Certainly, it is beginning to seem that his meticulous and complicated ones are going awry in all directions.

He leans against a wall, watching his beat-up Cadillac, making sure no one goes near it or shows interest in him. Every alarm inside his head is hammering. Senator Lord is telling him about Scarpetta's letter from Chandonne, the one with the calligraphy.

“How did you find out about this?” Benton asks him.

“Jaime Berger called me last night. At home. Very concerned that
Chandonne has set up a trap and Scarpetta's walking right into it. Berger wants my help, my intervention. People forget that I have my limitations. Well, my enemies don't forget it.”

The senator wants to send legions of federal agents to Baton Rouge, but not even he can bend the law. The Baton Rouge Task Force has to invite the FBI into the investigation, and for all practical purposes to take it over. In these serial abductions—or murders, because that's what they are—there is an insurmountable jurisdictional problem with the feds storming in on their own. No federal laws have been broken.

“Damn incompetence,” Senator Lord says. “Damn ignorant fools down there.”

“It's close,” Benton says into the phone. “The letter means the situation is very close to a possible conclusion. Not the way I wanted it. This is bad, very bad. I'm not worried about me.”

“It can be handled?”

“I'm the only one who knows how. It will require exposure.”

A long pause, then Senator Lord acquiesces. “Yes, I believe it will. But once that happens, there's no going back. We can't go through this again. Do you really . . . ?”

“I have to. The letter changes things dramatically, and you know how she is. He is luring her there.”

“She's there now.”

“Baton Rouge?” Benton is frightened.

“Texas. I mean Texas.”

“Christ. Not good, either. No, no, no. The letter. This one's real. Texas is no longer safe for her.”

For a moment he contemplates Scarpetta visiting Chandonne. Originally, he had tactical and personal reasons for wanting her to do this. But if he's honest with himself, he never really thought she would. He really didn't, despite his best efforts. Now she shouldn't be there.
Christ.

“She's there even as we speak,” Senator Lord reminds him.

“Frank, he's going to make a run for it.”

“I don't see how. Not out of that place. No matter how clever he is. I'll alert them immediately.”

“He's more than clever. The point is this: If he's luring her to Baton Rouge, then he must plan to be there.
I know him. I know her.
She'll head to Baton Rouge as soon as she leaves Texas. Unless he intercepts her first, in Texas, if he can work that fast. Hopefully he can't. But either way, she is in severe danger. Not just because of him, but his allies. They must be in Baton Rouge. His brother must be there. The killings now make sense. He's doing them. She's probably helping him. Since she hasn't been caught yet, my guess is he and Bev Kiffin are together, hiding.”

“Isn't abducting women taking a tremendous risk for fugitives of their notoriety?”

“He's bored,” Benton simply says.

O
FFICERS IN THE POLUNSKY UNIT
wear gray uniforms and black baseball caps.

Handcuffs dangle from the belts of the two officers walking Jean-Baptiste through a series of heavy doors slamming shut so loudly, they sound like large-caliber pistol fire inside a steel room. Every explosion is an empowerment for Jean-Baptiste as he walks freely, only his wrists shackled. All around him, tons of steel magnetize him into solar flares. With each step, the power grows stronger.

“Can't understand why anybody would want to visit you,” one of the officers says to him. “This is a first, huh?”

His name is Phillip Wilson. He drives a red Mustang with the vanity tag KEYPR.

KEEPER.
Jean-Baptiste figured that out the first day he was here.

He says nothing to the officers as he moves through another door in a wave of searing heat.

“Not even one visitor?” replies the second officer, Ron Abrams, white, slender, with thinning brown hair. “Pretty pitiful, aren't you, Monsieur Chandonne,” he mockingly says.

The turnover rate among corrections officers is very high. Officer
Abrams is new, and Jean-Baptiste senses that he wants to walk the infamous Wolfman out to the visitation area. New officers are always curious about Jean-Baptiste. Then they get used to him and then are disgusted. Moth says Officer Abrams drives a black Toyota SUV. Moth knows every car in the parking lot, just as he always knows the latest weather update.

The back of the tiny visitation booth is a heavy wire mesh painted white. Officer Wilson unlocks it and takes off Jean-Baptiste's cuffs and shuts him inside the booth, which has a chair, a shelf and a black phone attached to a metal cable.

“I'd like a Pepsi and the chocolate cupcakes, please,” Jean-Baptiste says through the screen.

“You got money?”

“I have no money,” Jean-Baptiste quietly replies.

“Okay. This time I do you a favor, since you've never had a visitor before and the lady coming in would be stupid to buy you anything, asshole.” It is Officer Abrams who speaks so crudely.

Through the glass, Jean-Baptiste scans the sparkling-clean, spacious room, believing he doesn't need eyes to see the vending machines and everything in them, and the three visitors talking on phones to three other death-row inmates.

She is not here.

Jean-Baptiste's electrical current spikes with anger.

A
S OFTEN HAPPENS WHEN
a situation is urgent, the best efforts are foiled by mundaneness.

Senator Lord has never been the sort to hesitate in making phone calls himself. He has no egotistical insecurities and finds it is quicker to handle a matter than to explain it to someone else. The instant he hangs up at the pay phone, he returns to his car and drives north, talking on his hands-free to his chief counsel.

“Jeff, I need the number of the warden at Polunsky. Now.”

Writing notes while driving in rush hour on I-95 is a special feat the senator was forced to learn years ago.

He enters a bad cell and can't hear his chief counsel.

Repeatedly calling him back, the senator gets no signal. When he does get through, he is greeted by voicemail, because Jeff is trying to call him back, too.

“Get off the phone!” the senator exclaims to no one who can hear him.

Twenty minutes later, a secretary is still trying to track down the warden.

Senator Lord senses—and this has happened before—that she isn't sure she believes the person on the other line is really Senator Frank Lord,
one of the most powerful and visible politicians in the country. Usually, important people let less important people schedule appointments and make telephone calls.

Senator Lord concentrates on creeping traffic and angry drivers, and has been on hold for minutes. No one with intelligence or, better yet, a certainty of who she is talking to would dare to put him on hold. This is his reward for humility and taking care of himself efficiently, including picking up his own dry cleaning, stopping at the grocery store and even making his own restaurant reservations, despite recurring problems with maître d's writing nothing down, certain the call is a prank or someone trying to trick him into giving him the best table.

“I'm sorry.” The secretary finally returns. “I can't seem to locate him. He's very busy this morning because there's an execution tonight. Can I take a message?”

“What is your name?”

“Jodi.”

“No, Jodi, you can't take a message. This is an emergency.”

“Well,” she hesitates, “caller ID doesn't show you're calling from Washington. I can't just yank him out of an important meeting or whatever and then find out it's not really you.”

“I don't have time for this. Find him. Or, for God's sake, does the man have an assistant?”

Again, he enters a bad cell and it takes fifteen minutes before he can get through to the secretary again. She has left her desk. Another young woman answers the phone and he loses her, too.

I
'M SICK OF THIS,”
Nic tells her father.

She drove to the Baton Rouge Police Department's old brick building and never got above the first-floor lobby. When she said she had possible evidence about the cases, a plainclothes detective eventually appeared and just stared at the quarters in the envelope. He looked at Polaroid photographs of them on the Wal-Mart parking lot and indifferently listened to Nic's rendition and theory while he continued to glance at his watch. She receipted the coins to him, and was certain when he returned to the so-called War Room, she became the joke of the day.

“We're all working the same cases, and those assholes won't talk to me. I'm sorry.” Sometimes Nic forgets how much her father abhors swearing. “Maybe they know something that could help us with our cases in Zachary. But oh, no. I am welcome to hand over anything I know, but it doesn't work the same way.”

“You look mighty tired, Nic,” he says as they eat eggs scrambled with cheese and spicy sausage patties.

Buddy is off in make-believe land with his toys and the television.

“How 'bout some more grits?” her father asks.

“I can't. But you do make the best grits I've ever had.”

“You always say that.”

“It's always true.”

“Be careful. Those boys in Baton Rouge don't like people like you. Especially women like you.”

“They don't even know me.”

“They don't need to know you to hate your guts. They want credit. Now, when I was coming along, credit meant you could buy your groceries at the nearby general store and pay later when you were able. No one went hungry. These days, credit means plain selfishness. Those good ol' boys in Baton Rouge want credit, credit, credit.”

“Tell me about it.” Nic butters another biscuit. “Every time you cook, I eat too much.”

“People who want credit will lie, cheat and steal,” her father reminds her.

“While women keep dying.” Nic loses her appetite and sets the biscuit back on her plate. “Who's worse? The man doing it or these men who want credit and don't care about the victims or anything else?”

“Two wrongs never make a right, Nic,” he says. “I'm glad you don't work down there. I'd be worried about your safety a lot more than I am now. And not because of this madman on the loose, but because of who your colleagues would be.”

She looks around at the simple kitchen of her childhood. Nothing in the house has been upgraded or remodeled since her mother died. The stove is electric, white with four burners. The refrigerator is white; so are the countertops. Her mother had a French country theme in mind, was going to find old furniture and blue-and-white curtains, maybe some interesting tiles for the walls. But she never got a chance. So the kitchen is white, just plain white. If any of the appliances quit for good, she's confident her father would refuse to get rid of them. He'd eat takeout food every night, if necessary. It tortures Nic that her father can't disengage from the past. Silent grieving and anger hold him hostage.

Nic pushes back her chair. She kisses the top of her father's head, and her eyes fill with tears.

“I love you, Papa. Take good care of Buddy. I promise one of these days I'll be a good mother.”

“You're a good enough mother.” He looks at her from his seat at the table as he idly picks at eggs. “It's not how much time but what that time's like.”

Nic thinks of her mother. Her time was short, but every minute of it was good. That's the way it seems now.

“Now you're crying,” her father says. “You going to tell me what on Earth is going on with you, Nic?”

“I don't know, I don't know. I'll be minding my own business and suddenly burst into tears. I think it's about Mama, like I told you. All that's going on down here has reminded me, or just opened some trapdoor in my mind. A door I didn't even know was there that's leading into a dark place I'm scared to death of, Papa. Please turn on the light for me. Please.”

He slowly gets up from the table, knowing what she means. He sighs.

“Don't do this to yourself, Nic,” he grimly says. “I already know what it did to me. I stopped my life. You know I did. When I came home that early evening and saw . . .” He clears his throat, fighting back tears. “I felt something move inside me, as if I pulled a muscle in my heart. Why would you want those images?”

“Because they're the truth. And maybe the images I have are worse because I can't see the real ones.”

He nods and sighs again. “Go up in the attic. Under all those rugs piled in a corner, there's a small blue suitcase. Belonged to her. She got it with Green Stamps.”

“I remember,” Nic whispers, envisioning her mother carrying the blue suitcase out the door one day when she was headed to Nashville to visit her aunt after she'd had eye surgery.

“The lock code was never set because she said she'd never remember
it. Zero-zero-zero, just like brand new.” He clears his throat again, staring off. “What you want's in there. Some things I'm not supposed to have, but I was like you. Just had to know. And I taught the daughter of the police chief, so I got a few favors, I'm ashamed to admit it. Because I promised the chief I'd give her a better grade than she deserved and a recommendation for college that was just one big fat lie.

“My punishment is I got what I asked for,” he continues. “Just don't bring that stuff down here. I don't ever want to see it again.”

A
SSISTANT PIO JAYNE GITTLEMAN
apologizes profusely for making Scarpetta wait.

For fifteen minutes, Scarpetta has stood outside the front door, right below the sign that reads
Allan B. Polunsky Unit,
the bright sun making her perspire. She feels dirty and disheveled from travel. Her patience is thin, despite her resolve to contain her emotions completely. More than anything right now, she wants to get this over with at last, at long last.

“The media's calling nonstop because we've got an execution tonight,” Miss Gittleman explains.

She hands Scarpetta a visitor's tag, which she clamps to the lapel of the same suit she's worn on different planes since she left Florida. The pantsuit is black, and at least she ironed it inside her room at New York's Melrose Hotel last night after leaving her niece. Lucy does not know where Scarpetta is right now. If Scarpetta had mentioned it, Lucy would have tried to stop her or insisted on going with her. Taking a chance, Scarpetta headed west without an appointment, having no choice but to call the Polunsky Unit when she landed in Houston. Her confidence that Chandonne would see her was rewarded by the additional unpleasantry of learning she is on his visitors list. At least his sick joke proved useful.
She is here. And perhaps the less time he has to think about her seeing him, the better.

Officers check Scarpetta's identification, and Miss Gittleman leads her through a series of loud steel doors, then through a garden with picnic tables under umbrellas, obviously meant for staff. She is cleared through five electronically locking doors, the walk far too short to suit her as she reaches the unnerving conclusion that she should not have come here. Chandonne is manipulating her, and she is going to regret this visit because it gives him what he wants and makes a fool of her.

Inside the visitors lobby, her shoes seem loud, and she is acutely aware of her appearance as she crosses the shiny tile floor. A strong believer in the psychology of dress and demeanor, her entrance is out of character and embarrassing. She would have preferred to be perfectly groomed in a power suit, probably pinstripe, and perhaps a white shirt with cufflinks. Possibly, she considers, power dressing wouldn't have sent the best message to this bastard who tried to kill her, but it would have made her feel less vulnerable to him.