“Whose idea was she, then? You’re the executive producer. What audition?”
“A former White House press secretary, she used to be a huge deal. I don’t know what’s happened. It was a mistake, and in all fairness, she knew the show was a trial run. For one thing, she promised to use her legitimate connections to get outstanding guests like you.”
“She’s gotten me because three times now you’ve put a gun to my head about it.”
“Trying to salvage what isn’t salvageable. I’ve tried. You’ve tried. We’ve given her every opportunity. Doesn’t matter whose idea, none of it matters, and her guests, other than you, suck, are bottom of the barrel, because who wants to go on with her? That fossil of a forensic psychiatrist Dr. Agee, if I have to listen to another second of his pedantic monologues. Bottom line in this business, one season that’s not so hot and maybe you try again. Two seasons and you’re out. In her case, the answer’s obvious. She belongs on some local news broadcast in a small town somewhere. Maybe doing weather or a cooking show or Ripley’s Believe It or Not! She sure as hell doesn’t belong on CNN.”
“I assume what you’re getting at is you’re canceling her,” Scarpetta said. “Not good news, especially this time of year and in this economy. Does she know?”
“Not yet. Please don’t mention anything. Look, I’ll get right to it.” He leaned against the edge of the makeup counter, dug his hands into his pockets. “We want you to take her place.”
“I hope you’re joking. I couldn’t possibly. And it’s not really what you want, anyway. I’m not a good fit for this sort of theater.”
“It’s theater, all right. Theater of the absurd,” Alex said. “That’s what she’s turned it into. Took her less than a year to completely fuck it up. We’re not at all interested in you doing the same sort of show, doing Carley’s bullshit show, hell, no. A crime show in the same time slot, but that’s where the similarities end. What we’ve got in mind is completely different. It’s been in discussion for a while now, actually, and all of us here feel the same way. You should have your own show, something perfectly suited to who and what you are.”
“Something suited to who and what I am would be a beach house and a good book, or my office on a Saturday morning when no one is around. I don’t want a show. I told you I would help out as an analyst only—and only if it didn’t interfere with my real life or do harm.”
“What we do is real life.”
“Remember our early discussions?” Scarpetta said. “We agreed that as long as it didn’t interfere with my responsibilities as a practicing forensic pathologist. After tonight, there can be no doubt it’s interfering.”
“You read the blogs, the e-mails. The response to you is phenomenal.”
“I don’t read them.”
“The Scarpetta Factor,” Bachta said. “A great name for your new show.”
“What you’re suggesting is the very thing I’m trying to get away from.”
“Why get away from it? It’s become a household word, a cliché.”
“Which is what I sure as hell don’t want to become,” she said, trying not to sound as offended as she felt.
“What I mean is, it’s the buzz. Whenever something seems unsolvable, people want the Scarpetta Factor.”
“Because you started the so-called buzz by having your people say it on the air. By introducing me that way. By introducing what I have to say that way. It’s embarrassing and misleading.”
“I’m sending a proposal over to your apartment,” Alex said. “Take a look and we’ll talk.”
Lights flickered in New Jersey like a million small flames, and planes looked like supernovas, some of them suspended in black space, perfectly still. An illusion, reminding Benton of what Lucy always said: When an aircraft seems motionless, it’s either heading directly toward you or directly away. Better know which it is or you’re dead.
He leaned forward tensely in his favorite oak chair in front of windows overlooking Broadway and left Scarpetta another message. “Kay, do not walk home alone. Please call me and I’ll meet you.”
It was the third time he’d tried her phone. She wasn’t answering and should have been home an hour ago. His impulse was to grab his shoes, his coat, and run out the door. But that wouldn’t be smart. The Time Warner Center and the entire area of Columbus Circle were vast. It was unlikely Benton would find her, and she’d get worried when she came in and discovered him gone. Better to stay put. He got out of his chair and looked south where CNN was headquartered, its gunmetal-gray glass towers checkered with soft white light.
Carley Crispin had betrayed Scarpetta, and city officials were going to be in an uproar. Maybe Harvey Fahley had contacted CNN, had decided to be an iReporter or whatever those people who became self-appointed television journalists were called. Maybe someone else claimed to have witnessed something, to have information, just as Benton had feared and predicted. But the details about decomposing head hairs found in a taxi wouldn’t have come from Fahley unless he’d made it up, was outright spinning lies. Who would say something like that? Hannah Starr’s hair hadn’t been found anywhere.
He called Alex Bachta’s cell phone again. This time the producer answered.
“I’m looking for Kay.” Benton didn’t bother saying hello.
“She left a few minutes ago, walked out with Carley,” Alex said.
“With Carley?” Benton said, baffled. “Are you sure?”
“Absolutely. They were leaving at the same time and walked out together.”
“Do you know where they were going?”
“You sound worried. Everything all right? Just so you know, the information about the yellow cab and Hannah—”
“I’m not calling about that,” Benton cut him off.
“Well, everybody else is. Not our idea. Carley’s on her own and she’ll have to stand by it. I don’t care what her source is. She’s accountable.”
Benton paced in front of the windows, not interested in Carley or her career. “Kay’s not answering her phone,” he said.
“I can try to reach Carley for you. Is there a problem?”
“Tell her I’m trying to get hold of Kay and it’s best they get in a cab.”
“Seems like a weird thing to say, considering. I don’t know if I’d recommend a cab right now,” Alex said, and Benton wondered if he was trying to be funny.
“I don’t want her walking. I’m not trying to alarm anybody,” Benton said.
“Then you are worried that this killer might come after—”
“You don’t know what I’m worried about, and I don’t want to waste time discussing it. I’m asking you to get hold of Kay.”
“Hold on. I’m going to try Carley right now,” Alex said, and Benton could hear him entering a number on a different phone, leaving Carley a voicemail: “. . . So call me ASAP. Benton’s trying to reach Kay. I don’t know if you’re still with her. But it’s urgent.” He got back to Benton. “Maybe they forgot to turn their phones back on after the show.”
“Here’s the phone number for the concierge desk in our building,” Benton said. “They can put you through to me if you hear anything. And I’ll give you my cell.”
He wished Alex hadn’t used the word urgent. He gave him the numbers and thought about calling Marino next, sitting back down and dropping the phone in his lap, not wanting to talk to him or even hear his voice again tonight, but he needed his help. The lights of high-rises across the Hudson were mirrored in water along the shore, the river dark in the middle, a void, not even a barge in sight, an empty, frigid darkness, what Benton felt in his chest when he thought about Marino. Benton wasn’t sure what to do and for a moment did nothing. It angered him that whenever Scarpetta was at risk, Marino was the first person who came to mind, to anybody’s mind, as if he was appointed by some higher power to take care of her. Why? Why did he need Marino for anything?
Benton was still angry as hell, and it was at times like this that he felt it most. In some ways
he felt it more than he had at the time of the incident. It would be two years this spring, a violation that in fact was criminal. Benton knew all about it, every gory detail, had faced it after it had happened. Marino drunk as hell and crazy, blamed it on booze and the sexual-performance drug he was taking, one factor added to another, didn’t matter. Everybody was sorry, couldn’t be sorrier. Benton had handled the situation with grace and facility, certainly with humanity, had gotten Marino into treatment, had gotten him a job, and by now Benton should be past it. But he wasn’t. It hung over him like one of those planes, bright and huge like a planet, not moving and maybe about to slam into him. He was a psychologist and he had no insight into why he couldn’t get out of the way or was in the same damn airspace to begin with.
“It’s me,” Benton said when Marino answered on the first ring. “Where are you?”
“In my shitcan apartment. You want to tell me what the hell just happened? Where did Carley Crispin get this shit? When Berger finds out, Jesus Christ. She’s on the helicopter and doesn’t know. Who the hell got to Carley? It’s not like she could just pull that info out of nowhere. Someone must have said something. Where the hell did she get the scene photograph? I’ve been trying to get hold of Bonnell. Big surprise, I’m getting voicemail. I’m sure she’s on her phone, probably the commissioner on down the line, everybody wanting to know if we got a serial murderer driving a cab in the city.”
Marino had been watching Scarpetta on The Crispin Report. That figured. Benton felt a twinge of resentment, then felt nothing. He wasn’t going to allow himself to sink into his dark pit.
“I don’t know what happened. Someone got to Carley, obviously. Maybe Harvey Fahley, maybe someone else. You sure Bonnell wouldn’t—” Benton started to say.
“Are you fucking kidding me? Like she’s going to leak details about her own case to CNN?”
“I don’t know her, and she was worried about the public not being warned.”
“Take it from me, she’s not going to be happy about this,” Marino said, as if he and Bonnell were new best friends.
“Are you near your computer?”
“Can be. Why? What does the Doc have to say?”
“I don’t know. She’s not home yet,” Benton said.
“You don’t know? How come you’re not with her?”
“I never go to CNN, never go over there with her. She doesn’t like it. You know how she is.”
“She walked over by herself?”
“It’s six blocks, Marino.”
“Doesn’t matter. She shouldn’t.”
“Well, she does. Every time, walks by herself, insists on it—has ever since she started appearing on shows more than a year ago. Won’t take a car service and won’t let me go with her, assuming I’m in the city the same time she is, and often I’m not.” Benton was rambling and sounded irritable. He was annoyed that he was explaining himself. Marino made him feel like a bad husband.
“One of us should be with her when she’s got live TV,” Marino said. “It’s advertised when she’s going to be on, advertised on their website, on commercials, days in advance. Someone could be outside the building waiting for her before or after. One of us should be with her, just like I do with Berger. When it’s live, it’s pretty damn obvious where people are and when.”
It was exactly what Benton was worried about. Dodie Hodge. She’d called Scarpetta on TV. Benton didn’t know where Dodie was. Maybe in the city. Maybe nearby. She didn’t live far from here. Just on the other side of the George Washington Bridge.
“I’ll tell you what. I’ll let you give Kay a lecture on security and see if she pays more attention to you than she does to me,” Benton was saying.
“Probably I should keep an eye on her without her knowing it.”
“A quick way to make her hate you.”
Marino didn’t respond, and he could have. He could say that Scarpetta didn’t have it in her to hate him or she would have hated him long before now. She would have begun hating him that spring night in Charleston a year and a half ago when Marino, drunk and enraged, had assaulted her inside her own home. But Benton was quiet. What he’d just said about hate seemed to linger, to hang like one of those planes not moving, and he was sorry he’d said it.
“Dodie Hodge,” Benton said. “The caller supposedly from Detroit. I can tell you the reason I know her name is she sent us an anonymous Christmas card. Sent one to Kay and me.”
“If that’s what you can tell me, then there’s other stuff you can’t tell me. Let me guess. From the land of fruit and nuts. Bellevue, Kirby, McLean’s. One of your patients, explaining why she’d supposedly read some article you wrote about the shitty clearance rate. All true, though. Another twenty years, nothing will get solved. Everybody will live in forts with machine guns.”
“I didn’t publish a journal article on that particular topic.”
He didn’t add that Warner Agee did. Some derivative unoriginal editorial in Benton forgot which newspaper. He had Agee as a Google alert. Out of self-defense, ever since the bullshit had started cropping up in Wikipedia. Dr. Clark hadn’t been telling Benton anything he didn’t already know.
“She’s a patient of yours. True or false?” Marino’s voice. Christ, he was loud.
“I can’t tell you if she was or wasn’t,” Benton said.
“Past tense. She’s out, then, free as a cuckoo bird. Tell me what you want me to do,” Marino said.
“I think it would be a good idea to run her through RTCC.” Benton could only imagine what Dr. Clark would say.
“I got to go over there anyway, will probably be there most of tomorrow.”
“I’m talking about tonight. Now,” Benton said. “Maybe see if that beast of a computer system comes up with anything we should know. They letting you remote-access these days or do you have to go to One Police Plaza?”
“Can’t data-mine remote.”
“Sorry about that. Hate to put you out.”
“Got to work with the analysts, which is a good thing. I ain’t a Lucy. Still type with two fingers and don’t know a damn thing about disparate data sources, live feeds. What they call the hunt. Am putting on my boots as we speak, heading out on ‘the hunt,’ just for you, Benton.”
Benton was fed up with Marino trying to placate him, trying to win him over as if nothing had happened. Benton wasn’t friendly, barely civil, and he knew it and couldn’t seem to help it, and it had gotten worse in recent weeks. Maybe it would be better if Marino would just tell him to go fuck himself. Maybe then they could get past it.
“You don’t mind me asking, how’d you manage to connect a Christmas card with this Dodie lady who just called from Detroit? Supposedly Detroit,” Marino was saying. “The Doc know about the Christmas card?”
“No.”
“No to which question?”
“All of them,” Benton said.
“This Dodie lady ever met the Doc?”
“Not that I’m aware of. It’s not about Kay. It’s about me. Calling CNN was for my benefit.”
“Yeah, I know, Benton. Everything’s about you, but that’s not what I asked.” Aggression, like a finger poking Benton’s chest. Good. Go ahead and get angry. Fight back.
“I recognized her voice,” Benton answered.
In an earlier century maybe the two of them would have taken it outside and had a slugfest. There was something to be said for primitive behavior. It was purging.
“On a Christmas card? I’m confused,” Marino went on.
“A singing card. You open it and a recording plays. A recording of Dodie Hodge singing a rather inappropriate Christmas tune.”
“You still got it?”
“Of course. It’s evidence.”
“Evidence of what?” Marino wanted to know.
“See what you find on the computer.”
“I’ll ask again. The Doc isn’t aware of Dodie Hodge or her card?”
“She’s unaware. Let me know what you find at RTCC.” Benton co
uldn’t go there himself and take care of it, didn’t have the authority, and he resented the hell out of it.
“Meaning I’m going to find something. That’s why you’re suggesting it,” Marino said. “You already know what I’m going to find. You realize how much time your confidentiality crap wastes?”
“I don’t know what you’ll find. We just need to make sure she isn’t dangerous, that she hasn’t been arrested somewhere for something,” Benton said.
Marino should find a record of Dodie’s arrest in Detroit. Maybe there were other things. Benton was being a cop again, only it was by proxy, and the powerlessness he felt was becoming intolerable.
“I’m concerned about unstable individuals who are aggressively interested in well-known people,” Benton added.
“Like who besides the Doc? Even though what Dodie did is really about you. Who else? You got other well-known people in mind?”
“For example, movie stars. Hypothetically, a movie star like Hap Judd.”
Silence, then Marino said, “Kind of interesting you’d bring him up.”
“Why?”
What did Marino know?
“Maybe you should tell me why you brought him up,” Marino said.
“As I suggested, see what you find at RTCC.” Benton had said too much. “As you know, I’m not in a position to investigate.”
He couldn’t even ask to see a driver’s license when he sat down in a room with a patient. Couldn’t pat the person down for a weapon. Couldn’t run a background. Couldn’t do anything.
“I’ll take a look at Dodie Hodge,” Marino said. “I’ll take a look at Hap Judd. You interested in anything else, let me know. I can run whatever the hell I want. I’m glad I’m not a profiler with all these bullshit limitations. Would drive me batshit.”
“If I was still a profiler I wouldn’t have limitations and I wouldn’t need you to run anything,” Benton said testily.
The Scarpetta Factor Page 15