I refrain from showing my complete disgust with Stan-field’s sloppy policing. I don’t probe any further or suggest to him he ought to do exactly what he threatened: quit. I call Mrs. White to let her know my plans. Her voice is small and wounded. She is dazed and can’t seem to comprehend that we want to land a helicopter on her farm. “We need a clearing. A level field, an area where there are no telephone lines or a lot of trees,” I explain.
“We don’t have a runway.” She says this several times.
Finally, she puts her husband on the phone. His name is Marcus. He tells me they have a soybean field between their house and Route 5 and there’s a silo painted dark green, too. There isn’t another silo in that area, not one painted dark green, he adds. It is fine with him if we land in his field.
The rest of my day is long. I work at the office and catch my staff before they head home. I explain to them what is happening in my life and assure each person that his job is not in jeopardy. I also make it clear that I have done nothing wrong and am confident my name will be cleared. I don’t tell them I have resigned. They have suffered enough tremors and don’t need an earthquake. I don’t pack items in my office or head out with anything other than my briefcase, as if all is well and I’ll see everybody in the morning, as usual.
Now it is nine P.M. I sit in Anna’s kitchen, picking at a thick slice of cheddar cheese and sipping a glass of red wine, going easy, unwilling to cloud my thinking and simply finding it almost impossible to swallow solid food. I have lost weight. I don’t know how much. I have no appetite and have developed a wretched routine of going outside periodically to smoke. Every half hour or so, I try to contact Marino with no success. And I keep thinking about the Tlip file. It has hardly been out of my mind since I looked at it on Christmas Day. The telephone rings at close to midnight and I assume it is Marino finally returning my page. “Scarpetta,” I answer.
“It’s Jaime,” Berger’s distinctive, confident voice sounds over the line.
I pause in surprise. But then I remember: Berger seems to have no hesitation in talking to people she intends to send to jail, doesn’t matter the hour.
“I’ve been on the phone with Marino,” she starts off. “So I realize you know my situation. Or I guess I should say, our situation. And actually you ought to feel all right about it, Kay. I’m not going to coach you, but let me say this. Just talk to the jury the same way you do to me. And try not to worry.”
“I think I’m beyond worrying,” I reply.
“Mainly I’m calling to pass on some information. We got DNA on the stamps. The stamps from the letters in the Tlip file,” she informs me as if she is in my mind again. So now the Richmond labs are dealing directly with her, it occurs to me. “It appears Diane Bray was all over the map, Kay. At least she licked those stamps, and I will assume she wrote the letters and was smart enough not to leave her prints on them. The prints that were left on several of the letters are Benton’s, probably from when he opened them before he realized what they were. I assume he knew they were his prints. Don’t know why he didn’t make a note of it. I’m just wondering if Benton ever mentioned Bray to you. Any reason to think they knew each other?”
“I don’t remember him mentioning her,” I reply. My thoughts are locked. I can’t believe what Berger has just said.
“Well, he certainly could have known her,” Berger goes on. “She was in D.C. He was a few miles down the road in Quan-tico. I don’t know. But it baffles me that she would send this stuff to him, and I’m wondering if she wanted it posted in New York so he would go down the path of believing the crank mail was from Carrie Grethen.”