In Southern Cross, Cornwell takes us even closer to the personal and professional lives of big-city police, in a story of corruption, scandal, and robberies that escalate to murder. This time, her setting is Richmond, Virginia, where Charlotte Police Chief Judy Hammer has been brought by an NIJ grant to clean up the police force. Reeling from the recent death of her husband, and resented by the police force, city manager, and mayor of Richmond, Hammer is joined by her deputy chief Virginia West and rookie Andy Brazil on the most difficult assignment of her career. In the face of overwhelming public scrutiny, the trio must bring truth, order, and sanity to a city in trouble.
In Southern Cross, Cornwell takes us even closer to the personal and professional lives of big-city police, in a story of corruption, scandal, and robberies that escalate to murder. This time, her setting is Richmond, Virginia, where Charlotte Police Chief Judy Hammer has been brought by an NIJ grant to clean up the police force. Reeling from the recent death of her husband, and resented by the police force, city manager, and mayor of Richmond, Hammer is joined by her deputy chief Virginia West and rookie Andy Brazil on the most difficult assignment of her career. In the face of overwhelming public scrutiny, the trio must bring truth, order, and sanity to a city in trouble.
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Overview
In Southern Cross, Cornwell takes us even closer to the personal and professional lives of big-city police, in a story of corruption, scandal, and robberies that escalate to murder. This time, her setting is Richmond, Virginia, where Charlotte Police Chief Judy Hammer has been brought by an NIJ grant to clean up the police force. Reeling from the recent death of her husband, and resented by the police force, city manager, and mayor of Richmond, Hammer is joined by her deputy chief Virginia West and rookie Andy Brazil on the most difficult assignment of her career. In the face of overwhelming public scrutiny, the trio must bring truth, order, and sanity to a city in trouble.
Product Details
| ISBN-13: | 9781101203729 |
|---|---|
| Publisher: | Penguin Publishing Group |
| Publication date: | 12/01/1999 |
| Series: | Andy Brazil Series , #2 |
| Sold by: | Penguin Group |
| Format: | eBook |
| Pages: | 432 |
| Sales rank: | 88,629 |
| File size: | 539 KB |
| Age Range: | 18 Years |
About the Author
Hometown:
Boston, MA and New York, NYDate of Birth:
June 9, 1956Place of Birth:
Miami, FloridaEducation:
B.A. in English, Davidson College, 1979; King CollegeWebsite:
http://www.patriciacornwell.comRead an Excerpt
THE LAST MONDAY morning of March began with promise
in the historic city of Richmond, Virginia, where
prominent family names had not changed since the war
that was not forgotten. Traffic was scant on downtown
streets and the Internet. Drug dealers were asleep, prostitutes
tired, drunk drivers sober, pedophiles returning to
work, burglar alarms silent, domestic fights on hold. Not
much was going on at the morgue.
Richmond, built on seven or eight hills, depending on
who counts, is a metropolitan center of unflagging pride
that traces its roots back to 1607, when a small band of
fortune-hunting English explorers got lost and laid claim
to the region by planting a cross in the name of King
James. The inevitable settlement at the fall line of the
James River, predictably called “The Falls,” suffered the
expected tribulations of trading posts and forts, and anti-
British sentiments, revolution, hardships, floggings,
scalpings, treaties that didn’t work and people dying
young.
Local Indians discovered firewater and hangovers, and
traded herbs, minerals and furs for hatchets, ammunition,
cloth, kettles and more firewater. Slaves were shipped in
2 Patricia Cornwell
from Africa. Thomas Jefferson designed Monticello, the
Capitol and the state penitentiary. He founded the University
of Virginia, drafted the Declaration of Independence
and was accused of fathering mulatto children. Railroads
were constructed. The tobacco industry flourished and
nobody sued.
All in all, life in the genteel city ambled along reasonably
well until 1861, when Virginia decided to secede
from the Union and the Union wouldn’t go along with it.
Richmond did not fare well in the Civil War. Afterward,
the former capital of the Confederacy went on as best it
could with no slaves and bad money. It remained fiercely
loyal to its defeated cause, still flaunting its battle flag, the
Southern Cross, as Richmonders marched into the next
century and survived other terrible wars that were not their
problem because they were fought elsewhere.
By the late twentieth century, things were going rather
poorly in the capital city. Its homicide rate had climbed as
high as second in the nation. Tourism was suffering. Children
were carrying guns and knives to school and fighting
on the bus. Residents and department stores had abandoned
downtown and fled to nearby counties. The tax base
was shrinking. City officials and city council members
didn’t get along. The governor’s antebellum mansion
needed new plumbing and wiring.
General Assembly delegates continued slamming desktops
and insulting one another when they came to town,
and the chairman of the House Transportation Committee
carried a concealed handgun onto the floor. Dishonest gypsies
began dropping by on their migrations north and
south, and Richmond became a home away from home for
drug dealers traveling along I-95.
The timing was right for a woman to come along and
clean house. Or perhaps it was simply that nobody was
looking when the city hired its first female police chief,
who this moment was out walking her dog. Daffodils and
crocuses were blooming, the morning’s first light spreading
across the horizon, the temperature an unseasonable
Southern Cross 3
seventy degrees. Birds were chatty from the branches of
budding trees, and Chief Judy Hammer was feeling
uplifted and momentarily soothed.
“Good girl, Popeye,” she encouraged her Boston terrier.
It wasn’t an especially kind name for a dog whose huge
eyes bulged and pointed at the walls. But when the SPCA
had shown the puppy on TV and Hammer had rushed to
the phone to adopt her, Popeye was already Popeye and
answered only to that name.
Hammer and Popeye kept a good pace through their
restored neighborhood of Church Hill, the city’s original
site, quite close to where the English planted their cross.
Owner and dog moved briskly past antebellum homes with
iron fences and porches, and slate and false mansard roofs,
and turrets, stone lintels, chased wood, stained glass,
scroll-sawn porches, gables, raised so-called English and
picturesque basements, and thick chimneys.
They followed East Grace Street to where it ended at an
overlook that was the most popular observation point in
the city. On one side of the precipice was the radio station
WRVA, and on the other was Hammer’s nineteenthcentury
Greek Revival house, built by a man in the tobacco
business about the time the Civil War ended. Hammer
loved the old brick, the bracketed cornices and flat roof,
and the granite porch. She craved places with a past and
always chose to live in the heart of the jurisdiction she
served.
She unlocked the front door, turned off the alarm system,
freed Popeye from the leash and put her through a
quick circuit of sitting, sitting pretty and getting down, in
exchange for treats. Hammer walked into the kitchen for
coffee, her ritual every morning the same. After her walk
and Popeye’s continuing behavioral modification, Hammer
would sit in her living room, scan the paper and look
out long windows at the vista of tall office buildings, the
Capitol, the Medical College of Virginia and acres of Virginia
Commonwealth University’s Biotechnology
Research Park. It was said that Richmond was becoming
4 Patricia Cornwell
the “City of Science,” a place of enlightenment and thriving
health.
But as its top law enforcer surveyed edifices and downtown
streets, she was all too aware of crumbling brick
smokestacks, rusting railroad tracks and viaducts, and
abandoned factories and tobacco warehouses with windows
painted over and boarded up. She knew that bordering
downtown and not so far from where she lived were
five federal housing projects, with two more on Southside.
If one told the politically incorrect truth, all were breeding
grounds for social chaos and violence and were clear evidence
that the Civil War continued to be lost by the South.
Hammer gazed out at a city that had invited her to solve
its seemingly hopeless problems. The morning was lighting
up and she worried there would be one cruel cold snap
left over from winter. Wouldn’t that be just like everything
else these days, the final petty act, the eradication of what
little beauty was left in her horrendously stressful life?
Doubts crowded her thoughts.
When she had forged the destiny that had brought her to
Richmond, she had refused to entertain the possibility that
she had become a fugitive from her own life. Her two sons
were grown and had distanced themselves from her long
before their father, Seth, had gotten ill and died last spring.
Judy Hammer had bravely gone on, gathering her life’s
mission around her like a crusader’s cape.
She resigned from the Charlotte P.D., where she had
been resisted and celebrated for the miracles she wrought
as its chief. She decided it was her calling to move on to
other southern cities and occupy and raze and reconstruct.
She made a proposal to the National Institute of Justice
that would allow her to pick beleaguered police departments
across the South, spend a year in each, and bring all
of them into a union of one-for-all and all-for-one.
Hammer’s philosophy was simple. She did not believe
in cops’ rights. She knew for a fact that when officers, the
brass, precincts and even chiefs seceded from the department
to do their own thing, the result was catastrophic.
Crime rates went up. Clearance rates went down. Nobody
Southern Cross 5
got along. The citizens that law enforcement was there to
protect and serve locked their doors, loaded their guns,
cared not for their neighbors, gave cops the finger and
blamed everything on them. Hammer’s blueprint for
enlightenment and change was the New York Crime Control
Model of policing known as COMSTAT, or computerdriven
statistics.
The acronym was an easy way to define a concept far
more complicated than the notion of using technology to
map crime patterns and hot spots in the city. COMSTAT
held every cop accountable for everything. No longer
could the rank and file and their leaders pass the buck, look
the other way, not care, not know the answer, say they
couldn’t help it, were about to get around to it, hadn’t been
told, forgot, meant to, didn’t feel well or were on the phone
or off duty at the time, because on Mondays and Fridays
Chief Hammer assembled representatives from all
precincts and divisions and gave them hell.
Clearly, Hammer’s battle plan was a northern one, but
as fate would have it, when she presented her proposal to
Richmond’s city council, it was preoccupied with infighting,
mutiny and usurpations. At the time, it didn’t seem
like such a bad thing to let someone else solve the city’s
problems. So it was that Hammer was hired as interim
chief for a year and allowed to bring along two talents she
had worked with in Charlotte.
Hammer began her occupation of Richmond. Soon
enough stubbornness set in. Hatred followed. The city
patriarchs wanted Hammer and her NIJ team to go home.
There was not a thing the city needed to learn from New
York, and Richmonders would be damned before they followed
any example set by the turncoat, carpetbagging city
of Charlotte, which had a habit of stealing Richmond’s
banks and Fortune 500 companies.
Deputy Chief Virginia West complained bitterly through
painful expressions and exasperated huffs as she jogged
around the University of Richmond track. The slate roofs
of handsome collegiate Gothic buildings were just begin6
Patricia Cornwell
ning to materialize as the sun thought about getting up, and
students had yet to venture out except for two young
women who were running sprints.
“I can’t go much farther,” West blurted out to Officer
Andy Brazil.
Brazil glanced at his watch. “Seven more minutes,” he
said. “Then you can walk.”
It was the only time she took orders from him. Virginia
West had been a deputy chief in Charlotte when Brazil was
still going through the police academy and writing articles
for the Charlotte Observer. Then Hammer had brought
them with her to Richmond so West could head investigations
and Brazil could do research, handle public information
and start a website.
Although one might argue that, in actuality, West and
Brazil were peers on Hammer’s NIJ team, in West’s mind
she outranked Brazil and always would. She was more
powerful. He would never have her experience. She was
better on the firing range and in fights. She had killed a
suspect once, although she wasn’t proud of it. Her love
affair with Brazil back in their Charlotte days had been due
to the very normal intensity of mentoring. So he’d had a
crush and she had gone along with it before he got over it.
So what.
“You notice anybody else killing himself out here?
Except those two girls, who are either on the track team or
have an eating disorder,” West continued to complain in
gasps. “No! And guess why! Because this is stupid as shit!
I should be drinking coffee, reading the paper right now.”
“If you’d quit talking, you could get into a rhythm,” said
Brazil, who ran without effort in navy Charlotte P.D.
sweats and Saucony shoes that whispered when they
touched the red rubberized track.
“You really ought to quit wearing Charlotte shit,” she
went on talking anyway. “It’s bad enough as is. Why make
the cops here hate us more?”
“I don’t think they hate us.” Brazil tried to be positive
about how unfriendly and unappreciative Richmond cops
had been.
Southern Cross 7
“Yes they do.”
“Nobody likes change,” Brazil reminded her.
“You seem to,” she said.
It was a veiled reference to the rumor West had heard
barely a week after they had moved here. Brazil had something
going on with his landlady, a wealthy single woman
who lived in Church Hill. West had asked for no further
information. She had checked out nothing. She did not
want to know. She had refused to drive past Brazil’s house,
much less drop by for a visit.
“I guess I like change when it’s good,” Brazil was saying.
“Exactly.”
“Do you wish you’d stayed in Charlotte?”
“Absolutely.”
Brazil picked up his pace just enough to give her his
back. She would never forgive him for saying how much
he wanted her to come with him to Richmond, for talking
her into something yet one more time because he could,
because he used words with clarity and conviction. He had
carried her away on the rhythm of feelings he clearly no
longer had. He had crafted his love into poetry and then
fucking read it to someone else.
“There’s nothing for me here,” said West, who put
words together the way she hung doors and shutters and
built fences. “I mean let’s be honest about it.” She wasn’t
about to paint over anything without stripping it first. “It
sucks.” She sawed away. “Thank God it’s only for a year.”
She pounded her point.
He replied by picking up his pace.
“Like we’re some kind of MASH unit for police departments,”
she added. “Who were we kidding? What a waste
of time. I don’t remember when I’ve wasted so much
time.”
Brazil glanced at his watch. He didn’t seem to be listening
to her, and she wished she could get past his broad
shoulders and handsome profile. The early sun rubbed gold
into his hair. The two college women sprinted past, sweaty
and fat-free, their muscular legs pumping as they showed
8 Patricia Cornwell
off to Brazil. West felt depressed. She felt old. She halted
and bent over, hands on her knees.
“That’s it!” she exclaimed, heaving.
“Forty-six more seconds.” Brazil ran in place like he
was treading water, looking back at her.
“Go on.”
“You sure?”
“Fly like the wind.” She rudely waved him on. “Damn
it,” she bitched as her flip phone vibrated on the waistband
of her running shorts.
She moved off the track, over to the bleachers, out of
the way of hard-bodied people who made her insecure.
“West,” she answered.
“Virginia? It’s . . .” Hammer’s voice pushed through
static.
“Chief Hammer?” West loudly said. “Hello?”
“Virginia . . . You there?” Hammer’s voice scattered
more.
West pressed a hand over her other ear, trying to hear.
“. . . That’s bullshit . . .” a male voice suddenly broke in.
West started walking, trying to get into a better cell.
“Virginia . . . ?” Hammer’s voice barely crackled
through.
“. . . can do it anytime . . . usual rules apply . . .” The
male voice was back.
He had a southern drawl and was obviously a redneck.
West felt instant hostility.
“. . . time to . . . kill . . . Got to . . . or score . . .” The redneck
spoke in distorted blurts.
“. . . an ugly dog not worth . . . lead to shoot it . . .” A
second redneck suddenly answered the first redneck. “How
much . . . ?”
“Depends on . . . Maybe a couple hundred . . .”
“. . . Just between us . . .”
“. . . If . . . body . . . finds . . .”
“. . . not invited . . .”
“What?” Hammer’s voice surfaced and was gone.
“. . . Use a . . . cold nose . . . Not your piece . . . shit . . . !
Blue . . .”
Southern Cross 9
“Chief Hammer . . .” West started to say more, then
caught herself, realizing the rednecks might be able to hear
them, too.
“. . . coons . . .” The first redneck came back. “. . . not
one born too smart for . . . Dismal Swamp . . .”
“. . . Got that right, Bubba . . . We covered . . . a blanket
. . .”
“Okay, Smudge . . . buddy . . . early morning?”
West was silently shocked as she listened to two men
plan a homicide that clearly was racially motivated, a hate
crime, a score to settle that involved robbery. It sounded as
if the murder would go down early in the morning. She
wondered if a cold nose was slang for a snub-nosed
revolver and if blue referred to a gun that was blue steel
versus stainless steel or nickel-plated. Clearly, the psychos
planned to wrap the body in a blanket and dump it in the
Dismal Swamp.
Static.
“. . . Loraine . . .” Bubba’s fractured voice was back.
“. . . At old pumps . . . cut engine . . . headlights off so
don’t wake . . .”
Static, and the cell cleared.
“Chief Hammer?” West said. “Chief Hammer? Are you
still there?”
“Bubba . . .” the second stranger crackled again. “Somebody’s
on . . .”
Static, scratch, blare, blip.
“Goddamn it,” West muttered when her phone went
dead.
Bubba’s real name was Butner Fluck IV. Unlike so many
fearless men devoted to pickup trucks, guns, topless bars
and the Southern Cross, he had not been born into the tribe
of Bubbas, but rather had grown up the son of a theologian
in the Northside neighborhood of Ginter Park, where old
mansions were in disrepair and Civil War cannonballs on
porches were popular. Butner came from a long line of
Butners who always went by the nickname “But,” and it
was lost on his erudite father, Dr. But Fluck III, that calling
10 Patricia Cornwell
his son But in this day and age set the child up for problems.
By the time little But had entered the first grade, the
slurs, the slander and the derision were on every tongue.
They were whispered in class, shouted on buses and playing
fields, and drawn on sheets of notebook paper slipped
from desk to desk or left inside little But’s locker. When he
wrote his name it was But Fluck. In the teacher’s grade
books he was Fluck, But.
Any way he looked at it, he was screwed, really, and of
course his peers came up with any number of other renditions.
Mother-But-Flucker, Butter-Flucker, But-Flucking-
Boy, Buttock-Fluck, and so on. When he retreated into his
studies and went to the head of the class, new pet names
were added to the list. But-Head, Fluck-Head, Mother-
Flucking-But-Head, Head-But-Head, et al.
For But’s ninth birthday he requested camouflage and
several toy guns. He became a compulsive eater. He spent
a lot of time in the woods hunting imaginary prey. He
immersed himself in a growing stash of magazines featuring
mercenary soldiers, anarchists, trucks, assault
weapons, Civil War battlefields and women in swimsuits.
He collected manuals on simple car care and repair, automotive
tools and wiring, wilderness survival, fishing, and
hiking in bear country. He sneaked cigarettes and was
rude. His tenth year he changed his name to Bubba and
was feared by all.
This early Monday morning Bubba was driving home
from third shift at Philip Morris, his CB and two-way
radios turned on, his portable phone plugged into the cigarette
lighter, Eric Clapton on the CD player. His stainless
steel Colt Anaconda .44 with its eight-inch barrel and
Bushnell Holo sight on a B-Square base was tucked under
his seat within quick reach.
Multiple antennas bobbed on his red 1990 Jeep Cherokee,
which Bubba did not realize had been listed in the
Used Car Buying Guide as a used car to avoid, or that it
had been wrecked and had a hundred thousand more miles
on it than the odometer showed. Bubba had no reason to
Southern Cross 11
doubt his good buddy, Joe “Smudge” Bruffy, who last year
had sold the Jeep to Bubba for only three thousand dollars
more than the Blue Book value.
In fact, it was Smudge who Bubba had been talking to
on the portable phone moments earlier when two other
voices broke in. Bubba hadn’t been able to make out what
the two women were saying, but the name “Chief Hammer”
had been unmistakable. He knew it meant something.
Bubba had been raised in a Presbyterian atmosphere of
predestination, God’s will, inclusive language, exegesis
and colorful stoles. He had rebelled. In college he had
studied Far Eastern religions to spite his father, but none of
Bubba’s acting out had eradicated the essence of his early
indoctrination. Bubba believed there was purpose. Despite
all setbacks and personal flaws, he had faith that if he accumulated
enough good karma, or perhaps if yin and yang
ever got along, he would discover the reason for his existence.
So when he heard Chief Hammer’s name over the cell
phone, he experienced a sudden release of gloominess and
menacing persecution, a buoyant happiness and surge of
power. He was transformed into the warrior on a mission
he had always been destined to become as he followed
Midlothian Turnpike to Muskrat’s Auto Rescue, this time
for another windshield leak. Bubba snapped up the mike of
his two-way Kenwood radio and switched over to the
security channel.
“Unit 1 to Unit 2.” He tried to raise Honey, his wife, as
he followed the four-lane artery of Southside out of
Chesterfield County and into the city limits.
No answer. Bubba’s eyes scanned his mirrors. A Richmond
police cruiser pulled in behind him. Bubba slowed
down.
“Unit 1 to Unit 2,” Bubba tried again.
No answer. Some shithead kid in a white Ford Explorer
was trying to cut in front of Bubba. Bubba sped up.
“Unit 1 to Unit 2!” Bubba hated it when his wife didn’t
respond to him immediately.
The cop remained on Bubba’s tail, dark Oakleys staring
12 Patricia Cornwell
straight into Bubba’s rearview mirror. Bubba slowed
again. The punk in the Explorer tried to ease in front of
Bubba, right turn signal flashing. Bubba sped up. He deliberated
over what form of communication to use next, and
picked up his portable phone. He changed his mind. He
thought about trying his wife again on the two-way and
decided not to bother. She should have gotten back to him
the first and second times. The hell with her. He snapped
up the mike to his CB, eyeing the cop in his mirrors and
keeping a check on the Explorer.
“Yo, Smudge,” Bubba hailed his buddy over the CB.
“You on track come back to yack.”
“Unit 2,” his wife’s out-of-breath voice came over the
two-way.
Bubba’s portable phone rang.
“Sorry . . . oh my . . .” Honey sweetly said as she
gasped. “I was . . . oh dear . . . let me catch my breath . . .
whew . . . was chasing Half Shell . . . she wouldn’t
come . . . That dog.”
Bubba ignored her. He answered the phone.
“Bubba?” said Gig Dan, Bubba’s supervisor at Philip
Morris.
“Trackin’ and yackin’, buddy,” Smudge came back
over the CB.
“Unit 2 to Unit 1?” Honey anxiously persisted over the
two-way.
“Yo, Gig,” Bubba said into the portable phone. “What’s
goin’ on?”
“Need ya to come in and work the second half of second
shift,” Gig told him. “Tiller called in sick.”
Shit, Bubba thought. Today of all days when there was
so much to do and so little time. It depressed the hell out of
him to think about showing up at eight o’clock tonight and
working twelve straight hours.
“Ten-4,” Bubba replied to Gig.
“When you wanna shine on yellow eyes?” Smudge
hadn’t given up.
Bubba didn’t really like coon hunting all that much. His
coon dog Half Shell had her problems, and Bubba worried
Southern Cross 13
about snakes. Besides, Smudge always got a higher score.
It seemed all Bubba did was lose money to him.
“Before slithers wake up, I guess.” Bubba tried to sound
sure of himself. “So go ahead and shake out a plan.”
“Ten-fo, good buddy,” Smudge came back. “Gotcha
covered like a blanket.”
Interviews
On Monday, January 18th, barnesandnoble.com welcomed Patricia Cornwell to discuss SOUTHERN CROSS.
Moderator: Welcome, Patricia Cornwell! Thank you for taking the time to join us online this evening. How are you doing tonight?
Patricia Cornwell: I am doing very well, and thank you for your interest. It is a delight to be here.
Emily Brown from Scotch Plains, NJ: Greetings, Patricia. Once again, with SOUTHERN CROSS, I am wowed by the authenticity of detail. Can you tell us any anecdotes about research ventures for which you either had difficulty getting permission to pursue, or that caused you to rethink a point of view or change the direction of the plot?
Patricia Cornwell: I think having to go coon hunting was probably the most challenging of my research trips. There are a lot of people all over the country for whom this is huge sports event. So I had to go and research with a miner's helmet in swamps with these good old guys and their coon dogs. But I would have never understood the importance of the sport and the value of it if not for the research. It was a magnificent experience -- I really enjoyed it.
Marco Aurelio from Fortaleza, Brazil: Hello, there, dear Patricia Cornwell! I'm so pleased to be able to ask you a question, since I'm a huge Brazilian fan of yours. I'd like to say, I loved all your books, and I can't wait to read SOUTHERN CROSS. I've got a question: You have a character called Andy Brazil. Does he have any inspiration by the country? Why did you give this surname to him? Any special reason? Thank you.
Patricia Cornwell: He has not been to Brazil, but we know he must go there. As a matter of fact, I will be coming to Brazil in April on book tour. I am not sure where I will be, but look for me.
Earlene from Seattle, WA: I love your books! How old were you when you first knew you wanted to be an author?
Patricia Cornwell: I am not sure how old I was, but I have been writing since I was old enough to hold a crayon. Probably in college I started thinking about publishing books, because I had to choose a career, and when I thought about what I would like to be doing the rest of my life, I knew it was writing books.
Jay from Knoxville, TN: Ms. Cornwell, did you visit Philip Morris? Your knowledge of the factory was astonishing!
Patricia Cornwell: Thank you for asking that. As a matter of fact, I went over there two or three times. They were incredibly gracious, and I have never seen such an amazing production line in all my life. So the way I describe it is pretty much the way it is. And as a matter of fact, I am a reformed smoker, but if I spent one more day there, I think I would have lit up again.
Pac87@aol.com from xx: Are the portions in the novel about COMSTAT realistic? Did you research this extensively?
Patricia Cornwell: Yes, I did. I went to New York City and sat in on a COMSTAT meeting, so the way I describe it is accurate. COMSTAT is actually an excellent idea, and I hope it spreads to other parts of the country.
Rina from Malaysia: Ms. Cornwell, it's great being able to meet my fave author on this chat. I simply love your books, and I want to thank you for writing them. I have yet to read SOUTHERN CROSS -- I have not seen it in the bookstores here yet -- but I understand that you have moved Chief Hammer and Co. to Virginia. Is there a possibility that Chief Hammer and Dr. Scarpetta would meet in any of your future books?
Patricia Cornwell: Great question. I have a very subtle allusion to Scarpetta as a medical examiner. But I don't think these books will get interwoven unless I get really senile.
Jay from Knoxville, TN: Ms. Cornwell, what happened with the television show "A.T.F."? I was so looking forward to your excellence in another field!
Patricia Cornwell: You are very well informed. The movie was made, it was very good, then ABC decided to put it in the can because the network felt it would be too expensive to start a series. So they spent $6 million on nothing (that is what it cost to make). One can only hope that one day it will be resurrected.
Marvin from NY: I know it is tough or impossible to predict, but what type of future direction do you see for some of those old-fashioned cities deeply rooted in their racist old traditions?
Patricia Cornwell: I think the future for a lot of them is not very good. I truly think there are some people that are too rooted to ever move on to a brighter future. And I think that is a true shame. We should look forward, not back.
Frank from Pennsylvania: New York City is too intimidating and distant! Richmond is just too distant! Have you in the past, or do you plan in the near future, to do a book signing in Pennsylvania? PS: I just love your books. I have a collection of nine, even though my local library has them also.
Patricia Cornwell: I am sure I will. There is a web site that is unauthorized that Jim Juno does. People can access [tour information] through him. But I have no doubt that I will be back to Pennsylvania.
Sandi McCraw from North Carolina: Hi, Patricia. I really enjoyed HORNET'S NEST, and I'm looking forward to reading SOUTHERN CROSS. What made you choose Charlotte as the setting for HORNET'S NEST? Is it also the setting of SOUTHERN CROSS? (PS: I miss Kay! Hope to see her soon!)
Patricia Cornwell: I chose Charlotte because I went there for college, then I worked for The Charlotte Observer, and the city has grown so much -- particularly with the notorious bank building -- that I thought it would be a lot of fun. SOUTHERN CROSS is set in Richmond.
Paul Feldhuhn from Palm Bay, Florida: You are my favorite author, and Dr. Kay is a great character. In regards to SOUTHERN CROSS: Did you have any trouble juxtaposing the very real problem of gang violence, and specifically the horror and cruelty perpetrated by Smoke and his real-life counterparts, with "wacky" humor, albeit "black" wacky humor? I know I am struggling with this as I'm reading. Thanks, and looking forward to BLACK NOTICE.
Patricia Cornwell: Excellent question. The wacky part is a lot of fun, but it also has a serious side and dark humor; but the real violence that I choose is to shock people that this really isn't funny and the violence is real, so the juxtaposition of violence and satire is very deliberate.
Sylvia Troxel from Dallas: Many people have offered vague proposals regarding parental involvement in regards to juvenile crime. From your perspective, how does parental accountability/responsibility fit into the juvenile-crime reform equation?
Patricia Cornwell: I think parental responsibility is very important, and when parents are not responsible, they should be held accountable. Certainly there are exceptions to this, but it is a travesty how many juveniles fill up the court and their parents aren't even there.
Margaret McCrary from Albany, GA: Patricia, I do enjoy the way your mind works through the relationships of your characters and story plots. My two questions are: In the Dr. Scarpetta books, how did you happen to choose for Temple Gault to come from Albany, GA? I wondered if you had friends or family here. I pass Pippin Pecan and the orchards every day taking my daughter to school out on Old Petoria Road, here in Albany. Also, how could I order first-edition books signed by you? I only have one at this time, and it is POINT OF ORIGIN, which I happened to come across at barnesandnoble.com. Thanks for sharing your talents with us!
Patricia Cornwell: Albany was chosen because I wanted his family to come from an old Southern plantation to have the paradox of the old gentile South with a modern psychopath. The best way to get a book signed is at a book signing, and if you look at the web site, you can find where the closest one will be.
Michelle from Eugene, Oregon: Thank you so much for being here! I sincerely enjoy reading your books. I have all hardback editions because I cannot wait long enough for the paperbacks. I would like to know if you will have any say in the casting of actors for the movie of FROM POTTER'S FIELD?
Patricia Cornwell: I most certainly will. The director, Beeban Kidron, and I are working very closely in a joint effort on our part. I have already read the script and liked it very much, and I hope Universal will be filming it in the not-too-distant future.
Jay from Knoxville, TN: Ms. Cornwell, I read somewhere that in HORNET'S NEST, Andy Brazil's character was originally a female. If so, what made you change your mind?
Patricia Cornwell: The many details people find out.... The genesis of HORNET'S NEST was a screenplay I wrote, and originally Andy was a female, but because there were already two strong females, my publisher and agent suggested I might change her to a male, which has worked wonderfully. He is the brother I wish I had.
Brenda B. from Jacksonville, FL: Will there be a new love interest for Scarpetta? I am so sorry about the demise of Benton. Love all your books.
Patricia Cornwell: I have no doubt there will be; in fact, I am just this very moment working on the new book, called BLACK NOTICE. I can already sense trouble around the corner. And I don't mean crime.
Margaret from Belfast: Greetings from the Emerald Isle just after midnight. Ms. Cornwell, please put your mailing list "friends" out of our misery. In POINT OF ORIGIN, specifically Carrie's letter, what do the letters GKSFWFY mean? "Gretham kills Scarpetta, fire waits for you" was a popular guess. Or random character initials?
Patricia Cornwell: The personal ad? At this very moment, I don't remember what it means -- I have too many books in my head to remember everything.
Lisa from Virginia: Hi! I adore both the Hammer books -- a nice divergence from the Scarpetta ones (these, of course, are tops!). Will the next Hammer book (if you know already) be moving the trio to another city for another NIJ "takeover"?
Patricia Cornwell: I am not sure. However, I think that the characters will stay in this area for at least another book. After all, if you read SOUTHERN CROSS, Hammer had only about a week to get herself out of trouble; I think we need to give her a little more time.
Gillian from Bradford, England: Greetings from freezing England! Do you find writing easier as you go on, or do you find it more difficult with every novel?
Patricia Cornwell: I find every novel more challenging than the last, because my goal in life is to get better with each one. However, I find the art of writing gets a little easier the more I do it.
George from Chicago: Are you anything like any of your characters? If so, which one? And are you going to be doing any book signings in the Chicago area in the future? Thanks.
Patricia Cornwell: I say all the characters are my children and share my genetic code, whether it is Scarpetta, Hammer, or even Marino, because I really could be a slob. And I have no doubt that I will be doing a signing in Chicago, I am just not sure right now.
Suzanne from Tallahassee, FL: Ms. Cornwell, I've really enjoyed your books. How did you come up with the names of the characters in SOUTHERN CROSS, and do you really know people like them?
Patricia Cornwell: One very easy way to come up with names is to flip through a phone book and look in a newspaper; in other words, I came across a detective whose last name was Fluck, and I thought, How in the world would this affect the man's life? And a lot of the names I just make up. It is a satire, and I have fun with names in this way. But if you really take a look, you would be amazed at some of the names people have. In Richmond there was a Doctor Fry who used to proclaim executed prisoners dead after they were electrocuted.
Sam from Virginia: Dear Ms. Cornwell, I love your books and greatly admire you and your writing. My question is, I have heard about your new Scarpetta book, BLACK NOTICE, and was wondering if you could give us any information about it.
Patricia Cornwell: I have been doing research with Interpol in Lyon, France, and the book begins with an unidentified body that ends up in a port in Richmond. Basically, a "black notice" is an Interpol term for an unidentified dead body that may have international connections, so if you are in a computer but flagged as a black notice, you are dead, but they don't know who you are. The rest you have to read about later.
Linda Brossette from New Orleans: In reading SOUTHERN CROSS, I was wondering if you were influenced by Faulkner or Walker Percy.
Patricia Cornwell: No, but I have to say, A CONFEDERACY OF DUNCES is one of the funniest books I have read, and I probably relate to that more than the others.
Kelly Rae from Lincoln, Michigan: Hi, Patricia! I am glad that I finally get to chat with my favorite author. I have not yet bought a copy of your latest work, and I do plan on it, but would you answer a question for me? Will Kay ever get a peaceful night's sleep? Thanks so much!
Patricia Cornwell: Now and then she will get one, I hope. But you have to remember, just like paperwork, people are not interested in seeing her doing paperwork or buying pencils or sleeping well. She actually has a better life then we think she does. And I will add that I published a book in November called SCARPETTA'S WINTER TABLE, where you will see the gentler, peaceful side of her. The biggest crime in the book is a kid throwing a snowball at Marino's window.
Sylvia from Dallas: Ms. Cornwell, on "The Rosie O'Donnell Show," you mentioned you had a director, Tim Willocks, lined up for the film rendition of FROM POTTER'S FIELD. What other films has Mr. Willocks directed?
Patricia Cornwell: Actually, the director is Beeban Kidron, a British director who has done many movies, including "To Wong Foo, Thanks for Everything, Julie Newmar." Tim Willocks is the screenwriter, who also wrote a very good book, GREEN RIVER RISING. He is the screenwriter.
Tammy from Chicago: You depict the characters in your novels so vividly. Are they just designed around people you have met or currently know in your career? By the way, you are an incredible author. I wish you could write a book a week. I could read them that quickly.
Patricia Cornwell: My agent wishes the same thing. Thanks for the compliment, but no, none of my characters are based on real people. I am not sure where they come from -- I just see them in my head, and I can hear them speak.
Paula from Indy: Ms. Cornwell, which authors in your particular genre do you most admire, and why? Sorry, I've not had the privilege of reading SOUTHERN CROSS yet, but I've read everything else of yours!
Patricia Cornwell: I am sorry to tell you that I really am not a big fiction reader. My favorite things to read are biographies. But in terms of admiring current crime novelists, I think David Baldacci is very good, and Linda A. Fairstein, if you are interested in thrillers that are technically accurate.
Cooper from Chattanooga, TN: You have done many things to make your stories so very realistic. Any hints for what is lurking in your plans? I know you have just given us a new book.... Sorry to seem as though all we want is more, more, more, but let's face it, we love your creations.
Patricia Cornwell: There is nothing you can say to me that makes me feel better then to hear "more, more, more." I am not 100 percent sure what the future holds, but I see the Hammer and Scarpetta series going a long time. I suspect that the 11th Scarpetta book may deal with terrorism. That may not be a whole lot of fun to research.
Robin from Charlotte, NC: You've probably been asked this a million times, but why, oh, why did Benton have to die? Was it that the relationship was going nowhere and Kay needed a fresh perspective?
Patricia Cornwell: When I started POINT OF ORIGIN, I had no idea this was going to happen; it wasn't until a third of the way through the book that I began to get a premonition of what may lay ahead. I am very true to my characters -- you may say this is strange to hear, but his death upset me as much as it upset you. In fact, I am having to deal with it in every page of BLACK NOTICE, and sometimes I cry.
Lisa Terry from Lynchburg, Virginia: I'm very excited to be chatting with you, after seeing you at our book signing here in Virginia and having my book signed. My question is, When you are writing on a certain subject, do you always research it to the point of actually participating in that particular subject? Such as, I understand you took up flying for the part of the helicopter in POINT OF ORIGIN. Do you go so far as to do that in everything -- scuba diving, and so on?
Patricia Cornwell: Yes. But I stop short of putting myself in real danger; although some things I do have risks, I am not stupid or reckless. For example, I can fly a helicopter -- in fact, I just bought one -- but I will probably never fly it alone. I have a National Guard pilot who flies with me always. As much as possible, I try to do the things I tell you about, not only because of realism, but I feel so privileged that you read my books that I want to work very hard for you.
Sue from Toronto: Thank you for your wonderful books. Will Lucy develop a more lasting relationship than she has had in past books? Thanks, Sue.
Patricia Cornwell: I suspect she will. But again, it is so hard for me to say, because I don't have a master plan for my characters any more than I do for my friends and loved ones. I only have ideas.
Emily Brown from Scotch Plains, NJ: In SOUTHERN CROSS, you write that Andy became a cop "so he could write stories about crime that would change the way people thought." Is this at least in part your personal mission statement, too?
Patricia Cornwell: Yes, it is. One of the reasons I still go to the morgue a number of times in the year and ride with police is because I want to show you the reality of violence. The best case scenario is that if some day you sit on a jury, violence will turn from an abstraction to a reality, from something you may have read from my book, and that is a very exciting idea.
Moderator: It's always a pleasure to chat with you, Patricia Cornwell, and we, along with your legions of fans who signed on tonight, hope you'll come back soon. Any parting words for the online audience?
Patricia Cornwell: When I began to write novels, all I hoped for in life was that somebody would want to read them. I want all of you to know how important you are to me, and your kind words and interest are overwhelming and very moving. Sometimes you almost choke me up. Goodnight.
