Blow Fly (Kay Scarpetta #12)(43)
"Shit," she whispers as she drives south on Main Street, leaving the Sno Depot behind in her emotional wake. "I'm so sorry, Buddy-Boy, my Buddy-Boy." What a decision she faces: choosing between doing nothing about women being murdered and doing nothing about her son.
34
"MON PETIT AGNEAU PRIS?!"
My little treasured lamb, Scarpetta translates as her heart freezes at the sight of Chandonne's handwriting and she feels his presence in his letter to her.
She has been sitting in the same position for so long-in the straight-backed wooden chair by her bedrooms open door-that her lower back aches and the small glass table is sweating from the humid sea air. As she remembers to breathe, she realizes that every muscle is tense, her entire body like a clenched fist.
The letter, the letter, the letter.
It stuns her that his handwriting is beautiful, a practiced calligraphy penned in black ink, not a single word crossed through, not a single mistake that she can see at a glance. He must have spent a lot of time writing this letter to her, as if it was a loving endeavor, and the idea of that just adds to the horror. He thinks of her. He is telling her so by the very act of his artistic penmanship.
She reads his words:
Do you know about the Red Stick yet and that you must go there?
But not until you come to see me first. In the Longhorn State, as they say!
You see, I direct you.
You have no will of your own. You may think you do, but I am the current running through your body, every impulse coming from me. I am inside you. Feel it!
Do you remember that night? You eagerly opened your door and then attacked me because you could not face your longing for me. I have forgiven you for taking my eyes, but you could not take my soul. It follows you constantly. If you try, you can touch it.
Maintenant! Maintenant! It is time. The Red Stick awaits you.
You must come to me first or it will be too late to hear my stories.
Only for you will I tell them.
I know what you want, mon petit agneau pris?! I have what you want.
In two weeks I will be dead and have nothing to say. Ha!
Will you release me to the ecstasy?
Or will I release you? Sinking my teeth into your soft, round loveliness.
If you do not find me, I will find you.
Love and rapture,
Jean-Baptiste
In the old-style bathroom with its plain white toilet, its plain plastic shower curtain around the plain white tub, its mildew-stained white walls, Scarpetta vomits. She drinks a glass of water from the tap and returns to the bedroom, to the table, to that blighted piece of paper, which she suspects will offer her no evidence. He is too clever to leave evidence.
She sits in the chair, trying to fight the images of the filthy beast flying through her front door like an evil spirit crackling out of hell. Scarcely can she recall in detail the pursuit, that terrible pursuit around her living room, as he swung an iron hammer, the same iron hammer he had used before to shatter women's heads and bodies to battered flesh and splintered bone, especially their faces.
At the time she was the medical examiner for the Richmond murders, it never occurred to her that she might be the next one. Since that near-death experience, she struggles to will away her imagined destruction of her own body and face. He would not have raped her. He isn't capable of rape. Jean-Baptiste's revenge on the world is to cause death and disfigurement, to re-create others in his own image. He is the ultimate embodiment of self-hate.
If it is true that she saved her life by permanently blinding him, then he should be so lucky as to be spared his own reflection in the polished metal mirror he must look at every day inside his death row cell.
Scarpetta goes to a hallway closet and moves the vacuum cleaner out of the way. She rolls out a suitcase.
35
IF YOU NEED ANYTHING, CALL me on my cell phone," Nic says, standing in the front doorway of her father's white brick house in the Old Garden District, where homes are large and spreading canopies of magnolias and live oaks keep much of the city's old establishment in the shade.
Even on the brightest days, Nic finds her childhood home dark and foreboding.
"Why, you know I'm not calling that newfangled little phone of yours," her father says, winking at her. "Even if you don't make the call, you have to pay for it, isn't that right? Or does unlimited mileage, I mean minutes, apply?"
"What?" Nic frowns, then laughs. "Never mind. My new number's taped to the refrigerator, whether you decide to call it or not. If I don't call back right away, you know it's because I'm busy. Now you be good, Buddy-Boy. You're my big man, right?"
Her five-year-old son peeks out from behind his grandfather and makes a face.
"Got it!" Nic pretends to snatch his nose and tries the old trick of sticking her thumb up between two fingers. "Do you want your nose back or not?"
Buddy looks like the proverbial towheaded choir boy, dressed in overalls that are an inch too short. He touches his nose and sticks out his tongue.
"You keep sticking out that tongue of yours and one day it won't fit in your mouth anymore," his grandfather warns him.
"Shhhh," Nic says. "Don't be saying things like that, Papa. He'll believe you."
She peeks around him and grabs her son. "Gotcha!" She lifts him up and covers his face with kisses. "Looks like it's time to go shopping, my big man. You're outgrowing your clothes again. How come you keep doing that, huh?"