"Clotting suggests a survival time of at least six minutes from the time the injury was inflicted." I return to my role of interpreter for the dead.
"A hell of a long time," Berger observes, and I can imagine her making a jury sit in silence for six minutes to show them just how long.
"The crushed facial bones, and here"_I touch areas of a photograph_"the splits and tears to skin made by some sort of tool that left a pattern of round and linear wounds."
"Pistol whipping."
"In this case, the Luong case, yes. In Bray's case, he used an unusual type of hammer."
"A chipping hammer."
"I can see you've done your homework."
"A funny habit of mine," she says.
"Premeditation," I go on. "He brought his weapons to the scenes versus using something he found when he got there. And this photo here"_I pick out another horror_"shows knuckle bruises from punching. So he also used his fists to beat her, and from this angle we can see her sweater and bra over there on the floor. It appears he tore them off with his bare hands."
"Based on what?"
"Under the scope you can see that the fibers are torn instead of cut," I reply.
Berger is staring at a body diagram. "Don't think I've ever seen so many bite marks inflicted by a human. Frenzied. Any reason to suspect he might have been under the influence of drugs when he committed these murders?"
"I wouldn't have a way to know."
"What about when you encountered him?" she asks. "When he attacked you on Saturday, shortly after midnight. And by the way, he had the same odd type of hammer, as I understand? A chipping hammer?"
" 'Frenzied' is a good word for it. But I would have no reason to know whether he was on drugs." I pause. "Yes, he had a chipping hammer with him when he tried to attack me."
"Tried? Let's state the facts." She gives me her eyes. "He attacked you. Not tried. He attacked you and you escaped. You got a good look at the hammer?"
"Good point, if we're stating facts. It was a tool of some sort. I know what a chipping hammer looks like."
"What do you remember? The flutter," she refers back to rny strange rendition. "Those endless minutes, the hair on his hands catching light like monofilament."
I envision a black coil handle. "I saw the coil," I tell her as best I can. "I remember that. It's so unusual. A chipping hammer has a handle that looks like a thick, black spring."
"You sure? That's what you saw when he came after you?" She pushes me.
"I am vaguely sure."
"It would be helpful if you are more than vaguely sure," she responds.
"I saw the tip of it. Like a big black beak. When he raised it to hit me. Yes, I'm sure. He had a chipping hammer." I become defiant. "That's exactly what he had."
"They took Chandonne's blood in the E.R.," Berger informs me. "Negative for drugs and alcohol."
She is testing me. She already knew Chandonne was negative for drags and alcohol, yet she withheld that detail long
enough to hear my impressions. She wants to see if I can be objective when talking about my own case. She wants to see if I can stick to the facts. I hear Marino down the hall. He walks in with three steaming foam cups and sets them on the table, sliding a black coffee my way. "I don't know what you take, but you got cream," he rudely tells Berger. "And yours truly takes it fully loaded with cream and sugar because I sure as hell wouldn't want to do anything that might deprive me of my nourishment."
"How seriously messed up would someone be if he got formalin in his eyes?" Berger says to me.
"Depends on how quickly the person rinsed," I objectively answer, as if her inquiry is theoretical and not an allusion to my maiming another human being.
"Must hurt like living hell. An acid, right? I've seen what it does to tissue_turns it into rubber," she comments.
"Not literally."
"Of course not literally," she agrees with a trace of a smile that suggests I ought to lighten up a little, as if that is possible.
"If you suspend tissue in formalin for a long period of time, or inject it_in embalming, for example," I explain, "then yes, it fixes tissue, preserves it indefinitely."
But Berger has little interest in the science of formalin. I am not even sure how interested she is in the extent of any permanent damage the chemical may have caused Chan-donne. I have the sensation she is more focused on how I feel about causing him pain and possible disability. She does not ask me. She just looks at me. I am beginning to feel the weight of those looks. Her eyes are like experienced palpating hands feeling for any anomaly or tenderness.
"We got any idea who he's going to get for a lawyer?" Marino reminds us he is present.
Berger sips her coffee. "The six-million-dollar question."
"So you don't got a clue," Marino says with suspicion.
"Oh, I have a clue. It will be someone you definitely won't like."
"Huh," he retorts. "That's easy to predict. I've never met a
defense attorney I liked."
"At least it will be my problem," she says. "Not yours." She puts him in his place again.
I bristle at this, too. "Look," I tell her, "trying him in New York isn't something that makes me happy."
"I understand how you feel."
"I seriously doubt it."
"Well, I've talked to your friend Mr. Righter_enough to tell you exactly how it would go if you put Monsieur Chan-donne on trial here in Virginia." She is cool now, the expert, just a little sardonic. "The court would nol-pros the imperson-ating-an-officer charge and reduce attempted murder to entering a dwelling with intent to commit murder." She pauses, looking for my reaction. "He never actually touched you. That's the problem."
"Actually, it would have been more of a problem if he had," I answer, refusing to show that she is really beginning to piss me off.
"He may have raised that hammer to strike you, but he never did." Her eyes are steady on mine. "For which we're all grateful."
"You know what they say, your rights are honored only in the breach." I lift my coffee.
"Righter would have filed a motion to have all of the charges combined into one trial, Dr. Scarpetta. And then what would have been your role? Expert witness? Fact witness? Or victim? The conflict is glaringly apparent. Either you testify as the medical examiner and the attack on you is completely left out, or you're simply a victim who survived and someone else testifies to your record. Or worse"_she pauses for effect_"Righter stipulates your reports. He seems to have a habit of that, from what I understand."
"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."