Blow Fly (Kay Scarpetta #12)(94)
"It's always true."
"Be careful. Those boys in Baton Rouge don't like people like you. Especially women like you."
"They don't even know me."
"They don't need to know you to hate your guts. They want credit. Now, when I was coming along, credit meant you could buy your groceries at the nearby general store and pay later when you were able. No one went hungry. These days, credit means plain selfishness. Those good ol' boys in Baton Rouge want credit, credit, credit."
"Tell me about it." Nic butters another biscuit. "Every time you cook, I eat too much."
"People who want credit will lie, cheat and steal," her father reminds her.
"While women keep dying." Nic loses her appetite and sets the biscuit back on her plate. "Who's worse? The man doing it or these men who want credit and don't care about the victims or anything else?"
"Two wrongs never make a right, Nic," he says. "I'm glad you don't work down there. I'd be worried about your safety a lot more than I am now. And not because of this madman on the loose, but because of who your colleagues would be."
She looks around at the simple kitchen of her childhood. Nothing in the house has been upgraded or remodeled since her mother died. The stove is electric, white with four burners. The refrigerator is white; so are the countertops. Her mother had a French country theme in mind, was going to find old furniture and blue-and-white curtains, maybe some interesting tiles for the walls. But she never got a chance. So the kitchen is white, just plain white. If any of the appliances quit for good, she's confident her father would refuse to get rid of them. He'd eat takeout food every night, if necessary. It tortures Nic that her father can't disengage from the past. Silent grieving and anger hold him hostage.
Nic pushes back her chair. She kisses the top of her father's head, and her eyes fill with tears.
"I love you, Papa. Take good care of Buddy. I promise one of these days I'll be a good mother."
"You're a good enough mother." He looks at her from his seat at the table as he idly picks at eggs. "It's not how much time but what that time's like."
Nic thinks of her mother. Her time was short, but every minute of it was good. That's the way it seems now.
"Now you're crying," her father says. "You going to tell me what on Earth is going on with you, Nic?"
"I don't know, I don't know. I'll be minding my own business and suddenly burst into tears. I think it's about Mama, like I told you. All that's going on down here has reminded me, or just opened some trapdoor in my mind. A door I didn't even know was there that's leading into a dark place I'm scared to death of, Papa. Please turn on the light for me. Please."
He slowly gets up from the table, knowing what she means. He sighs.
"Don't do this to yourself, Nic," he grimly says. "I already know what it did to me. I stopped my life. You know I did. When I came home that early evening and saw..." He clears his throat, fighting back tears. "I felt something move inside me, as if I pulled a muscle in my heart. Why would you want those images?"
"Because they're the truth. And maybe the images I have are worse because I can't see the real ones."
He nods and sighs again. "Go up in the attic. Under all those rugs piled in a corner, there's a small blue suitcase. Belonged to her. She got it with Green Stamps."
"I remember," Nic whispers, envisioning her mother carrying the blue suitcase out the door one day when she was headed to Nashville to visit her aunt after she'd had eye surgery.
"The lock code was never set because she said she'd never remember it. Zero-zero-zero, just like brand new." He clears his throat again, staring off. "What you want's in there. Some things I'm not supposed to have, but I was like you. Just had to know. And I taught the daughter of the police chief, so I got a few favors, I'm ashamed to admit it. Because I promised the chief I'd give her a better grade than she deserved and a recommendation for college that was just one big fat lie.
"My punishment is I got what I asked for," he continues. "Just don't bring that stuff down here. I don't ever want to see it again."
99
ASSISTANT PIO JAYNE GITTLEMAN apologizes profusely for making Scarpetta wait.
For fifteen minutes, Scarpetta has stood outside the front door, right below the sign that reads Allan B. Polunsky Unit, the bright sun making her perspire. She feels dirty and disheveled from travel. Her patience is thin, despite her resolve to contain her emotions completely. More than anything right now, she wants to get this over with at last, at long last.
"The media's calling nonstop because we've got an execution tonight," Miss Gittleman explains.
She hands Scarpetta a visitor's tag, which she clamps to the lapel of the same suit she's worn on different planes since she left Florida. The pantsuit is black, and at least she ironed it inside her room at New York's Melrose Hotel last night after leaving her niece. Lucy does not know where Scarpetta is right now. If Scarpetta had mentioned it, Lucy would have tried to stop her or insisted on going with her. Taking a chance, Scarpetta headed west without an appointment, having no choice but to call the Polunsky Unit when she landed in Houston. Her confidence that Chandonne would see her was rewarded by the additional unpleasantry of learning she is on his visitors list. At least his sick joke proved useful.