Part Seventeen
During most of Thursday morning, George's thoughts kept straying back to the evening before, and all the headlines and stories she'd seen involving Kay. She didn't want to believe that someone as stunning and articulate as Dr. Scarpetta could possibly have killed even one person, never mind three, but the truth did have to be faced. What would such an experience do to someone? How could they possibly come out of something like that and still function as a perfectly normal human being? Whilst she talked to other clients, and wrote up reports of various cases, she couldn't help persistently wondering how Kay was getting on. George was ninety percent sure that Barbara was being truthful with them, but she had been in this job long enough to realise that one's client wasn't always honest with their lawyer, especially when it concerned such a serious charge. If it turned out that Barbara was concealing what had really happened, George knew that Jo would feel bitterly betrayed. But just after eleven thirty, her musings were brought to an end. "George Channing," She said on answering the phone. "George, this is Dr. Scarpetta," Came back the rich tones of the woman behind the headlines. "How did you get on?" George asked her without further delay, and Kay could hear the unmistakable barrier of uncertainty that now existed between them. "Your client is telling you the truth," Kay told her seriously. "I just need to find a way to prove it, which isn't something I can do with the antiquated equipment the hospital has here." "Right," George said with a distinct air of relief. "So, what will you need to do?" "First and foremost, I need to talk to your client," Kay explained. "Because I need her permission to take various tissue samples back to Richmond with me, where I can use photographic enhancement and histology to hopefully get you some useful answers." "I should imagine I could arrange that for this afternoon, if you could fit it in." "I'm finished with my lecture series over here, so yes." "I'll contact Barbara's Governor," George replied. Then, after a moment's thoughtful pause, she said, "Would you like to come here first and have lunch? I think we need to talk." "You did quite a lot of digging last night, didn't you," Kay said quietly. "Yes, you could say that," George admitted sheepishly. "I don't blame you for having misgivings, you know," Kay said gently. "I'm not sure that I'd want me as a witness if I had the choice." "I want to trust you," George tried to explain, feeling that this would be far easier said over the phone than face to face. "It's just not a situation I've found myself in before." "I wish I could say that it's not something you get used to, but it is." "I'm not afraid of a witness's bad publicity," George insisted. "I'm just not used to being that wrong. When I met you and talked to you yesterday, the impression I got was of someone who is one hundred percent dedicated to her profession. I'm just finding it a little difficult to put the woman I met yesterday, with the woman discussed in all those headlines and stories I read last night." "That's what I'll try to straighten out," Kay assured her. "And believe me, I do appreciate your honesty. It actually makes quite a refreshing change."
When Kay arrived at one o'clock, she looked neat, clean, and not in the least as though she had been digging around in human flesh all morning. Trying to banish such thoughts from her mind, George poured her a coffee, and they began on a tray of sandwiches that was laid out on the coffee table. "Just out of pure, scientific interest," George said, nibbling at a slice of cucumber. "How on earth, does one transport human tissue samples across the Atlantic?" "Dry ice," Kay said succinctly. "It won't be the first time I've been stopped at customs with less than desirable cargo. Some officials are even brave enough to try and unpack what I'm carrying, just to see what it is. I'll contact the airline before I travel. It's supposed to make things like this easier, but it rarely does. How did you get on with your client's Governor?" "Well, seeing as Karen Betts is what you might call my ex, asking for the odd favour isn't a problem." "Oh, I see," Kay replied, trying to hide the fact that she was attempting to figure out this puzzle. Yesterday, George had mentioned once having been married. Yet now here she was stating that she had also had an affair with a woman. Oh well, Kay thought philosophically, some people really did like both. "So," She asked, finally arriving at why she was here. "Just how much did you read last night?" "Quite enough," George said without hesitation. "Let's start with Diane Bray, and your appearance before a grand jury." "Ah yes," Kay said in bitter memory. "Possibly Le Loup Garou's most creative achievement, to have me suspected as the perpetrator of one of his crimes. Whilst all that was taking place, Chandonne agreed to be extradited to New York for one of his previous murders, meaning that he was never even tried for what he did to the two women he killed in Richmond, never mind the night he tried to kill me. However, I don't really see what the prosecution would do with that, because I wasn't indicted, and therefore wasn't subsequently found guilty." "We also found quite a lot about Benton Wesley," George said carefully, realising that this would probably be a very closely guarded subject. "That's not relevant," Kay said quickly. "Nothing about what Benton did could possibly reflect badly on me as a professional. Me as a woman perhaps, but not me as an expert in suspicious deaths." "I quite agree," George said gently, seeing that Kay would put up with very little probing on this particular issue, something for which George couldn't possibly blame her. "What we do need to talk about, however," She continued slowly, as though she were approaching a python in its den. "Is the three people you have killed, because I think we both know that the prosecution will make everything they possibly can out of something like that. Perhaps in your country of origin they wouldn't, but over here, I can assure you they will."
Lighting herself a cigarette and taking a long drag, Kay tried to explain. "Frank Aimes, Denesa Steiner, and Temple Gault. Those three names will be engraved on my memory till the day I die. I'm not sure what you want me to tell you, except that if I possibly could have taken any other course of action, I would have done. All three of them were killers, Aimes and Gault both serial killers, and no, that doesn't make what I did in any way right. When you begin working in law enforcement, you learn very rapidly how to use a gun, because one day it could mean the difference between life and death. You get into a regular routine of practicing at the range, and of cleaning your gun afterwards, so that you're always ready to defend yourself. I can safely say, that if I didn't do what I did on all three occasions that I ended someone's life, I certainly wouldn't be alive to talk about it. Each one of them was horrific, but Gault was probably the worst. He'd been on the FBI's 'Ten Most Wanted' list for years, and all of us, me, Benton, and Captain Marino, had been picking up the pieces of his crimes since the late 1980's. Gault murdered his sister, in Central Park on Christmas Eve, and left her bleeding, naked body in the snow by the fountain, which was where too many of us began Christmas Day of 1993. Death doesn't stop just because it's Christmas, and Gault knew we would all flock to the scene of his latest crime. A few days later, Gault and his accomplice broke into my Richmond office, and he stole a set of very valuable scalpels that my niece Lucy had given me the year before. When Carrie Grethin was finally apprehended in The Bowery, Gault escaped, and took my niece hostage in the subway tunnel. When I reached them, he was holding one of my scalpels to her throat. Gault wanted me to kill him, because he knew that if I did, I wouldn't ever be able to forget him. In dying at my hands, he would have his last feeling of contact with his victims. He knew I'd been the one to examine some of them, and he saw me as the connection with them. So, as you read in the press, he got what he wanted. I wouldn't go near a train death for months after Gault was killed, and you're right, a prosecuting counsel will make a ten course meal out of this." "It's nothing we can't deal with," George said quietly, feeling a surge of inexplicable protectiveness for Kay, seeing that it must have taken the determination of a greyhound for her to survive. It hadn't gone unnoticed with George that Kay had very successfully skirted over the precise details of what she'd done, but George thoroughly understood why. "Jo was absolutely right about you," George added with a self-deprecating smile. "She said that all I had to do was to look beyond the headlines, because someone who was prepared to fight that much on a regular basis, was someone we definitely needed on this case. It's a shame you couldn't have met her before you go back." "Tell her thank you for the vote of confidence," Kay said with a smile, thinking that she was going to thoroughly enjoy working with these two women, different as the circumstances of the case may be.
As they drove towards Larkhall, George tried to fill Kay in on some more of the background to the case. "Barbara actually met her husband when she was in prison last time. He used to be the prison chaplain. Jo and I got to know her, when Jo took on a case for another ex-criminal, and we sort of became part of an entirely new group of people. Before this last year, I can safely say that I wouldn't have been seen dead in the company of a group of ex-cons, but I've learnt that every single one of them whom we've come to know, is far more genuine than the numerous law abiding people I've been forced to mix with over the years, all in the name of professional advancement." "That's often the way," Kay agreed with a smile. "Captain Marino, the police Captain I've worked with for over twenty years, is the rudest, roughest, most tactless redneck I've ever met in my life, but he's also the best cop I've ever had the pleasure to meet. Marino might not go about his job in the nicest way, but if there's an answer to be found, he'll find it, and he always manages to keep me on my toes." "Yes, John always seems to achieve that with me," George said ruefully and then tried to explain. "The judge who I used to be married to." "I wish I could talk about my ex so fondly," Kay said with a smile. "That's almost certainly because he's not quite as ex as he probably ought to be, if I had any sense," George replied as she turned into the car park. "That sounds complicated," Kay tentatively suggested. "Very," George agreed with a laugh, bringing the car to a stand still in front of the gate lodge.
Karen was waiting for them, standing chatting to Ken as she saw them approach. "This is a nice surprise," George said, kissing her cheek. "I didn't expect a welcoming committee." "Curiosity won out," Karen told her with a smile. "I wanted to meet this star witness of yours." "I wouldn't speak too soon," Kay said with a nervous laugh. "Karen Betts, Dr. Kay Scarpetta," George said, introducing them. Then, to Karen, she added, "Did you tell Barbara we were coming?" "Yes, Nikki should be bringing her down now." As they went through the perfunctory body and handbag search, Karen and George seemed to find it easier to chat than they had done last time. The presence of someone else seemed to give them both the courage and the level ground they needed. They followed Karen down to one of the legal interview rooms, where Barbara and Nikki were already waiting, with Gina sitting outside the door. "Ain't seen you in a while," Gina said upon seeing George. "Ah well, I haven't felt the need to do an impromptu shift recently," George replied with a rueful smile. "One evening last January was quite enough." "Are you working on Babs' case?" Gina asked with interest. "It looks like it. How is she today? Jo told me that Barbara sometimes gets claustrophobic." "She gave Sylvia a right mouthful the other day, so she can't feel that bad." When they went into the interview room, George introduced Kay to Barbara, and Nikki and Karen left them to it.
"When Jo came to see me yesterday," Barbara began. "To ask my permission for the second postmortem, I assumed that was all you would need." "That was before I found what I did this morning," Kay explained, having taken a seat across the table from Barbara. "Let me first of all tell you, that I have no doubt whatsoever, that your husband committed suicide, for which I would like to offer my sincere condolences. The problem arises, in my being able to prove this beyond all reasonable doubt to a judge and jury. With the photographic equipment that St. Mary's hospital currently possesses, I cannot possibly prove whether you administered that final injection, or whether Henry did, which is why the initial postmortem report cannot prove your statement. However, with the image enhancement and microscopy techniques that I have at my disposal back in Virginia, I am fairly certain that I can prove, that the injection couldn't possibly have been given by you, because of the angle that the needle pierced the skin. Does that make sense?" "Yes, I think so," Barbara said a little hesitantly, trying to take this all in. "Now, the only way for me to do this, is to take various blood and tissue samples back to Richmond with me. As Henry's next of kin, I need your written permission to do this, but I also wanted to explain why I thought it necessary." "Yes, of course," Barbara said with widening eyes. "If you feel it really will help." "I can't promise it will achieve what I want it to achieve," Kay told her seriously. "But I can tell you that there is an eighty percent chance of my being able to prove this, but as I said, I can't do that here." "This may be a stupid question," Barbara said carefully. "But how will you take what you need back home with you?" "I'll pack the samples that have already been removed in dry ice," Kay explained. "They will be quite safe until they can be placed in the freezer in my Richmond office. Now Barbara, are you sure that you are perfectly okay with my doing this?" "Yes," Barbara said firmly. "If you think it will help to get me out of here, then that's fine by me."
When they'd left Larkhall behind, and George was driving Kay back to St. Mary's, Kay eventually broke the silence. "I shouldn't say it," She said with a self-deprecating smile. "Because I've been in the job long enough to know better, but she really doesn't strike you as the type to end up in prison, does she." "I thought exactly the same thing, the first time I met her," George agreed. "Mrs. Middle-England, I think Nikki once called her, and she really was every inch the vicar's wife. Several members of the bar council got involved in a performance of Haydn's 'Creation' a few months ago, and we held the performance in Henry Mills' church. We made up a few of the gaps with various people who weren't lawyers, and Barbara was one of them. She played the harpsichord. I knew then that she'd been behind bars before, but I never thought she'd end up there again." "So," Kay asked, eventually raising the unavoidable subject. "Am I to stand as a witness, or am I not?" She had realised during the interview with Barbara, that part of George was testing her, seeing just how she would deal with the woman whose case they were discussing. "I would like you to take the stand, if you are agreeable to it," George told her, having thoroughly abandoned any hesitation she might have had. "Whatever bad publicity the prosecution might choose to throw at us, I think we can handle it. Most of all, Barbara needs your expertise, and I'm not about to deny her a one and only chance, just because I'm afraid of ruining my already questionable reputation." "Thank you," Kay said quietly. "You know, usually I'm in court to give the victims of crime a voice, because I am the only way that the dead can speak to a jury. They need me to interpret whatever has happened to them, something which can't always be put into words. But this time, I'm fighting for someone who still has a life to lead once all this is over. For once in my life, I'm not fighting for the victim of crime, but for the victim of injustice, perhaps a far more deadly enemy than murder itself."