Book of the Dead Read online

  “Dr. Scarpetta?” Captain Poma says. “Please continue.”

  “May I have autopsy photo number twenty-six, please?” she says. “A posterior view during the external examination. Close-up of the wounds.”

  They fill the screen. Two dark red craters with jagged edges. She points the laser, and the red dot moves over the massive wound where the right buttock used to be, then to a second area of flesh that has been excised from the back of the right thigh.

  “Inflicted by a sharp cutting instrument, possibly with a serrated blade, that sawed through muscle and superficially cut the bone,” she says. “Inflicted postmortem, based on the absence of tissue response to the injuries. In other words, the wounds are yellowish.”

  “Postmortem mutilation rules out torture, at least torture by cutting,” Benton adds.

  “Then what explanation? If not torture?” Captain Poma asks him, both men staring at each other like two animals that are natural enemies. “Why else would a person inflict such sadistic, and, I would suggest, disfiguring, wounds on another human being? Tell us, Dr. Wesley, in all your experiences have you seen anything like this before, perhaps in other cases? Especially when you were such a famous profiler with the FBI?”

  “No,” Benton says curtly, and any reference to his former career with the FBI is a calculated insult. “I’ve seen mutilation. But I’ve never seen anything quite like this. Especially what he did to her eyes.”

  He removed them and filled the sockets with sand. Afterward, he glued her eyelids shut.

  Scarpetta points the laser and describes this, and Benton is chilled again. Everything about this case chills him, unnerves and fascinates him. What is the symbolism? It’s not that he’s unfamiliar with the gouging out of eyes. But what Captain Poma suggests is far-fetched.

  “The ancient Greek combat sport pankration? Perhaps you’ve heard of it,” Captain Poma says to the theater. “In pankration, one uses any means possible to defeat his enemy. It was common to gouge out the eyes and kill the person by stabbing or strangulation. Drew’s eyes were gouged out, and she was strangled.”

  The general of the Carabinieri asks Benton, through the translator, “Then maybe there’s a connection to pankration? That the killer had this in his mind when he removed her eyes and strangled her?”

  “I don’t think so,” Benton says.

  “Then what explanation?” the general asks, and like Captain Poma, he wears a splendid uniform but with more silver and ornamentation around the cuffs and high collar.

  “A more interior one. A more personal one,” Benton says.

  “From the news, perhaps,” the general says. “Torture. The Death Squads in Iraq that pull out teeth and gouge out eyes.”

  “I can only suppose that what this killer did is a manifestation of his own psyche. In other words, I don’t believe what he did to her is an allusion to anything even remotely obvious. Through her wounds, we get a glimpse into his inner world,” Benton says.

  “This is speculation,” Captain Poma says.

  “It’s a psychological insight based on many years of working violent crimes,” Benton replies.

  “But it’s your intuition.”

  “We ignore intuition at our peril,” Benton says.

  “May we have the autopsy picture that shows her anteriorly during the external examination?” Scarpetta says. “A close-up of her neck.” She checks the list on the podium. “Number twenty.”

  A three-dimensional image fills the screen: Drew’s body on a stainless-steel autopsy table, her skin and hair wet from washing.

  “If you look here”—Scarpetta points the laser at the neck—“you notice a horizontal ligature mark.” The dot moves along the front of the neck. Before she can continue, she’s interrupted by Rome’s head of tourism.

  “Afterwards, he removed her eyes. After death,” he says. “Versus while she was alive. This is important.”

  “Yes,” Scarpetta replies. “Reports I’ve reviewed indicate the only pre-mortem injuries are contusions on the ankles and contusions caused by strangulation. The photograph of her dissected neck, please? Number thirty-eight.”

  She waits, and images fill the screen. On a cutting board, the larynx and soft tissue with areas of hemorrhage. The tongue.

  Scarpetta points out, “Contusions to the soft tissue, the underlying muscles, and fractured hyoid due to strangulation clearly indicate damage inflicted while she was still alive.”

  “Petechiae of her eyes?”

  “We don’t know if there were conjunctival petechiae,” Scarpetta says. “Her eyes are absent. But reports do indicate some petechiae of eyelids and face.”

  “What he did to her eyes? You’re familiar with this from anything else in your experiences?”

  “I’ve seen victims whose eyes were gouged out. But I’ve never seen or heard of a killer filling eye sockets with sand and then sealing the eyelids shut with—in this instance—an adhesive that according to your report is a cyanoacrylate.”

  “Superglue,” Captain Poma says.

  “I’m keenly interested in the sand,” she says. “It doesn’t appear to be indigenous to the area. More important, scanning electron microscopy with EDX found traces of what appears to be gunshot residue. Lead, antimony, and barium.”

  “Certainly it isn’t from the local beaches,” Captain Poma says. “Unless many people shoot each other and we don’t know it.”

  Laughter.

  “Sand from Ostia would have basalt in it,” Scarpetta says. “Other components from volcanic activity. I believe all of you have a copy of the spectral fingerprint of the sand recovered from the body and a spectral fingerprint of sand from a beach area in Ostia.”

  The sounds of paper rustling in the theater. Small flashlights click on.

  “Both analyzed with Raman spectroscopy, using an eight-point-milliwatt red laser. As you can see, sand from the local beaches of Ostia and sand found in Drew Martin’s eye sockets have very different spectral fingerprints. With the scanning electron microscope, we can see the sand’s morphology, and backscattered electron imaging shows us the GSR particles we’re talking about.”

  “The beaches of Ostia are very popular with tourists,” Captain Poma says. “But not so much this time of year. People from here and the tourists usually wait until it’s warmer. Late May, even June. Then many people from Rome especially crowd them, since the drive is maybe thirty, maybe forty minutes. It’s not for me,” as if anybody asked his personal feelings about the beaches of Ostia. “I find the black sand of the beaches ugly, and I would never go in the water.”

  “I think what’s important here is where is the sand from, which seems to be a mystery,” Benton says, and it’s late afternoon now and everyone is getting restless. “And why sand at all? The choice of sand—this specific sand—means something to the killer, and it may tell us where Drew was murdered, or perhaps where her killer is from or spends time.”

  “Yes, yes,” Captain Poma says with a hint of impatience. “And the eyes and very terrible wounds mean something to the killer. And thankfully, these details aren’t known to the public. We’ve managed to keep them away from journalists. So if there is another similar murder, we will know it isn’t a copy.”

  Chapter 2

  The three of them sit in a candlelit corner of Tullio, a popular trattoria with a travertine facade, near the theaters, and an easy walk from the Spanish Steps.

  Candlelit tables are covered in pale gold cloths, and the dark-paneled wall behind them is filled with bottles of wine. Other walls are hung with watercolors of rustic Italian scenes. It’s quiet here except for a table of drunk Americans. They’re oblivious and preoccupied, as is the waiter in his beige jacket and black tie. No one has any idea what Benton, Scarpetta, and Captain Poma are discussing. If anyone comes close enough to hear, they change their conversation to harmless topics and tuck photographs and reports back into folders.

  Scarpetta sips a 1996 Biondi Santi Brunello that is very expensive but not wha
t she would have picked had she been asked, and usually she is asked. She returns her glass to the table without removing her eyes from the photograph beside her simple Parma ham and melon, which she will follow with grilled sea bass, then beans in olive oil. Maybe raspberries for dessert, unless Benton’s deteriorating demeanor takes away her appetite. And it might.

  “At the risk of sounding simple,” she is quietly saying, “I keep thinking there’s something important we’re missing.” Her index finger taps a scene photograph of Drew Martin.

  “So now you don’t complain about going over something again and again,” Captain Poma says, openly flirtatious now. “See? Good food and wine. They make us smarter.” He taps his head, mimicking Scarpetta tapping the photograph.

  She is pensive, the way she gets when she leaves the room without going anywhere.

  “Something so obvious we’re completely blind to it, everyone’s been blind to it,” she continues. “Often we don’t see something because—as they say—it’s in plain view. What is it? What is she saying to us?”

  “Fine. Let’s look for what’s in plain view,” says Benton, and rarely has she seen him so openly hostile and withdrawn. He doesn’t hide his disdain of Captain Poma, now dressed in perfect pinstripes. His gold cuff links engraved with the crest of the Carabinieri flash when they catch the light of the candle.

  “Yes, in plain view. Every inch of her exposed flesh—before anybody touched it. We should study it in that condition. Untouched. Exactly as he left it,” Captain Poma says, his eyes on Scarpetta. “How he left it is a story, is it not? But before I forget, to our last time together in Rome. At least for now. We should drink a toast to that.”

  It doesn’t seem right to raise their glasses with the dead young woman watching, her naked, savaged body right there on the table, in a sense.

  “And a toast to the FBI,” says Captain Poma. “To their determination to turn this into an act of terrorism. The ultimate soft target—an American tennis star.”

  “It’s a waste of time to even allude to such a thing,” Benton says, and he picks up his glass, not to toast but to drink.

  “Then tell your government to stop suggesting it,” Captain Poma says. “There, I will say this bluntly since we’re alone. Your government is spreading this propaganda from behind the scenes, and the reason we didn’t discuss this earlier is because the Italians don’t believe anything so ridiculous. No terrorist is responsible. The FBI to say such a thing? It’s stupid.”

  “The FBI isn’t sitting here. We are. And we aren’t the FBI, and I’m weary of your references to the FBI,” Benton replies.

  “But you were FBI most of your career. Until you quit and disappeared from sight as if you were dead. For some reason.”

  “If this were an act of terrorism, someone would have claimed responsibility by now,” Benton says. “I’d rather you don’t mention the FBI or my personal history again.”

  “An insatiable appetite for publicity and your country’s current need to scare the hell out of everybody and rule the world.” Captain Poma refills their wineglasses. “Your Bureau of Investigation interviewing witnesses here in Rome, stepping all over Interpol, and they’re supposed to work with Interpol, have their own representatives there. And they fly in these idiots from Washington who don’t know us, much less how to work a complex homicide—”

  Benton interrupts him. “You should know by now, Captain Poma, that politics and jurisdictional infighting are the nature of the beast.”

  “I wish you would call me Otto. As my friends do.” He moves his chair closer to Scarpetta, and with him comes the scent of his cologne, then he moves the candle. He glances in disgust at the table of obtuse, hard-drinking Americans and says, “You know, we try to like you.”

  “Don’t try,” Benton says. “No one else does.”

  “I’ve never understood why you Americans are so loud.”

  “Because we don’t listen,” Scarpetta says. “That’s why we have George Bush.”

  Captain Poma picks up the photograph near her plate, studies it as if he’s never seen it before. “I’m looking at what’s in plain view,” he says. “And all I see is the obvious.”

  Benton stares at the two of them sitting so close, his handsome face like granite.

  “It’s better to assume there’s no such thing as obvious. It’s a word,” Scarpetta says, sliding more photographs out of an envelope. “A reference to one’s personal perceptions. And mine may be different from yours.”

  “I believe you demonstrated that quite exhaustively at state police headquarters,” the captain says, while Benton stares.

  She looks at Benton, a lingering look that communicates her awareness of his behavior and how unnecessary it is. He has no reason to be jealous. She has done nothing to encourage Captain Poma’s flirtations.

  “In plain view. Well, then. Why don’t we start with her toes,” Benton says, barely touching his buffalo mozzarella and already on his third glass of wine.

  “That’s actually a good idea.” Scarpetta studies photographs of Drew. She studies a close-up of Drew’s bare toes. “Neatly manicured. Nails painted recently, consistent with her getting a pedicure before she left New York.” She repeats what they know.

  “Does that matter?” Captain Poma studies a photograph, leaning so close to Scarpetta that his arm is touching hers, and she feels his heat and smells his scent. “I don’t think so. I think it matters more what she was wearing. Black jeans, a white silk shirt, a black silk–lined black leather jacket. Also, black panties and a black bra.” He pauses. “It’s curious her body didn’t have any fibers from these, just the fibers from the sheet.”

  “We don’t know for a fact it was a sheet,” Benton reminds him sharply.

  “Also, her clothing, her watch, necklace, leather bracelets, and earrings haven’t been found. So the killer took these things,” the captain says to Scarpetta. “For what reason? Perhaps souvenirs. But we will talk about her pedicure, since you think it important. Drew went to a spa on Central Park South right after she got to New York. We have details of this appointment, charged to Drew’s credit card—her father’s credit card, actually. From what I’m told, he was most indulgent with her.”

  “I think it’s been well established she was spoiled,” Benton says.

  “I think we should be careful using words like that,” Scarpetta says. “She earned what she had, is the one who practiced six hours a day, trained so hard—had just won the Family Circle Cup and was expected to win other…”

  “That’s where you live,” Captain Poma says to her. “Charleston, South Carolina. Where the Family Circle Cup is played. Odd, isn’t it. That very night she flew to New York. And from there to here. To this.” He indicates the photographs.

  “What I’m saying is money can’t buy championship titles, and spoiled people usually don’t work as passionately as she did,” Scarpetta says.

  Benton says, “Her father spoiled her but couldn’t be bothered with parenting. Same with her mother.”

  “Yes, yes,” Captain Poma agrees. “What parents permit a sixteen-year-old to travel abroad with two eighteen-year-old friends? Especially if she’d been acting moody. Up and down.”

  “When your child becomes more difficult, it gets easier to give in. Not resist,” Scarpetta says, thinking about her niece, Lucy. When Lucy was a child, God, their battles. “What about her coach? Do we know anything about that relationship?”

  “Gianni Lupano. I spoke to him, and he said he was aware she was coming here and wasn’t happy about it because of major tournaments in the next few months, such as Wimbledon. He wasn’t helpful and seemed angry with her.”

  “And the Italian Open here in Rome next month,” Scarpetta points out, finding it unusual the captain didn’t mention it.

  “Of course. She should train, not run off with friends. I don’t watch tennis.”

  “Where was he when she was murdered?” Scarpetta asks.

  “New York. We’ve checked wi
th the hotel where he said he stayed, and he was registered at that time. He also commented she had been moody. Down one day, up the next. Very stubborn and difficult and unpredictable. He wasn’t sure how much longer he could work with her. Said he had better things to do than put up with her behavior.”

  “I’d like to know if mood disorders run in her family,” Benton says. “I don’t suppose you bothered to ask.”

  “I didn’t. I’m sorry I wasn’t astute enough to think of it.”

  “It would be extremely useful to know if she had a psychiatric history her family’s been secretive about.”

  “It’s well known she’d struggled with an eating disorder,” Scarpetta says. “She’s talked openly about it.”

  “No mention of a mood disorder? Nothing from her parents?” Benton continues his cool interrogation of the captain.

  “Nothing more than her ups and downs. Typical teenager.”

  “Do you have children?” Benton reaches for his wine.

  “Not that I know of.”

  “A trigger,” Scarpetta says. “Something was going on with Drew that no one’s telling us. Perhaps what’s in plain view? Her behavior’s in plain view. Her drinking’s in plain view. Why? Did something happen?”

  “The tournament in Charleston,” Captain Poma says to Scarpetta. “Where you have your private practice. What is it they call it? The Lowcountry? What is Lowcountry, exactly?” He slowly swirls his wine, his eyes on her.

  “Almost sea level, literally low country.”

  “And your local police have no interest in this case? Since she played a tournament there just maybe two days before she was murdered?”

  “Curious, I’m sure—” Scarpetta starts to say.

  “Her murder has nothing to do with the Charleston police,” Benton interrupts. “They have no jurisdiction.”

  Scarpetta gives him a look, and the captain watches both of them. He’s been watching their tense interaction all day.

  “No jurisdiction hasn’t stopped anybody from showing up and flashing their badges,” Captain Poma says.