It is now Wednesday, early evening, and Lucy and I are Christmas shopping. I have browsed and purchased as much as I can stomach, my mind poisoned by worries, my arm itching like mad inside its plaster cocoon, my craving for tobacco akin to lust. Lucy is somewhere inside Regency Mall taking care of her own list, and I search for a spot where I might evade the churning herd. Thousands of people have waited until three days before Christmas to find thoughtful, special gifts for those significant people in their lives. Voices and constant motion combine in a steady roar that shorts out thoughts and normal conversation, and piped-in holiday music jars my already vibrating nerves out of phase. I face plate glass in front of Sea Dream Leather, my back to discordant people who, like unskilled fingers on a piano, rush and stop and force without joy. Pressing my cell phone tight against my ear, I yield to a new addiction. I check my voice mail for what must be the tenth time today. It has become my slender, secret connection to my former existence. Tapping into my messages is the only way I can go home.
There are four calls. Rose, my secretary, checked in to see how I am holding up. My mother left a long complaint about life. AT&T customer service tried to reach me about a billing question, and my deputy chief, Jack Fielding, needs to talk to me. I call him right away.
“I can hardly hear you,” his scratchy voice sounds in one ear, my hand covering the other. In the background, one of his children is crying.
“I’m not in a good place to talk,” I tell him.
“Me, either. My ex is here. Joy to the world.”
“What’s up?” I say to him.
“Some New York prosecutor just called me.”
Jolted, I will myself to sound calm, almost indifferent, when I ask him this person’s name. He tells me Jaime Berger reached him at home several hours ago. She wanted to know if he assisted in the autopsies I performed on Kim Luong and Diane Bray. “That’s interesting,” I comment. “Isn’t your number unlisted?”
“Righter gave it to her,” he informs me.
Paranoia heats up. The wound of betrayal flares. Righter gave her Jack’s number and not mine? “Why didn’t he tell her to call me?” I ask.
Jack pauses as another child adds to the upset chorus in his house. “I don’t know. I told her I didn’t officially assist. You did the posts. I’m not listed on the protocols as a witness. Said she really needs to speak to you.”
“What was her response when you told her that?” I ask.
“Started asking me questions, obviously has copies of the reports.”
Righter again. Copies of the medical examiner’s initial report of investigation and the autopsy protocols go to the commonwealth’s attorney’s office. I feel dizzy. It now seems that two prosecutors have spurned me, and fear and bewilderment gather like an army of fiery ants, teeming over my interior world, stinging my very psyche. What is happening is uncanny and cruel. It is beyond anything I have ever imagined in my most unsettled moments. Jack’s voice sounds distant through static that seems a projection of the chaos in my mind. I make out that Berger was a very cool customer and sounded as if she was on a car phone, and then something about special prosecutors. “I thought they were only brought in for the president or Waco or whatever,” he says as the cell suddenly clears and he yellsto his ex-wife, I assume”Can you take them in the other room? I’m on the phone! Jesus,” he blurts out to me, “don’t ever have kids.”
“What do you mean, special prosecutor!” I inquire. “What special prosecutor?”
Jack pauses. “I guess I’m assuming they’re bringing her here to try the case because Fighter Righter doesn’t want to,” he replies with sudden nervousness. In fact, he sounds evasive.
“It appears they had a case in New York.” I am careful what I say. “That’s why she’s involved, or so I’m told.”
“You mean a case like ours?”
“Two years ago.”
“No shit? News to me. Okay. She didn’t say anything about that. Just wants to know about the ones here,” Jack tells me.