Marino reaches his arm out the window. He presses the intercom button, and it buzzes loudly.
“They beat him to death with bottles and a baseball bat, and there was pressure behind the scenes for Colin to help the defense make their case that it was a fair fight,” I say. “Road rage. Mosbly started it, even though the defendants had no injuries and he had an abundance of abrasions and bruises to show they tried to drag him out of his car while he still had his seat belt on.”
“White supremacist Nazi asswipes,” Marino says.
“Threats were made because Colin told the truth, and shortly before the trial, the lab’s front windows were shot out one night. After that, the fence went up.”
“Doesn’t sound like the kind of guy who would want someone executed for a crime they didn’t commit.” Marino presses the intercom button again.
“If he were that kind of person, his place wouldn’t need all this security.” I don’t add that Jaime Berger has misjudged Colin Dengate, that she has misrepresented him. I don’t remind Marino yet again that this lawyer he thinks it would be wonderful to work with has self-serving agendas and really isn’t honest or kind.
A woman’s voice sounds through the speaker: “May I help you?”
“Dr. Scarpetta and Investigator Marino here to see Dr. Dengate,” he announces, as I check my iPhone for messages.
Benton and Lucy just landed in Millville, New Jersey, for fuel, Lucy wrote eleven minutes ago. They’re making terrible time, with strong winds gusting out of the southwest, right on their nose, and there’s a message from Benton that is disturbing:
D.K. no longer at Butler. Will let you know more when I do. Advise caution.
A loud humming as the metal gate slowly slides open on a track across asphalt, and I see the stucco-and-brick lab building, one story but sprawling. Parked in the front lot are white SUVs with the GBI gold-and-blue crest on their doors, and the white Land Rover with an Army-green canvas roof that Colin Dengate has driven for as long as I’ve known him.
“You going to tell Dr. Dengate about the new DNA results?” Marino asks, and I’m thinking about what Benton just wrote. That’s all I can think about.
Flags hang limply from poles, not a breath of air stirring, and the walkway is lined with red-flowering bottlebrush shrubs that hummingbirds love, sprinklers watering them, nozzles spraying at the edge of the grass. We park in a visitor’s space in front of ground-level reflective windows that are bullet- and shatter-resistant and designed to withstand the force of a terrorist blast, and the only thing on my mind is that Dawn Kincaid has escaped from Butler State Hospital for the Criminally Insane.
If it’s true, someone else will die. Maybe more than one person. I’m sure of it. She is shockingly clever. She is sadistic, and has managed to get what she wants all of her blighted predatory life, and no one has stopped her. No one ever has, including me. I slowed her down, but I certainly didn’t stop her, and the only reason I’m still here is luck. A mist from the sprinklers touches my face, and I remember the mist of her blood. I remember the taste of salt and iron inside my mouth, on my teeth, on my tongue. A bloody fog on my face, in my eyes, in my hair. Tara Grimm suggested that Kathleen Lawler might be getting out of prison early. It enters my mind that Dawn Kincaid is planning to come down here.
“Hey? You look like you seen a ghost.”
I realize Marino is talking to me.
“I’m sorry,” I reply, as I slide open the van’s back door.
“You going to tell him about the DNA?” he asks again.
“No, absolutely not. It’s not for me to tell. I’d rather review the cases as if I know nothing. I intend to keep an open mind.” I retrieve dripping bottles of water from the cooler. “I don’t know when you put ice in this thing,” I add. “But if you want to brew tea, we probably could.”
“At least it’s wet.” He takes a bottle from me.
“I’ll be right in. I need to make a phone call.” I step into the hot shade of a tree and call Benton, hoping he and Lucy haven’t taken off yet.
“I’m glad you’re still there,” I say with feeling when he answers. “Sorry about the wind. I’m sorry I asked you to come to Savannah and it’s proving to be such an ordeal.”
“The wind is the least of my worries. It’s just slow. You all right?”
“Not dressed for this weather.”
“Getting a shot of coffee while Lucy pays for fuel. Christ, it’s hot as hell in New Jersey, too.”
“What’s happened?”
“I don’t have anything official and probably shouldn’t get you worried when it might not be a problem. But I know what she’s like and capable of, and so do you. She managed to convince guards and other personnel at Butler that she needed to go to the hospital, to the ER.”
“For what?”
“She has asthma.”
“If she didn’t before, I’m sure she does now,” I say, with a flare of anger.
“Jack had it, and in all fairness, asthma can be inherited.”
“Malingering and more manipulations.” I don’t feel like being fair.
“She was transported by ambulance around seven this morning. A contact of mine at Butler who’s not involved in her case and has no direct information heard about it and left me a message about half an hour ago. I’m really glad you’re a thousand miles away, but be careful. This makes me nervous. I don’t trust it.”
“Understandable, considering who we’re talking about.” Sweat is running down my chest and my back, the air stagnant and thick like steam. “She’s still in custody, right?”
“I assume so, but I don’t have details.”
“You assume it?”
“Kay, all I know is they’ve transported her to MGH, and this happened very recently. It’s not like we can go barging in questioning her when she’s in the middle of an alleged medical problem. She has her rights.”
“Of course she does. More than the rest of us.”
“Knowing her capabilities and skill at manipulating, of course I’m concerned this is a ploy, a scheme,” Benton says.
“They can’t possibly have a clue what they’ve got on their hands.” I mean that Massachusetts General Hospital can’t.
“If nothing else, this may be another ruse on the part of her lawyers to garner sympathy or imply she’s being mistreated or to add to this bullshit about the damage you’ve caused to her mental health, her physical health. Asthma’s made worse by stress.”
“The damage I’ve caused?” I think about what Jaime said last night.
“The obvious case she’s making.”
“I didn’t know you thought she had a case.”
“I’m saying she’s making one. I didn’t say she has one or that I think she does. You sound really upset.”
“If you knew she was trumping up a case against me,” I reply, “it would have been helpful if you’d told me.”
I feel shaky inside as I remember Marino’s accusation that my own husband knows I’m under investigation. How could he live in the same house with me and know such a thing, and why did he let me walk out alone that night, as if Benton doesn’t care. As if I mean nothing to him. As if he doesn’t love me. Marino and his jealousy,I remind myself.
“We’ll talk more about this when I get there,” Benton says. “But if you didn’t know her defense is going to blame everything on you, then you’re the only person who didn’t know. Lucy’s walking out to the helicopter, so I need to go. I’ll call when we land next.”