“The guy’s got the guts of an empty sock,” Marino says. “But the Doc’s right. Chandonne ought to pay for what he tried to do to her. And he sure as hell should pay for what he did to the other two women. And he ought to get the death penalty. At least down here, we’d fry him.”
“Not If Dr. Scarpetta were somehow discredited as a witness, Captain. A good defense attorney would be quick to paint her as conflicted and squirt a lot of ink into the water.”
“Don’t matter. It’s all moot, right?” Marino says. “He ain’t being tried here and I wasn’t born yesterday. He won’t ever be tried here. You guys will lock him up and us small-timers down here will never get our day in court.”
“What was he doing in New York two years ago?” I ask. “Do you have any ideas about that?”
“Huh,” Marino says as if he knows details that have not been shared with me yet. “That’s a story.”
“Could it be his family has cartel connections in my fair city?” Berger lightly suggests.
“Hell, they probably have a damn penthouse apartment,” Marino retorts.
“And Richmond?” Berger goes on. “Isn’t Richmond a stopping-off point between New York and Miami along the I-95 drug corridor?”
“Oh yeah,” Marino answers. “Before Project Exile got going and slapped these drones with time in federal prison if they were caught with guns, drugs. Yeah, Richmond used to be a real popular place to do your business. So if the Chan-donne cartel’s in Miamiand we already know that, based on the undercover stuff Lucy was doing down thereand if there’s a big New York connection, then no big surprise that cartel guns and drugs were ending up in Richmond, too.”
“Were?” she queries. “Maybe still are.”
“I guess all this will keep ATF busy for a while,” I say.
“Huh,” Marino snorts again.
A weighty pause, then Berger says, “Well, now that you’ve brought that up.” Her demeanor tells me she is about to give me news I will not appreciate. “ATF has a little problem, it appears. As do the FBI and the French police. The hope, obviously, was to use Chandonne’s arrest as an opportunity to get warrants to search his family’s Paris home and maybe during the course of it find evidence that might help bring down the cartel. But we’re having a little difficulty placing Jean-Baptiste inside the family house. In fact, we have nothing to prove who he is. No driver’s license. No passport or birth certificate. No record this bizarre man even exists. Only his DNA, which is so close to the DNA of the man found in your port we can assume they are probably related, probably brothers. But I need something more tangible than that if I’m going to get a jury on my side.”
“And no way in hell his family’s going to come forward and claim the Loup-Garou,” Marino says in awful French. “That’s the whole reason there’s no record of him to begin with, right? The mighty Chandonnes don’t want the world to know they got a son who’s a hairy-ass serial-killing freak.”
“Wait a minute,” I stop them. “Didn’t he identify himself when he was arrested? Where did we get the name Jean-Baptiste Chandonne, if not from him?”
“We got it from him.” Marino rubs his face in his hands. “Shit. Show her the videotape,” he suddenly blurts out to Berger. I have no idea what videotape he is talking about, and Berger isn’t at all happy he mentioned it. “The Doc has a right to know,” he says.
“What we have here is a new spin on a defendant who has a DNA profile but no identity.” Berger sidesteps the subject Marino has just tried to force.
What tape? I think, as paranoia heats up. What tape?
“You got it with you?” Marino regards Berger with open hostility, the two of them squaring off in a stony angry tableau, staring across the table at each other. His face darkens. He outrageously grabs her briefcase and slides it toward him as if he plans to help himself to whatever is inside it. Berger places her hand on top of it with an arresting look. “Captain!” she warns in a tone that bodes the worst trouble he has ever seen. Marino withdraws his hand, his face a furious red. Berger opens her briefcase and gives me her full attention. “I have every intention of showing the tape to you,” she measures her words. “I just wasn’t going to do it right this minute, but we can.” She is very controlled but I can tell she is very angry as she slides a videotape out of a manila envelope. She gets up and inserts it into the VCR. “Someone know how to work this thing?”[“_Toc37098913”]