His avoidance of the morgue has resulted in his not being as well versed in forensic science and medicine as he ought to be. In fact, he is the only seasoned prosecutor I know who doesn’t seem to mind stipulating cause of death. In other words, he allows the paper record to speak for the medical examiner in the courtroom. This is a travesty. To me it constitutes malpractice. When the medical examiner isn’t in the courtroom, then, in a sense, neither is the body, and jurors don’t envision the victim or what he went through during the process of dying violently. Clinical words on protocols simply don’t evoke the terror or the suffering, and for this reason, it is usually the defense, not the prosecution, who wants to stipulate cause of death.
“Buford, how are you?” I hold out my hand and he glances at my cast and my sling, and down at my untied shoelaces and my shirttail hanging out. He has never seen me in anything less than a suit and in a setting that befits my professional rank, and his brow knits into an expression that is supposed to evince genteel compassion and understanding, the humility and caring of those handpicked by God to rule the rest of us lesser creatures. His type abounds among the first families of Virginia, a privileged, dusty people who have refined the skill of disguising their elitism and arrogance beneath a heavy aura of burden, as if it is so damn hard to be them.
“The question is, how are you?” he says, sitting back down in Anna’s handsome oval living room with its vaulted ceiling and view of the river.
“I really don’t know how to answer that, Buford.” I choose a rocking chair. “Every time someone asks, my mind reboots.” Anna must have just gotten the fire going and has vanished, and I have the uneasy sensation that her absence is about more than her being politely unobtrusive.
“No small wonder. Don’t even know how you’re able to function after what you’ve been through.” Righter speaks with a syrupy Virginia drawl. “Sure am sorry to barge in like this, Kay, but something’s come up, something unexpected. Nice place, isn’t it?” He continues to survey his surroundings. “She build or was it already here?”
I don’t know or care.
“You two are pretty close, I gather,” he adds.
I am not sure if he is making small talk or fishing. “She’s been a good friend,” I reply.
“I know she thinks the world of you. All of which is to say,” he goes on, “that you couldn’t be in better hands right now, in my opinion.”
I resent his implying that I am in anybody’s hands, as if I am a patient on a ward, and I say so.
“Oh, I see.” He continues his scan of oil paintings on pale rose walls, of art glass and sculptures and European furniture. “Then you don’t have a professional relationship? Never have?”
“Not literally,” I reply testily. “I have never had an appointment.”
“She ever prescribe medications for you?” he blandly goes on.
“Not that I recall.”
“Well, can’t believe it’s almost Christmas.” Righter sighs, his attention wandering back in from the river, back to me.
To use a Lucy term, he looks dorky in Bavarian button-up heavy green wool pants tucked into fleece-lined rubber boots with big tread. He wears a plaid Burberry-type wool sweater buttoned up to his chin, as if he can’t decide whether he will climb a mountain or play golf in Scotland this day.
“Well,” he says, “let me tell you why I’m here. Marino called a couple hours ago. There’s been an unanticipated development in the Chandonne case.”
The stab of betrayal is instant. Marino has told me nothing. He hasn’t even bothered to see how I am doing this morning.
“I’ll give you a summation as best I can.” Righter crosses his legs and demurely places his hands in his lap, a thin wedding band and University of Virginia class ring glinting in lamplight. “Kay, I’m sure you’re aware the news of what happened at your house and the subsequent apprehension of Chandonne has been broadcast all over. I mean all over. I’m sure you’ve followed it and can appreciate the magnitude of what I’m about to say.”