“You can’t smell it every day and not know. It’s accepted in my profession that exposure to formalin is a chronic danger, and all of us fear being splashed,” I explain, realizing how my story may sound to a special grand jury. Contrived. Unbelievable. Grotesquely bizarre.
“Have you ever gotten it in your eyes?” Berger asks me. “Ever splashed yourself with formalin?”
“No, thank God.”
“So you dashed it in his face. Then what?”
“I ran out of the house. On my way, I grabbed my Clock pistol off the dining room table, where I’d left it earlier. I go outside, slip on the icy steps and fracture my arm.” I hold up my cast.
“And what’s he doing?”
“He came out after me.” –
“Instantly?”
“It seems like it.”
Berger moves around to the back of the sofa and stands at the area of antique French oak flooring where formalin has eaten off the finish. She follows the lighter areas of hardwood. The formalin apparently splashed almost to the entrance of the kitchen. This is something I didn’t realize until this moment. I only remember his shrieks, his howls of pain as he grabbed at his eyes. Berger stands in the doorway, staring in at my kitchen. I go to her, wondering what has caught her interest.
“I have to stray off subject and say I don’t think I’ve ever seen a kitchen quite like this,” she comments.
The kitchen is the heart of my house. Copper pots and pans shine like gold from racks around the huge Thirode stove that is central to the room and includes two grills, a hot water bath, a griddle, two hot plates, gas tops, a charbroiler and an oversized burner for the huge pots of soup I love to make. Appliances are stainless steel, including the Sub-Zero refrigerator and freezer. Racks of spices line the walls and there is a butcher block the size of a twin bed. The oak floor is bare, and there is an upright wine cooler in a corner and a small table by the window that offers a distant view of a rocky bend in the James River.
“Industrial,” Berger mutters as she walks around a kitchen that, yes, I must admit, fills me with pride. “Someone who comes in here to work but loves the finer things in life. I’ve heard you’re an amazing cook.”
“I love to cook,” I tell her. “It gets my mind off everything else.”
“Where do you get your money?” she boldly asks.
“I’m smart with it,” I reply coolly, never one to discuss money. “I’ve been lucky with investments over the years, very lucky.”
“You’re a smart businesswoman,” Berger says.
“Try to be. And then when Benton died, he left his Hilton Head condo to me.” I pause. “I sold it, couldn’t stay there anymore.” I pause again. “Got six-hundred-and-something thousand for it.”
“I see. And what’s this?” She points out the Milano Italian sandwich maker.
I explain.
“Well, when this is all over, you’ll have to cook for me sometime,” she says rather presumptuously. “And rumor has it that you cook Italian. Your specialty.”
“Yes. Mostly Italian.” There is no rumor involved. Berger knows more about me than I do. “Do you suppose he might have come in here and tried to wash his face in the sink?” she then asks.
“I don’t have any idea. All I can tell you is I ran out and fell, and when I looked up he was staggering out the door after me. He came down the steps, still screaming, and dropped to the ground and started rubbing snow in his face.”
“Trying to wash the formalin out of his eyes. It’s rather oily, isn’t it? Hard to wash out?”
“It wouldn’t be easy,” I reply. “You would want copious amounts of warm water.”
“And you didn’t offer that to him? Made no effort to help him?”
I look at Berger. “Come on,” I say. “What the hell would you have done?” Anger spikes. “I’m supposed to play doctor after the son of a bitch has just tried to beat my brains out?”
“It will be asked,” Berger matter-of-factly answers me. “But no. I wouldn’t have helped him, either, and that’s off the record. So he’s in your front yard.”