From Potter's Field (27 page)

'One is always welcome to try.'

'I don't recommend tailgating and taunting rednecks.'

'At least you admit he is a redneck.'

'I meant the comment in general,' I said.

'You are an intelligent, refined woman, Dr. Scarpetta. I fail to understand what you see in him.'

'There is a lot to see in him if one takes the trouble to look.'

'He is racist. He is homophobic and chauvinistic. He's one of the most ignorant human beings I've ever met, and I wish he were some other person's problem.'

'He doesn't trust anything or anyone,' I said. 'He's cynical, and not without reason, I'm sure.'

Tucker was quiet.

'You don't know him,' I added.

'I don't want to know him. What I'd like is for him to disappear.'

'Please don't do anything that wrong,' I said with feeling. 'You would be making such a mistake.'

'He is a political nightmare,' the chief said. 'He should never have been placed in charge of First Precinct.'

'Then transfer him back to the detective division, to A Squad. That's really where he belongs.'

Tucker quietly drove. He did not wish to discuss Marino anymore.

'Why was I never told someone wanted to kill me?' I asked, and the words sounded weird, and I really could not accept their meaning. 'I want to know why you did not tell me I was under surveillance.'

'I did what I thought was best.'

'You should have told me.'

He looked in his rearview mirror to make sure Marino was still behind us as he drove around the back of Richmond police department headquarters.

'I believed telling you what snitches had divulged would only place you in more danger. I was afraid you might become . . .' He paused. 'Well, aggressive, anxious. I did not want your demeanor substantially changing. I did not want you going on the offense and perhaps escalating the situation.'

'I do not think you had a right to be so secretive,' I said with feeling.

'Dr. Scarpetta.' He stared straight ahead. 'I honestly did not care what you thought and still don't. I only care about saving your life.'

At the police entrance to the parking lot, two officers with pump shotguns stood guard, their uniforms black against snow. Tucker stopped and rolled his window down.

'How's it going?' he asked.

A sergeant was stern, shotgun pointing at the planets. 'It's quiet, sir.'

'Well, you guys be careful.'

'Yes, sir. We will.'

Tucker shut his window and drove on. He parked in a space to the left of double glass doors that led into the lobby and lockup of the large concrete complex he commanded. I noticed few cruisers or unmarked cars in the lot. I supposed there were accidents to be worked this slippery night, and everyone else was out looking for Gault. To law enforcement, he had earned a new rank. He was a cop killer now.

'You and Sheriff Brown have similar cars,' I said, unfastening my seat belt.

'And there the similarity ends,' Tucker said, getting out.

His office was along a dreary hallway, several doors from A Squad, where the homicide detectives lived. The chief's quarters were surprisingly simple, furniture sturdy but utilitarian. He had no nice lamps or rugs, and walls were absent the expected photographs of himself with politicians or celebrities. I saw no certificates or diplomas that might tell where he had gone to school or what commendations he had won.

Tucker looked at his watch and showed us into a small adjoining conference room. Windowless, and carpeted in deep blue, it was furnished with a round table and eight chairs, a television and a VCR.

'What about Lucy and Janet?' I asked, expecting the chief to exclude them from the discussion.

'I already know about them,' he said, getting comfortable in a swivel chair as if he were about to watch the Super Bowl. 'They're agents.'

'I'm not an agent,' Lucy respectfully corrected him.

He looked at her. 'You wrote CAIN.'

'Not entirely.'

'Well, CAIN's a factor in all this, so you may as well stay.'

'Your department's on-line.' She held his gaze. 'In fact, yours was the first to be on-line.'

We turned as the door opened and Benton Wesley walked in. He was wearing corduroys and a sweater. He had the raw look of one too exhausted to sleep.

'Benton, I trust you know everyone,' Tucker said as if he knew Wesley quite well.

'Right.' Wesley was all business as he took a chair. 'I'm late because you're doing a good job.'

Tucker seemed perplexed.

'I got stopped at two checkpoints,'

'Ah.' The chief seemed pleased. 'We have everybody out. We're lucky as hell with the weather,'

He wasn't joking.

Marino explained to Lucy and Janet, 'The snow keeps most people home. The fewer people out, the easier for us.'

'Unless Gault's not out, either,' Lucy said.

'He's got to be somewhere,' Marino said. 'The toad don't exactly have a vacation home here,'

'We don't know what he has,' Wesley said. 'He could know someone in the area,'

'Where do you predict he might have gone after leaving the morgue this morning?' Tucker asked Wesley.

'I don't think he's left the area,'

'Why?' Tucker asked.

Wesley looked at me. 'I think he wants to be where we are.'

'What about his family?' Tucker then asked.

'They are near Beaufort, South Carolina, where they recently bought a sizable pecan plantation on an island. I don't think Gault will go there.'

'I don't think we can assume anything,' Tucker said.

'He's estranged from his family.'

'Not entirely. He's getting money from somewhere.'

'Yes,' Wesley said. 'They may give him money so he will stay away. They are in a dilemma. If they don't help him, he may come home. If they help him, he stays out there killing people.'

'They sound like fine upstanding citizens,' Tucker said sardonically.

'They won't help us,' Wesley said. 'We've tried. What else are you doing here in Richmond?'

Tucker answered, 'Everything we can. This asshole's killing cops.'

'I don't think cops are his primary target,' Wesley stated matter-of-factly. 'I don't think he cares about cops,'

'Well,' Tucker said hotly, 'he fired the first shot and we'll fire the next.'

Wesley just looked at him.

'We've got two-person patrol cars,' Tucker went on. 'We've got guards in the parking lot, primarily for shift change. Every car's got a photo of Gault, and we've been handing them out to local businesses -those we can find open.'

'What about surveillance?'

'Yes. Places he might be. They're being watched.' He looked at me. 'Including your house and mine. And the medical examiner's office.' He turned back to Wesley. 'If there are other places he might be, I wish you'd tell me.'

Wesley said, 'There can't be many. He has a nasty little habit of murdering his friends.' He stared off. 'What about State Police helicopters and fixed-wing aircraft?'

'When the snow stops,' Tucker said. 'Absolutely.'

'I don't understand how he can sneak around so easily,' said Janet, who most likely would spend the rest of her working life asking questions like that. 'He doesn't look normal. Why don't people notice him?'

'He's extremely cunning,' I said to her.

Tucker turned to Marino. 'You have the tape.'

'Yes, sir, but I'm not sure . . .' He stopped.

'You're not sure of what, Captain?' Tucker lifted his chin a little.

'I'm not sure they should see it.' He looked at Janet and Lucy.

'Please proceed, Captain,' the chief said curtly.

Marino inserted the tape into the VCR and cut the lights.

'It's about half an hour long,' his voice sounded as numbers and lines went by on the television screen. 'Anybody mind if I smoke?'

'I definitely mind,' Tucker said. 'Apparently, this was what we found in the video camera inside Sheriff Brown's house. I have not seen it yet.'

The tape started.

'Okay, what we got here is Lament Brown's upstairs bedroom,' Marino began to narrate.

The bed I had looked at earlier today was neatly made, and in the background we could hear the sound of someone moving.

'I think this was when he was making sure his camera was working,' Marino said. 'Maybe it's when the white residue got on the wall. See. Now it's jumping ahead.'

He hit the pause button and we stared at a blurred image of the empty bedroom.

'Do we know if Brown was positive for cocaine?' the chief asked in the dark.

'It's too early to know if he had cocaine or it's metabolite, benzoyleconine, on board,' I said. 'All we have right now is his alcohol level.'

Marino resumed, 'It's like he turned the camera on and then off and then back on. You can tell because the time's different. First it was ten-oh-six last night. Now it's suddenly ten-twenty.'

'Clearly, he was expecting somebody,' Tucker spoke.

'Or else they was already there. Maybe doing a few lines of coke downstairs. Here we go.' Marino hit the play button. 'This is where the good stuff starts.'

The darkness in Tucker's conference room was absolutely silent save for the creaking of a bed and groaning that sounded more like pain than passion. Sheriff Brown was nude and on his back. From the rear we watched Temple Gault, wearing surgical gloves and nothing else. Dark clothes were laid out on the bed nearby. Marino got quiet. I could see the profiles of Lucy and Janet. Their faces were without expression, and Tucker seemed very calm. Wesley was beside me, coolly analyzing.

Gault was unhealthily pale, every vertebra and rib clearly defined. Apparently, he had lost a lot of weight and muscle tone, and I thought about the cocaine in his hair, which now was white, and as he shifted his position I saw his full breasts.

My eyes shot across the table as Lucy stiffened.

I felt Marino look at me as Carrie Grethen worked to give her client ecstasy. It seemed drugs had interfered, and no matter what she did, Sheriff Brown could not rise to receive what would prove to be the most he ever paid for pleasure. Lucy bravely kept her eyes on the television screen. She stared, shocked, as her former lover performed one lewd act after another on this big-bellied, intoxicated man.

The ending seemed predictable. Carrie would produce a gun and blow him away. But not so. Eighteen minutes into the video, footsteps sounded in Brown's bedroom, and her accomplice walked in. Temple Gault was dressed in a black suit and also wearing gloves. He seemed to have no clue that his every blink and sniffle were on camera. He stopped at the foot of the bed and watched. Brown had his eyes shut. I wasn't sure if he was conscious.

'Time's up,' Gault said impatiently.

His intense blue eyes seemed to penetrate the screen. They looked right into our conference room. He had not dyed his hair. It was still carrot red, long and slicked back from his forehead and behind his ears. He unbuttoned his jacket and withdrew a Clock nine-millimeter pistol. Nonchalantly, he walked toward the head of the bed.

Carrie looked on as Gault placed the barrel of the pistol between the sheriff's eyes. She placed her hands over her ears. My stomach tightened and I clenched my fists as Gault depressed the trigger, and the gun recoiled as if horrified by what it had just done. We sat in shock as the sheriff's agonal jerks and twitches stopped. Carrie dismounted.

'Oh damn,' Gault said, looking down at his chest. 'I got splashed.'

She snatched the handkerchief out of the breast pocket of his suit jacket and dabbed his neck and lapels.

'It won't show. It's a good thing you wore black.'

'Go put something on,' he said as if her nudity disgusted him. His voice was adolescent and uneven, and he was not loud.

He went to the foot of the bed and picked up the dark clothing.

'What about his watch?' She looked down at the bed. 'It's a Rolex. It's real, baby, and it's gold. The bracelet's real, too.'

Gault snapped, 'Get dressed now.'

'I don't want to get dirty,' she said.

She dropped the bloody handkerchief on the floor where the police would later find it.

'Then bring the bags in,' he ordered.

He seemed to be fooling with the clothing as he placed it on the dresser, but the angle of the camera made it impossible for us to see him well. She came back with the bags.

Together they disposed of Brown's body in a way that seemed careful and well planned. First, they dressed him in pajamas, for reasons we did not understand. Blood spilled on the pajama top as Gault pulled the garbage bag over the sheriff's head and tied it with a shoelace that came from a running shoe in the closet.

They lowered the body from the bed into the black pouch on the floor, Gault holding Brown under the arms while Carrie got his ankles. They tucked him in and zipped it up. We saw them carry Lament Brown out and heard them on the stairs. Minutes later, Carrie ducked back in, got the clothing and left. Then the bedroom was empty.