St. Germaine told us she’d been born in Haiti, that she wasn’t a U.S. citizen, but that she’d lived in the United States for nearly twenty years.
Beyond that, she had little to say. Hunched over in her chair, she cried repeatedly, “I didn’t kill anyone. I did nothing wrong. I am a good person.”
“Stop that damned crying,” Jacobi said, pounding the table with his fist. “Explain these fricking death buttons so that I understand you. Or I swear to God, INS will have you in shackles on a flight to Port-au-Prince by the end of the day.” That certainly wasn’t the case, but I let Warren do the interview his way.
St. Germaine’s shoulders started to shake. She covered her face with her hands and blubbered, “I don’t want to talk anymore. You won’t believe whatever I say.”
If her next words were “I want a lawyer,” we were screwed.
“Okay, okay, Marie,” I said. “Inspector Jacobi didn’t mean to scare you. We just need to get at the truth. You understand that? Just tell us what you know.”
The woman nodded. She reached for the box of Puffs on the table and blew her nose.
“Why did you have those buttons in your locker, Marie? Let’s start there.”
She seemed to reach out to me at last, turning her back on Jacobi, fastening her attention on my face, my eyes. She didn’t look or act like a killer, but I knew not to be fooled by her appearance.
“We did this in nursing school,” she told me. “We put coins or shells on the dead people’s eyes back home, to help the dead pass over to the other side. You can check this with my school. Will you call them?”
Her voice gained strength as she told me, “I found the little boy dead this morning. It wasn’t his time, so I marked him for God. For His special attention.”
I dragged my chair even closer to St. Germaine. With some difficulty, I put my hand over hers.
“But did you help him pass, Marie? Did you think the little boy was suffering? Is that why you gave him something to send him to sleep?”
She ripped her hand away and pushed back from me, making me afraid that I’d lost her.
“I would kill myself before I would harm that child,” she said.
I cast my eyes toward the mirror, seeing my own haggard reflection, knowing that half the people watching this interview were thinking that if they were in this room instead of me, they’d crack this woman in half to get at the truth.
I took the list Carl Whiteley had given me out of my jacket pocket, flattened it on the table. I turned it at an angle so that she could read the thirty-two names, the terrifying death list.
“Look at this list, Marie. Did you put buttons on these people’s eyes?”
There was a long silence as the woman ran her finger down the page, silently mouthing the names.
“I put buttons on their eyes, yes,” she said finally, sitting up straight in her chair and pinning me with an unblinking stare.
“But I swear to God Himself, I didn’t hurt any of them. I think someone did. And I wanted to make sure that God knows. And that somebody knows in this life, too.”
Behind me, Jacobi kicked a chair across the room. It bounced off a wall and came to rest on its side.
“Inspector!” I admonished him, not meaning it for a second.
My eyes swept back to St. Germaine. “It’s okay, Marie. Pay attention to me. Why didn’t you call the police?”
“I need my job, lady,” she said indignantly. “Anyway, what’s the use? No one listens to a person like me. You don’t believe me. I can see it in your eyes.”
“Make me believe you,” I said. “I really want to.”
Marie St. Germaine leaned toward me, spoke in a confiding tone of voice.
“Then you should listen to me now. Talk to the doctor in charge of the hospital pharmacy. Dr. Engstrom. You should be talking to her, not to me. I am a good person. She is not.”
Chapter 121
SOMEHOW, SONJA ENGSTROM made an ordinary white lab coat look like haute couture. Her short platinum-blond hair was combed back, a single diamond drop hung from a platinum chain at her throat, and she was immaculately made up with an iridescent powder and a hint of rose-colored lipstick.