Cruel and Unusual - Cornwell Patricia - Страница 34

He turned onto Albemarle. Supercans had been rolled to the edge of the street and were surrounded by leaf bags bulging with Christmas trash. Windows glowed warmly, multi-colored tree lights filling some of them. A young father was pulling his small son along the sidewalk on a fishtailing sled. They smiled and waved at us as we passed. Glenburnie was the neighborhood of middle-class families, of young professionals, single, married, and gay. In the warm months, people sat on their porches and cooked out in their yards. They had parries and hailed each other from the sheet.

The Dawsons' modest house was Tudor style, comfortably weathered with neatly pruned evergreens in front. Windows upstairs and down were lit up, an old station wagon parked by the curb.

The bell was answered by a woman's voice on the other side of the door. “Who is it?”

“Mrs. Dawson?”

“Yes?”

“Detective Marino, Richmond RD. I need to talk with you,” he said loudly, holding his badge up to the peephole.

Locks clicked free as my pulse raced. During my various medical rotations, I had experienced patients screaming in pain as they begged me not to let them die. I had reassured them falsely, “You're going to be just fine,” as they died gripping my hand. I had said “I'm sorry” to loved ones desperate in small, airless rooms where even chaplains felt lost. But I had never delivered death to someone's door on Christmas Day.

The only resemblance I could see between Mrs. Dawson and her daughter was the strong curve of their jaws. Mrs. Dawson was sharp-featured, with short, frosted hair. She could not have weighed more than a hundred pounds and reminded me of a frightened bird. When Marino introduced me, panic filled her eyes.

“What's happened?” she barely said.

“I'm afraid I have very bad news for you, Mrs. Dawson,” Marino said. “It's your daughter, Susan. I'm afraid she's been killed.”

Small feet sounded in a nearby room, and a little girl appeared in a doorway to the right of us. She stopped and regarded us with wide blue eyes.

“Hailey, where's Grandpa?” Mrs. Dawson's voice quavered, her face ashen now.

“Upstairs.”

Hailey was a tiny tomboy in blue jeans and leather sneakers that looked brand-new. Her blond hair shone like gold and she wore glasses to straighten a lazy left eye. I guessed she was, at the most, eight.

“You go tell him to come downstairs,” Mrs. Dawson said. “And you and Charlie stay up there until I come get you.”

The child hesitated in the doorway, inserting two fingers into her mouth. She stared wary at Marino and me.

“Hailey, go on now!”

Hailey left with an abrupt burst of energy.

We sat in the kitchen with Susan's mother. Her back did not touch the chair. She did not weep until her husband walked in minutes later.

“Oh, Mack,” she said in a weak voice. “Oh, Mack.” She began to sob.

He put his arm around her, pulling her close. His face blanched and he pressed his lips together as Marino explained what had happened.

“Yes, I know where Strawberry Street is,” Susan's father said. “I don't know why she would have gone there. To my knowledge, it's not an area where she normally went. Nothing would have been open today. I don't know.”

“Do you know where her husband, Jason Story, is?” Marino asked.

“He's here.”

“Here?”

Marino glanced around.

“Upstairs, asleep Jason's not feeling well.”

“The children are whose?”

“Tom and Marie's. Tom's our son. They're visiting for the holidays and left early this afternoon. For Tidewater. To visit friends. They should be home anytime.”

He reached for his wife's hand. “Millie, these people have a lot of questions to ask. You'd better get Jason.”

“I tell you what,” Marino said. “I'd rather talk to him alone for a minute. Maybe you could take me to him?”

Mrs. Dawson nodded, hiding her face in her hands.

“I think you best check on Charlie and Hailey,” her husband said to her. “See if you can get your sister on the phone. Maybe she can come.”

His pale blue eyes followed his wife and Marino out of the kitchen. Susan's father was tall, with fine bones, his dark brown hair thick, with very little gray. His gestures were economical, his emotions well contained. Susan had gotten her looks from him and perhaps her disposition.

“Her car is old. She has nothing of value to steal, and I know she would not have been involved. Not in drugs or anything.” He searched my face.

“We don't know why this happened, Reverend Dawson.”

“She was pregnant” he said, the words catching in his throat. “How could anyone?”

“I don't know”' I said. “I don't know how.”

He coughed. “She did not own a gun.”

For a moment, I did not know what he meant. Then I realized, and reassured him, “No. The police did not find a gun. There's no evidence she did this to herself.”

“The police? You aren't the police?”

“No. I'm the chief medical examiner. Kay Scarpetta.”

He stared numbly at me.

“Your daughter worked for me.”

“Oh. Of course. I'm sorry.”

“I don't know how to comfort you,” I said with difficulty.

“I haven't begun to deal with this myself. But I'm going to do everything possible to find out what happened. I want you to know that.”

“Susan spoke of you. She always wanted to be a doctor.”

He averted his gaze, blinking back tears.

“I saw her last night. Briefly, at her home.”

I hesitated, reluctant to probe the soft places of their lives. “Susan seemed troubled. And she has not been herself at work of late.”

He swallowed, fingers laced tightly on top of the table. His knuckles were white.

“We need to pray. Would you pray with me, Dr. Scarpetta?”

He held out his hand. “Please.”

“As his fingers wrapped firmly around mine, I could not help but think of Susan's obvious disregard for her father and distrust for what he represented. Fundamentalists frightened me, too. I felt anxious shutting my eyes holding hands with the Reverend Mack Dawson as he thanked God for a mercy I saw no evidence of and claimed promises too late for God to keep. Opening my eyes, I withdrew my hand. For an uneasy moment I feared that Susan's father sensed my skepticism and wou1d question my beliefs. But the fate of my soul was foremost on his mind.

A loud voice sounded from upstairs, a muffled protest could not make out A chair scraped across the floor. The telephone rang and rang, and the voice rose again in a primal outcry of rage and pain. Dawson closed his eyes. He muttered something under his breath that rather strange. I thought he said, “Stay in your room.”

“Jason has been here the whole time.” he said. I could see his pulse pounding in his temples. “I realize he can speak for himself. But I just want you to know this from me.”

“You mentioned he's not feeling well.”

“He woke up with a cold, the beginning of one. Susan took his temperature after lunch and encouraged him to go to bed. He would never hurt… Well.” He coughed “I know the police have to ask, have to consider domestic situations. But that's not the case here.”

“Reverend Dawson, what time did Susan leave the house today, and where did she say she was going?”

"She left after dinner; after Jason went to bed. I think that would have been around one-thirty or two: She said she was going. over to a friend's house.”

"Which friend?” He stared past me. "A friend she went to high school with. Dianne Lee.”

“Where does Dianne live?”

“Northside, near the seminary.”

"Dianne’s car was found off Strawberry Street, not in Northside.”

"I suppose if somebody… She could have ended up anywhere.”

"It would be helpful to know if she ever made it to Dianne's house, and whose idea the visit was," I said.

He got up and started opening kitchen drawers. It took him three tries to find the telephone directory. His hands trembled as he turned pages and dialed a number. Clearing his throat several times, he asked to speak to Dianne. "I see. What was that?” He listened for a moment. "No, no.” His voice shook. "Things are not all right.”