Point of Origin

'You need to understand that legal aid attorneys are employed by the Legal Aid Society, which is a nonprofit, private organization under contract with New York City. Clearly, the personnel they have here are part of their criminal division. They are not on the Kirby staff.'

She wanted to make sure I understood that.

'Although, after a number of years here, they certainly may get chummy with my staff,' she kept talking as we walked, our heels clicking over tile. 'The lawyer in question, who worked with Miss Grethen from the beginning, will most likely arch her back at any questions you might ask.'

She glanced over at me.

'I have no control over it,' she said.

'I understand completely,' I replied. 'And if a public defender or legal aid attorney didn't arch his back when I appeared, I would think the planet had changed.'

Mental Hygiene Legal Aid was lost somewhere in the midst of Kirby, and I could only swear that it was on the first floor. The director opened a wooden door for me, and then was showing me into a small office that was so overflowing with paper that hundreds of case files were stacked on the floor. The lawyer behind the desk was a disaster of frumpy clothing and wild frizzy black hair. She was heavy, with ponderous breasts that could have benefited from a bra.

'Susan, this is Dr Kay Scarpetta, chief medical examiner of Virginia,' Dr Ensor said. 'Here about Carrie Grethen, as you know. And Dr Scarpetta, this is Susan Blaustein.'

'Right,' said Ms Blaustein, who was neither inclined to get up or shake my hand as she sifted through a thick legal brief.

'I'll leave the two of you, then. Susan, I trust you will show Dr Scarpetta around, otherwise I will get someone on staff to do it,' Dr Ensor said, and I could tell by the way she looked at me that she knew I was in for the tour from hell.

'No problem.'

The guardian angel of felons had a Brooklyn accent as coarse and tightly packed as a garbage barge.

'Have a seat,' she said to me as the director disappeared.

'When was Carrie remanded here?' I asked.

'Five years ago.'

She would not look up from her paperwork.

'You're aware of her history, of the homicide cases that have yet to go to trial in Virginia?'

'You name it, I'm aware of it.'

'Carrie escaped from here ten days ago, on June tenth,' I went on. 'Has anyone figured out how that might have happened?'

Blaustein flipped a page and picked up a coffee cup.

'She didn't show up for dinner. That's it,' she replied. 'I was as shocked as anyone when she disappeared.'

'I bet you were,' I said.

She turned another page and had yet to give me her eyes. I'd had enough.

'Ms Blaustein,' I said in a hard voice as I leaned against her desk. 'With all due respect to your clients, would you like to hear about mine? Would you like to hear all about men, women, and children who were butchered by Carrie Grethen? A little boy abducted from a 7-Eleven where he'd been sent to buy his mother a can of mushroom soup? He's shot in the head and areas of his flesh are removed to obliterate bitemarks, his pitiful body clad only in undershorts propped against a Dumpster in a freezing rain?'

'I told you, I know about the cases.' She continued to work.

'I suggest you put down that brief and pay attention to me,' I warned. 'I may be a forensic pathologist, but I'm also a lawyer, and your shenanigans get nowhere with me. You just so happen to represent a psychopath who as we speak is on the outside murdering people. Don't let me find out at the end of the day that you had information that might have spared even one life.'

She gave me her eyes, cold and arrogant, because her only power in life was to defend losers and jerk around people like me.

'Let me just refresh your memory,' I went on. 'Since your client has escaped from Kirby, it is believed she has either murdered or served as an accomplice to murder in two cases, happening within a matter of days of each other. Vicious homicides in which an attempt was made to disguise them by fire. These were predated by other fire-homicides which we now believe are linked, yet in these earlier ones, your client was still incarcerated here.'

Susan Blaustein was silent as she stared at me.

'Can you help me with this?'

'All of my conversations with Carrie are privileged. I'm sure you must know that,' she remarked, yet I could tell she was curious about what I was saying.

'Possible she was connecting with someone on the outside?' I went on. 'And if so, how and who?'

'You tell me.'

'Did she ever talk to you about Temple Gault?'

'Privileged.'

'Then she did,' I said. 'Of course, she did. How could she not? Did you know she wrote to me, Ms Blaustein, asking me to come see her and bring her Gault's autopsy photos?'

She said nothing, but her eyes were coming alive.

'He was hit by a train in the Bowery. Scattered along the tracks.'

'Did you do his autopsy?' she asked.

'No.'

'Then why would Carrie ask you for the photos, Dr Scarpetta?'

'Because she knew I could get them. Carrie wanted to see them, blood and gore and all. This was less than a week before she escaped. I'm just wondering if you knew she was sending out letters like that? A clear indication, as far as I'm concerned, that she had premeditated all she was about to do next.'

'No.'

Blaustein pointed her finger at me.

'What she was thinking was how she was being framed to take the heat because the FBI couldn't find its damn way out of a paper bag and needed to hang all this on someone,' she accused.

'I see you read the papers.'

Her face turned angry.

'I talked to Carrie for five years,' she said. 'She wasn't the one sleeping with the Bureau, right?'

'In a way she was.' I thought honestly of Lucy. 'And quite frankly, Ms Blaustein, I'm not here to change your opinion of your client. My purpose is to investigate a number of deaths and do what I can to prevent others.'

Carrie's legal aid attorney began shoving around paperwork again.

'It seems to me that the reason Carrie had been here so long is that every time an evaluation of her mental status came up, you made sure it was clear that she had not regained competency,' I went on. 'Meaning she is also incompetent to stand trial, right? Meaning she is so mentally ill that she's not even aware of the charges against her? And yet she must have been somewhat aware of her situation, or how else could she have trumped up this whole business about the FBI framing her? Or was it you who trumped that up?'

'This meeting has just ended,' Blaustein announced, and had she been a judge, she would have slammed down the gavel.

'Carrie's nothing but a malingerer,' I said. 'She played it up, manipulated. Let me guess. She was very depressed, couldn't remember anything when it was important. Was probably on Ativan, which probably didn't put a dent in her. She clearly had the energy to write letters. And what other privileges might she have enjoyed? Telephone, photocopying?'

'The patients have civil rights,' Blaustein said evenly. 'She was very quiet. Played a lot of chess and spades. She liked to read. There were mitigating and aggravating circumstances at the time of the offenses, and she was not responsible for her actions. She was very remorseful.'

'Carrie always was a great salesperson,' I said. 'Always a master at getting what she wanted, and she wanted to be here long enough to make her next move. And now she's made it.'

I opened my pocketbook and got out a copy of the letter Carrie had written to me. I dropped it in front of Blaustein.

'Pay special attention to the return address at the top of it. One Pheasant Place, Kirby Women's Ward,' I said. 'Do you have any idea what she meant by that, or would you like me to hazard a guess?'