Four Scarpetta Novels (123 page)

T
HE BELL 407 HAS THE
most beautiful paint job Lucy has ever seen.

It should. It's her helicopter, and she designed its every detail, excluding those that came with it green, or straight out of the plant. Its four blades, smooth ride and maximum speed of 140 knots (damn good for non-military) and computerized fuel control are just a few of the basics. Added to that are leather seats, pop-out floats in case of an engine failure over water, which is very unlikely to occur, a wire strike for scud-running into power lines (Lucy's too safe a pilot for that), an auxiliary fuel tank, storm scope, traffic scope and GPS—all her instrumentation the best, of course.

The 34th Street heliport is on the Hudson, midway between the Statue of Liberty and the Intrepid. Out on pad 2, Lucy walks around her bird for the fourth time, having already checked inside the cowling and sight glasses for oil levels, oil drips, pop-out buttons on filters or hydraulic leaks that always remind her of dark red blood. One of many reasons she is fanatical about lifting weights in the gym is if she ever lost her hydraulics in flight, she'd have to muscle the controls. A weak woman would have a hard time with that.

She runs her hand lovingly along the tail boom, squatting again to check antennas on the underside. Then she climbs into the pilot's seat and wishes Rudy would hurry up. Her wish is granted as the door to the FBO swings open and Rudy appears with a duffel bag and trots to the helicopter, a hint of disappointment crossing his face when he spots the empty left seat and, as usual, finds himself the copilot. Dressed in cargo pants and a polo shirt, he is the typical handsome hunk.

“You know what?” he says, clicking on his four-point harness as Lucy goes through a quick but thorough preflight, starting with circuit breakers and switches, working her way down to the instruments and the throttle. “You're damn greedy,” he says. “A helicopter hog.”

“That's because it's my helicopter, big guy.” She switches on the battery. “Twenty-six amps. Plenty of juice. Don't forget, I've got more hours than you—more certifications, too.”

“Shut up,” he says good-naturedly, always in a genial mood when the two of them fly. “Clear on the left.”

“Clear on the right.”

F
LYING IS AS CLOSE AS
he'll ever get to experiencing euphoria with her.

Lucy never finishes what she rarely starts. Rudy might have felt used after they drove away from the Radisson in Szczecin, were it not for his understanding of what happened. Near-death experiences or anything else that is terribly traumatic cause a simple reaction in most people. They crave the warmth of human flesh. Sex is a reassurance that one is alive. He wonders if this is why he constantly thinks about sex.

He's not in love with Lucy. He would never allow that to happen. The first time he saw her God knows how many years ago, he had no intention of being interested in her. She was climbing out of a monster Bell 412, having gone through the usual show-and-tell maneuvers that the FBI expects when an important personage, especially a politician, is touring the Academy. Rudy supposed, since Lucy was the only woman on the Hostage Rescue Team, it was politically correct for the Attorney General or whoever he was to see a young, good-looking woman at the stick.

Rudy stared at her as she shut down the formidable twin-engine machine and climbed out, wearing a dark blue Battle Dress Uniform and soft black ankle-high boots. Rudy was surprised by her fiery beauty as he
watched the way she walked with confidence and grace and not a trace of masculinity. He began entertaining the possibility that what he had heard about her wasn't true. Her body intrigued him as she moved. She seemed to ripple like an exotic animal, a tiger, he thought as she walked straight to the Attorney General, or whoever it was on that show-and-tell day, and politely shook his hand.

Lucy is athletic but definitely feminine and very pleasing to touch. Rudy has learned not to love her too much. He knows when to back away.

In minutes, the helicopter is up to full power, avionics and headsets on, the loud, fast beating of blades the music she and Rudy dance to and adore. He feels Lucy's spirits joyfully lift as the helicopter does.

“We're on the go,” she says into her mike. “Hudson traffic, helicopter four-zero-seven Tango, Lima, Papa is southbound at thirty-fourth.”

Hovering is what she likes most, and she can hold the chopper perfectly still, even in a stiff tailwind. Nosing around to the water, she pulls in power and takes off.

S
CARPETTA CAUGHT THE EARLIEST FLIGHT
to Houston's George Bush Intercontinental Airport and, factoring in the hour time difference, landed at 10:15 a.m.

From there, the drive almost due north to Livingston was a tense hour and forty minutes. She had no interest in renting a car and finding her way to the prison. That was a wise decision. Although she hasn't counted, the route has taken numerous turns, the longest stretch of US-59 that rolls on forever. Scarpetta's thoughts are clipped, as if she is a new recruit taking orders.

She is in her most dispassionate mode, a persona she steps into when she testifies in court as defense attorneys poise themselves like carnivores, waiting for the first scent of her blood. Rarely is she wounded. Never fatally. Deep inside the refuge of her analytical mind, she has remained silent throughout the trip. She hasn't spoken to the driver, except to give her instructions. The driver is the sort who wants to be chatty, and Scarpetta told her as she was climbing into the black Lincoln at the beginning of the trip that she didn't want to talk. She had work to do.

“You got it,” said the woman, who is dressed in a black livery suit that includes a cap and tie.

“You can take your cap off,” Scarpetta told her.

“Why, thank you,” the driver said with relief, taking it off immediately. “I can't tell you how much I hate this thing, but most of my passengers want me to look like a proper chauffeur.”

“I'd rather you didn't,” Scarpetta said.

The prison looms ahead, a modern fortress that looks like a monstrous freighter built of concrete with a hatchmark of windows running below the flat roof, where two workmen are busy talking and gesturing and looking around. Surrounding the expansive grass grounds are thick coils of razorwire that shine like fine sterling in the sun. Guards high up in their towers scan with binoculars.

“Schweeeew,” the driver mutters. “I have to admit this makes me a little bit nervous.”

“You'll be fine,” Scarpetta assures her. “They'll show you where to park, and you'll stay in the car. I don't recommend you walk around at all.”

“What if I have to use the ladies' room?” she worries, slowing at a guard booth that signals the beginning of maximum security and perhaps the most dreaded task Scarpetta has ever undertaken.

“Then I guess you'll have to ask someone,” she absently replies, rolling her window down and handing a uniformed guard her driver's license and medical examiner's credentials, a bright brass shield and identification card inside a black wallet.

When she left her position in Richmond, she was as bad as Marino. She never turned in her badge. No one thought to ask for it. Or maybe no one dared. She may not literally be Chief anymore, but what Lucy said last night is right. No one can strip Scarpetta of who she is and how she performs in the work she still loves. Scarpetta knows how good she is, even if she would never say it.

“Who are you here to see?” the guard asks her, returning her license and credentials.

“Jean-Baptiste Chandonne.” His name almost chokes her.

The guard is rather casual, considering his environment and responsibility. Based on his demeanor and age, he's probably been working in the prison system for a long time and scarcely notices the foreboding world he enters at the beginning of every shift. He steps back inside his booth and scans a list.

“Ma'am,” he says, reemerging from his booth and pointing toward the glass front of the prison, “just drive up there and someone will tell you where to park. The PIO will meet you outside.”

A Texas flag seems to wave Scarpetta on. The sky is blue glass, the temperature reminding her of autumn. Birds are having a conversation, nature going on, impervious to evil.

L
IFE IN POD A
does not change.

Condemned inmates come and go, and old names belong to silence. After days, or maybe weeks—Jean-Baptiste often loses track of time—the new ones who come in to await their deaths are the names associated with the cells formerly occupied by the old names of the others who awaited their deaths. Pod A, Cell 25 is Beast, who will be moved to a different holding cell in several hours. Pod A, Cell 30 is Jean-Baptiste. Pod A, cell 31, directly to Jean-Baptiste's right, is Moth—called thus because the necrophiliac murderer who stirs after lights-out has trembling hands that flutter, and his skin is almost gray. He likes to sleep on the floor, and his prison-issue clothing is always covered with gray dust—like dust on the wings of a moth.

Jean-Baptiste shaves the tops of his hands, long swirls of hair drifting into the stainless-steel sink.

“All right, Hair Ball.” Eyes peer through the tiny window in his door. “Your fifteen minutes are almost up. Two more minutes and I take the razor back.”

“Certainement.”
He lathers his other hand with cheap-smelling soap and resumes shaving, careful of his knuckles.

The tufts in his ears are tricky, but he manages.

“Time's up.”

Jean-Baptiste carefully rinses the razor.

“You shaved.” Moth speaks very quietly, so quietly that the other inmates rarely hear a word he says.

“Oui, mon ami.
I look quite beautiful.”

The crank key that looks like a crowbar bangs into a slot at the bottom of the door, and the drawer slides out. The officer backs up, out of reach of pale, hairless fingers depositing the blue plastic razor.

M
OTH SITS AND ROLLS
a basketball against the wall precisely, so that it always rolls in a straight line back to him.

He is worthless, so feeble that his only pleasure in killing was having sex with dead flesh. Dead flesh has no energy, the blood no longer magnetic. Jean-Baptiste had a very effective method when he released his chosen ones to the ecstasy. A person with severe head injuries can live for a while, long enough for Jean-Baptiste to bite and suck living flesh and blood, thus recharging his magnetism.

“It is a lovely day, isn't it?” Moth's quiet comment drifts into Jean-Baptiste's cell, because he has the ears to hear the barely audible voice. “No clouds, but later there will be a few very high ones that will move south by late afternoon.”

Moth has a radio and obsessively listens to the weather band.

“I see Miss Gittleman has a new car, a cute little silver BMW Roadster.”

Through a slitted window in each cell, a death-row inmate has a view of the parking lot behind the prison, and for lack of anything else to look at from their second-floor solitary confinements, men stare out for the better part of the day. In a sense, this is an act of intimidation. Moth's
mentioning Miss Gittleman's BMW is the best threat he can muster. Officers most likely will pass this on to other officers, who will pass on to Miss Gittleman, the young and very pretty assistant public information officer, that inmates appreciate her new car. No prison employee is eager for any details of their personal life to be known by offenders so vile that they deserve to die.

Jean-Baptiste is perhaps the only inmate who rarely looks out the slit that is supposed to be a window. After memorizing every vehicle, their colors, makes, models and even certain plate numbers and precisely what their drivers look like, he found no purpose in looking out at a blank blue or stormy sky. Getting up from the toilet without bothering to pull up his pants, he looks out his high window, Moth's comment having made him curious. He spots the BMW, then sits back down on the toilet, thinking.

He ponders the letter he sent the beautiful Scarpetta. He believes it has changed everything and fantasizes about her reading it and succumbing to his will.

Today, Beast will be allowed four hours to visit with clergy and family. He will leave for the short ride to Huntsville, to the Death House. At 6 p.m., he will die.

This also changes things.

A folded piece of paper quietly slips beneath the right corner of Jean-Baptiste's door. He rips off toilet paper and, again without bothering to pull up his pants, picks up the note and returns to the toilet.

Beast's cell is five down from Jean-Baptiste's, on the left, and he can always tell when a note slid from cell to cell to him is from Beast. The folded paper takes on a certain texture of scraped gray, and the inside is smudged, the paper fiber of the creases weakened by repeated opening and folding, as each inmate along the way reads the note, a few of the men adding their own comments.

Jean-Baptiste crouches on his stainless-steel toilet, the long hair on his back matted with sweat that has turned his white shirt translucent. He is
always hot when he is magnetized, and he is in a chronic state of magnetism as his electricity circulates through the metal of his confinement and races to the iron in his blood, and flows out again to complete another circuit, endlessly, endlessly, endlessly.

“Today,” the semiliterate Beast wrote in pencil, “wont you be glad when they drive me away. You will miss me? May be not.”

For once, Beast isn't insulting, although the kite reads like a taunt to other inmates, of this Jean-Baptiste is certain.

He writes back, “You don't have to miss me,
mon ami.”

Beast will know Jean-Baptiste's meaning, although he will know nothing more about what Jean-Baptiste will do to save Beast from his appointment with death. Footsteps ring on metal as officers walk by. He tears Beast's note into small pieces and stuffs them into his mouth.