The Last Precinct - Cornwell Patricia (лучшие книги читать онлайн TXT) 📗
"Dr. Scarpetta?" The woman's refined features are accentuated by the uneven glare of streetlights, her eyes deeply set in shadows, and she wears a full-length shorn mink coat. A hint of recognition sparks somewhere in the deep. "I didn't know you were going to be here, but sure am glad," she adds. I am aware of her New York accent, and shock rocks me before I comprehend. "I'm Jaime Berger," she says, offering a kid-gloved hand. "We need to talk."
"YOU WERE AT THE SERVICE?" THESE ARE THE FIRST
words out of my mouth. I didn't see her there. I am paranoid enough to consider that Jaime Berger never stepped inside the church at all but has been waiting in the parking lot for me. "Did you know Diane Bray?" I ask her.
"I'm getting to know her now." Berger turns up her coat collar, her breath smoking out. She glances at her watch and pushes the winding stem. The luminescent dial glows pale green. "I don't suppose you're going back to your office."
"I wasn't planning on it, but I can," I say without enthusiasm. She wants to talk about the murders of Kim Luong and Diane Bray. Of course, she's interested in the unidentified body from the port, too_the one we all assume is Chan-donne's brother, Thomas. But if his case ever sees a courtroom at all, she adds, it isn't going to be in this country. This is her way of telling me Thomas Chandonne is another free lunch. Jean-Baptiste murdered his brother and got away with it. I climb up into the driver's seat of the Navigator.
"How do you like your car?" she asks what seems an inane, inappropriate question at a time like this. Already I am feeling probed. I sense instantly that Berger does nothing, asks nothing, without a reason. She surveys the luxurious sport utility vehicle that Anna is letting me use while my sedan remains strangely off limits.
"It's borrowed. Maybe you'd better follow me, Ms.
Berger," I say. "There are some parts of town you wouldn't want to get lost in after dark."
"I'm wondering if you could track down Pete Marino." She points a remote key at her own sport utility vehicle, a white Mercedes ML430 with New York plates, and headlights flash as the doors unlock. "Maybe it would be a good thing for all of us to talk."
I start the engine and shiver in the dark. The night is soggy and icy water drips from trees. The cold seeps inside my cast and finds its way into the cracks of my fractured elbow, seizing exquisitely tender spaces where nerve endings and marrow live, and they begin to complain in deep rolling throbs. I page Marino and realize I don't know the number of Anna's car phone. I fumble to dig my cell phone out of my satchel while steering with the fingertips of my broken arm and keeping an eye on Berger's headlights in my rearview mirror. Marino calls me back long minutes later. I tell him what has happened and he reacts with typical cynicism, but beneath it is an excited current, maybe anger, maybe something else. "Yeah, well, I don't believe in coincidences," he says sharply. "You just happen to go to Bray's memorial service and Berger just happens to be there? Why the hell did she go, in the first place?"
"I don't know why," I reply. "But if I were new to the town and to the characters involved, I'd want to see who cared enough about Bray to show up. I'd also want to see who didn't." I try to be logical. "She didn't tell you she was going? What about when you met with her last night?" I am out with it. 1 want to know what went on in that meeting.
"Didn't say nothing about it," he replies. "She had other things on her mind."
"Such as? Or are we keeping secrets?" I add pointedly.
He is silent for a long moment. "Look, Doc," he finally says, "this ain't my case. It's New York's case and I'm just doing what I'm told. You want to know stuff, ask her, 'cause
that's the way she fucking wants it." Resentment hardens his tone. "And I'm in the middle of lovely Mosby Court and have other things to do besides jump every time she snaps her fancy big-city fingers."
Mosby Court is not the princely residential neighborhood the name suggests, but one of seven low-rent housing projects in the city. All are called courts, and four are named for outstanding Virginians: an actor, an educator, a prosperous tobacconist, a Civil War hero. I hope Marino isn't in Mosby Court because there has been another shooting. "You're not bringing me more business, are you?" I ask him.
"Another misdemeanor murder."
I don't laugh at this bigoted code_this cynical label for a young, black male shot multiple times, probably on the street, probably over drugs, probably dressed in expensive athletic clothes and basketball shoes, and nobody saw a thing.
"Meet you in the bay," Marino sullenly says. "Five, ten minutes."
The snow has completely stopped and the temperature remains warm enough to keep the city from locking up with freezing slush again. Downtown is dressed for the holidays, the skyline bordered in white lights, some of them burned out. In front of the James Center, people have pulled over to explore a blaze of reindeer sculpted of light, and on 9th Street, the capitol glows like an egg through the bare branches of ancient trees, the pale yellow mansion next to it elegant with candles in every window. I catch a glimpse of couples in evening clothes getting out of cars in the parking lot and remember with panic that tonight is the governor's Christmas party for top state officials. I sent in my RSVP more than a month ago, confirming I would attend. Oh God. It will not be lost on Governor Mike Mitchell and his wife, Edith, that I am a no-show, and the impulse to swerve onto the capitol grounds is so strong that I flip on my turn signal. I just as quickly flip it off. I can't possibly go, not even for fifteen minutes. What would I do with Jaime Berger? Take her along? Introduce her to everyone? I smile ruefully and shake my head inside my dark cockpit as I imagine the looks I would get, as I fantasize about what would happen if the press found out.
Having worked for government my entire career, I never underestimate the potential for the mundane. The telephone number for the governor's mansion is listed, and directory assistance can automatically dial it for an additional fifty cents. Momentarily, I have an executive protection unit officer on the line, and before I can explain that I simply want to pass on a message, the trooper puts me on hold. A tone sounds at measured intervals, as if my call is being timed, and I wonder if calls to the mansion are taped. Across Broad Street, an older, drearier part of town gives way to the new brick and glass empire of Biotech, where my office is the anchor. I check the rearview mirror for Berger's SUV. She doggedly follows, her lips moving in my rearview mirror. She is on the phone, and it gives me an uneasy feeling as I watch her say words I can't hear.
"Kay?" Governor Mitchell's voice suddenly sounds over Anna's hands-free car phone.
My own voice catches in surprise as I rush to tell him I wasn't expecting to disturb him, that I am terribly sorry to miss his party tonight. He doesn't answer right away, his hesitation his way of saying I am making a mistake by not coming to his party. Mitchell is a man who understands opportunity and knows how to appropriate it. In his way of thinking, for me to pass up a chance for even a moment with him and other powerful leaders of the commonwealth is foolish, especially now. Yes, now of all times.
"The New York prosecutor's in town." I don't have to say for which cases. "I'm on my way to meet her right now, Governor. I hope you understand."
"I think it would be a good idea for you and me to meet, too." He is firm. "I was going to take you aside at the party."
I have the sensation of stepping on broken glass, afraid to look because I might find I am bleeding. "Whenever it's convenient for you, Governor Mitchell," I respectfully answer.
