her accomplice committed a burglary, her lawyers said. The sole basis for the defense was the alleged existence of an accomplice who has never been physically described or identified, someone who borrowed a set of Lola’s clothing and afterward instructed her to dispose of it or clean it, possibly with the intention of setting her up to be charged with the crimes. Lola never took the stand, and I can see why a jury would have convened less than three hours before finding her guilty.
She was set to die this past April but was granted a stay after a botched execution resulted in a second dose of deadly chemicals and it took twice the usual time for the condemned to die. As a result, a federal judge blocked the executions of Lola Daggette and five male inmates at Coastal State Prison, asserting that he needed an opportunity to decide whether Georgia’s lethal injection procedures place the condemned at risk of a prolonged and painful death, thus constituting punishment that was cruel and unusual. Georgia executions are supposed to resume this October, with Lola Daggette’s believed to be scheduled first.
I sit in the van in the rain, baffled. If Lola Daggette didn’t commit the murders but knows who did, why would she protect the real killer all these years? Months away from her execution and she’s still not talking? Or maybe she is. Jaime Berger has been in Savannah. She’s interviewed Lola Daggette. Possibly she’s interviewed Kathleen Lawler, with whom she may have made promises of an early release, but how is any of this the jurisdiction of a Manhattan assistant DA, unless the Jordan homicides and possibly Dawn Kincaid somehow connect to a sex crime in New York City?
More to the point, if Jaime has any interest in Kathleen and her diabolical daughter, Dawn, why wouldn’t Jaime have contacted me? Apparently she just did, I’m reminded, as I look at the tiny piece of creased paper on the seat next to me, and I then think of the violent events of this past February, when I was almost killed. There was no break in Jaime’s silence. She didn’t call. She didn’t send an e-mail. She didn’t check on me. While we were never close friends, her seeming indifference was painful and surprising.
Returning the iPad to my briefcase, I retrieve my Visa card from my wallet and climb out of the van, the rain falling in big, cool drops on my bare head. I pick up the receiver of the pay phone and enter zero and the number Kathleen Lawler wrote on the kite. I swipe my credit card, and the call goes through. Jaime Berger answers on the second ring.
7
It’s Kay Scarpetta—” I start to say, and she cuts me off in her crisp, strong voice.
“You’re still staying the night, I hope.”
“Excuse me?” She must think I’m someone else. “Jaime? It’s Kay—”
“Your hotel is within walking distance of me.” Jaime Berger sounds as if she’s in a hurry, not rude but impersonal and brusque and not about to let me get in a word. “Check in first, and we’ll have a bite to eat.”
It’s obvious she doesn’t want to talk, that maybe she’s not alone. This is absurd. You don’t agree to meet someone when you don’t know what it’s about, I tell myself.
“Where?” I ask.
Jaime gives me an address that is several blocks off Savannah’s riverfront. “I’ll look forward to it,” she adds. “See you shortly.”
I call Lucy next as a man in cutoff jeans and a baseball cap climbs out of a dusty gold Suburban. He doesn’t give me a glance as he walks in my direction and slides a wallet out of his back pocket.
“I need to ask you something,” I say immediately when my niece answers, and it’s an effort not to sound frustrated. “You know it’s never my intention to pry or interfere with your personal life.”
“That’s not a question,” Lucy says.
“I hesitated to call you about this, but now I really must. It doesn’t seem to be a secret that I’m down here. Do you understand what I’m getting at?” I turn my back to the man in the baseball cap as he gets cash out of the ATM next to me.
“Maybe you could be a little less mysterious. It sounds like you’re inside a metal drum.”
“I’m using a pay phone outside a gun store. And it’s raining.”
“What the hell are you doing at a gun store? What’s wrong?”
“Jaime,” I then say. “Nothing’s wrong. That I know of.”
After a long pause, my niece asks, “What’s happened?”
I can tell by her hesitation and the tone of her voice that she isn’t going to have information for me. She doesn’t know that Jaime is in Savannah. Lucy isn’t the reason Jaime somehow knows I’m here and why and where I’m staying.
“I’m just making sure you didn’t perhaps mention to her that I was coming down to Savannah,” I reply.
“Why would I do that? What’s going on?”
“I’m not sure what’s going on. In fact, a more accurate answer is I don’t know. But you haven’t talked to her recently.”
“No.”
“Any reason Marino would have?”
“Why would he? What damn reason would he have to contact her?” Lucy says, as if it would be a massive betrayal for Marino, who used to work for Jaime, to talk to her about anything. “To have some friendly chat and divulge private information about what you’re doing? No way. Wouldn’t make sense,” she adds, and her jealousy is palpable.
It doesn’t matter how attractive and formidable my niece is, she doesn’t believe she will ever be the most important person to anyone. I used to call her my green-eyed monster because she has the greenest eyes I’ve ever seen and can be monstrously immature, insecure, and jealous. She’s not to be trifled with when she gets that way. Hacking into computers is as effortless as opening a cupboard for her, and she’s not bothered by spying or paying people back for what she perceives as crimes against her or someone she loves.
“I certainly hope he wouldn’t divulge information to her or anyone,” I reply, and I wish the man in the baseball cap would finish up at the ATM. It occurs to me he might be listening to my conversation. “Well, if Marino’s said something,” I add, “I’ll find out soon enough.”
I can hear Lucy typing on a keyboard. “We’ll just see. I’m in his e-mail. No. Doesn’t look like anything to or from her.”
Lucy is the CFC’s systems administrator and can get into any electronic communications or files on the server, including mine. She can get into virtually anything she wants, period.
“Not recently,” she then says, and I imagine her executing searches, scrolling through Marino’s e-mails. “Don’t see anything for this year.”
She’s indicating she sees no evidence that Marino has e-mailed Jaime since she and Lucy broke up. But that doesn’t mean Marino and Jaime haven’t had contact by phone or some other means. He’s not naive. He knows Lucy can look at anything on the CFC computer. He also knows that even if she didn’t have legal access, she’d look anyway, if that’s what she feels like doing. If Marino’s been in contact with Jaime and hasn’t mentioned it to me, it’s going to bother me considerably.
“Would you mind asking him about it?” I say to Lucy as I rub my temples, my head throbbing.
She does mind. I can hear her resistance when she says, “Sure. I can talk to him, but he’s still on vacation.”
“Then interrupt his fishing trip, please.”
I hang up as the man in the baseball cap disappears inside the gun store, and I decide he wasn’t paying attention to me, that I’m of no interest and am acting slightly paranoid. I follow the sidewalk past the hardware store, noticing what appears to be the same black Mercedes wagon with the Navy Diver bumper sticker parked in front of Monck’s Pharmacy. Small and overstocked, with no other customers in sight, it is reminiscent of a country store with aisles of home-care supplies such as walking aids, vascular stockings, and seat-lift chairs. Friendly signs posted everywhere promise customized medications and same-day delivery
