The Scarpetta Factor Page 9
“Always at professional meetings, when he’d try to ingratiate himself somehow or, better yet, belittle me.”
“What a shock.”
“Let’s just forget what he did to you,” Dr. Clark continued.
“Will never happen. He should go to fucking jail for it.”
“He probably should go to hell for it. He’s a horror of a human being. How’s that for candor?” Dr. Clark replied. “At least there’s something to be said for being old and falling apart, every day wondering if this day will be worse or maybe a little better. Maybe I won’t topple over or spill coffee down the front of my shirt. The other night I was flipping through channels and there he was. I couldn’t help myself. I had to watch. He was going on and on, spewing all this nonsense about Hannah Starr. Not only are we talking about a case that isn’t adjudicated, but the woman hasn’t even been found dead or alive, and he’s speculating about all the gruesome things that some serial killer may have done to her. The pompous old fool. I’m surprised the FBI doesn’t find a discreet way to silence that lamb. He’s a terrible embarrassment, gives the Behavioral Analysis Unit one hell of a black eye.”
“He’s never been involved in the BAU and wasn’t involved with the Behavioral Science Unit when I headed it,” Benton said. “That’s part of the myth he perpetuates. He was never FBI.”
“But you were. And now you’re not.”
“You’re right. I’m not.”
“So I’ll recap and summarize, and then I really do have to go or I’ll miss a very important appointment,” Dr. Clark said. “You were asked by the Detroit district attorney’s office to conduct a psychological evaluation of this defendant, Dodie Hodge, which didn’t give you the right to begin investigating her for other perceived crimes.”
“No, I didn’t have that right.”
“Receiving a singing Christmas card didn’t give you that right.”
“It didn’t. But it’s not just a singing card. It’s a veiled threat.” Benton wasn’t going to give in on that point.
“Depends on whose perspective. Like proving a Rorschach image is a squashed bug or a butterfly. Which is it? Some might say your perception of the card as a veiled threat is regressive on your part, clear evidence that your long years of law enforcement, of exposure to violence and trauma, have resulted in an overprotectiveness of people you love and an underlying and pervasive fear that the bastards are out to get you. You push too hard on this and you run the risk of coming across as the one with a thought disorder.”
“I’ll keep my disordered thoughts to myself,” Benton said. “I won’t make comments about people who are beyond repair and a plague.”
“Good idea. It’s not up to us to decide who’s beyond repair and a plague.”
“Even if we know it to be true.”
“We know a lot of things,” Dr. Clark said. “A lot of it I wish I didn’t know. I’ve been doing this since long before the word profiler existed, when the FBI was still using tommy guns and was more hell-bent on finding Communists than so-called serial killers. Do you think I’m in love with all of my patients?” He got out of his chair, holding on to the armrests. “Do you think I love the one I spent several hours with today? Dear Teddy, who deemed it reasonable and helpful to pour gasoline into a nine-year-old girl’s vagina. As he thoughtfully explained it to me, so she wouldn’t get pregnant after he raped her. Is he responsible? Is an unmanaged schizophrenic, himself a victim of repeated sexual abuse and torture as a child, to blame? Should he get lethal injection, a firing squad, the chair?”
“Being blamed and being held responsible are two different things,” Benton said as his phone rang.
He answered, hoping it was Scarpetta.
“I’m out front.” Her voice in his ear.
“Out front?” He was alarmed. “Of Bellevue?”
“I walked.”
“Christ. Okay. Wait in the lobby. Don’t wait outside. Come inside the lobby and I’ll be right down.”
“Is something wrong?”
“It’s cold out, nasty out. I’ll be right down,” he said, getting up from his desk.
“Wish me luck. I’m off to the Tennisport.” Dr. Clark paused in the doorway, coat and hat on, bag slung over a shoulder, like a Norman Rockwell painting of a frail old shrink.
“Go easy on McEnroe.” Benton started packing his briefcase.
“The ball machine is on very slow speed. And it always wins. Afraid I’m reaching the end of my tennis career. I was on the court next to Billie Jean King the other week. Took a spill, was covered with red clay from head to toe.”
“What you get for showing off.”
“I was picking up balls with a hopper and tripped on the goddamn tape and there she was, hovering over me to see if I was all right. What a way to meet a hero. Take care of yourself, Benton. Give my best to Kay.”
Benton deliberated about the singing card from Dodie, decided to tuck it in his briefcase, he wasn’t sure why. He couldn’t show it to Scarpetta, but he didn’t want to leave it here. What if something else happened? Nothing else was going to happen. He was just anxious, overwrought, haunted by ghosts from the past. Everything was going to be fine. He locked his office door, walking fast, in a hurry, nothing to be anxious about, but he was. He was as anxious as he’d been in a very long time. A feeling of foreboding, his psyche bruised, and he imagined it as purplish and injured. It’s remembered emotions, not real anymore, he said, hearing his own voice in his head. It was a long time ago. That was then, and nothing is wrong right now. The doors of his colleagues were shut, everyone gone, some on vacation. Christmas was in exactly one week.
He headed to the elevator, the entrance of the prison ward across from it, the usual noise coming from that direction. Loud voices, someone yelling, “Coming through,” because the guard in the control room never opened the barrier doors fast enough. Benton caught a glimpse of an inmate in the blaze orange jumpsuit of Rikers Island, shackled and escorted, a cop on either side of him, probably a malingerer faking some malady, maybe something self-inflicted, so he could spend the holidays here. Benton was reminded of Dodie Hodge as steel doors slammed shut and he got on the elevator. He was reminded of his six years of nonexistence, isolated and trapped in the persona of a man who wasn’t real, Tom Haviland. Six years of being dead because of Warner Agee. Benton couldn’t stand the way he felt. It was hideous to want to hurt someone, and he knew what it felt like, had done it more than once in the line of duty but never because it was what he fantasized about, a desire like lust.
He wished Scarpetta had called sooner, hadn’t set out alone in the dark in this part of the city, which had more than its demographic share of the homeless, of indigents and drug addicts and psychiatric alumni, the same patients in and out until the overstrained system couldn’t fit them anywhere anymore. Then maybe they pushed a commuter off a subway platform in front of a train or attacked a crowd of strangers with a knife, caused death and destruction because they heard voices and nobody listened.
Benton walked swiftly through what seemed to be endless corridors, past the cafeteria and gift shop, weaving through a steady traffic of patients and visitors, and hospital personnel in lab coats and scrubs. The halls of Bellevue Hospital Center were decked out for the holidays, with cheerful music piped in and bright decorations, as if that somehow made it all right to be sick or injured or criminally insane.
Scarpetta was waiting for him near the glass front doors, in her long, dark coat and black leather gloves, and she didn’t notice him yet in the crowd as he walked toward her, mindful of people around her, of the way some of them looked at her as if she was familiar. His reaction to her was always the same, a poignant mixture of excitement and sadness, the thrill of being with her tainted by the remembered pain of believing he never would again. Whenever he watched her from a distance and she was unaware, he relived the times he’d done it in the past, secretly and deliberately, spying on her, yearning for her. At times he wondered how life would have turned
out for her if what she’d believed had been true, if he really was dead. He wondered if she would be better off. Maybe she would. He had caused her suffering and harm, brought danger to her, damaged her, and he couldn’t forgive himself.
“Maybe you should cancel tonight,” he said when he got to her.
She turned to him, surprised, happy, her deep blue eyes like the sky, her thoughts and feelings like the weather, light and shadow, bright sun and clouds and haze.
“We should go have a nice, quiet dinner,” he added, taking her arm, keeping her close, as if they needed each other to stay warm. “Il Cantinori. I’ll call Frank, see if he can fit us in.”
“Don’t torment me,” she said, her arm tight around his waist. “Melanzane alla parmigiana. A Brunello di Montalcino. I might eat your share and drink the whole bottle.”
“That would be incredibly greedy.” He kept her protectively close as they walked toward First Avenue. The wind blasted, and it was beginning to rain. “You really could cancel, you know. Tell Alex you’ve got the flu.” He signaled for a taxi and one darted toward them.
“I can’t, and we have to get home,” she said. “We have a conference call.”
Benton opened the cab’s back door. “What conference call?”
“Jaime.” Scarpetta slid across to the other side of the backseat and he climbed in after her. She gave the driver their address and said to Benton, “Fasten your seat belt.” Her quirky habit to remind people, even if they didn’t need to be told. “Lucy thinks they can get out of Vermont in a couple of hours, that the front should have cleared south of us by then. In the meantime, Jaime wants you, me, Marino, all of us, on the phone. She called me about ten minutes ago when I was on the sidewalk, on my way here. It wasn’t a good time to talk, so I don’t know details.”
“Not even a clue what she wants?” Benton asked as the taxi cut over to Third Avenue, headed north, the windshield wipers dragging loudly in a misty rain, the tops of lighted buildings shrouded.
“This morning’s situation.” She wasn’t going to be specific in front of their driver, didn’t matter if he understood English or could hear them.
“The situation you’ve been involved in all day.” Benton meant the Toni Darien case.
“A tip called in this afternoon,” Scarpetta said. “Apparently, somebody saw something.”
Marino’s was an unfortunate address: room number 666 at One Hogan Place. It bothered him more than usual as he and L.A. Bonnell paused in the gray-tile hallway stacked to the ceiling with banker’s boxes, the three sixes over his door seeming like an in dictment of his character, a warning to whom it may concern to beware.
“Uh, okay,” Bonnell said, looking up. “I couldn’t work here. If nothing else, it causes negative thinking. If people believe something’s bad luck, it will be. Me, I’d definitely move.”
He unlocked his beige door, dingy around the knob, the paint chipped at the edges, the aroma of Chinese food overwhelming. He was starved, couldn’t wait to dig into his crispy duck spring rolls and BBQ baby ribs, and pleased that Bonnell had ordered similarly, beef teriyaki, noodles, and nothing raw, none of that sushi shit that reminded him of fish bait. She wasn’t anything like he’d imagined, having envisioned someone tiny and perky, a spitfire who could have you on the floor, hands cuffed behind your back, before you knew what was happening. With Bonnell, you’d know what was happening.
She was close to six feet tall, big-boned, big hands, big feet, big-breasted, the kind of woman who could keep a man fully occupied in bed or kick his ass, like Xena the Warrior Princess in a business suit, only Bonnell had ice-blue eyes and her hair was short and pale blond, and Marino was pretty sure it was natural. He’d felt cocky when he was with her at High Roller Lanes, saw some of the guys staring, nudging each other. Marino wished he could have bowled a few and strutted his stuff.
Bonnell carried the bags of takeout into Marino’s office and commented, “Maybe we should go into the conference room.”
He wasn’t sure if this was about the 666 over the door or the fact that his work space was a landfill, and said, “Berger will be calling on the line in here. It’s better we stay put. Plus, I need my computer and don’t want anyone overhearing the conversation.” He set down his crime scene case, a slate-gray four-drawer tackle box perfect for his needs, and shut the door. “I figured you’d notice.” He meant his room number. “Don’t go thinking it means something personal about me.”
“Why would I think it’s about you personally? Did you decide what number this office is?” She moved paperwork, a flak jacket, and the tackle box off a chair and sat.
“Imagine my reaction when I was showed this office the first time.” Marino settled behind mountain ranges of clutter on his metal desk. “You want to wait and eat until after the call?”
“A good idea.” She looked around as if there was no place to eat, which wasn’t true. Marino could always find a spot to set a burger or a bowl or a foam box.
“We’ll do the call in here and eat in the conference room,” he said.
“Even better.”
“I got to admit I almost quit. I really thought about it.” He picked up where he’d left off in his story. “The first time I was showed this office, I was like, you got to be shitting me.”
He’d honestly thought Jaime Berger was joking, that the number over the door was the usual sick humor of people in criminal justice. It had even occurred to him that maybe she was rubbing his nose in the truth about why he’d ended up with her to begin with—that she’d hired him as a favor, was giving him a second chance after the bad thing he’d done. What a reminder every time he walked into his office. All those years he and Scarpetta had been together and then he hurt her like that. He was glad he didn’t remember much, had been fucked up, shitface drunk, had never meant to put his hands on her, to do what he did.
“I don’t consider myself superstitious,” he was telling Bonnell, “but I grew up in Bayonne, New Jersey. Went to Catholic school, was confirmed, was even an altar boy, which didn’t last long because I was always getting into fights, started boxing. Not the Bayonne Bleeder, probably wouldn’t have made it fifteen rounds with Mu hammad Ali, but I was a semifinalist in the National Golden Gloves one year, thought of turning pro, became a cop instead.” Making sure she knew a few things about him. “It’s never been contested by anyone that six-six-six is the symbol of the Beast, a number to be avoided at all costs. And I always have, whether it’s an address, a post office box, a license plate, the time of day.”
“The time of day?” Bonnell questioned, and Marino couldn’t tell if she was amused, her demeanor difficult to anticipate or decipher. “There’s no such time as sixty-six minutes past six,” she said.
“Six minutes past six on the sixth day of the month, for example.”
“Why won’t she move you? Isn’t there some other place you can work?” Bonnell dug into her pocketbook and pulled out a thumb drive, tossing it to him.
“This everything?” Marino plugged it into his computer. “Apartment, crime scene, and WAV files?”
“Except the pictures you took when you were there today.”
“I got to download them from my camera. Nothing all that important. Probably nothing you didn’t get when you were there with the CSU guys. Berger says I’m on the sixth floor and my office is the sixty-sixth one in sequence. I told her yeah, well, it’s also in the book of Revelation.”
“Berger’s Jewish,” Bonnell said. “She doesn’t read the book of Revelation.”
“That’s like saying if she doesn’t read the paper nothing happened yesterday.”
“It’s not like that. Revelation isn’t about something that happened.”
“It’s about something that’s going to happen.”
“Something that’s going to happen is a prediction or wishful thinking or a phobia,” Bonnell said. “It’s not factual.”
His desk phone rang.
He snapped it up and said, “Marino.”
Marino said, “We were just talking about you.” He was watching Bonnell, found it hard not to look at her. Maybe because she was unusually big for a woman, super deluxe in every department.
“Kay? Benton? Everybody still on?” Berger said.
“We’re here.” Benton sounded far away.
“I’m putting you on speakerphone,” Marino said. “I’ve got Detective Bonnell from Homicide with me.” He pushed a button on his phone and hung up. “Where’s Lucy?”
“At the hangar, getting the helicopter prepped. Hopefully we’ll be flying out in a few hours,” Berger said. “The snow’s finally stopped. If all of you go into your e-mail, you should find two files she sent before she headed out to the airport. Following Marino’s advice, we’ve gotten analysts at the Real Time Crime Center to log in to the server that operates the surveillance camera outside Toni Darien’s apartment building. I’m sure all of you know that NYPD has an agreement with several of the major CCTV security camera providers so it can access surveillance recordings without tracking down system administrators for passwords. Toni’s building happens to be covered by one of these providers, so RTCC was able to access the network video server and has gone through some of the recordings in question, focusing as a matter of priority on this past week and comparing images with recent photos of Toni, including her driver’s license photo, and photos of her on Facebook, MySpace. Amazing what’s out there. The file called Recording One, we’ll start with that. I’ve already looked at it, and also the second file, and what I’ve seen corroborates information received several hours ago that we’ll discuss in more detail in a few minutes. You should be able to download the video and open it. So let’s do that now.”
“We’ve got it.” Benton’s voice, and he didn’t sound friendly. Never did these days.
Marino found the e-mail Berger was talking about and opened the video clip as Bonnell got up from her chair and came around to watch it, squatting next to him. There was no audio, just images of traffic in front of Toni Darien’s brick building on Second Avenue, cars, taxis, and buses in the background, people walking past, dressed for the rainy winter weather, some of them holding umbrellas, oblivious to the camera that was recording them.