The Last Precinct - Cornwell Patricia (лучшие книги читать онлайн TXT) 📗

"She would have been able to see what he was doing and watch her own blood spurting out of her neck as she bled to death?" Berger's face is keen, her energy at a higher wattage that burns brightly in her eyes.

"Again, it depends on how long she was conscious," I tell her.

"But it's in the realm of possibility she might have been conscious the entire time he was dragging her down the aisle, back to the storeroom?"

"Absolutely."

"Could she talk or scream?"

"She might not have been able to do anything."

"But saying no one heard her scream, that wouldn't mean she was unconscious?"

"No, it wouldn't mean that necessarily," I reply. "If you've been shot in the neck and are hemorrhaging and being dragged…"

"Especially dragged by someone who looks like him."

"Yes. You might be too terrified to scream. He might have told her to shut up, for that matter."

"Good." Berger seems pleased. "How do you know he dragged her by the feet?"

"Bloody drag pattern made by her long hair, and trails of blood from her fingers above her head," I describe. "If you're paralyzed and being dragged by your ankles, for example, your arms are going to spread. Like making angels in the snow."

"Wouldn't the human impulse be to grab your neck and try to stop the bleeding?" Berger asks. "And she can't. She's paralyzed and awake, watching herself die and anticipating what the hell he's going to do to her next." She pauses for impact. Berger has the jury in mind, and I can tell already that she didn't earn her incredible reputation accidentally. "These women really suffered," she quietly adds.

"They most certainly did." My blouse is damp and I am cold again.

"Did you anticipate the same treatment?" She looks at me, a challenge in her eyes, as if daring me to explore everything that went through my mind when Chandonne forced his way through my front door and tried to throw his coat over my head. "Can you remember anything you thought?" she prods. "What did you feel? Or did it all happen so fast…"

"Fast," I cut in. "Yes, it happened fast," I go back. "Fast. And forever. Our internal clocks quit working when we are panicking, fighting for our lives. That's not a medical fact, just a personal observation," I add, groping, feeling my way through memories that aren't complete.

"Then minutes might have seemed like hours to Kim Lu-ong," Berger decides. "Chandonne was with you probably only minutes as he chased you through your great room. How long did it seem?" She is completely focused on this, riveted to me.

"It seemed…" I struggle to describe it. There is no basis for comparison. "Like a flutter…" My voice trails off as I stare at nothing, unblinking, sweating and chilled.

"Like a flutter?" Berger sounds faintly incredulous. "Can you explain what you mean by that, by flutter?"

"Like reality distorts, ripples, like wind ruffling water, the way a puddle looks when wind blows across it, all of your senses suddenly so acute as the animal's survival instinct overrides the brain. You hear air move. You see air move. Everything seems in slow motion, collapsing in on itself, and endless. You see everything, every detail of what is happening, and notice…"

"Notice?" Berger prods.

"Yes, notice" I talk on. "Notice the hair on his hands catching light like monofilament, like fishing line, almost translucent. Notice that he looks almost happy."

"Happy? What do you mean?" Berger quietly asks me. "Was he smiling?"

"I would describe it differently. Not a smile so much as the primitive joy, lust, raging hunger you see in the eyes of an animal about to be fed fresh raw meat." I take a deep breath, focusing on the wall inside my conference room, on a calendar with a Christmas snow scene. Berger sits rigidly, her hands motionless on top of the table. "The problem is not what you observe, it's what you remember," I go on more lucidly. "I think the shock of it all causes a disk error and you can't remember with the same degree of intense attention to detail. Maybe that's survival, too. Maybe we need to forget some things so we don't keep reliving them. Forgetting is part of healing. Like the Central Park jogger dragged off by a gang, raped, beaten, left for dead. Why would she want to remem- her? And I know you are well acquainted with that case," I add with irony. It was Berger's case, of course.

Assistant District Attorney Berger shifts in her chair. "But you do remember," she quietly points out. "And you had seen what Chandonne does to his victims. 'Severe lacerations to the face.' " She begins skimming Luong's autopsy report out loud. " 'Massive comminuted fractures of right parietal bone… fracture of right frontal bone… extending down the midline… bilateral subdural hematoma… disruption of cerebral tissue beneath with accompanying subarachnoid hemorrhaging… depressed fractures that drove the inner table of the skull into the underlying brain… eggshell-like fractures… clotting…"

"Clotting suggests a survival time of at least six minutes from the time the injury was inflicted." I return to my role of interpreter for the dead.

"A hell of a long time," Berger observes, and I can imagine her making a jury sit in silence for six minutes to show them just how long.

"The crushed facial bones, and here"_I touch areas of a photograph_"the splits and tears to skin made by some sort of tool that left a pattern of round and linear wounds."

"Pistol whipping."

"In this case, the Luong case, yes. In Bray's case, he used an unusual type of hammer."

"A chipping hammer."

"I can see you've done your homework."

"A funny habit of mine," she says.

"Premeditation," I go on. "He brought his weapons to the scenes versus using something he found when he got there. And this photo here"_I pick out another horror_"shows knuckle bruises from punching. So he also used his fists to beat her, and from this angle we can see her sweater and bra over there on the floor. It appears he tore them off with his bare hands."

"Based on what?"

"Under the scope you can see that the fibers are torn instead of cut," I reply.

Berger is staring at a body diagram. "Don't think I've ever seen so many bite marks inflicted by a human. Frenzied. Any reason to suspect he might have been under the influence of drugs when he committed these murders?"

"I wouldn't have a way to know."

"What about when you encountered him?" she asks. "When he attacked you on Saturday, shortly after midnight. And by the way, he had the same odd type of hammer, as I understand? A chipping hammer?"

" 'Frenzied' is a good word for it. But I would have no reason to know whether he was on drugs." I pause. "Yes, he had a chipping hammer with him when he tried to attack me."

"Tried? Let's state the facts." She gives me her eyes. "He attacked you. Not tried. He attacked you and you escaped. You got a good look at the hammer?"

"Good point, if we're stating facts. It was a tool of some sort. I know what a chipping hammer looks like."

"What do you remember? The flutter," she refers back to rny strange rendition. "Those endless minutes, the hair on his hands catching light like monofilament."

I envision a black coil handle. "I saw the coil," I tell her as best I can. "I remember that. It's so unusual. A chipping hammer has a handle that looks like a thick, black spring."

"You sure? That's what you saw when he came after you?" She pushes me.

"I am vaguely sure."

"It would be helpful if you are more than vaguely sure," she responds.

"I saw the tip of it. Like a big black beak. When he raised it to hit me. Yes, I'm sure. He had a chipping hammer." I become defiant. "That's exactly what he had."

"They took Chandonne's blood in the E.R.," Berger informs me. "Negative for drugs and alcohol."

She is testing me. She already knew Chandonne was negative for drags and alcohol, yet she withheld that detail long