Red Mist Read Free Page A

and eventually hire him back.
    I want to know when he first discovered that Dawn Kincaid was his daughter and why he recently connected with her in Massachusetts,
     allowing her to live in his house in Salem, and for how long, and was this related to his walking out on his wife and family? Did Jack know he was being altered by dangerous drugs, or was that part of Dawn’s sabotage, and was he aware his behavior
     was increasingly erratic, and whose idea was it for him to engage in illegal activities at the Cambridge Forensic Center,
     the CFC, while I was out of town?
    I can’t predict what Kathleen might know or say, but I will handle the conversation the way I’ve planned and rehearsed with my lawyer, Leonard Brazzo, and give her nothing in return. She can’t
     be required to testify against her own daughter and wouldn’t be credible in court, but I won’t reveal a single fact that could
     find its way back to Dawn Kincaid and be used to help her defense.
    “Well, I didn’t suppose you’d bring anything relating to those cases,” Tara Grimm says, and I sense she is disappointed. “I
     confess to having a lot of questions about what went on up there in Massachusetts. I admit I’m curious.”
    Most people are. The Mensa Murders, as the press has dubbed homicides and other vicious acts involving people with genius
     or near-genius IQs, are about as grotesque as anything one might ever conjure up. After more than twenty years of working
     violent deaths, I still haven’t seen it all.
    “I won’t be discussing any investigative details with her,” I tell the warden.
    “I’m sure Kathleen will be asking you, since it is her daughter we’re talking about, after all. Dawn Kincaid supposedly killed
     those people and then tried to murder you, too?” Her eyes are steady on mine.
    “I won’t be discussing any details with Kathleen about those cases or any cases.” I give the warden nothing. “That’s not why
     I’m here,” I reiterate firmly. “But I did bring a photograph I’d like her to have.”
    “If you’ll let me see it.” She reaches out a fine-boned hand with perfectly manicured nails painted deep rose as if she just
     had them done, and she wears many rings and a gold metal watch with a crystal bezel.
    I give her the plain white envelope I’d tucked into my back pocket, and she slides out a photograph of Jack Fielding washing his prized ’67 cherry-red Mustang, shirtless and in running shorts,
     grinning and glorious, when he was captured on camera some five years ago, between marriages and deteriorations. Although
     I didn’t do his autopsy, I’ve dissected his existence these five months since his murder, in part trying to figure out what
     I could have done to prevent it. I don’t believe I could have. I was never able to stop any self-destruction of his, and as
     I look at the photograph from where I sit, anger and guilt spark, and then I feel sad.
    “Well, I guess that’s fine,” the warden says. “He was easy on the eyes, I’ll give him that. One of these obsessive bodybuilders,
     good Lord. How many hours in a day would it take?”
    I look around at framed certificates and commendations on her walls because I don’t want to look at her looking at that photograph,
     uncertain why it’s bothering me so much. Maybe it’s harder to see Jack through a stranger’s eyes.
Warden of the Year. Outstanding Merit. Distinguished Service Award. Meritorious Service Award, Continuing Excellence. Supervisor
     of the Month.
Some of them she’s won more than once, and she has a bachelor’s degree cum laude from Spalding University in Kentucky, but
     she doesn’t sound like a native, more like Louisiana, and I ask her where she’s from.
    “Mississippi, originally,” she says. “My father was the superintendent of the state penitentiary there, and I spent my early
     years on twenty thousand acres of delta land as flat as a pancake, with soybeans and cotton that the inmates farmed. Then