Blow Fly (Kay Scarpetta #12)(106)
From the briefcase he removes two pistols: a pocket-friendly.40-cal-iber Glock 27, capacity ten rounds, including one in the chamber. The ammunition is Hydra-Shok: 135-grain, center-post hollow-point with a notched jacket, velocity 1,190 feet per second, high-energy and with eff?cient stopping power, punches into the enemy and splays like a razor-sharp flower.
His second and most important pistol is the P 226 SL Sig Sauer nine-millimeter, capacity sixteen rounds, including one in the chamber. The ammunition is also Hydra-Shok: 124-grain, center-post hollow-point with notched jacket, velocity 1,120 feet per second, deep penetration and stopping power.
It is conceivable he can carry the three guns at once. He's done it before, the.357 Smith & Wesson in his ankle holster, the.40-caliber Glock in a shoulder holster, and the nine-millimeter Sig Sauer in the waistband at the small of his back.
Extra magazines for the pistols and extra cartridges for the.357 magnum go in a designer leather butt pack. Benton dresses in a loose-fitting London Fog jacket and baggy jeans that are slightly too long, a cap, tinted glasses and the rubber-soled Prada shoes. He could be a tourist. He could work in Baton Rouge and barely merit notice in this city of transients, where hundreds of professors, some of them eccentric, and thousands of oblivious students and preoccupied visiting scholars of all ages and nationalities abound. He could be straight. He could be gay. He could be both.
111
THE NEXT MORNING, muddy, sluggish water carries Scarpetta's eye to a riverboat casino, to the USS Kidd battleship and on to the distant Old Mississippi Bridge, then back to Dr. Sam Lanier.
In the few minutes she spent with him last night when she finally arrived at his door and he quickly escorted her to his guest house in back without walking her through the main house because he didn't want to awaken his wife, she decided she liked him. She worries that she shouldn't.
"In Charlotte Dard's case," she says, "how involved did you and your office get with the family in terms of trying to counsel or question them?"
"Not as much as I would have liked. I tried." The light in his eyes dims, and his mouth tightens. "I did talk to the sister, Mrs. Guidon. Briefly. She's an odd one. Anyway, orientation time. Let me show you where you are."
His abrupt change of subject strikes her as paranoid, as if he worries that someone might be listening. Swiveling around in his chair, he points west out the window.
"People are always jumping from the Old Mississippi Bridge. Can't tell you how many times I've fished bodies out of the river because some poor soul takes a leap-takes his time, too, while the police try to talk him down and people in their cars start yelling 'Go ahead and jump!' because he's slowing up traffic. Can you believe that?
"Now, down there straight ahead, I had a guy dressed in a shower curtain with an AK-47, tried to get on the USS Kidd to kill all the Russians. He got intercepted," he drolly adds. "Death and mental health are part of the same department, and we do all the pickups-commit about three thousand cases a year."
"And that works how, exactly?" Scarpetta inquires. "A family member requests an order of protective custody?"
"Almost always. But the police can request it. And if the coroner-in this case, me-believes the person is gravely disabled and acutely dangerous to himself or others and is unwilling or unable to seek medical attention, deputies are sent in."
"The coroner is elected. It helps if he's on good terms with the mayor, the police, the sheriff, LSU, Southern University, the district attorney, judges, the U.S. Attorney, not to mention influential members of the community." She pauses. "People in power can certainly influence the public on how to cast its votes. So the police recommend someone should be removed to a psychiatric hospital, and the local coroner agrees. In my world, that's called a conflict of interest."
"It's worse than that. The coroner also determines competency to stand trial."
"So you oversee the autopsy of a murder victim, determine cause and manner of death, then, if the alleged killer is caught, you decide if he's competent to stand trial."
"Do the DNA swab in the exam room. Then sits right here in my office, a cop on either side, attorney present. And I interview him. Or her."
"Dr. Lanier, you have the most bizarre coroner system I've ever heard of, and it doesn't sound to me as if you have any protection, should the powers that be decide they can't control you."
"Welcome to Louisiana. And if the powers that be try to tell me how to do my job, I tell them to kiss my ass."
"And your crime rate? I know it's bad."
"Worse than bad. Terrible," he replies. "By far, Baton Rouge has the highest rate of unsolved homicides in the entire country."
"Why?"
"Clearly, Baton Rouge is a very violent city. I'm not sure why."
"And the police?"
"Listen, I have a lot of respect for street cops. Most of them try very hard. But then you've got the people in charge who squash the good guys and encourage the *s. Politics." His chair creaks as he leans back in it. "We've got a serial murderer running around down here. Have probably had more than one running around down here over the decades." He shrugs in a manner that is anything but easygoing or accepting. "Politics. How many times do I need to say the word?"
"Organized crime?"