Petrowski was displaying records on the data wall. Reports on assaults, robberies, a rape, and two shootings in which FedEx was either a reference to packages stolen, words uttered, occupations, or in one case, a fatal pit bull attack. None of the data associated with any of the reports were useful until Marino was looking at a Transit Adjudication Bureau summons, a TAB summons from this past August first, big as life on the data wall. Marino read the last name, the first name, the Edgewater, New Jersey, address, the sex, race, height, and weight.
“Well, what do you know. Look who popped up. I was going to have you run her next,” he said as he read the details of the violation:
Subject was observed boarding a NY Transit bus at Southern Boulevard and East 149th Street at 1130 hours and became argumentative with another passenger the subject claimed had taken her seat. Subject began to yell at the passenger. When this officer approached the subject and told her to stop yelling and sit down, she stated, “You can just FedEx your ass to hell because it’s not me who did anything. That man over there is a rude son of a bitch.”
“Doubt she’s got a skull tattoo,” Petrowski said ironically. “Don’t think she’s your man with the package.”
“Fucking unbelievable,” Marino said. “You print that out for me?”
“You should count how many times per hour you say ‘fuck.’ In my house, would cost you a lot of quarters.”
“Dodie Hodge,” Marino said. “The fucking loony tune who called CNN.”
Lucy’s forensic computer investigative agency, Connextions, was located in the same building where she lived, the nineteenth-century former warehouse of a soap-and-candle company on Barrow Street in Greenwich Village, technically the Far West Village. Two-story brick, boldly Romanesque, with rounded arched windows, it was registered as a historic landmark, as was the former carriage house next door that Lucy had purchased last spring to use as a garage.
She was a dream for any preservation commission, since she had not the slightest interest in altering the integrity of a building beyond the meticulous retrofits necessary for her unusual cyber and surveillance needs. More relevant to any nonprofit was her philanthropy, which wasn’t without personal benefit, not that Jaime Berger had the slightest faith in altruistic motives being pure, not hardly. She had no idea how much Lucy had donated to de facto conflicts of interest, and she should have an idea, and that bothered her. Lucy should keep nothing from her, but she did, and over recent weeks, Berger had begun to feel an uneasiness about their relationship that was different from misgivings she’d experienced so far.
“Maybe you should get it tattooed on your hand.” Lucy held up her hand, palm first. “To cue yourself. Actors like cues. It all depends. ” She pretended to read something written on the palm of her hand. “Get a tattoo that says It all depends and look at it every time you’re about to lie.”
“I don’t need cues, and I’m not lying,” Hap Judd replied, maintaining his poise. “People say all kinds of things, and it doesn’t necessarily mean they did anything wrong.”
“I see,” Berger said to Judd as she wished Marino would hurry up. Where the hell was he? “Then what you meant in the bar this past Monday night, the night of December fifteenth, all depends on how one—in this case, me—interprets what you said to Eric Mender. If you stated to him that you can understand being curious about a nineteen-year-old girl in a coma and wanting to see her naked and perhaps touch her in a sexual manner, it’s all in the interpretation. I’m trying to figure out how I might interpret a remark like that beyond finding it more than a little troubling.”
“Good God, that’s what I’m trying to tell you. The interpretation. It’s not . . . It’s not the way you’re thinking. Her picture was all over the news. And it was where I was working then, the hospital she was in happened to be where I had a job,” Judd said with less poise. “Yeah, I was curious. People are curious if they’re honest. I’m curious for a living, curious about all kinds of things. Doesn’t mean I did anything.”
Hap Judd didn’t look like a movie star. He didn’t look like the type to have roles in big-budget franchises like Tomb Raider and Batman. Berger couldn’t stop thinking that as she sat across from him at the brushed-steel conference table in Lucy’s barnlike space of exposed timber beams and tobacco-wood floors, and computer flat screens asleep on paperless desks. Hap Judd was of average height, sinewy verging on too thin, with unremarkable brown hair and eyes, his face Captain America-perfect but bland, the sort of appearance that translated well on film but in the flesh wasn’t compelling. Were he the boy next door, Berger would describe him as clean-cut, nice-looking. Were she to rename him, it would be Hapless or Haphazard, because there was something tragically obtuse and reckless about him, and Lucy didn’t get that part, or maybe she did, which is why she was torturing him. For the past half-hour, she’d been all over him in a way that caused Berger a great deal of concern. Where the hell was Marino? He should have been here by now. He was supposed to be helping with the interrogation, not Lucy. She was out of bounds, was acting as if she had something personal with Judd, some a priori connection. And maybe she did. Lucy had known Rupe Starr.
“Just because I supposedly said certain things to a stranger in a bar doesn’t mean I did anything.” Judd had made this point about ten times now. “You have to ask yourself why I said what I supposedly did.”
“I’m not asking myself anything. I’m asking you,” Lucy said, her laser gaze holding his eyes.
“I’m telling you what I know.”
“You’re telling us what you want us to hear,” Lucy shot back before Berger got a chance to intervene.
“I don’t remember everything. I was drinking. I’m a busy person, have a lot going on. It’s inevitable I’m going to forget things,” Judd said. “You’re not a lawyer. Why’s she talking to me like she’s a lawyer,” he said to Berger. “You’re not a real cop, just some assistant or something,” he said to Lucy. “Who the hell are you to be asking me all these questions and accusing me?”
“You remember enough to say you didn’t do anything.” Lucy felt no need to justify herself, sure of herself at her conference table in her loft, a computer open in front of her, a map displayed on it, a grid of some area Berger couldn’t make out. “You remember enough to change your story,” Lucy added.
“I’m not changing anything. I don’t remember that night, whenever it was,” Judd answered Lucy as he looked at Berger, as if she might save him. “What the hell do you want from me?”
Lucy needed to back down. Berger had sent her plenty of signals, but she was ignoring them and shouldn’t be talking to Hap at all, not unless Berger directly asked her to explain details related to the forensic computer investigation, which they hadn’t even gotten to yet. Where was Marino? Lucy was acting like she was Marino, was taking his place, and Berger was beginning to entertain suspicions that hadn’t occurred to her before, probably because she knew enough already, and to doubt Lucy further was almost unbearable. Lucy wasn’t honest. She knew Rupe Starr and hadn’t mentioned it to Berger. Lucy had her own motive and she wasn’t a prosecutor, she wasn’t law enforcement anymore, and in her own mind had nothing to lose.
Berger had everything to lose, didn’t need some celebrity putting dents in her reputation. She had more than her share of dents, unfairly inflicted. Her relationship with Lucy hadn’t helped. Jesus, it had been anything but helpful. Unkind gossip and vile comments on the Internet. A dick-hating dyke, the dyke Jew DA Berger had made it to the top ten on a neo-Nazi hit list, her address and other personal information posted in hopes someone would do the right thing. Then there were the evangelical Christians reminding her to pack her bags for her one-way trip to hell. Berger had never imagined being honest would be so hard and so punishing. Appearing with Lucy in public, not hiding or lying, and it had hurt Berger, hurt her far more than she could have imagined. And for what? To be deceived. How deep did it go, where would it end? It would end, don’t worry. It will end, she kept te
lling herself. There would be a conversation at some point and Lucy would explain herself, and all would be fine. Lucy would tell her about Rupe.
“What we want is for you to tell the truth.” Berger got a chance to speak before Lucy could jump in. “This is very, very serious. We’re not playing games.”
“I don’t know why I’m here. I haven’t done anything,” Hap Judd said to her, and she didn’t like his eyes.
He was bold the way he stared at her, looking her up and down, aware of the effect it had on Lucy. He knew what he was doing, was defiant, and at times Berger sensed he was amused by them.
“I have a very strong feeling about sending someone to prison,” Berger said.
“I haven’t done anything!”
Maybe, maybe not, but he’d also not been helpful. Berger had given him almost three weeks to be helpful. Three weeks was a long time when someone was missing, possibly abducted, possibly dead, or, more likely, busy creating a new identity in South America, the Fiji islands, Australia, God knows where.
“That’s not the worst of it,” Lucy said to him, her green stare unwavering, her short hair shining rose-gold in the overhead lights. She was ready to pounce again like an exotic cat. “I can’t imagine what the inmates would do to a sick fuck like you.” She began typing, was in her e-mail now.
“You know what? I almost didn’t come at all. I came so close to not coming you wouldn’t even believe it,” he said to Berger, and the mention of prison had an effect. He wasn’t so smug. He wasn’t looking at her chest. “This is the shit I get,” he said, with no poise left. “I’m not going to sit here and listen to your fucking shit.”
He made no move to get up from his chair, a faded denim leg bouncing, sweat stains in the armpits of a baggy white shirt. Berger could see his chest move as he breathed, an unusual silver cross on a leather necklace moving beneath white cotton with each shallow breath. His hands were clenched on the armrests, a chunky silver skull ring shining, his muscles flexed tensely, veins standing out in his neck. He did have to sit here, could no more extricate himself right now than he could avert his gaze from a train wreck about to happen.
“Remember Jeffrey Dahmer?” Lucy said, not looking up as she typed. “Remember what happened to that sick fuck? What the inmates did? Beat him to death with a broom handle, maybe did other things to him with the broom handle. He was into the same sick shit you are.”
“Jeffrey Dahmer? You serious?” Judd laughed too loudly. It wasn’t really a laugh. He was scared. “She’s fucking crazy,” he said to Berger. “I’ve never hurt anybody in my life. I don’t hurt people.”
“You mean not yet,” Lucy said, a city grid on her screen, as if she was MapQuesting.
“I’m not talking to her,” he said to Berger. “I don’t like her. Fucking make her leave or I’m going to.”
“How ’bout I give you a list of people you’ve hurt?” Lucy said. “Starting with the family and friends of Farrah Lacy.”
“I don’t know who that is, and you can go fuck yourself,” he snapped.
“You know what a class-E felony is?” Berger asked him.
“I haven’t done anything. I haven’t hurt anyone.”
“Up to ten years in prison. That’s what it is.”
“In isolation for your own protection,” Lucy continued, ignoring Berger’s signals to back off, another screenshot of a map in front of her.
Berger could make out green shapes that represented parks, blue shapes that were water, in an area congested with streets. An alert tone sounded on Berger’s BlackBerry. Someone had just sent her an e-mail at almost three o’clock in the morning.
“Solitary confinement. Probably Fallsburg,” Lucy said. “They’re used to high-profile prisoners. The Son of Sam. Attica’s not so good. He had his throat cut there.”
The e-mail was from Marino:
Mental patient possb connected to docs incident dodie hodge I found something at rtcc dont forget to ask your witness if he knows her I’m tied up will explain later
Berger looked up from her BlackBerry as Lucy continued to terrorize Hap Judd with what happened in prison to people like him.
“Tell me about Dodie Hodge,” said Berger. “Your relationship with her.”
Judd looked baffled, then angry. He blurted out, “She’s a gypsy, a fucking witch. I’m the one who should be here as a victim the way that crazy bitch bothers me. Why the hell are you asking me? What’s she got to do with anything? Maybe she’s the one accusing me of something. Is she the one behind all this?”
“Maybe I’ll answer your questions when you answer mine,” Berger said. “Tell me the history of how you know her.”
“A psychic, a spiritual adviser. Whatever you want to call her. A lot of people—Hollywood people, really successful people, even politicians—know her, go to her for advice about money, their careers, their relationships. So I was stupid. I talked to her, and she wouldn’t stop bothering me. Calls my office in L.A. all the time.”
“Then she’s stalking you.”
“That’s what I call it. Yeah, exactly.”
“And this started when?” Berger asked.
“I don’t know. Last year. Maybe a year ago this past fall. I got referred.”
“By whom?”
“Someone in the business who thought I might get something out of it. Career guidance.”
“I’m asking for a name,” Berger said.
“I got to respect confidentiality. A lot of people go to her. You’d be amazed.”
“Go to her, or does she come to you?” Berger said. “Where do the meetings take place?”
“She came to my apartment in TriBeCa. High-profile people aren’t going to come to wherever she lives and risk being followed and maybe caught on camera. Or she does readings on the phone.”
“And how does she get paid?”
“Cash. Or if it’s a phoner, you mail a cashier’s check to a P.O. box in New Jersey. Maybe a few times I talked to her on the phone, and then cut her off because she’s so damn crazy. Yeah, I’m being stalked. We should talk about me being stalked.”
“Does she show up places where you are? Such as your apartment in TriBeCa, where you’re filming, places you frequent, such as the bar on Christopher Street here in New York?” Berger asked.
“She leaves messages all the time at my agent’s office.”
“She calls L.A.? Fine. I’ll give you a good contact at the FBI field office in L.A.,” Berger said. “The FBI handles stalking. One of their specialties.”
Judd didn’t reply. He had no interest in talking to the FBI in L.A. He was a cagey bastard, and Berger wondered if the person whose confidentiality he was protecting might be Hannah Starr. Based on what he’d just said, he first met Dodie around the same time his financial transactions with Hannah began. A year ago this past fall.
“The bar on Christopher Street,” Berger redirected, not satisfied that Dodie Hodge was related to anything that mattered and annoyed that Marino had interrupted her interrogation of someone she’d begun to strongly dislike.
“You can’t prove anything.” The defiance was back.
“If you really believe we can’t prove anything, why did you bother to show up?”
“Especially since you almost didn’t,” Lucy interrupted, busy on her MacBook. Typing e-mails and looking at maps.
“To cooperate,” Judd said to Berger. “I’m here to cooperate.”
“I see. You couldn’t fit cooperation into your busy schedule three weeks ago when you first came to my attention and I tried repeatedly to get hold of you.”
“I was in L.A.”
“I forgot. They don’t have phones in L.A.”
“I was tied up, and the messages I got weren’t clear. I didn’t understand.”
“Good, so now you understand and have decided to cooperate,” Berger said. “So, let’s talk about your little incident this past Monday—specifically, what happened after you left the Stonewall Inn at fifty-three Christopher Street late M
onday night. You left with that kid you met, Eric. Remember Eric? The kid you smoked weed with? The kid you talked so openly with?”
“We were high,” Judd said.
“Yes, people say things when they’re high. You got high and told him wild-ass tales, his words, about what happened at Park General Hospital in Harlem,” Berger said.
They were naked beneath a down-filled duvet, unable to sleep, tucked into each other and looking out at the view. The Manhattan skyline wasn’t the ocean or the Rockies or the ruins of Rome, but it was a sight they loved, and it was their habit to open the shades at night after turning off the lights.
Benton stroked Scarpetta’s bare skin, his chin on top of her head. He kissed her neck, her ears, and her flesh was cool where his lips had been. His chest was pressed against her back, and she could feel the slow beat of his heart.
“I never ask you about your patients,” she said.
“Clearly I’m not much of a distraction if you’re thinking about my patients,” Benton said in her ear.
She pulled his arms around her and kissed his hands. “Maybe you can distract me again in a few minutes. I’d like to raise a hypothetical question.”
“You’re entitled. I’m surprised you have only one.”
“How would someone like your former patient know where we live? I’m not suggesting she left the package.” Scarpetta didn’t want to say Dodie Hodge’s name in bed.
“One might speculate that if someone is sufficiently manipulative, that person might successfully extract information from others,” Benton said. “For example, there are staff members at McLean who know where our apartment is, since mail and packages are occasionally sent to me here.”
“And staff members would tell a patient?”
The Scarpetta Factor Page 24