"The Cafe Runtz on rue Favard. You made quite a scene." She continues my story, or at least Talley's version of it.
"I didn't make a scene. I got up from the table and walked out, period."
"From there you returned to the hotel, got into a cab and went to lie Saint-Louis, where the Chandonne family lives. You walked around after dark, staring up at the Chandonne home, then got a water sample from the Seine."
What she has just said sends electrical shocks through my every cell. Sweat rolls in cold tickles beneath my blouse. I never told Jay what I did after I left him in the restaurant. How does Berger know all this? How did Jay know if he is the one who told her? Marino. How much has Marino volunteered to her?
"What was your real purpose in finding the Chandonne house? What did you think that might tell you?" Berger asks.
"If I knew what something would tell me, I wouldn't need to investigate," I reply. "As for the water sample, as you must know from the lab reports, we found diatoms, or microscopic algae, on the clothing of the unidentified body from the Richmond port_from Thomas's body. I wanted a water sample from near the Chandonne home to see if there was any chance the same type of diatom might be present in that area of the Seine. And it was. Freshwater diatoms were consistent with those I found on the inside of the clothing on the body, Thomas's body, and none of this matters. You aren't trying Jean-Baptiste for the murder of his alleged brother, since that probably happened in Belgium. You've already made that clear."
"But the water sample is important."
"Why?"
"Anything that happened reveals more to me about the defendant and possibly leads to motive. More importantly, to identity and intent."
Identity and intent. Those words roar through my mind like a train. I am a lawyer. I know what those words mean.
"Why did you take the water sample? Do you routinely go around collecting evidence that isn't directly associated with a body? Collecting water samples really isn't your jurisdiction, in other words, especially in a foreign country. Why did you go to France to begin with? Isn't that a little out of the ordinary for a medical examiner?"
"Interpol summoned me. You just pointed that out yourself."
"Jay Talley summoned you, more specifically."
"He represents Interpol. He's the ATF liaison."
"I'm wondering why he really orchestrated your going there." She pauses to allow that chilly fear to touch my brain. It occurs to me that Jay may have manipulated me for reasons I am not sure I can bear to entertain. "Talley has many layers," Berger adds cryptically. "If Jean-Baptiste was tried here, I fear Talley would more likely be used by the defense than by the prosecution. Possibly to discredit you as a witness."
Heat crawls up my neck. My face burns. Fear rips through me like shrapnel, tearing apart any hope I have had that something like this would not happen. "Let me ask you something." My outrage is complete. It is all I can do to steady my voice. "Is there anything you don't know about my life?"
"Quite a bit."
"Why is it I feel that I'm the one about to get indicted, Ms. Berger?"
"I don't know. Why do you feel that way?"
"I'm trying not to take any of this personally. But it's getting harder by the minute."
Berger doesn't smile. Resolve turns her eyes to flint and hardens her tone. "It's going to get very personal. I highly recommend you don't take it that way. You of all people know how it works. The actual commission of a crime is incidental to the real damage its ripples do. Jean-Baptiste Chandonne didn't inflict a single blow on you at the time he broke into your house. It's now he begins to hurt you. He has hurt you. He will hurt you. Even though he's locked up, he will inflict blows on you daily. He has started a deadly, cruel process, the violation of Kay Scarpetta. It's begun. I'm sorry. It's a fact of life that you know all too well."
I silently return her stare. My mouth is dry. My heart seems to beat out of rhythm.
"It isn't fair, is it?" she says with the sharp edge of a prosecutor who knows how to dismantle human beings as completely as I do. "But then, I'm sure your patients wouldn't enjoy being naked on your table and under your knife, to have their pockets and orifices explored, if they knew. And yes, there's a hell of a lot I don't know about your life. And yes, you aren't going to like my probing. And yes, you will coop- erate if you're the person I've heard you are. And yes, goddamn it, I desperately need your help or this case is fucked to the moon."
"Because you're going to try to drag in his other bad acts, aren't you?" I am out with it. "A Molineux application."
She hesitates. Her eyes linger on me and light up for an instant, as if I have just said something that fills her with happiness or maybe a new respect. Then just as quickly, those eyes shut me out again, and she says, "I'm not sure what I'll do yet."
I don't believe her. I am the only living witness. The only one. She fully intends to suck me into it_to put every one of Chandonne's crimes on trial, all magnificently showcased within the small context of one poor woman he murdered in Manhattan two years ago. Chandonne is smart. But he may have made a fatal mistake on videotape. He gave Berger the two weapons she needs to shoot for a Molineux: identity and intent. I can identify Chandonne. I know goddamn well what his intent was when he forced his way into my house. I am the only living person who can counter his lies.
"So now we hammer at my credibility." The tasteless pun is deliberate. She is swinging at me just as Chandonne did, but for a very different reason, of course. She doesn't want to destroy me. She wants to make sure I am not destroyed.
"Why did you sleep with Jay Talley?" She is at it again.
"Because he was there, damn it," I retort.
She erupts in a sudden salvo of laughter, deep throaty laughs that push her back in her chair.
I am not trying to be funny. I am disgusted, if anything. "That's the banal truth, Ms. Berger," I add.
"Please call me Jaime." She sighs.
"I don't always know the answers even to things I should. Such as why I had my moment with Jay. But I'm ashamed of it. Up until a few minutes ago, I felt guilty about it, so afraid I Used him, hurt him. But at least I didn't kiss and tell."
To this she has no response.
"I should have known he's still in the locker room," I go on as my indignation unfurls brightly before our eyes. "No better than those teenaged boys gawking at my niece in the mall the other night. Walking hormones. So Jay has bragged about it, I'm sure, told everyone, including you. And let me add…" I pause. I swallow. Anger is a lump in my throat. "Let me add that some details aren't your business and will never be your business. I ask you, Ms. Berger, as a matter of professional courtesy, not to go places where you don't belong."
"If only others would abide by that."
I make a point of looking at my watch again. But I can't leave, not before I ask her the most important question. "You believe he attacked me?" She knows I am referring to Chan-donne this time.
"Is there any reason why I shouldn't believe that?"
"Obviously, my eyewitness account turns everything else he's said to the bullshit it is," I reply. "It wasn't them. There was no them. Only that goddamn son of a bitch pretending to be the police and coming after me with a hammer. I'd like to know how the hell he can explain that. Did you ask him why there were two chipping hammers at my house? I can prove from the hardware store receipt that I bought only one." I push that point again. "So where did the other one come from?"
"Let me ask you a question instead." She avoids answering me again. "Is there any possibility you only assumed he was attacking you? That you saw him and panicked? You're positive he had a chipping hammer and was coming after you with it?"