“It’s not what you get,” he said. “It’s just the way things are. And it’s not fair. But nothing is. That’s why we’re headed where we are. We’re the experts in unfair.”
“I won’t complain even one more time,” she said. “You’re absolutely right. It’s one thing to walk into the morgue. It’s another thing to be carried in.”
“You can complain all you want.”
“No, thank you,” she said, pulling his arm against her. “I’m all done.”
Lights from passing cars grazed the empty windows of Bellevue’s old psychiatric hospital, and across a side street from its iron gates was the blue-brick Medical Examiner’s office, where two white vans with blacked-out glass were parked along the curb, waiting to be sent on their next sad mission. Benton rang the buzzer as they stood in the cold on the top step at the entrance. He rang again and again, his patience fraying.
“She must have left,” he said. “Or maybe she decided not to show up.”
“That wouldn’t be as much fun,” Scarpetta said. “She likes to make people wait.”
Cameras were everywhere, and she imagined Dr. Lenora Lester watching them on a monitor and enjoying herself. Several more minutes, and just as Benton was determined to leave, Dr. Lester appeared behind the glass front door and unlocked it to let them in. She was wearing a long green surgical gown and round steel-rimmed glasses, her graying hair pinned up. Her face was plain and unlined except for the deep furrow that ran from the top of her nose halfway up her forehead, and her dark eyes were small and darted like squirrels dodging cars.
Inside the tired lobby, a photograph of Ground Zero filled most of a wall, and Dr. Lester told them to follow her, as if they had never been here before.
As usual, she talked to Benton.
“Your name came up last week,” she said, walking slightly ahead of them. “The FBI was here on a case. A couple agents, and one of their profilers from Quantico. Somehow we got on the subject of Silence of the Lambs, and I was reminded you were the head of the Behavioral Science Unit way back then. Weren’t you the main consultant for the film? How many days did they spend at the Academy? What were Anthony Hopkins and Jodie Foster like?”
“I was working a case somewhere,” he said.
“That’s a shame,” she said to him. “Back then Hollywood’s interest in us was rather refreshing. It was a good thing in many respects, because the public had such ridiculous stereotypes of what we’re like and what we do.”
Scarpetta refrained from saying that the movie hadn’t exactly helped dispel morbid myths, since the famous scene with the moth took place in a funeral home and not a modern autopsy suite. She didn’t point out that if anyone fit the unfortunate Grim Reaper stereotype of a forensic pathologist, it was Dr. Lester.
“Now? Not a day goes by I don’t get a call to consult about this show or that movie. Authors, screenwriters, producers, directors. Everybody wants to see an autopsy and tromp all over a crime scene. I’m so sick of it, I can’t tell you.”
Her long gown flapped around her knees as she walked in quick, clipped steps.
She said, “This case? Already I’ve had, must be a dozen phone calls. I suppose because it’s a dwarf. My first, actually. Very interesting. Mild lumbar lordosis, bowed legs, some frontal bossing. And megalencephaly, which is enlargement of the brain,” she explained, as if Scarpetta wouldn’t know what that was. “Common in people with achondroplasia. Doesn’t affect intelligence. In the IQ department, they’re no different than the rest of us. So it’s not as if this lady was stupid. Can’t blame what happened on that.”
“I’m not sure what you’re implying,” Benton said.
“There very well may be more to this case than meets the eye. It may not be what you think it is. You’ve taken a look at the scene photographs, I hope, and I’m about to give you a set of the ones taken during the autopsy. Typical asphyxia by ligature strangulation. Assuming this is a homicide.”
“Assuming?” Benton said.
“In an unusual case like this, you have to keep every option open. As small as she was, she was more vulnerable to things going awry that might not have with someone else. Four-foot-one. Eighty-nine pounds. If it’s an accident—rough sex, let’s say—she was more at risk for things going too far.”
Scarpetta said, “In several photographs, I noticed blood and contusions on her legs. How might that fit with your suggestion of rough sex?”
“Possibly spanking that got out of control. I’ve seen it before. Whippings, kicking, other types of punishment that go too far.”
They were on the administrative floor now. Old gray linoleum tiles and bright red doors.
“I found no defensive-type injuries,” Dr. Lester went on. “If she was murdered, then whoever did it managed to subdue her instantly. Maybe with a gun, a knife, and she did what she was told. But I can’t dismiss the possibility that she and her boyfriend or whoever she was with last night were engaging in some sort of sex game that didn’t turn out exactly as planned.”
“What evidence, specifically, are you referring to that makes you think we’re possibly dealing with a sex game, as you call it?” Benton asked.
“First of all, what was found at the scene. I understand she liked to play a role, shall we say. And more important, generally, in an attempted rape, the perpetrator makes the victim undress.” Dr. Lester talked without ever slowing her pace. “That’s part of his gratification, forcing her to undress and anticipating what he’s going to do to her. Then he might bind her. To bind her first and then go to all the trouble to cut off her robe and bra sounds more like sex play to me. Especially if the victim enjoyed sexual fantasy, and based on what I’m told, she liked sex.”
“Actually,” Benton said, “cutting her clothing off after she was bound would have been far more terrifying than making her disrobe first.”
“This is the quibble I have with forensic psychology, profiling, whatever you want to call it. It’s based on personal opinion. What you assume is terrifying might be exciting, depending on the individual.”
“I’ll let you know if something I say is based on my personal opinion,” Benton said.
Berger was aware of Lucy’s arm brushing against her, of near touch as she made notes on a legal pad. Bright white fragmented data streamed by, and when she looked, it hurt her eyes, and the real pain followed.
“Do you think we’ll get most of it back?” she asked.
“Yes,” Lucy replied.
“And we’re sure these drafts go back about a year?”
“At least. I’ll be able to tell you specifically when we’re done. We have to get to the very first file she saved. I’ll keep saying she, even though I realize we really don’t know who wrote this.”
Lucy’s eyes were very green, and when she and Berger looked at each other, it was lingering and intense.
“It doesn’t appear she saved files the same way I do,” Berger observed. “In other words, doesn’t appear she was very careful for someone who has all this security software, over-the-counter or not. Every time I work on a brief, for example, I make a copy and give it a new name.”
“That’s the right way to do it,” Lucy said. “But she didn’t bother. She continued to revise and save the same file, overlaying one on top of another. Stupid. But half the world does it. Fortunately, every time she made a change and saved that same file, it got a new date stamp. Even though you can’t see it when you look at her list of documents, it’s in here, scattered all the hell over the place. The computer will find the dates, and sort by them, and do a pattern analysis. For example, how many times in one day did she or someone revise and save the same file? In this instance, the master’s thesis file. What days of the week did this person work on it? What time of day or night?”
Berger made notes and said, “Might give us an idea of where she was and when. Her habits. Which might possibly lead to who she was with. If, for example, she spent most of the time in her apartment working, except on the Saturd
ay nights she saw Oscar. Or did she go to other places to do her writing? Perhaps even another person’s residence. Did she have some other person in her life we don’t know about?”
“I can get you a timeline right up to the last keystroke she ever made,” Lucy said. “But not where she worked. E-mail can be traced to an IP address, saying, for example, she did e-mail off-site, such as in an Internet café. But there’s nothing to trace when we’re talking about her word-processing files. We can’t say for a fact that she always worked on her thesis at home. Maybe she used a library somewhere. Or Oscar might know if she always worked in her apartment. Assuming anything he says is true. For all we know, he’s the one writing this thesis. I’ll continue to remind you of that.”
“The cops didn’t find research materials in Terri’s apartment,” Berger said.
“A lot of people have electronic files these days. They don’t have paper. Some people never print anything out unless it’s absolutely necessary. I’m one of them. I’m not a fan of paper trails.”
“Kay will certainly know how much of what Terri or someone was collecting and writing is accurate,” Berger said. “Can we completely re-create every draft?”
“I wouldn’t put it quite like that. Better to say I can recover what’s here. Now the computer’s sorting by bibliography. Every time Terri made a new entry or revised or altered anything, a new version of the same file was created. That’s why you see so many copies of what appears to be the same document. Well, you’re not seeing it. I assumed you’re not looking. How are you feeling?”
Lucy looked over at her, looked right at her.
“I’m not entirely sure,” Berger said. “I probably should leave. We have to figure out what we’re going to do about this.”
“Instead of trying so hard to figure out everything, why don’t you wait and see what we’re dealing with. Because it’s too early to know. But you shouldn’t leave. Don’t.”
Their chairs were side by side, and Lucy moved her fingers on the keyboard and Berger made notes, and Jet Ranger’s big head appeared between their chairs. Berger began to pet him.
“More sorting,” Lucy said. “But now by different forensic science disciplines. Fingerprints, DNA, trace evidence. Copied and routed into a folder called Forensic Science.”
“Files that were replaced,” Berger said. “One file copied over another. I’ve always been told that when you copy one file on top of another, the old copy’s gone for good.”
The office phone rang.
Berger said, “It’s for me.”
She placed her hand on top of Lucy’s wrist to stop her from answering it.
18
Inside Dr. Lester’s office, everywhere she could fit them, were framed degrees, certificates, commendations, and photographs of herself wearing a hard hat and a white protective suit, excavating The Hole, as those who worked there referred to what was left of the World Trade Center.
She was proud to have been part of Nine-Eleven, and seemed to be personally unfazed by it. Scarpetta hadn’t fared quite as well after spending almost six months at the Water Street recovery site, hand-scanning thousands of buckets of dirt like an archaeologist, screening for personal effects, body parts, teeth, and bone. She had no framed photographs. She had no PowerPoint presentations. She didn’t like to talk about it, having felt physically poisoned by it in a way that was unlike anything she had ever felt before. It was as if the terror those victims had experienced at their moment of certain death had been suspended and fixed in a miasma that enveloped wherever they had been, and later, where remnants of them were recovered and bagged and numbered. She couldn’t quite explain it, but it was nothing to flaunt or brag about.
Dr. Lester retrieved a thick envelope from her desk and gave it to Benton.
“Autopsy photos, my preliminary report, the DNA analysis,” she said. “I don’t know how much of it Mike gave to you. Sometimes he gets distracted.”
She mentioned Mike Morales as if they were close friends.
“The police are calling it a homicide,” Benton said.
He didn’t open the envelope but gave it to Scarpetta, making a point.
“They aren’t the ones who make the determination,” Dr. Lester answered him. “I’m sure Mike isn’t calling it that. Or even if he is, he knows where I stand.”
“And what does Berger say?” Benton asked.
“She doesn’t make the determination, either. People have such a hard time waiting their turn in line. I always say the doomed ones who end up down here aren’t in a hurry, so why should the rest of us be? I’m pending the manner of death for now, especially in light of the DNA. If I was unsure of this case before, well, now I’m completely in limbo.”
“So you don’t foresee determining a manner of death in the near future,” Benton said.
“There’s nothing more I can do. I’m waiting on everybody else,” she said.
It was exactly what Scarpetta didn’t want to hear. Not only was there no evidence that warranted Oscar’s arrest, legally there was no crime. She might be bound to secrecy with him for a very long time.
They left her office, and Dr. Lester said, “For example, she had some sort of lubricant in her vagina. That’s unusual for a homicide.”
“This is the first anyone’s mentioned a lubricant,” Scarpetta said. “It’s not in any of the preliminary reports I’ve seen.”
Dr. Lester replied, “You realize, of course, these DNA profiles in CODIS are nothing but numbers. And I’ve always said, all you need is an error in the numbers, which would result in a totally different chromosomal position. One thing off in a marker or maybe more than one marker, and you’ve got a serious problem. I think it’s possible that what we have here is a very rare false positive due to computer error.”
“You don’t get false positives, not even very rarely,” Scarpetta said. “Not even if there is a mixture of DNA, such as in cases where more than one person sexually assaulted a victim or there’s cross-contamination from multiple people having contact with an item or a substance, such as a lubricant. A mixture of DNA profiles from different people won’t magically be identical to the profile of a woman in Palm Beach, for example.”
“Yes, the lubricant. Which raises another possible explanation,” Dr. Lester said. “Cross-contamination, such as you yourself just suggested. A prostitute who didn’t leave semen, meaning the prostitute could be male or female. What do we know about anybody’s private life until they end up here? That’s why I’m not so quick to call something a homicide, suicide, accident. Not until all the facts are in. I don’t like surprises after I’ve committed myself. I’m sure you saw in the lab report that the presence of seminal fluid was negative.”
“Not unheard of,” Scarpetta said. “Not even unusual. Nor is it unheard of for a lubricant to be used in a sexual assault, by the way. K-Y jelly, Vaseline, sunblock, even butter. I could make you a long list of what I’ve seen.”
They were following Dr. Lester through another corridor that dated back to earlier decades, when forensic pathologists were crudely called meat cutters. It wasn’t all that long ago that science and the dead had little in common beyond ABO blood-typing, fingerprints, and x-rays.
“No evidence of seminal fluid in or on her body or on the clothing found in the tub,” Dr. Lester said. “Or at the scene. Of course, they used UV light, as did I. Nothing fluoresced the distinctive bright white that seminal fluid does.”
“In sexual assaults, some perpetrators wear condoms,” Scarpetta said. “Especially these days, because everybody knows about DNA.”
Fractured data streamed across dark screens, reattaching at mind-numbing speed, as if it were fleeing and being caught.
Maybe Berger was getting acclimated to cyberspace. Her headache had mysteriously vanished. Or maybe adrenaline was the cure. She was feeling aggressive because she didn’t like being bucked. Not by Morales. Certainly not by Lucy.
“We should get started on the e-mail,” Berger said, and it w
asn’t the first time she’d said it since Marino had called.
Lucy didn’t seem the least bit interested in Marino or what he was doing, and she wasn’t listening to Berger’s insistence that they turn their attention to e-mail. They had the passwords right in front of them, but Lucy refused to change her focus until she had a better idea why her aunt’s name continued to appear with alarming frequency in the fragmented revisions of the thesis Terri, or perhaps Oscar, had been writing.
“I’m afraid your interest is too personal,” Berger said. “And that’s exactly what I’m worried about. We need to look at e-mails, but you’d rather look at what’s been written about your aunt. I’m not saying it isn’t important.”
“This is where you have to trust that I’m doing things the right way,” Lucy said, not budging.
The legal pad with the passwords written on it remained where it was, on the desk, next to Lucy’s keyboard.
“Patience. One thing at a time,” Lucy added. “I don’t tell you how to run your cases.”
“Seems that’s exactly what you’re telling me. I want to get into their e-mails, and you want to keep reading this thesis or whatever the hell it is. You’re not helping me.”
“Helping you is exactly what I’m doing—by not deferring to you or allowing you to tell me how to do my job. I can’t allow you to have any influence over me and direct me, that’s the point. I know what I’m doing, and there’s a lot you don’t understand yet. You need to know exactly what we’re doing and why and how, because if this becomes the big deal I’m sure it will, you’re going to be asked and attacked. It won’t be me in front of the judge and jury explaining the forensic computer part of this investigation, and you probably won’t be able to call me in as an expert witness for at least one obvious reason.”
“We have to talk about that,” Berger said bluntly.
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