Point of Origin

'Let's talk about something besides your reputation for a moment,' I began in a calm voice. 'Let's talk about what this New York trial is all about.'

'I know what it's all about.'

I was going to give her an opening argument anyway and raised my hand to make her listen.

'Temple Gault killed at least five people in Virginia,' I began, 'and we know Carrie was involved in at least one of these since we have her on videotape pumping a bullet into the man's head. You remember that.'

She was silent.

'You were in the room when we watched that horrific footage right there in gory color on TV,' I went on.

'I know all this.'

Anger was crawling into Lucy's voice again.

'We've been over it a million times,' she said.

'You watched her kill,' I went on. 'This woman who was your lover when you were all of nineteen and naive and doing an internship at ERF, programming CAIN.'

I saw her draw up more into herself as my monologue became more painful. ERF was the FBI's Engineering Research Facility, which housed its Criminal Artificial Intelligence Network computer system known as CAIN. Lucy had conceived CAIN and been the driving force behind its creation. Now she was locked out of it and could not bear to hear its name.

'You watched your lover kill, after she had set you up in her cold-blooded premeditated way. You were no match for her,' I said.

'Why are you doing this?' Lucy's voice was muffled, her face resting on her arm.

'A reality check.'

'I don't need one.'

'I think you do. And by the way, we won't even go into the personal details both Carrie and Gault learned about me. And this brings us to New York, where Gault murdered his own sister and at least one police officer, and now forensic evidence shows that he didn't do it alone. Carrie's fingerprints were later recovered on some of Jayne Gault's personal effects. When she was captured in the Bowery, Jayne's blood was found on Carrie's pants. For all we know, Carrie pulled that trigger, too.'

'She probably did,' Lucy said. 'And I already know about that.'

'But not about Eddie Heath. Remember the candy bar and can of soup he bought at the 7-Eleven? The bag found with his dying, mutilated body? Carrie's thumbprint has since been recovered.'

'No way!' Lucy was shocked.

'There's more.'

'Why haven't you told me this before? She was doing this all along, with him. And probably helped him break out of prison back then, too.'

'We have no doubt. They were Bonnie and Clyde long before you met her, Lucy. She was killing when you were seventeen and had never been kissed.'

'You don't know that I'd never been kissed,' my niece said inanely.

No one spoke for a moment.

Then Lucy said, and her voice quavered, 'So you think she spent two years plotting a way to meet me and become… And do the things she did to…'

'To seduce you,' I cut in. 'I don't know if she planned it that far in advance. Frankly, I don't care.' My outrage mounted. 'We've moved heaven and earth to extradite her to Virginia for those crimes, and we can't. New York won't let her go.'

My beer bottle was limp and forgotten in my hands as I shut my eyes, and flashes of the dead played through my mind. I saw Eddie Heath propped up against a Dumpster as rain diluted the blood from his wounds, and the sheriff and prison guard killed by Gault and probably Carrie. I had touched their bodies and translated their pain into diagrams and autopsy protocols and dental charts. I could not help it. I wanted Carrie to die for what she had done to them, to my niece and me.

'She's a monster,' I said as my voice shook with grief and fury. 'I will do anything I can to make sure she is punished.'

'Why are you preaching all this to me?' Lucy said in a louder, upset voice. 'Do you somehow think I don't want the same thing?'

'I'm sure you do.'

'Just let me throw the switch or stick the needle in her arm.'

'Don't let your former relationship distract you from justice, Lucy.'

'Jesus Christ.'

'It's already an overwhelming struggle for you. And if you lose perspective, Carrie will have her way.'

'Jesus Christ,' Lucy said again. 'I don't want to hear any more.'

'You wonder what she wants?' I would not stop. 'I can tell you exactly. To manipulate. The thing she does best. And then what? She'll be found not guilty by reason of insanity and the judge will send her back to Kirby. Then she'll suddenly and dramatically improve, and the Kirby doctors will decide she's not insane. Double jeopardy. She can't be tried twice for the same crime. She ends up back on the street.'

'If she walks,' Lucy said coldly, 'I will find her and blow her brains out.'

'What kind of answer is that?'

I watched her silhouette sitting straight up against pillows on her bed. She was very stiff and I could hear her breathing as hatred pounded inside her.

'The world really won't care who or what you slept or sleep with unless you do,' I said to her more quietly. 'In fact, I think the jury will understand how it could have happened back then. When you were so young. And she was older and brilliant and striking to look at. When she was charismatic and attentive, and your supervisor.'

'Like Teun,' Lucy said, and I could not tell if she were mocking me.

'Teun is not a psychopath,' I said.

4

THE NEXT MORNING, I fell asleep in the rented LTD, and woke up to cornfields and silos, and stands of trees as old as the Civil War. Marino was driving, and we passed vast acres of vacant land strung with barbed wire and telephone lines, and front yards dotted with mailboxes painted like flower gardens and Uncle Sam. There were ponds and creeks and sod farms, and cattle fields high with weeds. Mostly I noticed small houses with leaning fences, and clotheslines sagging with scrubbed garments billowing in the breeze.

I covered a yawn with my hand and averted my face, for I had always considered it a sign of weakness to look tired or bored. Within minutes, we turned right on 715, or Beaverdam Road, and we began to see cows. Barns were bleached gray and it seemed people never thought to haul away their broken-down trucks. The owner of Hootowl Farm lived in a large white brick house surrounded by endless vistas of pasture and fence. According to the sign out front, the house had been built in 1730. Now it had a swimming pool and a satellite dish that looked serious enough to intercept signals from other galaxies.

Betty Foster was out to greet us before we had gotten out of the car. She was somewhere in her fifties with sharp regal features and skin deeply creased by the sun. Her long white hair was tucked in a bun. But she walked with the athletic spring of someone half her age, and her hand was hard and strong when she shook mine and looked at me with pained hazel eyes.

'I'm Betty,' she said. 'And you must be Dr Scarpetta. And you must be Captain Marino.'

She shook his hand too, her movements quick and confident. Betty Foster wore jeans and a sleeveless denim shirt, her brown boots scarred and crusted with mud around the heels. Beneath her hospitality other emotions smoldered, and she seemed slightly dazed by us, as if she did not know where to begin.

'Kenneth is in the riding ring,' she told us. 'He's been waiting for you, and I'll go on and tell you now that he's terribly upset. He loved those horses, everyone of them, and of course, he's devastated that someone died inside his house.'

'What exactly is your relationship to him?' Marino asked as we started walking up the dusty road toward the stables.

'I've bred and trained his horses for years,' she said. 'Ever since he left office and moved back to Warrenton. He had the finest Morgans in the Commonwealth. And quarter horses and thoroughbreds.'

'He would bring his horses to you?' I asked.

'Sometimes he did that. Sometimes it was yearlings he would buy from me and just leave them here to be trained for two years. Then he'd add them to his stable. Or he'd breed racehorses and sell them when they were old enough to be trained for the track. And I also went up there to his farm, sometimes two or three times a week. Basically, I supervised.'