He sat on the far side of a scarred laminate table. When Marsia Gay was brought into the interview room, a guard behind her, she wasn’t wearing a prisoner’s three-piece suit, only ties on her wrists. Her orange jumpsuit actually fit her fairly well, and orange was a good color for her. She looked as she had in the video—maybe a bit paler in person, but composed, her face serene as a Madonna’s. She saw him seated at the table and smiled, showing lovely white teeth. Her eyes sparkled. She knew he’d come, and she’d looked forward to it.
She walked to the table, her smile well in place. “My, my, what a lovely break in my routine on this cold November morning. I suppose you’re here to ask me about poor Veronica’s murder.”
38
“Sit down, Marsia.”
She sat gracefully in the seat opposite him, gave him a big smile. “May I call you Dillon, since we appear to be on a first-name basis?”
“No.”
A large female guard with pretty dark eyes and a tight mouth stood behind her, arms crossed. She looked like she could bust heads if she needed to, but when she glanced at Marsia, her face relaxed into a near smile, like she was looking at a friend. Her reaction to Marsia reminded Savich that Gay was a psychopath with the ability to draw people to her, a kind of charisma that camouflaged what she really was.
Marsia sat back and crossed her arms, still smiling. “So it takes a death to bring you in for a visit. I must say you’re looking fit, Agent Savich, and quite handsome. I always thought you put the Rasmussen males to shame. Do you think I’ll be allowed to attend Veronica’s funeral?”
“If you were allowed to go to her funeral, you would have to go dressed in orange. A pity it makes you look rather sallow, since it’s the color you’ll be wearing until you’re too old to care.”
He saw a blaze of rage, then it was gone. Marsia laughed, wagged her finger at him. “Not a bad color on me, actually. We’ll see how long I’ll be wearing it, Agent Savich.”
She sat forward suddenly, enough to make her guard twitch, but not enough to caution her. “I know you believe I was behind Veronica’s murder in the cafeteria, but I didn’t know anything about it until a guard told me. I was in the common area, speaking to that very sweet guard. Junior is what he’s called. I don’t know his last name.”
“What were you talking about?”
“There’s only one thing you talk about in Washington if it’s not politics. Football and the status of the Redskins.”
Savich let her words settle a moment, then leaned back, crossed his arms over his chest. “What I’d rather talk about is how you orchestrated Veronica’s murder like a ballet, planned the whole production. It was artistic, even, wasn’t it? Had your fingerprints all over it, crazy and unique. Come on, don’t be shy, Marsia. Wouldn’t you enjoy taking credit?”
“And you’d enjoy sticking me with her murder, wouldn’t you, Agent Savich? Sorry, but as I said, I had nothing to do with what happened to poor Veronica. I was actually very fond of her until she turned on me, implicated me in her own attempts to murder Venus Rasmussen. I understood. Veronica was desperate, didn’t know what to say, and not being very bright, she picked anyone she could to throw to the wolves.”
“Don’t be modest, Marsia. It really doesn’t fit you at all. You weren’t Veronica’s accomplice; you ran the whole Rasmussen plot just like you ran the murder show in the cafeteria—by having someone else do it.”
She waved her hands at him. Savich saw her fingernails were manicured, buffed. Did she get a guard to give her a file?
Marsia said, “Let me tell you something you probably don’t know, and yes, I said the same thing to Warden Putney. You can ask anyone you like, actually. Veronica didn’t make any friends here. She didn’t realize how much she needed friends. She acted like she was better than the others, and no one likes to be treated like that, with no respect. I heard she complained about some of the prisoners, got them into trouble. And what did that crappy attitude get her? A shiv in her chest. Yes, a little over the top, but she should have known you never want to make enemies in prison.”