Agenerous pour, neat with no ice, and she returns from the kitchen, the bottle of wine in one hand, her glass of Scotch in the other.
“Dawn Kincaid’s point. Her lawyers’ point,” Jaime says. “According to them, what happened to Dawn was self-defense. But not your self-defense. Hers.”
“It’s not hard to predict what she’s going to claim,” I reply. “That it was Jack who hacked to death Wally Jamison last Halloween and next hammered nails into six-year-old Mark Bishop’s head before going on to kill MIT grad student Eli Saltz, and finally committing suicide with his own gun. My deranged deputy chief who’s no longer around to defend himself did it all.”
“And then you, his deranged boss, attacked Dawn Kincaid.” Jaime sits back down, and I smell peat and burnt fruit as she sets her drink on the table.
“I’m not surprised she might conjure up a fabrication like that. I’d like to hear the part about her being on my property and ambushing me inside my garage at night after disabling the motion-sensor light in the driveway.”
“She showed up at your Cambridge home to get her dog,” Jaime answers. “You had her rescued greyhound, Sock, and she wanted him back.”
“Please.” I feel a rush of irritation.
“You’d removed the injection knife from Jack’s cellar earlier that day while working the crime scene….”
“The knife was gone long before I got there,” I interrupt, with increasing impatience. “Police will tell you they found its empty hard case and canisters of CO 2and that was all.”
“Police want her successfully prosecuted, don’t they?” She refills my wineglass. “They’re prejudiced against Dawn Kincaid, aren’t they? And the case against her is complicated by your FBI husband being involved. That’s not exactly impartial and objective, is it?”
“Are you implying Benton may have removed the injection knife from the scene or knows I did and would lie about such a thing? That either one of us would tamper with evidence or obstruct justice in any way?” I confront her, and it’s difficult knowing which side she’s on, but it doesn’t feel like mine.
“We’re not talking about me or what I might imply,” Jaime says. “We’re talking about what Dawn will say.”
“I’m not sure I understand why you might know what she will say.”
“She’ll claim that while you awaited her expected arrival on your property that night, you made sure you put body armor on,” Jaime replies. “You made sure the Maglite you carried with you didn’t work and loosened the bulb in the motion-sensor light by the garage so you could later claim you couldn’t see what happened. You claimed you swung the heavy metal flashlight blindly in the dark, a reflex when you supposedly were attacked, when in fact it was you who ambushed Dawn.”
“It was an old flashlight, and I didn’t test it before walking out of the house. I should have. And it certainly wasn’t me who loosened the bulb in the motion-sensor light.” I’m having a hard time disguising my annoyance.
“You were ready and waiting for her when she appeared to pick up Sock.” Jaime resettles herself more comfortably on the couch, placing a pillow in her lap and resting her arms on top of it.
“And it makes sense she would contact me and ask if she can drop by to get her dog when the police, the Feds, everybody, is looking for her?” I remark. “Who’s going to believe anything so illogical?”
“She’ll say she wasn’t aware the police were looking for her. She’ll say she wouldn’t have imagined anyone was looking for her, since she didn’t do anything wrong.”
Jaime reaches for her drink. The expensive Scotch is burnished gold in a cheap glass, and she’s beginning to sound a little drunk.
“She’ll say her beloved rescued greyhound, trained by her mother and entrusted to her care, was at her father’s house in Salem,” Jaime continues. “Dawn will say you took the dog home with you, stole him, and she wanted him back. She’ll say you attacked her and she managed to get the knife away from you, but in the process badly cut her hand, losing part of a finger and suffering nerve and tendon damage, and then you struck her in the head with the heavy metal flashlight. She’ll say that if Benton hadn’t appeared in the garage when he did, you would have finished the job. She’d be dead.”
“She’ll say all this, or has she already said it?” I put down my plate and look at her, and my appetite has tucked itself into a tight place, out of reach and done for the night. I couldn’t swallow another bite if I tried.
If I didn’t know better, I’d think that Jaime Berger is Dawn Kincaid’s counsel and has lured me to Savannah to tell me that. But I know it isn’t true.
“She’ll say it, and she has said it,” Jaime replies, grasping seaweed salad in the tips of her chopsticks. “She’s said it to her lawyers, and she’s said it in letters to Kathleen Lawler. Inmates can write to other inmates when they’re family. Dawn is clever enough to have begun addressing Kathleen as Mom. Dear Mom,she writes, signing them your loving daughter,” she says, as if she’s seen these letters, and maybe she has.
“Has Kathleen written to her, as well?” I inquire.
“She says she hasn’t, but she’s not telling the truth,” Jaime says. “I’m sure you don’t want to hear it, Kay, but Dawn Kincaid is playing quite the role. A brilliant scientist who has lost the use of a hand and is suffering mental and emotional problems due to trauma and a concussion, which is being described as a significant head injury with lasting ill effects.”
“Malingering.”
“Pretty, charming, and now suffering dissociative states. Delusions and impaired cognition, which is why she was transferred to Butler.”
“Deliberate pretense.”
“Her lawyers attribute all of it to you, and you might expect a civil suit filed next,” Jaime says. “And your contact with her mother today and any communications in the past, in my opinion, have been unwise. It only serves to make your behavior more questionable.”
“Contact that you’ve orchestrated.” I remind her that I’m no fool. “I’m here because of you.” She wanted me in a weakened position.
“No one twisted your arm to come here.”
“No one needed to,” I reply. “You knew I would, so you set me up for it.”
“Well, I certainly thought you might come, and I recommend you have no further contact with Kathleen. Not any type at all,” Jaime instructs me, as if she’s now my lawyer. “While I think a criminal case against you is a stretch, I worry about litigation,” she goes on painting inflammatory scenarios.
“If a burglar injures himself while ransacking your house, he sues,” I reply. “Everybody sues. Litigation is the new national industry and has become the inevitable aftermath of virtually any criminal act. First someone tries to rob, rape, or kill you. Or maybe they succeed. Then they sue you or your estate for good measure.”
“I’m not trying to aggravate or scare you or put you in a compromising situation.” She places her chopsticks and napkin on her empty plate.
“Of course you are.”
“You think I’m bluffing.”
“I didn’t say that.”
“When the FBI came by my apartment, Kay, they wanted to know if I’d ever observed instability, violence, any traits in you that might have given me concern. Are you truthful? Do you abuse alcohol or drugs? Isn’t it true you’ve been known to brag that you could get away with the perfect murder?”
“Of course I’ve never bragged about such a thing. And what happened in my garage was far from perfect.”
“Then you’re admitting you intended to murder Dawn Kincaid.”
“I’m admitting that if I thought I was going to be attacked, I would have armed myself with more than a flashlight I found in a kitchen drawer. I’m admitting that the entire event wouldn’t have happened had I been paying attention, if I’d not been so distracted and sleep-deprived.”
“The FBI wanted to know if I was aware of your relationship with Jack Fielding,” Jaime tells me. “Had the two of you ever been lovers, and might you have been possessive or unnaturally attached to him or felt spurned by him and given to jealous rages?”
She takes another sip of Scotch, and I’m tempted to get up and help myself. But it wouldn’t be smart. I can’t afford to make myself more vulnerable to her than I already am or to be foggy tomorrow.
“And they brought up this fanciful story about self-defense?” I ask.
“No. They wouldn’t do anything as generous as that. The FBI is extremely skilled at getting information and not inclined to return the favor. They wouldn’t tell me why they were asking about you.”
“This isn’t quid pro quo,” I again say.
“I should think you’d want to help someone who is about to be executed for a crime she didn’t commit,” Jaime replies. “Maybe, in light of the situation you find yourself in, you can relate more than ever to being falsely accused of killing someone or attempting to,” she adds with emphasis.
“I don’t need to be falsely accused of a crime in order to have a sense of right and wrong,” I answer.
“Lola will die in a horrific way,” she says. “They won’t make it painless or merciful. Dr. Clarence Jordan was from old Savannah money, a good Christian, a moral man, generous to a fault. Known for giving free medical care to people in need or volunteering in the ER, the soup kitchen, the food bank on Thanksgiving, on Christmas Eve. A saint, according to some.”
I suppose it’s possible a man of great faith, a saint, might not bother setting his burglar alarm. I wonder if he installed the alarm system himself, or did a previous owner of his historic home?
“Do you know details of the alarm system in the Jordan house?” I ask.
“It doesn’t appear to have been set the early morning of the murders.”
“Does that bother you?”
“The question continues to interest me. Why wasn’t it set?”
“Lola’s offered no explanation?”
“She wasn’t the one who broke in,” Jaime reminds me. “I have no credible explanation.”
“Has anybody tried to determine if it was habit of the Jordans not to set the alarm?”
“There’s no one alive to state as fact what their habits might have been,” Jaime says. “But I’ve had Marino looking into it, among other things.”
“If the alarm was active and connected by a telephone line to an alarm company, there should be records of whether it was routinely armed and disarmed,” I reply. “There should be a record of false alarms, trouble on the line, anything that might indicate the Jordan family was using it and paying a monthly bill.”
“A very good point, and one that isn’t satisfactorily addressed in the records I’ve reviewed,” Jaime answers. “Or through interviews.”
“Have you talked to the investigator?”
“GBI Special Agent Billy Long retired five years ago and says his reports and records speak for themselves.”
“You talked to him yourself?”
“Marino did. According to Investigator Long, the alarm wasn’t set that night and the assumption was that the Jordans were trusting and not particularly security-conscious,” Jaime says. “And that they were tired of false alarms.”
“So they stopped setting it entirely, even at night? That seems a bit extreme.”
“Careless but maybe understandable,” she replies. “Two five-year-olds, and you can imagine what happens. They open doors and the alarm goes off. After the police show up a few times, you get tired of it and get complacent about setting it. You have a deadbolt that requires a key and are more worried about small children being locked in if there’s a fire. So you give in to the very bad habit of leaving the key in the deadbolt lock, making it possible for an intruder to break out the glass and reach in and open the door from the inside.”
“And these explanations for the Jordans’ seeming carelessness are based on what?” I ask.
“Based on Special Agent Long’s assumptions at the time,” Jaime says, as I dig myself deeper into a case that I shouldn’t want any part of.
Because I’ve been tricked.
Jaime Berger pulled a number of stunts to make sure I’m sitting in this very living room and having this very conversation.
“Unfortunately, assumptions are easy to make when you believe a case is already solved,” I say.
“Yes. They had the Jordans’ DNA on bloody clothing that Lola Daggette was washing in the bathroom of her halfway house,” Jaime agrees.
“I can see why the GBI, why the prosecutor, wouldn’t have been unduly caught up in the details of the alarm system,” I remark.
“I’m curious about why you’re caught up in these details.” She reaches for her glass.
“An intruder knowing or not knowing whether the alarm was set tells us something about this person.” I get in deeper, as Jaime knew I would. “Do you happen to know if the keypad was visible from outside the door? Could an intruder have looked through the glass and seen the alarm was or wasn’t set?”
“It’s not easy to tell from the photographs. But I think it’s possible someone could have looked through the glass and seen the light on the keypad was either green or red, indicating the status of the alarm.”
“These details are important,” I explain. “They tell us something about the mind-set of the killer. Was the Jordan house random? Was it luck of the draw? Did someone break out the glass of the kitchen door and unlock it, deciding, if an alarm went off, to run like hell? Or did this individual have reason to know there was a good chance the alarm wasn’t going to be set? Or could the person see it wasn’t set? I assume the Jordan house still exists?”
“The kitchen has been remodeled. I’m not sure what else has been, but there’s an outbuilding in back that didn’t used to be there. The original kitchen door is gone, replaced by a solid one. The alarm company used by the current owner is Southern Alarm. There are signs posted on the property and stickers on the windows.”
“I bet there are.”
“We’ve found nothing that might indicate what the facts are about the Jordans’ alarm system except that the company was Southern Cross Security.”
“Never heard of it.”
“A small local company that specialized in installations in historic buildings where the main priority was not to damage original woodwork, that sort of thing.” Jaime takes another sip of her drink. “It went bankrupt several years ago when the economy tanked and real estate values went into the toilet, especially for grand old homes from the past. A lot of these mansions are now condos or office spaces.”
“This is what Marino found out.”
“I’m wondering why it matters who found it out.”
“I ask because he’s an experienced and thorough investigator. Information he gets as a rule is reliable.”
She studies me as if what I just said isn’t true. She’s checking to see if I’m jealous. She expects I’m unhappy that Marino is here because of her and planning to resign from his full-time position at the CFC. Maybe she’s experiencing a secret satisfaction that she’s stolen Marino from me, but jealousy is not what I’m feeling. I’m unhappy about her influence on him, and not for any reason she might divine. I don’t trust her with his well-being or with the well-being of anyone.
“Did you ask Colin Dengate if he knew anything about the alarm system?” I ask her. “Did you ask if he might have heard the investigators discussing why the alarm wasn’t set?”
“Any matters relating to the police investigation he doesn’t share with me,” she says. “He directs me to the source, which is proper but not helpful. Not even cooperative, if we’re honest about it. He’s allowed to talk and voice his opinions but chooses not to with me.”
“Does he talk to Marino?”
“I wouldn’t have Marino approach him directly. That wouldn’t be appropriate. Colin should talk to me. Or you.”
A mistake,I think. Marino is the very sort of rough-around-the-edges no-nonsense cop that Colin Dengate would feel quite comfortable with.
“What kind of doctor was Clarence Jordan?” I ask, as if what happened to him has become my responsibility.
“Had a very successful family practice on Washington Avenue. You don’t murder someone like Clarence Jordan, and you don’t kill his wife.” Jaime’s eyes are steady on me as she talks and drinks. “You certainly don’t kill his beautiful little children. People aren’t going to want to accept that Lola is innocent. Around here, she’s Jack the Ripper.”
“Your method for inviting me to help you as an expert isn’t exactly what I’m accustomed to,” I finally say.
“There’s more than one thing going on. By getting you down here, I’m helping both of us.”
“Not sure I see that. What I do see is you know how to work Marino. Or, better put, you still know how to work him,” I remark.
“You’re a person of interest in a federal investigation, Kay. I wouldn’t trivialize that fact.”
“It’s also pro forma, and you know that better than most,” I say. “In light of who I am, and especially because of my affiliation with the Department of Defense, any allegation has to be looked into. If I’m accused of being the Easter Bunny, it has to be checked.”
“You wouldn’t want it in the news that you’re being accused of anything at all. Certainly not accused of attacking someone and maiming that person. Wouldn’t be pleasant to wake up to that headline.”
“I hope you’re not threatening me. Because that comment sounds like one a defense attorney might make,” I reply.
“Good God, no. Why would I threaten you?”
“I think it’s obvious why you might.”
“Of course I’m not threatening you. In fact, I’m in a position to help you,” she says. “I might be the only person in a position to do so.”
I don’t know what she’s talking about. I don’t see how Jaime Berger can help me, but I don’t ask.
“A lot of people might be sympathetic to Dawn Kincaid,” she says. “In my opinion, you might be better off if your attempted murder case never sees a jury.”
“So she can get away with it? I fail to see how that’s helpful.”
“Does it matter which case she’s punished for, as long as she is?”
“She’ll be tried on cases other than mine. For homicide. Four counts of it.” I assume this is what she’s alluding to.
“A shame she has the scapegoat of Jack Fielding for those homicides, the Mensa Murders.” She stares thoughtfully at what’s left of her Scotch. “Blame those sadistic crimes on a dead man who was a bodybuilder, an unstable and aggressive forensic expert who was involved in a number of activities that will offend your average juror.”
I am silent.
“If the worst happens and the murder cases don’t go well, that rather much leaves you hanging out to dry. If Dawn manages to successfully blame the murders on Jack, you have no case, in my professional opinion,” Jaime says, and now she’s the prosecutor talking. “If jurors believe Jack was the killer, then it will appear you attacked an innocent woman who happened to show up on your property to retrieve her dog. If nothing else, you’re going to get sued and it’s going to be expensive and ugly.” She’s the defense attorney again.
“It wouldn’t be good if the belief is that Jack was the killer,” I admit.
“What would help your case is a silver bullet, don’t you agree?” She smiles at me as if ours is a pleasant conversation.
“Yes. We always hope for silver bullets. I’m not sure they exist, except in folklore.”
“It just so happens they can exist,” Jaime says. “And we happen to have one.”