The Last Precinct

Chapter 19

AARON LEADS ME BACK DOWN THE STAIRS AND gives me a slight smile as he opens the front door. The trooper waves at me as I drive through the gates. There is a sense of closure, of finality as I wind through Capitol Square, the mansion disappearing in my rearview mirror. I have left something. I have just walked away from my life as I have known it, and I have discovered a wrinkle of distrust for a man I have always admired so much. No, I don't think Mitchell has done anything wrong. But I know he hasn't been forthright with me, not totally. He is directly responsible for Chan-donne's leaving our jurisdiction, and the reason is politics, not justice. I sense it. I am sure of it. Mike Mitchell is not the prosecutor anymore. He is the governor. Why should I be surprised? What the hell did I expect?

Downtown seems unfriendly and foreign as I follow 8th Street to get on the expressway. I watch the faces of people driving past and marvel that virtually none of them is present in the moment they occupy. They drive and look in the mirror and reach for something on the seat or fool with the radio or

talk on the phone or to their passengers. They don't notice the

stranger watching them. I see faces so clearly that I can determine if they are handsome or pretty or have scars from acne or good teeth. I realize that at least one big difference between killers and their victims is killers are present. They live entirely in the moment, taking in their surroundings, intensely aware of every detail and how it might benefit or compromise them. They watch strangers. They fix on a face and decide to follow the person home. I wonder if this is how the two young men, my latest patients, were selected. I wonder what sort of predator I am dealing with here. I wonder what the governor's real agenda is for wanting to see me tonight and why he and the first lady questioned me about the James City County case. Something is going on. Something bad.

I call my home phone and have seven messages. Three of them are from Lucy. She doesn't tell me what she wants, only that she is trying to reach me. I try her on her mobile phone and when she answers, I feel tension. I sense she is not alone. "Is everything all right?" I ask her.

She hesitates. "Aunt Kay, I'd like to bring Teun by."

"McGovern's in Richmond?" I say in surprise.

"We can be at Anna's house in about fifteen minutes," Lucy tells me.

Signals are coming fast and strong. I can't identify what it is that taps my subconscious, trying to make me recognize a very important truth. What is it, damn it? I am so unsettled I am jumpy and confused. A motorist behind me blares his horn and my heart jerks. I gasp. I realize the light has turned green. The moon is incomplete and shrouded by clouds, the James River a plain of darkness below the Huguenot Bridge as I pass into the south side of the city. I park in front of Anna's house behind Lucy's Suburban, and instantly Anna's front door opens. It appears that Lucy and McGovern have arrived only a moment before me. Both of them and Anna are in the foyer beneath the sparkling crystal chandelier. McGovern's eyes meet mine and she smiles reassuringly, as if to let me know I will be all right. She has cut her hair short and is still a very attractive woman, slender and boyish in black leggings and a long leather jacket. We hug and I am reminded she is firm and in charge, but gentle. I am glad to see her, immensely glad.

"Come in, come in," Anna says. "Merry Christmas Eve, almost. Isn't this fun!" But her expression is anything but fun.

Her face is drawn, her eyes bruised by worry and fatigue. She catches me staring and tries to smile. All of us head toward the kitchen at the same time. Anna is asking about drinks and snacks. Has everyone eaten? Do Lucy and McGovern want to stay here for the night? No one should be in a hotel on Christmas Eve_that is criminal. On and on she talks, and her hands are unsteady as she pulls out bottles from a cabinet, lining up whiskies and liquors. The signals are firing so rapidly now I barely hear what anyone is saying. Then, the moment of recognition thunders in my psyche. I get it. The truth runs through me in a jolting current as Anna pours me a Scotch.

I told Berger I have no deep, dark secrets. What I meant was I have always been private. I don't tell people anything that could be used against me. I am by nature cautious. But lately I have talked to Anna. We have spent hours exploring the deepest crevices of my life. I have told her things I am not sure I even knew, and I have never paid her for these sessions. They are not protected by doctor-patient confidentiality. Rocky Caggiano could subpoena Anna, and as I look at her now, I assume this is what has occurred. I take the tumbler of Scotch from her, our eyes locked.

"Something's happened," I say.

She glances away. I play out the scenario. Berger will get the subpoena quashed. It is ridiculous. Caggiano is harassing me, trying to intimidate me, plain and simple, and it won't work. Fuck him. I have everything figured out and resolved, just that fast, because I am a pro at ducking any truth that directly impacts my inner self, my well being, my feelings. "Tell me, Anna," I say.

Silence fills the kitchen. Lucy and McGovern have stopped talking. Lucy comes over and hugs me. "We're here for you," she says.

"You bet." McGovern gives me a thumbs up.

Their efforts to reassure me leave a wake of foreboding as

they disappear into the living room. Anna looks at me and it is

the first time I have ever seen even a hint of tears in my stoical, Austrian friend. "I have done a terrible thing, Kay." She clears her throat and woodenly fills another tumbler with ice from the refrigerator icemaker. She drops an ice cube on the floor and it slides out of reach behind the trash can. "This sheriff's deputy. I could not believe it when the buzzer sounded at my gate this morning. And here is a deputy with a subpoena. To do this to me at home is bad enough. Always I get subpoenas at my office. That is not so unusual, I do get called in as an expert witness from time to time, as you know. I cannot believe he did this to me. I trusted him."

Doubt. Denial quakes. The first breath of fear touches my central nervous system. "Who did this to you?" I say. "Rocky?"

"Who?" She looks bewildered.

"Oh God," I mutter. "Oh God." I lean against the counter-top. This isn't about Chandonne. It can't be. If Caggiano didn't subpoena Anna, then that leaves only one other possibility, and it isn't Berger. Of course, the prosecution would have no reason to talk to Anna. I think of the odd phone call from my bank, the message from AT amp;T and of Righter's behavior and the look on his face when he saw me in Marino's truck last Saturday night. I play through the governor's sudden need to see me, his evasiveness, even Marino's sour moods and the way he has been avoiding me, and I take another look at Jack's sudden loss of hair and fears about being the chief. Everything slips into place and forms an unbelievable composite. I am in trouble. Dear God, I am in serious trouble. My hands begin to shake.

Anna is rambling, stuttering, tripping over her words as if she has involuntarily resorted to what she learned first in life, which is not English. She struggles. She confirms what I now am forced to suspect. Anna has been subpoenaed by a special grand jury. A Richmond special grand jury is investigating me to see if there is sufficient evidence to indict me in the murder of Diane Bray. Anna has been used, she says. She has been set up.

"Who set you up? Righter? Buford's behind this?' I ask.

Anna nods affirmatively. "I never will forgive him. I told him," she swears.

We go into the living room, where I reach for a cordless phone on an elegant yew wood stand. "You realize, you don't have to be telling me all this, Anna." I try Marino's home number. I will myself to be remarkably calm. "I'm sure Buford wouldn't appreciate it. So maybe you shouldn't talk to me."

"I do not care what I should or should not do. The moment I got the subpoena, Buford called and explained what he needed from me. I called Lucy right away." Anna continues speaking in fractured English as she stares blankly at McGov-ern. It seems to occur to Anna that she has no idea who Mc-Govern is or why she is in her house.

"What time did the deputy show up at your house with the subpoena?" I ask Anna. Marino's phone cuts straight into his voice mail. "Dammit," I mutter. He is on the line. I leave him the message to call me. It is urgent.

"About ten o'clock this morning," Anna answers my question.

"Interesting," I reply. "About the same time Chandonne was transported out of here to New York. And then Bray's memorial service and when I first met Berger."

"In your mind, how does all of 'his connect?" McGovern is listening carefully with her astute, experienced eyes fastened on me. She was one of ATF's most gifted certified fire investigators before she got promoted to supervision by the very people who would eventually cause her to quit.

"I'm not sure," I reply. "Except Berger was interested in seeing who showed up at Bray's service. I'm now wondering if she wanted to see if I would, and if that might indicate she knows I'm being investigated and is checking me out on her own." Anna's phone rings. "Zenner residence," I answer.

"What's going on?" Marino says loudly over his television.

"I'm just beginning to figure that out," I reply.

He knows instantly by my tone not to ask questions but to get in his truck and drive over here right now. It is time for

truth. No games and no secrets, I tell him. We wait for Mm in

front of the fire in Anna's living room, where a tree is wrapped in white lights and garlands and decorated with glass animals and wooden fruit, with presents underneath. I am silently go- ing through every word I have said to Anna, trying to remember what she surely will when Righter asks her under oath about me in front of jurors who have been seated and sworn to decide if I should go on trial for murder. My heart is seized by frigid fingers of raw fear, yet I sound reasonable when I speak. I am outwardly steady as Anna goes into detail about how she has been set up. It began when Righter contacted her on Tuesday, December 14. She spends a good fifteen minutes explaining that Righter called as a. friend, a concerned friend. People were talking about me. He was hearing things that he felt he must check out and he knew Anna and I are close.

"This isn't making any sense," Lucy says. "Diane Bray hadn't even been murdered yet. Why was Righter talking to Anna that early on?"

"I don't get it," McGovern agrees. "Something really stinks about this."

She and Lucy sit on the floor in front of the fire. I am in my usual rocking chair and Anna is on the ottoman, sitting rigidly.

"When Righter called on the fourteenth, what exactly did he say to you?" I ask Anna. "How did he introduce the conversation?"

She meets my eyes. "There was concern about your mental health. That is what he said right off."

I simply nod. I am not offended. Although it is true I wobbled badly after Benton was murdered, I have never been mentally ill. I am secure in my sanity and my ability to reason and think. I have been guilty only of running from pain. "I know I didn't handle Benton's death well," I admit.

"How do you handle something like that well?" Lucy replies.

"No, no. That is not what Buford meant," Anna says. "He wasn't calling about how you've managed grief, Kay. He was calling about Diane Bray, about your relationship with her."

"What relationship?" I instantly wonder if Bray called

Righter_yet one more trap she set for me. "I hardly knew her."

Anna's eyes are steady on mine, the shadow from the fire wavering on her face. I am startled again by how old she looks, as if she has aged ten years in a day. "You'd had a series of confrontations with her. You told me so," she replies.

"Instigated by her," I am quick to say. "We didn't have a personal relationship. Not even a social one."

"I think when you go to war against someone, that is personal. Even people who hate each other have a personal relationship, if you see what I am saying. Certainly, she had gotten very personal with you, Kay. Starting rumors. Lying about you. Creating a bogus medical column on the Internet that made it appear you were the one writing it, making a fool out of you and getting you into trouble with the secretary of public safety, even with the governor."

"I was just with the governor. I don't feel I'm in trouble with him at all." I say this and at the same time find it curious. If Mitchell knows I am being investigated by a special grand jury, and I know he must, then why didn't he accept my resignation and thank God to be rid of me and my messy life?

"She also put Marino's career in jeopardy because he is your sidekick," Anna goes on.

The only thought that flashes is Marino would not appreciate being called my sidekick. As if on cue, the intercom blares, announcing that he is at the front gates.

"Sabotaging your career, in other words." Anna gets up. "Correct? Isn't that what you have told me?" She pushes a button on a console on the wall, suddenly energized. Anger burns off her depression. "Yes? Who is it?" she snaps into the speaker.

"Me, baby." The rude sounds of Marino and his truck fill the living room.

"Oh, he calls me baby again I will kill him." Anna throws her hands up in the air.

She goes to the door, and then Marino is walking into the living room. He left his house in such a hurry he didn't bother with a coat, only a gray sweat suit and tennis shoes. He is

dumbstruck when he sees McGovern sitting by the fire, looking up at him from her Indian-style position on the floor.

"Well, I'll be damned," Marino says. "Look what the cat drug in."

"Great to see you, too, Marino," McGovern replies.

"Someone want to tell me what the hell's going on?" He moves a wing chair closer to the fire and sits, going from one face to the other, trying to read the situation, acting obtuse, as if he doesn't already know. I believe he knows. Oh yes, now it is clear why he has been acting so strange.

We get into it. Anna continues to unravel what happened in the days preceding Jaime Berger's coming to Richmond. Berger continues to dominate, as if she is sitting in our midst. I don't trust her. And at the same time, I feel my life may very well be in her hands. I try to remember where I was on December 14, moving backward from today, December 23, until I land on that Tuesday. I was in Lyon, France, at Interpol's headquarters, where I met Jay Talley for the first time. I run through that encounter, reconstructing the two of us alone at a table in Interpol's cafeteria. Marino took an instant dislike to Jay and stalked off. During lunch, I told Jay about Diane Bray, about my problems with her and that she was doing all she could to persecute Marino, including throwing him back into uniform and on midnight shift. What was it Jay called her? Toxic waste in tight clothes. Apparently, the two of them had run-ins when she was with the D.C. police and he was briefly assigned to ATF headquarters. He seemed to know all about her. Can it be coincidence that the very day I discussed her with him, Righter called Anna and questioned her about my relationship with Bray and made implications about my mental health?

"I wasn't going to tell you this," Anna continues in a hard voice. "I shouldn't tell you this, but now that I am clearly going to be used against you…"

"What do you mean, used against her?" Marino butts in.

"Originally, I was hoping to guide you, to help allay these allegations about your mental health," Anna says to me. "I did not believe it. And if I had any doubt, and maybe there was

just a slight doubt because I had not seen you in so long, then

I wanted to talk to you anyway, out of concern. You are my friend. Buford assured me that anything I could find out was not something he planned to do anything with. Our conversa- tions were supposed to be private, his and mine. He said nothing, absolutely nothing, about accusing you."

"Righter?" Marino scowls. "He ask you to be some kind of fucking snitch?"

Anna shakes her head. "A guide." She uses that word again.

"That fucking figures. The loser." Marino's anger springs forth.

"He had to know if Kay was mentally stable. Certainly you can see why he needs to know that if she was going to be his star witness. I always thought this was about your being a star witness, not a suspect!"

"Suspect my ass." Marino scowls. He makes no pretenses now. He knows exactly what is going on.

"Marino, I know you're not supposed to tell me I'm being investigated by a special grand jury for the murder of Diane Bray," I say to him, evenly. "But out of curiosity, I'm wondering, how long have you known? For example, when you ushered me out of my house on Saturday night, you knew then, didn't you? That's why you watched me like a hawk inside my own house. So I didn't do something sneaky like dispose of evidence, or God knows what? That's why you wouldn't let me drive my car, right? Because you guys needed to see if there might be evidence in it, maybe Diane Bray's blood? Fibers? Hair? Something that would put me at her house the night she was killed?" My tone is cool but searing.

"Jesus fucking Christ!" Marino erupts. "I know you didn't do nothing. Righter's the biggest fuckhead, and I told him that. I've been telling him that every day. What'd you ever do to him, huh? You want to tell me why the hell he's doing this to you?"

"You know what?" I stare hard at him. "I'm not going to hear one more time that everything is my fault. I didn't do a damn thing to Righter. I don't know what's gotten him on this ridiculous kick unless it's Jay planting stuff."

"And I guess that ain't your fault, either. Sleeping with him."

"He's not doing this because I slept with him," I fire back.

"If he's doing anything, it's because I only slept with him once."

McGovern is frowning, leaning against the hearth. She says, "Dear oP Jay. Mister Squeaky Clean, pretty boy. Funny, I've never had a good feeling about him."

"I told Buford that you are definitely not mentally ill." Anna sets her jaw squarely and looks at me fiercely. "He wanted to know if I thought you were competent to assist him, if I think you are stable. See, he lied. This was supposed to be about our assisting him in the trial of Chandonne. I never imagined. I cannot believe Buford would slither out from under a rock and subpoena me like this." She places a hand on her breast as if her heart is bothering her and briefly shuts her eyes.

"Are you all right, Anna?" I start to get up.

She shakes her head from side to side. "I will never be all right again. I would never have talked to you, Kay, if I thought such a thing would happen."

"Did you tape her, take notes?" McGovern asks.

"Of course not."

"Good."

"But if I am asked…" she starts to say.

"I understand," I reply. "Anna, I understand. What's done is done." It is now that I must tell Marino the other news. While we are on such dreadful subjects, he may as well hear it all. "Your son, Rocky," I say his name and nothing more. Maybe I am trying to see if Marino already knows this, too.

He turns to stone. "What about him?"

"It appears he is representing Chandonne," I reply.

Marino's face darkens to a deep, scary red. For a moment, no one speaks. He doesn't know. Then Marino says in a flat, hard tone, "He would do something like that. Probably has something to do with what's happening to you, too, if that's possible. Funny thing about it, I halfway wondered if he had

something to do with Chandonne's ending up here."

"Why would you wonder that?" McGovern asks in amazement.

"He's a mob boy, that's why. Probably knows Big Papa Chandonne over there in Paris and would like nothing better than causing me trouble here."

"I think it's time you talk about Rocky," I tell him.

"You got any bourbon in this house?" Marino asks Anna.

She gets up and leaves the room.

"Aunt Kay, you can't stay here anymore," Lucy says to me in a quiet, urgent voice.

"You can't talk to her anymore, Kay," McGovern adds.

I don't answer. Of course, they are right. Now, on top of it all, I have lost my friend.

"So, did you tell her anything?" Marino says to me in an accusing tone that has become all too familiar.

"I told her the world was better off without Diane Bray," I reply. "In other words, I basically said I'm glad she's dead."

"So's everybody who knew her," Marino retorts. "And I'll be glad to tell the fucking special grand jury that."

"Not a helpful statement, but doesn't mean you murdered anybody," McGovern says to me.

"Not helpful is right," Marino mutters. "Damn, I hope Anna don't tell Righter you're glad Bray was whacked," he says to me.

"This is so absurd," is my response.

"Well," Marino replies, "yes and no, Doc."

"You don't have to talk to me about this," I tell him. "Don't put yourself in a bad spot, Marino."

"Oh fuck it!" He waves me off. "I know you didn't kill that damn bitch. But you gotta look at it from the other side. You had problems with her. She was trying to get you fired. You've been acting a little hinky ever since Benton died, or at least that's what people have been saying, right? You have a confrontation with Bray in a parking lot. The theory is you was jealous of this new big-shot police lady. She was making you look bad and complaining about you. So you killed her and disguised it to look like it was the same guy who whacked Kim Luong, and who better to do that than you, right? Who more capable of the perfect murder than you, right? And you had access_first dibs on all the evidence. You could have beaten her to death and planted Wolfman's hairs on her body, even switched swabs so they come up with his DNA. And it don't look good that you took that evidence from the Paris morgue and brought it over here, either. Or took that water sample. Righter thinks you're a nut case, I hate to tell you. And I gotta add that he don't like you personally and never has because he's got the balls of a soprano and don't like powerful women. He don't even like Anna, if the truth be known. The Berger thing's kind of the best revenge. He really hates her."

Silence.

"I wonder if they're going to subpoena me," Lucy says.