Red Mist

22

Isense Marino’s presence, and then he’s next to me, looking at the letter I hold in my purple nitrile gloved hands, reading what it says. I meet his eyes and barely shake my head.

“What the hell?” he asks under his breath.

I answer by pointing out the typed words it’s impact.The usage is improper. It’sshould be possessive, should be itsand not a contraction. But Marino doesn’t understand, and right now I’m not going to explain the inconsistencies or that the wording doesn’t sound like me and that I wouldn’t sign such a letter “Regards, Kay,” as if Kathleen Lawler and I really were friends.

It’s impossible to imagine my writing or saying to her that I would “never have intentionally hurt” Jack Fielding, as if to imply I might have hurt him unintentionally, and I think of what Jaime said last night. Kathleen’s daughter, Dawn Kincaid, has been trumping up a case that I’m an unstable, violent person. But Dawn Kincaid could not have created this forged letter. It’s not possible she could have done such a thing from Butler State Hospital, where she would have been confined when this letter was mailed.

I hold up the sheet of stationery to the light, directing Marino’s attention to the absence of the CFC watermark, making sure he understands that the document is fake. Then I place the sheet of stationery on the desk and begin to do something he isn’t likely to see very often. I take off my gloves and stuff them in a pocket of my white jumpsuit. I start taking photographs with my phone.

“You want the Nikon?” he asks, his face baffled. “A scale—”

“No,” I interrupt him.

I don’t want the thirty-five-millimeter camera or a close-up lens or a tripod or special lighting. I don’t want a labeled six-inch ruler for a scale. I have a different reason for taking these pictures. I don’t tell him anything else, but I do feel compelled to say something to Chang, who is watching all this intently from his station in the open doorway.

“I assume you have a questioned-documents lab?” I step closer to him.

“We do.” He watches me type a text message to my chief of staff, Bryce.

“Samples of my office paper that are going to be sent to your labs by FedEx priority overnight? Who will sign for them?”

“Me, I guess.”

“Okay. Sammy Chang, GBI Investigative Division.” I type as I talk. “I’m going to wager a bet that an examination will show significant differences between the CFC’s authentic paper and this.” I indicate what’s on the desk. “The lack of a watermark, for example. I’m making sure my chief of staff sends the same letterhead, the same envelope, right away, and you can compare them yourself so you’ll have irrefutable proof of what I’m describing.”

“A watermark?”

“There’s not one. Possibly a different paper that can be determined under magnification or by analyzing chemical additives. Maybe a slightly different font. I don’t know. Well, big surprise. No signal in here. I’ll resend it later.”

The message and attached photographs to Bryce are saved as a draft, and I look past Chang and notice that the glass window in the cell across from us is empty. Ellenora isn’t looking out anymore. She is silent.

“The prison obviously checks mail when it’s delivered,” I say to Chang. “In other words, someone checked this envelope when it was delivered. Scanned it or opened it in front of Kathleen, whatever the usual protocol is. Possible you can find out what else might have been inside the envelope? The postage of a dollar and seventy-six cents is more than needed for a single sheet of stationery and a large Tyvek envelope unless something else was in it. Of course, it’s possible whoever sent it overpaid.”

“So you didn’t …” he starts to say, as he glances behind him.

“I absolutely didn’t.” I shake my head no. I did not write this letter. I did not mail it or whatever else might have been in the envelope. “Where is everybody?”

“They took her to a quiet place where Dr. Dengate can question her about what she observed. Of course, her story gets more elaborate each time.” He’s referring to Ellenora. “But Officer Macon’s right here.” He says it loudly enough for Officer Macon to hear him just fine.

“Maybe you can ask him about any mail Kathleen Lawler’s gotten in the past few days.” I refrain from adding that Chang shouldn’t count on being told the truth about a letter or about anything at all that goes on in this place.

I put on fresh gloves and pick up the letter written on what looks like my own office stationery, holding it up to the light again, relieved there is no watermark and at the same time suspecting that whoever forged a letter from me doesn’t seem to know that the CFC uses an inexpensive recycled twenty-five percent rag paper with a custom watermark to protect our correspondence and documents from this very threat. While it would be possible to create a reasonably good facsimile of my letterhead or any document I might generate, it is impossible to counterfeit such a thing and get away with it unless one has access to authentic CFC paper. It occurs to me that whoever sent this letter may not care whether the police, scientists, or even I am fooled. Possibly the only purpose of this faked letter was to fool Kathleen Lawler into believing it came from me.

I fold the letter in half, the way I found it, and return it to its large envelope, puzzled by the size, again wondering if something may have been included. If so, what else did I supposedly send to Kathleen Lawler? What else did she receive that she believed was from me? Who is impersonating me, and what is the ultimate goal? I recall Tara Grimm’s oblique references yesterday to my being accessible, and then Kathleen mentioned my generosity. I found their comments perplexing, and I try to conjure up exactly what Kathleen said. Something about people like me giving a thought to people like her, about my supposedly paying attention to her, and at the time I assumed she was alluding to my coming to see her.

But what she really was saying was she appreciated my writing to her and perhaps sending her something. She would have received the forged letter before I saw her yesterday. It was postmarked in Savannah on June 26 at four-fifty-five p.m., mailed from a location, possibly a post office, with a 31401 zip code. Five days ago, a Sunday, I was home, and Lucy took Benton and me to a tequila bar that’s become a favorite hangout of hers, Lolita Cocina. The waitstaff certainly could testify to the fact that I was there that night. I could not have been a thousand miles south in Savannah at four-fifty-five p.m. and in Boston’s Back Bay by seven p.m., having dinner.

“Gonna grab a few things and find the little boys’ room.” Marino squeezes past me.

“I’ll have to take you,” I hear Officer Macon’s voice as it occurs to me that someone could claim Marino mailed the letter for me. He was down here by June 26, or at least nearby in South Carolina.

My attention returns to Chang. He is standing in the open doorway, his dark eyes watching me.

“If you’re fine with my checking a few more things, then I’ll be done in here and can show you what I’d like collected,” I say to him.

He looks at his watch. He looks behind him as Officer Macon escorts Marino to a men’s room.

“Has the van gotten here?” I ask.

“Ready when you are.”

“What about Colin?”

“I think he’s depending on you to wind it up. There’s nothing else he wants to do until we get her in.”

“Fine. I’ll bag her hands, photograph her, if that’s all right.”

“I’ve got plenty of photos.”

“I’m sure you do. But as you can tell, I like to overdo things,” I say to him.

“How about a real camera? And while you’re overdoing things, there’s also a locker box.”

“A locker box?” I look around the cell to see what he might be talking about.

“Attached to the foot of the bed.” He points. “Hidden by the covers.”

“I’d like to take a look.”

“Knock yourself out.”

“I’ll be quick so you can get in and collect a few things that need to go to the labs. I’m sure you’re ready to get out of here.”

“Not me. I love prisons. Reminds me of my first marriage.”

I resume examining what is on top of Kathleen’s desk, a thin stack of cheap white paper and plain envelopes, a see-through Bic pen, a book of self-adhesive postage stamps, and a small tablet with the cover flipped back that seems to be an address book. I don’t recognize any names, but I riffle through the pages, looking for Dawn Kincaid and Jack Fielding. I don’t find them. In fact, most of the names have Georgia addresses, and when I come across one for Triple Q Ranch outside of Atlanta, I realize how old the address book is. Triple Q was where Kathleen was a therapist when she got involved with Jack in the mid- to late seventies. More than thirty years old, at least, I think, as I continue turning pages. Whoever she’s been writing recently most likely isn’t in here, I decide. If she had a current address book, it appears to be missing.

“This should go in, too,” I tell Investigator Chang.

“Yeah, I noticed it.”

“Old.”

“Exactly.” He knows what I’m implying. “Course, she might not have any friends, anyone to write or call anymore.”

“I was told she liked to write letters.” I open the book of stamps, noting that six out of twenty are missing. “She worked in the library to fund her commissary account. And maybe got a few contributions now and then from family.” I mean from Dawn Kincaid.

“Not from family in the past five months or after she was moved in here, not in maximum security.”

“No,” I agree Kathleen wasn’t in a position to fund her account since she was moved to Bravo Pod, and certainly Dawn couldn’t have been doing it from Butler, and before that, from the Cambridge jail. “It might be interesting to see how much money is left in that account and what she might have bought of late,” I suggest.

“Good idea.”

There is a pocket dictionary and a thesaurus, and two library books of poetry, Wordsworth and Keats, and next I go to the bed. I crouch at the foot of it, moving the blanket and sheet out of the way, and I’m mindful of Kathleen Lawler’s legs draped over the side. My left shoulder brushes against her hip, and it is warm against me but not warm as in life. Minute by minute, she continues to cool.

I open the locker box, a single metal drawer filled with a hodgepodge of personal effects. Drawings and poetry, family photographs, including several of an exquisite little blond girl who got more gorgeous as she got older, and then suddenly was a temptress, overly made up, with a voluptuous body and dead eyes. I find the photograph of Jack Fielding that I gave to Kathleen yesterday, included with the others, as if he was her family. There are a few of him when he was young, perhaps ones he mailed to her in the early years, and the photographs are worn and torn at the edges, as if they have been handled frequently.

I don’t find any other diaries, but there is a booklet of fifteen-cent stamps and also stationery with a festive border of party hats and balloons, which seems a strange choice for an inmate, possibly left over from someone who used it for invitations to a birthday celebration or some other fun event. The stationery isn’t something that would be sold in a prison commissary, and I suppose it’s also possible Kathleen has had it from a time that predates her being locked up for DUI manslaughter. Maybe that’s the explanation for fifteen-cent stamps that feature a white sandy beach with a bright yellow-and-red umbrella beneath a vivid blue sky, a seagull flying overhead.

The last time I paid fifteen cents for a stamp was at least twenty years ago, so either she was saving them for a special reason or someone sent them to her, and I recall Kathleen mentioning to me the hardship of affording postage. The book originally contained twenty stamps, and the top pane of ten is missing. I pick up the thin stack of white copying paper from the desk and hold up a sheet of it to the light, finding no indentations that might have been made by writing on a sheet of paper that was on top. I try the party stationery next, holding up a sheet, tilting it in different directions as I make out indentations that are fairly deep and visible: the date, June 27,and the salutation, Dear Daughter.

“… Yes, because I’d like to ask exactly what she did,” I overhear Colin saying to Tara Grimm beyond the cell’s open door. “You were told she walked around the cage for an hour, for the entire hour. Fine. I appreciate that, but like I said, I need to hear it from the officer who was present. Did she drink water? How much? How often did she rest? Did she complain of light-headedness, muscle weakness, headache, or nausea? Did she voice any complaints at all?”

“I asked all that and have passed it on to you word for word.” Tara Grimm’s quiet, melodious voice.

“I’m sorry, but not good enough. I need you to get the officer and bring her here or take us to her. I need to talk to her myself. I’d like to see the exercise cage. It would be good if we could do this now, so we can get the body to my office without further delay….”

I make out some words but not others indented on the stationery. It won’t be possible to determine exactly what Kathleen wrote in her letter on party paper until it can be examined in better conditions than a mesh-covered window and low-output recessed cell lighting that probably is manipulated by a key switch in the control room, preventing inmates from turning off their lights to ambush a guard coming in. I catch the shadow of what is written in a graceful hand that now is familiar:

I know … a joke, right? … so I thought I’d share … from PNG … Kind of fits with everything else … trying to bribe me and win me over … How are you feeling …?

PNG as in persona non grata? A person who isn’t welcome or, in legal terms, someone, usually a foreign diplomat, who is censured by no longer being allowed to enter a certain country. I wonder to whom Kathleen was referring as I hear the papery sound of Marino walking back into the cell, and he sets down a rugged waterproof Pelican case next to the bed.

“I’m sure there’s a hand lens somewhere,” I say, as he snaps open stiff clasps. “A ten-X with LEDs, if possible. The lighting’s not so great in here.”

He finds an illuminated magnifier, which I turn on with a switch and begin to slowly move over the tops of Kathleen Lawler’s pale hands. The smooth pinkish palms, her fingers and their pads, the wrinkles of her skin, the minutiae of her prints and faint bluish veins are ten times their normal size in the lighted lens. Her unpainted nails are slightly furrowed and clean, a few whitish fibers under them that could be from her uniform or the bedsheets, and a hint of something orange under the nail of her right thumb.

“If you could locate the fine forceps and a GSR kit for me. If Colin doesn’t have one, I’m sure Investigator Chang will,” I say to Marino, as I hold up the right hand by the second knuckle of the thumb, the body cooling but still limber, as in life.

Marino shuffles equipment around inside the case and says, “Got it.”

Like a surgical assistant, he lays the tweezers in my nitrile-covered palm and then gives me a small metal stub with a circular carbon tape adhesive disk on top for lifting gunshot residue off the palmar and back surfaces of hands. I instruct him to hold the illuminated lens over the thumbnail as I use the tweezers to coax out the whitish fibers and minute flecks of a crumbled orange pasty substance, capturing them with the sticky stub, which I seal inside a small plastic evidence bag that I label and initial.

Crouching by the bed, I begin to look at the exposed flesh of the lower legs and the bare feet, holding the magnifier over an area on the top of the left foot where there is a cluster of bright red marks.

“Maybe she got bit by something,” Marino says.

“I think she might have dripped something hot on herself,” I reply. “First-degree burns that you might expect if you drip a hot liquid on your foot.”

“I don’t see how she could heat up anything in here.” He leans close to the body, looking at the area of skin I’m talking about. “Could water from the sink do that?”

“You can run it and see. But I doubt it.”

“It’s okay to run it?”

“I swabbed the sink,” Chang tells him from the open door. “You can run water if you want to see how hot it gets. Maybe she had something in here. Something electrical?” he suggests. “Possible she was electrocuted?”

“Right now a lot of things are possible,” I reply.

“A blow-dryer, a curling iron, if someone brought one in for her to use,” Change suggests. “Would be against regulations, that’s for sure. But it could account for the electrical smell.”

“Where would she have plugged anything in?” I ask, seeing no electrical outlets, only an enclosed wall mount where the TV is connected.

“Something battery-operated could have exploded.” Marino turns water on in the sink. “If enough heat builds up with anything that’s got a battery, it can explode. But if that happened, she’d have more than just those little spots on her foot. And you’re sure they aren’t insect bites?” He holds his hand under running water, waiting to see how hot it will get. “Because that might make more sense, since she was outside and then started feeling bad. I’ve had that happen. A damn yellow jacket gets into my shoe or sock and keeps stinging until it dies. Once I was going about sixty on my Harley and rode through an entire swarm of honeybees. Getting stung inside your helmet isn’t a lot of fun.”

“Some edema, some minor swelling. These look like burns, very recent ones, confined to the outer layer of skin, first-degree or possibly superficial second-degree. It would have been painful,” I describe.

“No way that did it.” Marino turns off the water. “Not hot at all. No better than lukewarm.”

“Maybe you could ask if she might have burned her foot somehow.”

He steps past Chang, disappearing outside the cell. “The Doc wants to know if she might have burned herself,” I hear him say.

“If who did?” Colin’s voice.

“If Kathleen Lawler did. Like if someone maybe gave her a cup of really hot coffee or tea and she dripped it on her foot.”

“Why?” Colin asks.

“Impossible,” Tara Grimm says. “Inmates in segregation have no access to microwave ovens. There are no microwave ovens in Bravo Pod, except in the kitchen, and she certainly had no access to the kitchen. It’s impossible she could have gotten hold of something hot enough for her to get burned.”

“Why are you asking?” Colin appears in the doorway, no longer in white Tyvek, and he’s sweating and doesn’t look happy.

“She has burns on her left foot,” I reply. “Looks like something splashed or dripped on her.”

“We’ll take a closer look when we get her to the office.” He walks out of sight again.

“Did she have her shoes and socks on when she was found?” I ask whoever is listening.

Tara Grimm appears in the doorway of the cell.

“Of course not,” she says to me. “We wouldn’t have removed her shoes and socks. She must have taken them off when she came in from exercise. We didn’t do anything to her.”

“Seems like putting on a sock, a shoe, over burns wouldn’t have felt very good,” I observe. “Was she limping during her hour of exercise? Did she mention any discomfort?”

“She complained about the heat and that she was tired.”

“I’m wondering if she burned herself after she was returned to her cell. Did she take a shower when she came in from the exercise area?”

“I’ll say it again. No, it’s not possible,” Tara says flatly, slowly, and with undisguised hostility. “There was nothing to burn herself with.”

“Any chance she might have had something electrical in her cell at some point this morning?”

“Absolutely not. There are no accessible outlets in any of the cells in Bravo Pod. She couldn’t have burned herself. You can ask fifty times, and I’ll keep saying the same thing.”

“Well, it appears she did burn herself. Her left foot,” I reply.

“I don’t know anything about burns. And she couldn’t have. You must be mistaken.” Tara stares hard at me. “There’s nothing here she could have burned herself with,” she repeats. “She probably has mosquito bites. Or stings.”

“They’re not bites or stings.”

I palpate Kathleen’s head. My purple-gloved fingers feel along the contours of her skull and down her neck, checking what I always check, using my sense of touch to discover the most subtle injury, such as a fracture or a spongy, boggy area that might indicate hemorrhage to soft tissue hidden by her hair. She is warm, and her head moves as I move my hands, her lips slightly parted as if she’s asleep and might open her eyes wide at any moment and have something to say. I feel no injuries, nothing abnormal, and I tell Marino to give me the camera and a transparent six-inch scale.

I take photographs of the body, focusing on the hand where I removed the orange substance and white fibers from underneath the nails. I photograph the burns on the bare left foot and slip brown bags over it and each hand, securing them at the ankle and wrists with rubber bands to ensure nothing is added or lost during transport to the morgue. Tara Grimm watches everything I do, no longer subtle about it. She stands in the doorway with her hands on her hips, and I take more photographs. I take more than I need. I take my time as I get angrier.