The Last Precinct - Cornwell Patricia - Страница 94

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She is right. It certainly would. Even Berger might have a hard time making a jury believe that Chandonne killed Susan if his DNA doesn't match the DNA of the seminal fluid recovered from her body.

"I'll get Marino to submit the stamps and any latent prints to the Richmond labs," she then says. "And Kay, I need to ask you not to look at anything in that file unless it's witnessed; don't look any further. That's why it's best you don't submit any evidence yourself."

"I understand." Another reminder that I am under suspicion for murder.

"For your own protection," she adds.

"Ms. Berger, if you knew about the letters, about what was happening to Benton, then what did you think when he was murdered?"

"Aside from the obvious shock and grief? That he was killed by whoever was harassing him. Yes, first thing that came to mind. However, when it became clear who his killers were and then they were gunned down, there didn't seem to be anything to pursue further."

"And if Carrie Grethen wrote those harassing letters, she wrote the worst one, it seems, on the very day Susan was killed."

Silence.

"I think we must consider there could be a connection." I am firm on this point. "Susan may have been Chandonne's first victim in this country, and as Benton started poking around he might have started getting too close to other things that point to the cartel. Carrie was alive and in New York when Chandonne came there and killed Susan."

"And maybe Benton was a hit?" Berger sounds doubtful.

"More than maybe," I reply. "I knew Benton and the way he thought. For starters, why was he carrying the Tlip file in his briefcase_why did he take it with him to Philadelphia if he didn't have some reason to think that the weird stuff in it was connected to what Carrie and her accomplice were doing? Balling people and cutting their faces off. Making them ugly. And the notes Benton was getting made it clear he was going to be made ugly, and he sure as hell was…"

"I need a copy of that file," Berger dismisses me. It is obvious by her tone that she suddenly wants to get off the phone. "I've got a fax machine here in the house." She gives me the number.

I GO INTO ANNA'S STUDY AND SPEND THE NEXT HALF hour photocopying everything in the Tlip file because I can't feed laminated documents into the fax machine. Marino finished the burgundy and is asleep on the couch again when I return to the living room, where Lucy and McGovern sit in front of the fire talking, continuing to paint scenarios that are only getting wilder the more they are influenced by alcohol. Christmas speeds away from us. We finally get around to opening gifts at half past ten, and Marino groggily plays Santa, handing out boxes and trying to be festive. But his mood has gotten only darker and any attempts at humor have a bite. At eleven o'clock, Anna's phone rings. It is Berger.

"Quid pro quo?" she launches in, referring to the letter dated December 5, 1997. "How many non-legal-minded people use that term? Just a crazy idea, but wonder if there's a way we could get hold of Rocky Caggiano's DNA. May as well turn over every stone and not be so quick to assume Carrie wrote these letters. Maybe she did. But maybe she didn't."

I can't concentrate as I return to Christmas gifts beneath the tree. I try to smile and act abundantly thankful, but I don't fool anyone. Lucy gives me a stainless-steel Breitling watch called a B52 while Marino's gift to me is a coupon for a year of firewood that he will personally deliver and stack. Lucy loves the Whirly-Girls necklace I had made for her and Marino loves the leather jacket from Lucy and me. Anna would be pleased with an art glass vase I found for her, but she is somewhere on 1-95, of course. Everybody goes through the motions quickly because questions hang heavy in the air. While we gather up rumpled ribbons and torn paper, I motion to Marino that I need a private word with him. We sit in the kitchen. He has been in some stage of drunkenness all day, and I can tell that he is probably getting drunk on a regular basis. There is a reason for it.

"You can't keep drinking like this," I say to him as I pour each of us a glass of water. "It doesn't help anything."

"Never has, never will." He rubs his face. "And that don't seem to make a damn difference when I'm feeling like shit. Right now, everything's shit." His bleary, bloodshot eyes meet mine. Marino looks like he is about to cry again.

"Any reason you might have something that could give us Rocky's DNA?" I come right out and ask.

He flinches as if I have hit him. "What'd Berger tell you when she called? That it? She call about Rocky?"

"She's just going down the list," I reply. "Anybody connected with us or Benton who might have a link to organized crime. And Rocky certainly comes to mind." I go on and tell him what Berger revealed about Benton and the Susan Pless case.

"But he was getting that whacko shit before Susan was murdered," he says. "So why would someone be jerking him around if he wasn't sticking his nose in anything yet? Why would Rocky, for example? And I assume that's what you're thinking, that maybe Rocky was sending him that weird shit?"

I have no answer. I don't know.

"Well, I guess you're gonna have to get DNA from Doris

and me 'cause I don't got anything of Rocky's. Not even hair. You could do that, right? If you got the DNA of the mother and the father then you could compare something like saliva?"

"We could get a pedigree and at least know your son can't be ruled out as a contributor of the DNA on the stamps."

"Okay." He blows out. "If that's what you want to do. Since Anna's split, think I can smoke in here?"

"I wouldn't dare," I reply. "What about Rocky's fingerprints?"

"Forget that. Besides, it didn't look to me like Benton had any luck with the prints. I mean, you can tell he tested the letters for them and that seems to be the end of it. And I know you don't want to hear this, Doc, but maybe you'd better be sure why you're getting into all this. Don't go on a witch hunt 'cause you want to pay back the fucker who might have sent that shit to Benton and maybe had to do with him being killed. It ain't worth it. Especially if you're thinking Carrie did it. She's dead. Let her rot."

"It is worth it," I say. "If I can know for sure who sent those letters to him, it's worth it to me."

"Huh. He said The Last Precinct was where he'd end up. Well, looks like he has," Marino muses. "We're The Last Precinct and we're working his case. Ain't that something?"

"Do you think he carried that file to Philadelphia because he wanted to make sure you or I got it?"

"Assuming something happened to him?"

I nod.

"Maybe," he says. "He was worried he wasn't going to be around much longer and he wanted us to find that file if something did happen to him. And it's strange, too. It's not like he says much in it, almost like he knew other people might see it and he didn't want anything in it that maybe the wrong person would see. Don't you find it interesting there ain't any names in it? Like if he had suspects in mind, he never mentioned anybody?"

"The file's cryptic," I agree.

"So who was he afraid might see it? Cops? 'Cause if something happened to him, he would know cops are going through his shit. And they did. Philly cops went through everything in his hotel room and then turned it over to me. He would also figure you're going to see his stuff at some point. Maybe Lucy, too."

"I think the point is he couldn't be sure of who might see the file. So he was cautious, period. And Benton was certainly known for being cautious."

"Not to mention," Marino goes on, "he was up there helping out ATE So he mightliave thought ATF would see the file, right? Lucy's ATF. McGovern's ATF and was in charge of the response team working the fires Carrie and her asshole sidekick were setting to disguise the fact they had this nasty little hobby of cutting people's faces off, right?" Marino's eyes narrow. "Talley's ATF," he says. "Maybe we ought to get his DNA, the son of a bitch. Too bad." He gets that look again. I don't think Marino will ever forgive me for sleeping with Jay Talley. "You probably had his fucking DNA, no pun intended. In Paris. I don't guess you got a stain you maybe forgot to wash out?"

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