Blow Fly

"My punishment is I got what I asked for," he continues. "Just don't bring that stuff down here. I don't ever want to see it again."

99

ASSISTANT PIO JAYNE GITTLEMAN apologizes profusely for making Scarpetta wait.

For fifteen minutes, Scarpetta has stood outside the front door, right below the sign that reads Allan B. Polunsky Unit, the bright sun making her perspire. She feels dirty and disheveled from travel. Her patience is thin, despite her resolve to contain her emotions completely. More than anything right now, she wants to get this over with at last, at long last.

"The media's calling nonstop because we've got an execution tonight," Miss Gittleman explains.

She hands Scarpetta a visitor's tag, which she clamps to the lapel of the same suit she's worn on different planes since she left Florida. The pantsuit is black, and at least she ironed it inside her room at New York's Melrose Hotel last night after leaving her niece. Lucy does not know where Scarpetta is right now. If Scarpetta had mentioned it, Lucy would have tried to stop her or insisted on going with her. Taking a chance, Scarpetta headed west without an appointment, having no choice but to call the Polunsky Unit when she landed in Houston. Her confidence that Chando

She is here. And perhaps the less time he has to think about her seeing him, the better.

Officers check Scarpetta's identification, and Miss Gittleman leads her through a series of loud steel doors, then through a garden with picnic tables under umbrellas, obviously meant for staff. She is cleared through five electronically locking doors, the walk far too short to suit her as she reaches the u

Inside the visitors lobby, her shoes seem loud, and she is acutely aware of her appearance as she crosses the shiny tile floor. A strong believer in the psychology of dress and demeanor, her entrance is out of character and embarrassing. She would have preferred to be perfectly groomed in a power suit, probably pinstripe, and perhaps a white shirt with cufflinks. Possibly, she considers, power dressing wouldn't have sent the best message to this bastard who tried to kill her, but it would have made her feel less vulnerable to him.

Her knees weaken at the sight of Jean-Baptiste Chando

She openly stares at him, refusing to play the game he has already begun, and it amazes her to see him shaven and dressed in white. He is ugly but almost looks normal without his long swirls of baby-fine hair that hung from him in a long, filthy fringe last time she saw him. He sips his Pepsi and licks his fingers as Scarpetta sits across from him and picks up the black phone.

His asymmetrical eyes drift, and he gives her his barracuda smile, his skin as pale as parchment. She notices his highly defined, muscular arms and that he has torn the sleeves off his white shirt, and then she sees that long, horrible hair. It peeks out from the armholes and the opening at his neck. Apparently, he has shaven only those areas of his body that are uncovered.

"How nice," she says coldly into the phone. "You cleaned up for me."

"But of course. It is lovely for you to come. I knew you would." His filmy eyes don't seem to focus when they briefly turn her way.

"Did you shave yourself?"

"Yes. Today. Just for you."

"Rather hard to do if you can't see," she remarks in a steady, strong voice.

"I don't need my eyes to see." He touches his tongue to a small, sharp tooth and reaches for his Pepsi. "What did you think about my letter?"

"What did you want me to think about it?"

"That I am an artist, of course."

"Did you learn your penmanship here in prison?"

"I have always been able to write in a beautiful hand. When my parents kept me locked in the basement as an i

"Who mailed the letter for you?" Scarpetta dominates with her questions.

"My dear dead lawyer." He clucks his tongue. "I honestly do not know why he committed suicide. But perhaps it is a good thing. He was worthless, you know. It runs in his bloodline."

Scarpetta bends down and takes a notepad and pen out of her pocketbook. "You told me you have information for me. That's why I'm here. If you simply want to chat, I'm leaving right now. I have no interest in visiting with you."

"The other part of the bargain, Madame Scarpetta," he says as his crooked eyes float, "is my execution. Will you?"

"I have no problem with that."

He smiles and seems delighted.

"Tell me." He rests his chin on his hand. "What is it like?"

"Painless. An IV of sodium thiopental, which is the sedative. And pancuronium bromide, a muscle relaxant. Potassium chloride stops the heart." She clinically describes as he listens, enraptured. "Fairly inexpensive drugs, ironically and appropriately, considering their purpose. Death occurs in several minutes."

"And I will not suffer when you do this to me?"

"You will never suffer the way you've made others suffer. You'll instantly go to sleep."

"Then you promise you will be my doctor in the end?" He begins stroking the can of Pepsi, the hideous long nail on his right thumb caked with what looks like chocolate, probably from his cupcakes.

"I will do as you wish if you are willing to help the police. What is the information?"

He gives her names and locations, none of which mean anything to her. She fills twenty pages in her notepad, becoming increasingly suspicious that he is toying with her. The information is meaningless. Maybe.

At a pause, when he decides to take his time eating a cupcake, she says, "Where are your brother and Bev Kiffin?"

He wipes his hands and mouth on his shirt, sinewy muscles jumping with his every motion. Chando

She will not come back to administer the lethal injection. Lying to him doesn't bother her in the least.

He says nothing about Jay Talley and Bev Kiffin.

Instead, he tells her, "Rocco has a small chвteau in Baton Rouge. It is quaint, in a restored neighborhood where many homosexuals live. Near downtown. I have stayed there many times."

"Have you ever heard of a Baton Rouge woman named Charlotte Dard?"

"Of course. Not beautiful enough for my brother."

"Did Rocco Caggiano murder her?"

"No." Chando

Her hands are in her lap, holding the notepad and the pen. He talks about her hands as if he can see them, yet his eyes float as if he is blind.