Blow Fly by Patricia Cornwell Page A

And, oh, the harmony of the Echezeaux! But it is the king of Burgundies that he loves most, the muscular and bigger-built Chambertins. Of the 280 bottles produced in 1999, Monsieur Chandonne acquired 150 for his cave. Of those 150, Jean-Baptiste got not a sip. But after one of his murders in Paris, he robbed her and celebrated with a 1998 Chambertin that tasted of roses and minerals and reminded him of her blood. As for Bordeaux? A Premier Grand Cru Classé, perhaps the 1984 Château Haut-Brion.
    â€œWho’s there?” he calls out.
    â€œShut up and quit fucking with the toilet paper! Pick it up.”
    Jean-Baptiste does not have to look to see the angry eyes peering through the bars in the door.
    â€œRoll it up nice and neat, and quit playing with your Mini-Me dick!”
    The eyes disappear, leaving cool air. Jean-Baptiste must leave for Beaune, where there are no eyes. He must find his next chosen one and rip away her flawed sight and beat her brains into forgetfulness so she will not remember her revulsion when she saw him. Then her domain is his. Her hillsides and luscious clusters of grapes belong to him. Her cave is his to explore, to feel his way along dark, damp walls that become cooler the longer he takes. Her blood is fine red wine, whichever vintage he craves. Reds, reds, splashing and running down his arms, turning his hair red and sticky, making his teeth ache with joy!
    â€œWho’s there?”
    Rarely is he answered.
    After two years, the corrections officers assigned to death row are weary of the mutant madman Jean-Baptiste Chandonne. They look forward to the end of him. The French wolfman with his deformed penis and hairy body is repulsive. His face is asymmetrical, as if the two sides were not lined up when they were put together in the womb, one eye lower than the other, his tiny baby teeth widely spaced and pointed. Until recently, he shaved daily. Jean-Baptiste doesn’t shave now. This is his right. The last four months before execution, the condemned inmate doesn’t have to shave. He can go to the death chamber with long hair and a beard.
    Other inmates do not have baby-fine swirls of hair that cover every inch of their bodies except for the mucous membranes and the palms and the soles of their feet. Jean-Baptiste has not shaved himself in two months, and three-inch-long hair covers his lean, ropy body, his entire face and neck, even the back of his hands. Other death-row inmates joke that Jean-Baptiste’s victims died of fright before he had a chance to beat and bite them into hamburger.
    â€œHamburger! Help her!”
    The taunts are meant for Jean-Baptiste to hear, and he receives written cruelties, too, in the form of notes—or kites, as they are called—that are passed through cracks beneath the doors, cell to cell, like chainletters, until he is the final recipient. He chews the notes to pulp and swallows them. Some days as many as ten. He can taste each word, they say.
    â€œToo bad we won’t be strapping his hairy ass in a chair, then he’d be cooked well-done. Fried.” He has overheard officers say words to that effect.
    â€œThe whole joint would smell like burning hair.”
    â€œIt ain’t right that we don’t get to shave them bald as a cue ball before they get the needle.”
    â€œIt ain’t right they don’t get fried anymore. Now it’s too fuckin’ easy. A little needle prick and nighty-night.”
    â€œWe’ll chill the juice extra good for the Wolfman.”

J EAN-BAPTISTE STRAINS on the toilet, as if he is hearing these derisive comments now, although it is silent outside his door.
    Chilling the juice is a dirty secret of tie-down and IV teams who want their little bit of sadistic fun at each execution. Whoever is in charge of the lethal drugs places them in an ice chest when transporting them from a locked refrigerator to the death chamber. Jean-Baptiste has overheard death-row inmates claim