Cruel and Unusual - Cornwell Patricia (книги онлайн полные версии .txt) 📗

I knew where this was going and I tried to interrupt, but Wesley would not let me. “Marino's mentioned your difficulties with Grueman, that he calls and in general jerks you around. And then, of course, there is the past, your years at Georgetown. Maybe you should talk with him.”

“I don't want to talk with him, Benton.”

“He may have photographs of Waddell, letters, other documents. Something with Waddell's prints. Or maybe there's something he might say in the course of conversation that would be revealing. The point is, you have access to him, if you wish, through your normal activities, when the rest of us don't. And you're going to D.C. anyway to see Downey.”

“No,” I said.

“It's just a thought.”

He looked away from me and motioned for the waitress to bring the check. “How long will Lucy be visiting you?” he asked.

“She doesn't have to be back at school until January seventh.”

“I remember she's pretty good with computers.”

“She's more than pretty good.”

Wesley smiled a little. “So Marino's told me. He says she thinks she can help with AFIS.”

“I'm sure she'd like to try.”

I suddenly felt protective again, and torn. I wanted to send her back to Miami, and yet I didn't.

“You may or may not remember, but Michele works for the Department of Criminal justice Services, which assists the State Police in running AFIS,” Wesley said.

“I should think that might worry you a little right now.” I finished my brandy.

“There isn't a day of my life that I don't worry,” he said.

The next morning a light snow began to fall as Lucy and I dressed in ski clothes that could be spotted from here to the Eiger.

“I look like a traffic cone,” she said, staring at her blaze orange reflection in the mirror.

“That's right If you get lost on a trail. It won't be hard to find you.”

I swallowed vitamins and two aspirin with the sparkling water from the minibar.

My niece eyed my outfit, which was almost as electric as hers, and shook her head. “For someone so conservative, you certainly dress like a neon peacock for sports.”

“I try not to be a stick-in-the-mud all of the time. Are you hungry?”

“Starved.”

“Benton's supposed to meet us in the dining-room at eight-thirty. We can go down now if you don't want to wait.”

“I'm ready. Isn't Connie going to eat with us?”

“We're going to meet her on the slopes. Benton wants talk shop first.”

“I would think it must bother her to be left out,” Lucy said. “Whenever he talks with anyone, it seems she isn't invited.”

I locked the room door and we headed down the quiet corridor.

“I suspect Connie doesn't wish to be involved,” I said in a low voice. “For her to know every detail of her husband's work would only be a burden for her.”

“So he talks to you instead.”

“About cases, yes.”

“About work. And work is what matters most to both of you.”

“Work certainly seems to dominate our lives.”

“Are you and Mr. Wesley about to have an affair?”

“We're about to have breakfast.”

I smiled.

The Homestead's buffet was typically overwhelming. Long cloth-covered tables were laden with Virginia cured bacon and ham, every concoction of eggs imaginable, pastries, breads, and griddle cakes. Lucy seemed immune to the temptations, and headed straight for the cereals and fresh fruit. Shamed into good behavior by her example and by my recent lecture to Marino about his health, I avoided everything I wanted, including coffee.

“People are staring at you, Aunt Kay,” Lucy said under her breath.

I assumed the attention was due to our vibrant attire until I opened the morning's Washington Post and was shocked to discover myself on the front page. The headline read, “MURDER IN THE MORGUE,” the story a lengthy account of Susan's homicide, which was accompanied by a prominently placed photograph of me arriving at the scene and looking very tense. Clearly, the reporter's major source was Susan's distraught husband, Jason, whose information painted a picture of his wife leaving her job under peculiar, if not suspicious, circumstances less than a week before her violent death.

It was asserted, for example, that Susan recently confronted me when I attempted to list her as a witness in the case of a murdered young boy, even though she had not been present during his autopsy. When Susan became ill and stayed out of work “after a formalin spill,” I called her home with such frequency that she was afraid to answer me phone, then I showed up on her doorstep the night before her murder” with a poinsettia and vague offers of favors.

“I walked into my house after Christmas shopping and there was the Chief Medical Examiner inside my living room,” Susan's husband was quoted. “She [Dr. Scarpetta] left right away, and as soon as the door shut Susan started crying. She was terrified of something but wouldn't tell me what.”

As unsettling as I found Jason Story's public disparagement of me, worse was the revelation of Susan's recent financial transactions. Supposedly, two weeks before her death she paid off more than three thousand dollars in credit card bills after having deposited thirty five hundred dollars into her checking account. The sudden windfall could not be explained. Her husband had been laid off from his sales job during the fall and Susan earned less than twenty thousand dollars a year.

“Mr. Wesley's here,” Lucy said, taking the paper from me.

Wesley was dressed in black ski pants and turtleneck, a bright red jacket tucked under his arm. I could tell by the expression on his face, the firm set of his jaw, that he was aware of the news.

“Did the Post try to talk to you?”

He pulled out a chair. “I can't believe they ran the damn thing without giving you a chance for comment.”

“A reporter from the Post called as I was leaving the office yesterday, “I replied. “He wanted to question me about Susan's homicide and I chose not to talk to him. I guess that was my chance.”

“So you didn't know anything, had no forwarning about the slant of this thing.”

“I was in the dark until I picked up the paper.”

“It's all over the news, Kay.”

He met my eyes. “I heard it on television this morning. Marino called. The press in Richmond is having a field day. The implication is that Susan's murder may be connected to the medical examiner's office - that you may be involved and have suddenly left town.”

“That's insane.”

“How much of the article is true?” he asked.

“The facts have been completely distorted. I did call Susan's house when she didn't show up at work. I wanted to make certain she was all right, and then I needed to find out if she remembered printing Waddell at the morgue. I did go see her on Christmas Eve to give her a gift and the poinsettia. I suppose my promise of favors was when she told me she was quitting and I said for her to let me know if she needed a reference, or if there was anything I could do for her.”

“What about the business of her not wanting to be listed as a witness in Eddie Heath's case?”

“That was the afternoon she broke several jars of formalin and retreated upstairs to my office. It's routine to list autopsy assistants or techs as witnesses when they assist in the posts. In this instance, Susan was present for only the external examination and was adamant about not wanting her name on Eddie Heath's autopsy report.

I thought her request and demeanor were weird, but there was no confrontation.”

“This article makes it look as if you were paying her off,” Lucy said. “That's what I would wonder if I read this and didn't know.”

“I certainly wasn't paying her off, but it sounds as if someone was,” I said.

“It's all making a little more sense,” Wesley said. “If this bit about her financial picture is accurate, then Susan had gotten a substantial sum of money, meaning she must have supplied a service to someone. Around this same time your computer was broken into and Susan's personality changed. She became nervous and unreliable. She avoided you as much as she could. I think she couldn't face you, Kay, because she knew she was betraying you.”