Righter has an annoying habit of repeating things I have said, as if being anecdotal somehow lets him off the hook for remaining ignorant about matters that count. “What about bite marks?” I ask. “Was there any information on those? Chandonne has very unusual dentition.”
“You know, Kay,” he says, “I really didn’t get into those sorts of details.”
Of course, he would not have. I push for the truth, for the real reason he has come to see me this morning. “And what if the DNA points to Chandonne? You want to know before the arraignment here? Why?” It is a rhetorical question. I think I know why. “You don’t want him arraigned here. You intend to turn him over to New York and let him be tried up there first.”
He avoids my eyes.
“Why in the world would you do that, Buford?” I go on as I become convinced that this is exactly what he has decided. “So you can wash your hands of him? Ship him up to Riker’s Island and be rid of him? And bring no justice to the cases here? Let’s just be honest, Buford, if they get a first-degree murder conviction in Manhattan, you won’t bother to try him here, now will you?”
He gives me one of his sincere looks. “Everyone in the community has always respected you so much,” he startles me by saying.
“Has always?” Alarm shoots through me like cold water. “As in not anymore?”
“I’m just telling you I understand how you feelthat you and these other poor women deserve him punished to the full extent of the…”
“So I guess the bastard just gets away with what he tried to do to me,” I hotly cut him off. Beneath all this is pain. The pain of rejection. The pain of abandonment. “I guess he just gets away with what he did to these other poor women, as you put it. Am I right?”
“They have the death penalty in New York,” he replies.
“Oh for God’s sake,” I exclaim in disgust. I fix on him intensely, hotly, like the focus of the magnifying glass I used in childhood experiments to burn holes in paper and dead leaves. “And when have they ever imposed it?” He knows the answer is never. No one ever gets the needle in Manhattan.
“And there’s no guarantee it would be imposed in Virginia, either,” Righter reasonably answers. “The defendant isn’t an American citizen. He has a bizarre disease or deformity or whatever it is. We’re not even certain he speaks English.”
“He certainly spoke English when he came to my house.”
“He might get off on insanity, for all we know.”
“I guess that depends on the skill of the prosecutor, Bu-ford.”
Righter blinks. His jaw muscles bunch. He looks like a Hollywood parody of an accountantall buttoned up tight and in tiny glasseswho has just been subjected to an offensive smell.
“Have you talked to Berger?” I ask him. “You must have. You couldn’t have come up with this on your own. You two have made a deal.”
“We’ve conferred. There’s pressure, Kay. Certainly you’ve got to appreciate that. For one thing, he’s French. You got any idea how the French would react if we tried to execute one of their native sons here in Virginia?”
“Good God,” I blurt out. “This isn’t about capital punishment. This is about punishment, period. You know how I feel about capital punishment, Buford. I’m against it. I’m more against it the older I get. But he should be held responsible for what he did here in Virginia, damn it.”
Righter says nothing, looking out the window again.
“So you and Berger agreed if the DNA matches, Manhattan can have Chandonne,” I offer my summation.
“Think about it. This is the best we could hope for in terms of change of venue, so to speak.” Righter gives me his eyes again. “And you know damn well the case could never be tried here in Richmond with all the publicity and whatnot. We’d probably all get sent out to some rural courthouse a million miles from here, and how would you like to be put through that for weeks, possibly months, on end?”