The Scarpetta Factor

by Patricia Cornwell

  He walked over to the BlackBerry and picked it up by its rubberized edges.

  “The only surface good for prints is going to be the display, which I don’t want to touch without dusting it first,” he decided. “Then I’ll swab it for DNA.”

  He squatted over the field case, retrieving black powder and a carbon-fiber brush, and Scarpetta turned her attention to the men’s clothing on the bed, getting close enough to detect a rancid smell, the stench of unclean flesh. She noted that the newspapers were from the past several days, The New York Times and The Wall Street Journal, and was puzzled by a black Motorola flip phone on a pillow. Scattered on the rumpled linens were a pair of dirty khaki pants, a blue-and-white oxford-cloth shirt, several pairs of socks, pale-blue pajamas, and men’s undershorts that were stained yellow in the crotch. The clothing looked as if it hadn’t been washed in quite a while, someone wearing the same thing day after day and never sending it out to be laundered. That someone wasn’t Carley Crispin. These couldn’t be her clothes, and Scarpetta saw no sign of Carley anywhere she looked in this room. Were it not for Scarpetta’s BlackBerry being here, Carley wouldn’t come to mind for any reason at all.

  Scarpetta looked in several wastepaper baskets without digging in them or emptying them on the floor. Crumpled paper, tissues, more newspapers. She walked toward the bathroom, stopping just inside the doorway. The sink and the marble around it, including the marble floor, were covered with cut hair, clumps of gray hair of different lengths, some of it as long as three inches, some as tiny as stubble. On a washcloth were a pair of scissors, a razor, and a can of Gillette shaving cream that had been purchased at a Walgreens, and another hotel key card next to a pair of eyeglasses with old-style square black frames.

  At the back of the vanity were a single toothbrush and a tube of Sensodyne toothpaste that was almost used up, and a cleaning kit, an earwax pick. A silver Siemens charger unit was open, and inside it were two Siemens Motion 700 hearing aids, flesh-colored, full-shell in-the-ear type. What Scarpetta didn’t see was a remote control, and she walked back into the main room, careful not to touch or disturb anything, resisting the temptation to open the closet or drawers.

  “Someone with moderate to severe hearing loss,” she said as Marino lifted prints off the BlackBerry. “State-of-the-art hearing aids, background noise reduction, feedback blocker, Bluetooth. You can pair them with your cell phone. Should be a remote control somewhere.” Walking around and still not seeing one. “For volume adjustment, to check on the battery power level, that sort of thing. People usually carry them in their pocket or purse. He might have it with him, but he’s not wearing his hearing aids. Which doesn’t make much sense, or maybe I should say it doesn’t bode well.”

  “Got a couple good ones here,” Marino said, smoothing lifting tape on a white card. “I got no idea what you’re talking about. Who has hearing aids?”

  “The man who shaved his head and beard in the bathroom,” she said, opening the room door and stepping back into the hallway, where Curtis the manager was waiting, nervous and ill at ease.

  “I don’t want to ask anything I shouldn’t, but I don’t understand what’s happening,” he said to her.

  “Let me ask you a few questions,” Scarpetta replied. “You said you came on duty at midnight.”

  “I work midnight to eight a.m., that’s correct,” Curtis said. “I haven’t seen her since I got here. I can’t say I’ve ever seen her, as I explained a few moments ago. Ms. Crispin checked into the hotel in October, presumably because she wanted a place in the city. I believe because of her show. Not that her reason is any of my business, but that’s what I’ve been told. Truth is, she rarely uses the room herself, and her gentleman friend doesn’t like to be disturbed.”

  This was new information, what Scarpetta was looking for, and she said, “Do you know the name of her gentleman friend or where he might be?”

  “I’m afraid I don’t. I’ve never met him because of the hours I work.”

  “An older man with gray hair and a beard?”

  “I’ve never met him and don’t know what he looks like. But I’m told he’s a frequent guest on her show. I don’t know his name and can’t tell you anything else about him except he’s very private. I shouldn’t say it, but a bit odd. Never speaks to anyone. He goes out and gets food and brings it back in, leaves bags of trash outside his door. Doesn’t use room service or the phones or want housekeeping. No one’s in the room?” He kept looking at the cracked-open door of room 412.

  “Dr. Agee,” Scarpetta said. “The forensic psychiatrist Warner Agee. He’s a frequent guest on Carley Crispin’s show.”

  “I don’t watch it.”

  “He’s the only frequent guest I can think of who is almost deaf and has gray hair and a beard.”

  “I don’t know. I only know what I just told you. We have a lot of high-profile people who stay here. We don’t pry. Our only inconvenience with the man staying in this room is noise. Last night, for example, some of the other guests complained about his TV again. I do know based on notes left for me that several guests called the desk earlier in the evening and complained.”

  “How early in the evening?” Scarpetta asked.

  “Around eight-thirty, quarter of nine.”

  She was at CNN at that time, and so was Carley. Warner Agee was in the hotel room with the TV turned on loud and other guests complained. The TV was still on when Scarpetta and Marino had walked in a little while ago, tuned to CNN, but the volume had been turned down. She imagined Agee sitting on the messy bed, watching The Crispin Report last night. If no one had complained after eight-thirty or a quarter of nine and the TV was on, he must have lowered the volume. He must have put his hearing aids on. Then what happened? He removed them and left the room after shaving his beard and head?

  “If someone called asking for Carley Crispin, you wouldn’t necessarily know if she’s here,” Scarpetta said to Curtis. “Just that she’s a guest registered under her own name, which is what shows up on the computer when someone at the desk checks. She has a room in her name, but a friend has been staying in it. Apparently, Dr. Agee has. I’m making sure I understand.”

  “That’s correct. Assuming you’re right about who her friend is.”

  “Who is the room billed to?”

  “I really shouldn’t—”

  “The man who was staying in that room, Dr. Agee, isn’t there. I’m concerned,” Scarpetta said. “For a lot of reasons, I’m very worried. You have no idea where he might be? He’s hearing-impaired and doesn’t appear to have his hearing aids with him.”

  “No. I haven’t seen him leave. This is most unsettling. I suppose that explains his habit of playing the TV so loud now and then.”

  “He could have taken the stairs.”

  The manager looked down the hallway, the exit sign glowing red at the end of it. “This is most disconcerting. What is it you’re hoping to find in there?” Looking back at room 412.

  Scarpetta wasn’t going to give him information. When Lucy showed up with the warrant, he’d get a copy of it and an idea of what they were looking for.

  “And if he left by the stairs, no one would have seen him,” she continued. “The doormen don’t wait on the sidewalk late at night, certainly not when it’s this cold. Who is the room billed to?” she again asked.

  “To her, to Ms. Crispin. She came in and stopped by the desk around eleven-forty-five last night. Again, I wasn’t here. I got here a few minutes later.”

  “Why would she stop by the desk if she’d been a guest here since October?” Scarpetta asked. “Why wouldn’t she just go straight up to her room?”

  “The hotel uses magnetic key cards,” Curtis said. “No doubt you’ve had the experience of not using your card for a while and it doesn’t work. Whenever new keys are made, we have a record of it on the computer, which includes the checkout date. Ms. Crispin had two new keys made for her.”

  This was more than a little perplexing. Scarpetta asked
Curtis to think about what he was suggesting for a moment. If Carley had a friend—Dr. Warner Agee—staying in her room, she wouldn’t leave him with an expired key.

  “If he’s not registered or paying the bill,” she explained, “he wouldn’t have the authority to have a new key issued if the old one expired because the checkout date encoded on it had been exceeded. He couldn’t extend the reservation himself, I would assume, if he’s not the one paying the bill and his name isn’t even on the reservation.”

  “That’s true.”

  “Then maybe we can conclude her key wasn’t expired, and maybe that’s not really why she had two new ones made,” Scarpetta said. “Did she do anything else when she stopped by the front desk last night?”

  “If you’ll give me a moment. Let me see what I can find out.” He got on his phone and made a call. He said to someone, “Do we know if Ms. Crispin was locked out of her room, or did she simply stop by the desk for new keys? And if so, why?” He listened. Then he said, “Of course. Yes, yes, if you would do that right now. I’m sorry to wake him up.” He waited.

  A call was being made to the desk clerk who would have dealt with Carley late last night, someone who probably was at home, asleep. Curtis kept apologizing to Scarpetta for making her wait. He was getting increasingly distressed, dabbing his brow with a handkerchief and clearing his throat often. Marino’s voice drifted out of the room, and she could hear him walking around. He was talking to someone on the phone, but Scarpetta couldn’t make out what he was saying.

  The manager said, “Yes. I’m still here.” Nodding his head. “I see. Well, that makes sense.” He tucked his phone back in the pocket of his tweed jacket. “Ms. Crispin came in and went straight to the desk. She said she hadn’t been to the hotel for a while and worried her key wouldn’t work and her friend was hard of hearing. She worried he might not hear her if she knocked on the door. You see, her reservation was month-to-month, and the last time she renewed it was November twentieth, meaning the key would have expired tomorrow, Saturday. So the reservation needed to be extended if she intended to keep the room, and she went ahead and renewed it and was given two new keys.”

  “She extended the reservation until January twentieth?”

  “Actually, she extended it only through the weekend. She said she likely would be checking out of the room on Monday the twenty-second,” Curtis said, staring at the partially opened door of room 412.

  Scarpetta could hear Marino moving around in there.

  “He never saw her leave,” Curtis added. “The person working the desk when she came in saw her take the elevator up, but he didn’t see her come back down. And I certainly haven’t seen her, either, as I’ve said.”

  “Then she must have taken the stairs,” Scarpetta said. “Because she’s not here and neither is her friend, presumably Dr. Agee. To your knowledge, when Ms. Crispin has been here in the past, has she ever taken the stairs?”

  “Most people don’t. I’ve never heard anyone mention she did. Now, some of our high-profile guests try to be very discreet about their comings and goings. But frankly, Ms. Crispin doesn’t seem to be what I’d call shy.”

  Scarpetta thought about the hair clippings in the sink. She wondered if Carley had let herself into the room and might have seen what was in the bathroom. Or maybe Agee was still in the room when she showed up to drop off Scarpetta’s stolen BlackBerry. Had they left together? Both of them taking the stairs and leaving Scarpetta’s stolen BlackBerry in the room? Scarpetta envisioned Agee with his shaved face and head and no hearing aids and possibly no glasses, sneaking down the stairs with Carley Crispin. It didn’t make sense. Something else had happened.

  “Does your hotel’s computer system keep a log for when rooms are entered and exited by using these magnetic key cards?” Scarpetta thought it unlikely but asked anyway.

  “No. Most hotel systems, at least none I know of, would not have something like that. Nor do they have information on the cards.”

  “No names, addresses, credit card numbers. Nothing like that encoded on the cards,” she said.

  “Absolutely not,” he replied. “Stored on the computer but not the card. The cards open the doors and that’s all. We don’t have logs. In fact, most hotel cards, at least ones I’m familiar with, don’t even have the room number encoded on them, no information of any sort except the checkout date.” He looked at room 412 and said, “I guess you didn’t find anybody. Nobody’s in there.”

  “Detective Marino is in there.”

  “Well, I’m glad,” Curtis said, relieved. “I didn’t want to think the worst about Ms. Crispin or her friend.”

  He meant he didn’t want to think one or both of them were dead inside that room.

  “You don’t need to wait up here,” Scarpetta told him. “We’ll let you know when we’re done. It may be a while.”

  The room was quiet when she walked back in and shut the door. Marino had turned off the TV and was standing in the bathroom, holding the BlackBerry in a gloved hand, staring at what was all over the sink and the marble countertop and the floor.

  “Warner Agee,” she said, pulling on the gloves Marino had given to her earlier. “That’s who’s been staying in this room. Probably not Carley, probably not ever. It would appear she showed up last night around eleven-forty-five, my guess, for the express purpose of giving Warner Agee my BlackBerry. I need to borrow yours. I can’t use mine.”

  “If that’s who did this, not good,” Marino said, entering the password on his BlackBerry, handing it to her. “I don’t like that. Shaving off all your hair and walking out with no hearing aids or glasses.”

  “When’s the last time you checked OEM, SOD? Anything going on we should know?” She was interested in any updates from the Office of Emergency Management or the Special Operations Division.

  Marino got a strange look on his face.

  “I can check,” she added. “But not if someone’s in the hospital or been arrested or taken to a shelter or wandering the streets. I’m not going to know anything unless the person is dead and died in New York City.” She entered a number on Marino’s BlackBerry.

  “The GW Bridge,” Marino said. “No way.”

  “What about the bridge?” As the phone rang in the OCME’s Investigations Unit.

  “The guy who jumped. Around two a.m. I watched it on a live feed when I was at RTCC. About sixty maybe, bald, no beard. A police chopper was filming the whole friggin’ thing.”

  A medicolegal investigator named Dennis answered the phone.

  “Need to check on what’s come in,” Scarpetta said to him. “We get a case from the GW Bridge?”

  “Sure did,” Dennis said. “A witnessed descent. ESU tried to talk him down, but he didn’t listen. They do have it all on video. The police chopper filmed it, and I said we’d want a copy.”

  “Good thinking. Do we have any thoughts on an ID?”

  “The officer I talked to said they got nothing to go on about that. A white male, maybe in his fifties, his sixties. He had no personal effects that might tell us who he is. No wallet, no phone. You’re not going to get a good visual on him. He looks pretty bad. I think the drop from where he was on the bridge is at least a couple hundred feet. You know, like a twenty-story building. You aren’t going to want to show anyone his picture.”

  “Do me a favor,” Scarpetta said. “Go downstairs and check his pockets. Check anything that might have come in with him. Take a photo and upload it to me. Call me back while you’re still with the body.” She gave him Marino’s number. “Any other unidentified white males?”

  “None that no one has a clue about. We think we know who everybody is so far. Another suicide, a shooting, a pedestrian hit, an OD, guy came in with pills still in his mouth. That’s a first for me. Anybody in particular you’re looking for?”

  “We might have a missing psychiatrist. Warner Agee.”

  “Why does that sound sort of familiar? Nobody with that name, though.”

  “Go check
the jumper and call me right away.”

  “He looked familiar,” Marino said. “I was watching it happen while I was sitting there, and I kept thinking he looked familiar.”

  Scarpetta walked back in the bathroom and picked up the key card on top of the vanity, holding it by its edges.

  “Let’s dust it. And the one on the coffee table. We’ll want to get some of the hair and his toothbrush, whatever’s needed for an ID. Let’s do it now while we’re here.”

  Marino put on a fresh pair of gloves and took the key card from her. He started dusting it while she picked up her BlackBerry and checked her visual voicemail. There were eleven new calls since she’d used her phone at seven-fifteen last night when she’d talked to Grace Darien before heading over to CNN. Since then, Mrs. Darien had tried to call three more times, between ten and eleven-thirty p.m., no doubt because of what was all over the news, thanks to Carley Crispin. The other eight new calls were listed as Unknown, the first one at five past ten p.m., the last one at close to midnight. Benton and Lucy. He’d tried to reach her while she was walking home with Carley, and Lucy probably had tried after hearing the news about the bomb scare. Scarpetta could tell by the green icons next to the new voicemails that none had been accessed, and they could have been. Visual voicemail didn’t require the telephone subscriber’s password, only the BlackBerry’s password, which, of course, was disabled.

  Marino changed gloves again and started on the second hotel key card as Scarpetta debated whether she should access her new voicemails remotely, borrowing his phone. She was especially interested in those left by Mrs. Darien, whose distress would be unimaginable after hearing about the yellow taxi and the bogus information about Hannah Starr’s hair being found in one. Mrs. Darien probably thought what a lot of people would, that her daughter had been killed by some predator who also had killed Hannah, and if the police had released information sooner, maybe Toni never would have gotten into a cab. Don’t be stupid again, Scarpetta thought. Don’t open any files until Lucy gets here. She scrolled through instant messages and e-mails. Nothing new had been read.