The Last Precinct - Cornwell Patricia (читаем книги онлайн TXT) 📗
So much eddies around a violent death. These are hardships that no one sees in the movies or reads about in the newspapers: the people left behind and the wrenching concerns they bear. I give Eric Bray my business card and tell him to call my office if he has any further questions. I go through my usual routine of letting him know the Institute has a book- let, an excellent resource called What to Do When the Police Leave written by Bill Jenkins, whose young son was murdered during the mindless robbery of a fast-food restaurant a couple years back. "The book will answer a lot of your questions," I add. "I'm sorry. A violent death leaves many victims in its wake. That's the unfortunate reality."
"Yes, ma'am, that's for damn sure," he says. "And yes, I'd like to read anything you got. I don't know what to expect, what to do about any of this," he repeats himself. "I'm out here if you have any questions. I'll be right here inside the car."
He shuts his door. My chest is tight. I am touched by his pain, yet I can't feel sorrow for his slain sister. If anything, the portrait he paints of her makes me like her even less. She wasn't even decent to her own flesh and blood. Berger says nothing as we climb the front steps and I sense her never-ending scrutiny. She is interested in my every reaction. She can tell that I still resent Diane Bray and what she tried to do to my life. I make no effort to hide it. Why bother at this point?
Berger is looking up at the porch light, which is faintly illuminated by the headlights of Eric Bray's car. It is a simple glass fixture, small and globe-shaped, supposed to be held into the fixture by screws. Police found the glass globe in the grass near a boxwood where Chandonne apparently tossed it. Then it was simply a matter of unscrewing the bulb, which "would have been hot," I tell Berger. "So my guess is he covered it with something to protect his fingers. Maybe he used his coat."
"No fingerprints on it," she says. "Not Chandonne's prints, according to Marino." This is news to me. "But that doesn't surprise me, assuming he covered the bulb so he didn't burn his fingers," she adds.
"What about the globe?"
"No prints. Not his." Berger inserts the key in the lock. "But he might have his hands covered when he unscrewed that, too. Just wonder how he reached the light. It's pretty high up." She opens the door and the alarm system begins beeping.
"Think he climbed up on something?" She goes to the key pad inside and enters the code.
"Maybe he climbed up on the railing," I suggest, suddenly the expert on Jean-Baptiste Chandonne's behavior and not liking the role.
"What about at your house?"
"He could have done that," I reply. "Climbed up on the railing and steadied himself against the wall or the porch roof."
"No prints on your light fixture or the bulb, in case you don't know," she tells me. "Not his, at any rate."
Clocks tick-lock in the living room, and I remember how surprised I was when I walked into Diane Bray's house for the first time, after she was dead, and discovered her collection of perfectly synchronized clocks and her grand but cold English antiques.
"Money." Berger stands in the living room and looks around at the scroll-end sofa, the revolving bookcase, the ebonized sideboard. "Oh yes, indeed. Money, money, money. Cops don't live like this."
"Drugs," I comment.
"No fucking kidding." Berger's eyes move everywhere. "User and dealer. Only she got others to be her mules. Including Anderson. Including your former morgue supervisor who was stealing prescription drugs that you assumed were being disposed of down the morgue sink. Chuck what's-his-name." She touches gold damask draperies and looks up at the valances. "Cobwebs," she observes. "Dust that didn't just appear during these last few days. There are other stories about her."
"There must be," I reply. "Selling prescription drugs on the street can't account for all this and a new Jaguar."
"Brings me back to a question I keep asking everyone who will stand still long enough for me to talk to them." Berger moves on toward the kitchen. "Why did Diane Bray move to Richmond?"
I have no answer.
"Not for the job, no matter what she said. Not for that. No way." Berger opens the refrigerator door. There is very little inside: Grape-Nuts cereal, tangerines, mustard, Miracle Whip. The two percent milk passed its expiration date yesterday. "Rather interesting," Berger says. "I don't think this lady was ever home." She opens a cupboard and scans cans of Campbell's soup and a box of saltine crackers. There are three jars of gourmet olives. "Martinis? I wonder. She drink a lot?"
"Not the night she died," I remind her.
"That's right. Point-oh-three alcohol level." Berger opens another cupboard and another until she finds where Bray kept her liquor. "One bottle of vodka. One of Scotch. Two Argentine cabernets. Not the bar of someone who drank a lot. Probably was too vain about her figure to ruin it with booze. Pills at least aren't fattening. When you came to the scene, was that the first time you'd ever been to her house_to this house?" Berger asks.
"Yes."
"But your house is only a few blocks away."
"I'd seen this house in passing. From the street. But no, I'd never been inside. We weren't friends."
"But she wanted to be friends."
"I'm told she wanted to have lunch or whatever. To get to know me," I reply.
"Marino."
"That's what Marino told me," I confirm, getting used to her questions by now.
"Do you think she was sexually interested in you?" Berger asks this very casually as she opens a cabinet door. Inside are glasses and dishes. "There are plenty of intimations that she played both sides of the net."
"I've been asked that before. I don't know."
"Would it have bothered you if she was?"
"It would have made me uncomfortable. Probably," I admit.
"She eat out a lot?"
"It's my understanding she did."
I am noting that Berger asks questions I suspect she already has answered. She wants to hear what I have to say and weigh my perceptions against those of others. Some of what she explores carries the echo of what Anna asked me during our fireside confessionals. I wonder if it is remotely possible that Berger has talked to Anna, too.
"Reminds me of a store that's a front for some illegal business," Berger says as she checks out what's beneath the sink: a few cleansers and several dried sponges. "Don't worry," she seems to read my mind. "I'm not going to let anyone ask you these sorts of things in court, about your sex life or whatever. Nothing about her personal life, either. I realize that's not supposed to be your area of expertise."
"Not supposed to be?" It seems an odd comment.
"Problem is, some of what you know isn't hearsay, but knowledge you got directly from her. She did tell you"_ Berger opens a drawer_"that she often ate out alone, sat at the bar at Buckhead's."
"That's what she told me."
"The night you met her there in the parking lot and confronted her."
"The night I tried to prove that she was in collusion with my morgue assistant, Chuck."
"And she was."
"Unfortunately, she certainly was," I reply.
"And you confronted her."
"I did."
"Well, good oF Chuck's in lockup where he belongs." Berger walks out of the kitchen. "And if it's not hearsay," she returns to that topic, "then Rocky Caggiano is going to ask you and I can't object. Or I can, but it will get me nowhere. You need to realize that. And how it makes you look."
"Right now, I'm more worried about how everything makes me look to a special grand jury," I pointedly answer her.
She stops in the hallway. At the end of it, the master bedroom is behind a door that is carelessly ajar, adding to the ambiance of neglect and indifference that chills this place. Berger meets my eyes. "I don't know you personally," she says. "No one seated on that special grand jury is going to know you personally. It's your word against a murdered policewoman's that it was she who harassed you and not the other way around, and that you had nothing to do with her murder_even though you seem to think the world is better off without her."
