The Last Precinct

She digs her hands in the pockets of her trousers and patiently encourages me to tell my story. I apologize for not being the sharpest knife in the drawer at the moment, I say, and the jurors smile. I tell them about Be

"And sometimes pedophiles_child molesters_lure children with candy, food, something that will entice them. You've had cases like this, Dr. Scarpetta?" Berger questions me.

"Yes," I reply. "Unfortunately."

"Can you give us an example of a case in which a child was lured by food or candy?"

"Some years ago we got in the body of an eight-year-old boy," I offer a case from personal experience. "On autopsy I determined he had asphyxiated when the perpetrator forced the boy, this eight-year-old child, to perform oral sex. I recovered gum from the child's stomach, a rather large wad of chewing gum. It turned out an adult male neighbor had given the boy four sticks of gum, Dentyne gum, and this man did, in fact, confess to the killing."

"So you had good reason, based upon your years of experience, to be concerned when you found popcorn and hotdogs in Be

"That is correct. I was very concerned," I answer.

"Please continue, Dr. Scarpetta," Berger says. "What happened when you left the deer stand and followed the footpath through the woods?"

THERE is A WOMAN JUROR. SHE is ON THE FRONT row of the jury box, second from the left, and she reminds me of my mother. She is very overweight and must be close to seventy, at least, and wears a frumpy black dress with big red flowers on it. She doesn't take her eyes off me, and I smile at her. She seems like a kind woman with a lot of sense, and I am so glad my mother isn't here, that she is in Miami. I don't think she has any idea what is happening in my life. I haven't told her. My mother's health is poor and she doesn't need to worry about me. I keep going back to the juror in the flower-printed dress as I describe what happened at The Fort James Motel.

Berger prompts me to give background information on Jay Talley, how we met and became intimate in Paris. Woven into Berger's prompting and conclusions are the seemingly inexplicable events that transpired after Chando

And it would have been in Jay Talley's best interest to frame me and confuse the issue of his brother's guilt, right? Berger stops pacing again, fixing those eyes on me. I am not sure I can answer the question. She moves on. When he attacked me in the motel room and gagged me, I scratched his arms, didn't I?

"I know I struggled with him," I reply. "And after it was over, I had blood under my fingernails. And skin."

"Not your skin? Did you perhaps scratch yourself during the struggle?"

"No."

She goes back to her table and shuffles through paperwork for another lab analysis report. Buford Righter is turned to slate, sitting rigidly, tensely. DNA done on my fingernail scrapings doesn't match my DNA. It does match the DNA of the person who ejaculated inside Susan Pless's vagina. "And that would have been Jay Talley," Berger says, nodding, pacing again. "So we have a federal law enforcement officer who had sex with a woman right before she was brutally murdered. This man's DNA also so closely resembles Jean-Baptiste Chando

"Yes. He struck my face."

"He tied you to the bed and apparently intended to torture you with a heat gun?"

"That was my impression."

"He ordered you to undress, he bound and gagged you, and clearly was going to kill you?"

"Yes. He made it clear he was going to kill me."

"Why didn't he, Dr. Scarpetta?" Berger says this as if she doesn't believe me. But it is an act. She believes me. I know she does.

I look at the juror who reminds me of my mother. I explain that I was having a terribly hard time breathing after Jay tied me up and gagged me. I was panicking and began to hyperventilate, which means, I explain, that I was taking such rapid, shallow breaths, I couldn't get sufficient oxygen. My nose was bleeding and swelling and the gag prevented me from breathing out of my mouth. I went unconscious and when I came to, Lucy was in the room. I was untied, the gag removed, and Jay Talley and Bev Kiffin were gone.

"Now we've already heard Lucy's testimony," Berger says, pensively moving toward the jury box. "So we know from her testimony what happened after you passed out. What did she tell you when you came to, Dr. Scarpetta?" In a trial, for me to say what Lucy said would constitute hearsay. Again, Berger can get away with almost anything in this uniquely private proceeding.

"She told me she'd worn a bulletproof vest, uh, body armor," I answer the question. "Lucy said there was some conversation in the room…"

"Between Lucy and Bev Kiffin," Berger clarifies.

"Yes. Lucy said she was against the wall and Bev Kiffin had the shotgun pointed at her. And she fired it and Lucy's vest absorbed the shot, and although she was badly bruised, she was all right, and she grabbed the shotgun away from Mrs. Kiffin and ran from the room."

"Because her primary concern at this point was you. She didn't stick around to subdue Bev Kiffin because Lucy's priority was you."

"Yes. She told me she started kicking doors. She didn't know which room I was in, so then she ran around to the back of the motel because there are windows in back overlooking the pool. She found my room, saw me on the bed and broke

out the window with the butt of the shotgun and came inside.

He was gone. Apparently, he and Bev Kiffin went out the front and got on his motorcycle and fled. Lucy says she remembers hearing a motorcycle while she was trying to revive me."

"Have you heard from Jay Talley since?" Berger pauses to meet my eyes.

"No," I say, and for the first time this long day, anger stirs.

"What about from Bev Kiffin? Got any idea where she is?"

"No. No idea."

"So they are fugitives. She leaves behind two children. And a dog_the family dog. The dog Be

"I don't know firsthand what So

"The dog hadn't been for a swim_not voluntarily_right, Dr. Scarpetta? Didn't you and Lucy find Mr. Peanut as you waited at the campground for the police to come?" Berger goes on.