Blow Fly

103

LATE AFTERNOON, SCARPETTA SITS fifteen rows back, her legs cramped.

On her left, a young boy, blond and cute, with braces on his teeth, despondently draws Yu-Gi-Oh! cards from a stack on his tray. On her right, an obese man, probably in his fifties, drinks screwdrivers next to the window. He is constantly pushing up wire-rimmed glasses, the oversized curved frames that remind Scarpetta of Elvis. The obese man noisily flips through the Wall Street Journal and periodically glances at Scarpetta, obviously hoping to engage her in conversation. She continues to ignore him.

The boy draws another Yu-Gi-Oh! card and places it faceup on the tray.

"Who's winning?" Scarpetta asks him with a smile.

"I don't have anybody to duel with," the boy replies without looking up.

He is probably ten and is dressed in jeans, a faded Spiderman shirt and tennis shoes. "You have to have at least forty cards to play," he adds.

"I'm afraid I'm disqualified, then."

He picks up a card, a colorful one with a menacing ax on it. "See," he says, "this one's my favorite. The Axe of Despair. It's a good weapon for a monster to have, worth a thousand points." He picks another card, this one called the Axe Raider. "A very strong monster with the ax," he explains.

She studies the cards and shakes her head. "Sorry. Too complicated for me."

"You want to learn how to play?"

"I couldn't possibly," she replies. "What's your name?"

"Albert." He draws more cards from the deck. "Not Al," he lets her know. "Everybody thinks they can call me Al. But it's Albert."

"Nice to meet you, Albert." She does not offer her name.

Scarpetta's seatmate next to the window shifts around to face her, his shoulder pressing against her upper arm. "You don't sound like you're from Louisiana," he says.

"I'm not," she replies, leaning away from him, her sinuses assaulted by the overpowering cologne he must have splashed on when he uprooted her to go to the restroom.

"Don't have to tell me that. One or two spoken words and I know." He sips his vodka and orange juice. "Let me guess. Not Texas, either. You don't exactly look Mexican." He grins.

She resumes reading a structural biology article in Science magazine and wonders when the man will get the not-so-subtle message to leave her alone.

Rarely is Scarpetta accessible to strangers. If she is, then usually within two minutes they ask where she's going and why and wander into the restricted airspace of her profession. Telling them she's a doctor doesn't stop the quizzing, nor does saying that she's a lawyer, and should she let on that she is both, the consequences are bad enough. But to go on and explain that she is a forensic pathologist will mean the ruination of her trip.

Next, JonBenet Ramsey, O. J. Simpson and other mysterious cases and miscarriages of justice bubble up, and Scarpetta is trapped, buckled in her seat at an altitude of some thirty thousand feet. Then there are those strangers who don't care if she works but would rather see her later for dinner, or preferably for a drink in a hotel bar that might lead to a hotel room. They, like the tipsy slob sitting to her right, would rather stare at her body than hear about her rйsumй.

"Looks like a mighty complicated article you're reading," he says. "I'm guessing you're some sort of schoolteacher."

She doesn't respond.

"You see, I'm good at this." He squints his eyes and snaps his thick fingers, pointing at her face. "A biology teacher. Kids are worthless these days." He lifts his drink from his tray and rattles the ice in the plastic cup. "I don't know how you stand being around them, to tell the truth," he goes on, apparently having decided she is a teacher. "Plus, they don't think twice about bringing a gun to school."

She feels his puffy eyes on her as she continues to read.

"You got children? I got three. Teenagers, all of them. Obviously, I got married when I was twelve." He laughs, and flecks of spittle spray through the air. "How 'bout I get your card from you-in case I need a little tutoring while both of us are in Baton Rouge? You changing planes or going there? I live in the downtown area, the name's Weldon Winn-with two n's. Good name for a politician, huh? Guess you can imagine the campaign slogans if I ever run for office."

"When are we landing?" Albert asks her.

She looks at her watch and forces a smile as the name Weldon Winn shocks her. "Not too much longer," she says to the boy.

"Yes, ma'am, I can just imagine signs all over Louisiana: It's Win-Win with Winn. Get it? And Go with the Winner. Maybe I'll be lucky and have an opponent named Miracle. So Winn Needs No Miracle. How 'bout that? And when Mr. Miracle slides hopelessly downhill in the polls, he'll be called Miracle-Whipped. "He winks again.

"I suppose there's no chance you might run against a she," Scarpetta comments without looking up from her magazine, pretending she doesn't have a clue that Weldon Winn is the Middle District U.S. Attorney for Louisiana that Nic Robillard complained about.

"Hell. No woman would take me on."

"I see. So what kind of politician are you?" Scarpetta finally asks him.

"One in spirit only at the moment, pretty lady. I'm the U.S. Attorney for Baton Rouge."

He pauses to let the importance of his position sink in, finishing his screwdriver and craning his neck in search of a flight attendant. Spotting one, he holds up an arm and snaps his fingers at her.

It can't be chance that Weldon Winn just happens to be sitting next to her on a plane when she just happens to be on her way to assist in a suspicious death that, according to Dr. Lanier, just happens to have captured Weldon Winn's interest, after she just happens to have left Jean-Baptiste Chandonne.

She tries to figure out how Winn would have had time to intercept her in Houston. Maybe he was already there. She has no doubt whatsoever that he knows who she is and why she's on this flight.

"Got a getaway in New Orleans, quite a cozy little palace in the French Quarter. Maybe you can visit while you're in the area. I'll be around for just a couple nights, got business with the governor and a few of the boys. I'd be more than happy to give you a personal tour of the capital, show you the bullethole in a pillar where Huey Long was shot."

Scarpetta knows all about the notorious Huey Long's assassination. When the case was reopened in the early nineties, the results of the new investigation were discussed at various forensic science academy meetings. She's had enough of the pompous Weldon Winn.

"For your own edification," she tells him, "the so-called bullethole in the marble pillar was not caused by a bullet intended for Huey Long or anyone else, but more likely from an imperfection in the stone or a chiseled facsimile of a bullethole to attract tourism. As a matter of fact," she adds, as Winn's eyes flatten and his smile freezes, "since the assassination, the Capitol was restored, and that particular pillar s marble panels were removed and never returned to their original location. I'm surprised you spend a lot of time at the state capital and don't know all this," she concludes.

"My aunt's supposed to pick me up and if I'm late, what if she isn't there?" Albert asks Scarpetta, as if the two of them are traveling together.

He has lost interest in his trading cards, which are neatly stacked next to a blue cell phone. "Do you know what time it is?" he says.

"Almost six," Scarpetta says. "If you're sleepy, take a little nap and I'll let you know when we're about to land."

"I'm not sleepy."

She recalls noticing him at the gate in Houston, playing with his cards. Because he was sitting next to other adults, she assumed he was accompanied and that his family or whoever he is traveling with were seated elsewhere on the plane. It never occurred to her that any parent or relative would allow a young child to travel alone, especially these days.

"Now isn't that something. Not too many people are experts on bulletholes," the U.S. Attorney comments as the flight attendant serves him another drink.

"No, I don't suppose too many people are." Scarpetta's attention is focused on the lost little boy next to her. "You aren't by yourself, are you?" she asks him. "And why aren't you in school?"

"It's spring break. Uncle Walt dropped me off, and a lady at the airport met me. I'm not tired. Sometimes I get to stay up really late, watching movies. We get a thousand channels." He pauses and shrugs. "Well, maybe not that many, but a lot. Do you have any pets? I used to have a dog named Nestle because it was brown like chocolate chips."

"Let's see," Scarpetta says. "I don't have a dog the color of chocolate, but I have an English bulldog who's white and brown with very big lower teeth. His name is Billy. Do you know what an English bulldog is?"

"Like a pit bull?"

"Not anything like a pit bull."

Weldon Winn butts into the conversation. "Might I ask where you're staying while you're in town?"

"Nestlй used to miss me when I wasn't home," Albert wistfully says.

"I'm sure he did," Scarpetta replies. "I think Billy misses me, too. But my secretary takes good care of him."

"Nestlй was a girl."

"What happened to her?"

"I don't know."

"My, my, if you aren't a mysterious little lady," the U.S. Attorney says, staring at her.

Scarpetta turns to him, catching a cold glint in his eyes.

She leans close to him and whispers in his ear, "I've had enough of your bullshit."