Book of the Dead Read online

  “If you’re alluding to the FBI again, you’ve made your point,” says Benton. “If you’re alluding to my being former FBI again, you’ve definitely made your point. If you’re alluding to Dr. Scarpetta and me—we were invited by you. We didn’t just show up, Otto. Since you’ve asked us to call you that.”

  “Is it me or is this not perfect?” The captain holds up his glass of wine as if it is a flawed diamond.

  Benton picked the wine. Scarpetta knows more about Italian wines than he does, but tonight he finds it necessary to assert his dominance, as if he has just plummeted fifty rungs on the evolutionary ladder. She feels Captain Poma’s interest in her as she looks at another photograph, grateful the waiter doesn’t seem inclined to come their way. He’s busy with the table of loud Americans.

  “Close-up of her legs,” she says. “Bruising around her ankles.”

  “Fresh bruises,” Captain Poma says. “He grabbed her, maybe.”

  “Possibly. They aren’t from ligatures.”

  She wishes Captain Poma wouldn’t sit so close to her, but there’s no where else for her to move unless she pushes her chair into the wall. She wishes he wouldn’t brush against her when he reaches for photographs.

  “Her legs are recently shaven,” she goes on. “I would say shaven within twenty-four hours of her death. Barely any stubble. She cared about how she looked even when she was traveling with friends. That might be important. Was she hoping to meet someone?”

  “Of course. Three young women looking for young men,” Captain Poma says.

  Scarpetta watches Benton motion for the waiter to bring another bottle of wine.

  She says, “Drew was a celebrity. From what I’ve been told, she was careful about strangers, didn’t like to be bothered.”

  “Her drinking doesn’t make much sense,” Benton says.

  “Chronic drinking doesn’t,” Scarpetta says. “You can look at these photographs and see she was extremely fit, lean, superb muscle development. If she’d become a heavy drinker, it would appear it hadn’t been going on long, and her recent success would indicate that as well. Again, we have to wonder if something recently had happened. Some emotional upheaval?”

  “Depressed. Unstable. Abusing alcohol,” Benton says. “All making the person more vulnerable to a predator.”

  “And that’s what I think happened,” Captain Poma says. “Randomness. An easy target. Alone at the Piazza di Spagna, where she encountered the gold-painted mime.”

  The gold-painted mime performed as mimes do, and Drew dropped another coin into his cup, and he performed once more to her delight.

  She refused to leave with her friends. The last thing she ever said to them was, “Beneath all that gold paint is a very handsome Italian.” The last thing her friends ever said to her was, “Don’t assume he’s Italian.” It was a valid comment, since mimes don’t speak.

  She told her friends to go on, perhaps visit the shops of Via dei Condotti, and she promised to meet them at the Piazza Navona, at the fountain of rivers, where they waited and waited. They told Captain Poma they tasted free samples of crispy waffles made of eggs and farina and sugar, and giggled as Italian boys shot them with bubble guns, begging them to buy one. Instead, Drew’s friends got fake tattoos and encouraged street musicians to play American tunes on reed pipes. They admitted they had gotten somewhat drunk at lunch and were silly.

  They described Drew as “a little drunk,” and said she was pretty but didn’t think she was. She assumed people stared because they recognized her, when often it was because of her good looks. “People who don’t watch tennis didn’t necessarily recognize her at all,” one of the friends told Captain Poma. “She just didn’t get how beautiful she was.”

  Captain Poma talks on through their main course, and Benton, for the most part, drinks, and Scarpetta knows what he thinks—she should avoid the captain’s seductions, should somehow move out of range, which in truth would require nothing less than her leaving the table, if not the trattoria. Benton thinks the captain is full of shit, because it defies common sense that a medico legale would interview witnesses as if he is the lead detective in the case, and the captain never mentions the name of anyone else involved in the case. Benton forgets that Captain Poma is the Sherlock Holmes of Rome, or, more likely, Benton can’t stomach the thought, he is so jealous.

  Scarpetta makes notes as the captain recounts in detail his long interview with the gold-painted mime, who has what appears to be an infallible alibi: He was still performing in his same spot at the base of the Spanish Steps until late afternoon—long after Drew’s friends returned to look for her. He claimed to vaguely remember the girl, but he had no idea who she was, thought she was drunk, and then she wandered off. In summary, he paid little attention to her, he said. He is a mime, he said. He acted like a mime at all times, he said. When he’s not a mime, he works at night as a doorman at the Hotel Hassler, where Benton and Scarpetta are staying. At the top of the Spanish Steps, the Hassler is one of the finest hotels in Rome, and Benton insisted on staying there in its penthouse for reasons he has yet to explain.

  Scarpetta has barely touched her fish. She continues to look at the photographs as if for the first time. She doesn’t contribute to Benton and Captain Poma’s argument about why some killers grotesquely display their victims. She adds nothing to Benton’s talk of the excitement these sexual predators derive from the headline news or, even better, from lurking nearby or in the crowd, watching the drama of the discovery and the panic that follows. She studies Drew’s mauled naked body, on its side, legs together, knees and elbows bent, hands tucked under the chin.

  Almost as if she’s sleeping.

  “I’m not sure it’s contempt,” she says.

  Benton and Captain Poma stop talking.

  “If you look at this”—she slides a photograph closer to Benton—“without the usual assumption in mind that this is a sexually degrading display, you might wonder if there’s something different. Not about religion, either. Not praying to Saint Agnes. But the way she’s positioned.” She continues to say things as they come to her. “Something almost tender about it.”

  “Tender? You’re joking,” Captain Poma says.

  “As in sleeping,” Scarpetta says. “It doesn’t strike me that she’s displayed in a sexually degrading way—victim on her back, her arms, her legs spread, et cetera. The more I look, I don’t think so.”

  “Maybe,” Benton says, picking up the photograph.

  “But nude for everyone to see,” Captain Poma disagrees.

  “Take a good look at her position. I could be wrong, of course, just trying to open my mind to other interpretations, putting aside my prejudices, my angry assumptions that this killer is filled with hate. It’s just a feeling I’m getting. The suggestion of a different possibility, that maybe he wanted her found but his intention wasn’t to sexually degrade,” she says.

  “You don’t see contempt? Rage?” Captain Poma is surprised, seems genuinely incredulous.

  “I think what he did made him feel powerful. He had a need to overpower her. He has other needs that at this moment we can’t possibly know,” she says. “And I’m certainly not suggesting there’s no sexual component. I’m not saying there isn’t rage. I just don’t think these are what drive him.”

  “Charleston must feel very lucky to have you,” he says.

  “I’m not sure Charleston feels anything of the sort,” she says. “At least, the local coroner most likely doesn’t.”

  The drunk Americans are getting louder. Benton seems distracted by what they’re saying.

  “An expert like yourself right there. Very lucky is how I would consider it if I were the coroner. And he doesn’t avail himself of your talents?” Captain Poma says, brushing against her as he reaches for a photograph he doesn’t need to look at again.

  “He sends his cases to the Medical University of South Carolina, has never had to contend with a private pathology practice before. Not in Charleston or anywher
e. My contracts are with some of the coroners from outlying jurisdictions where there’s no access to medical examiner facilities and labs,” she explains, distracted by Benton.

  He indicates for her to pay attention to what the drunk Americans are saying.

  “…I just think when it’s undisclosed this and undisclosed that, it’s fishy,” one of them pontificates.

  “Why would she want anybody to know? I don’t blame her. It’s like Oprah or Anna Nicole Smith. People find out where they are, they show up in droves.”

  “How sickening. Imagine being in the hospital…”

  “Or in Anna Nicole Smith’s case, in the morgue. Or in the damn ground…”

  “…And mobs of people out there on the sidewalk, yelling out your name.”

  “Can’t take the heat, get out of the kitchen, is what I say. Price you pay for being rich and famous.”

  “What’s going on?” Scarpetta asks Benton.

  “It would seem our old friend Dr. Self had some sort of emergency earlier today and is going to be off the air for a while,” he replies.

  Captain Poma turns around and looks at the table of noisy Americans. “Do you know her?” he asks.

  Benton says, “We’ve had our run-ins with her. Mainly, Kay has.”

  “I believe I read something about that when I was researching you. A sensational, very brutal homicide case in Florida that involved all of you.”

  “I’m glad to know you researched us,” Benton says. “That was very thorough.”

  “Only to make myself familiar before you came here.” Captain Poma meets Scarpetta’s eyes. “A very beautiful woman I know watches Dr. Self regularly,” he says, “and she tells me she saw her on the show last fall. It had something to do with her winning that very big tournament in New York. I admit I don’t pay much attention to tennis.”

  “The U.S. Open,” Scarpetta says.

  “I’m not aware Drew was on her show,” Benton says, frowning as if he doesn’t believe him.

  “She was. I’ve checked. This is very interesting. Suddenly, Dr. Self has a family emergency. I’ve been trying to get in touch with her, and she has yet to respond to my inquiries. Perhaps you could intercede?” he says to Scarpetta.

  “I seriously doubt that would be helpful,” she says. “Dr. Self hates me.”

  They walk back, following Via Due Macelli in the dark.

  She imagines Drew Martin walking these streets. She wonders who she encountered. What does he look like? How old is he? What did he do to inspire her trust? Had they met before? It was daylight, plenty of people out, but so far no witnesses have come forward with convincing information that they saw anybody who fit her description at any time after she left the mime. How can that be possible? She was one of the most famous athletes in the world, and not one person recognized her on the streets of Rome?

  “Was what happened random? Like a lightning strike? That’s the question we seem no closer to answering,” Scarpetta says as she and Benton walk through the balmy night, their shadows moving over old stone. “She’s by herself and intoxicated, perhaps lost on some deserted side street, and he sees her? And what? Offers to show her the way and leads her where he can gain complete control of her? Perhaps where he lives? Or to his car? If so, he must speak at least a little English. How could no one have seen her? Not one person.”

  Benton says nothing, their shoes scuffing on the sidewalk, the street noisy with people emerging from restaurants and bars, very loud, with motor scooters and cars that come close to running them over.

  “Drew didn’t speak Italian, scarcely a word of it, so we’re told,” Scarpetta adds.

  The stars are out, the moon soft on Casina Rossa, the stucco house where Keats died of tuberculosis at age twenty-five.

  “Or he stalked her,” she goes on. “Or perhaps he was acquainted with her. We don’t know and probably never will unless he does it again and is caught. Are you going to talk to me, Benton? Or shall I continue my rather fragmented, redundant monologue?”

  “I don’t know what the hell’s going on between the two of you, unless this is your way of punishing me,” he says.

  “With who?”

  “That goddamn captain. Who the hell else?”

  “The answer to the first part is nothing’s going on, and you’re being ridiculous to think otherwise, but we’ll get back to that. I’m more interested in the punishment part of your statement. Since I have no history of punishing you or anyone.”

  They begin climbing the Spanish Steps, an exertion made harder by hurt feelings and too much wine. Lovers are entwined, and rowdy youths are laughing and boisterous and pay them no mind. Far away, what seems a mile high, the Hotel Hassler is lit up and huge, rising over the city like a palace.

  “One thing not in my character,” she resumes. “Punishing people. Protect myself and others, but not punish. Never people I care about. Most of all”—out of breath—“I would never punish you.”

  “If you intend to see other people, if you’re interested in other men, I can’t say I blame you. But tell me. That’s all I ask. Don’t put on displays like you did all day. And tonight. Don’t play fucking high school games with me.”

  “Displays? Games?”

  “He was all over you,” Benton says.

  “And I was all over everywhere else trying to move away from him.”

  “He’s been all over you for all day long. Can’t get close enough to you. Stares at you, touches you right in front of me.”

  “Benton…”

  “And I know he’s this good-looking, well, maybe you’re attracted to him. But I won’t tolerate it. Right in front of me. Goddamn it.”

  “Benton…”

  “Same with God knows who. Down there in the Deep South. What do I know?”

  “Benton!”

  Silence.

  “You’re talking crazy. Since when, in the history of the universe, have you ever worried about my cheating on you? Knowingly.”

  No sound but their footsteps on stone, their labored breathing.

  “Knowingly,” she repeats, “because the one time I was with someone else was when I thought you were…”

  “Dead,” he says. “Right. So you’re told I’m dead. Then a minute later you’re fucking some guy young enough to be your son.”

  “Don’t.” Anger begins to gather. “Don’t you dare.”

  He is quiet. Even after the bottle of wine he drank all by himself, he knows better than to push the subject of his feigned death when he was forced into a protected witness program. What Benton put her though. He knows better than to attack her as if she’s the one who was emotionally cruel.

  “Sorry,” he says.

  “What’s really the matter?” she says. “God, these steps.”

  “I guess we can’t seem to change it. As you say about livor and rigor. Set. Fixed. Let’s face it.”

  “I won’t face whatever it is. As far as I’m concerned, there’s no it. And livor and rigor are about people who are dead. We’re not dead. You just said you never were.”

  Both of them are breathless. Her heart is pounding.

  “I’m sorry. Really,” he says, referring to what happened in the past, his faked death and her ruined life.

  She says, “He’s been too attentive. Forward. So what?”

  Benton is used to the attention other men pay to her, has always been rather unperturbed by it, even amused, because he knows who she is, knows who he is, knows his enormous power and that she has to deal with the same thing—women who stare at him, brush against him, want him shamelessly.

  “You’ve made a new life for yourself in Charleston,” he says. “I can’t see your undoing it. Can’t believe you did it.”

  “Can’t believe…?” And the steps go up and up forever.

  “Knowing I’m in Boston and can’t move south. Where does that leave us.”

  “It leaves you jealous. Saying ‘fuck,’ and you never say ‘fuck.’ God! I hate steps!” Unable to catch her bre
ath. “You have no reason to be threatened. It’s not like you to feel threatened by anyone. What’s wrong with you?”

  “I was expecting too much.”

  “Expecting what, Benton?”

  “Doesn’t matter.”

  “It certainly does.”

  They climb the endless flight of steps and stop talking, because their relationship is too much to talk about when they can’t breathe. She knows Benton is angry because he’s scared. He feels powerless in Rome. He feels powerless in their relationship because he’s in Massachusetts, where he moved with her blessing, the chance to work as a forensic psychologist at the Harvard-affiliated McLean Hospital too good to ignore.

  “What were we thinking?” she says, no more steps, and she reaches for his hand. “Idealistic as ever, I suppose. And you could return a little energy with that hand of yours, as if you want to hold mine, too. For seventeen years we’ve never lived in the same city, much less the same house.”

  “And you don’t think it can change.” He laces his fingers through hers, taking a deep breath.

  “How?”

  “I suppose I’ve entertained this secret fantasy you’d move. With Harvard, MIT, Tufts. I guess I thought you might teach. Perhaps at a medical school or be content to be a part-time consultant at McLean. Or maybe Boston, the ME’s office. Maybe end up chief.”

  “I could never go back to a life like that,” Scarpetta says, and they are walking into the hotel’s lobby that she calls Belle Époque because it is from a beautiful era. But they are oblivious to the marble, the antique Murano glass and silk and sculptures, to everything and everyone, including Romeo—that really is his name—who during the day is a gold-painted mime, most nights a doorman, and of late, a somewhat attractive and sullen young Italian who doesn’t want any further interrogations about Drew Martin’s murder.

  Romeo is polite but avoids their eyes and, like a mime, is completely silent.

  “I want what’s best for you,” Benton says. “Which is why, obviously, I didn’t get in your way when you decided to start your own practice in Charleston, but I was upset about it.”