Postmortem

by Patricia Cornwell

  “Other inconveniences?” Berger’s voice talking to Scarpetta. “As if you would refer to an assassination or any other act of violence as an inconvenience? Who the hell is doing this? Sound like anybody you might know?”

  “No.” Scarpetta’s voice answering Berger. “Nobody.”

  “Marino?” Berger again.

  His voice. “Got no idea. But she wouldn’t say nothing like that,” as if Scarpetta needed him to stick up for her character. “I don’t think it’s Jack, if that’s entered anybody’s head.”

  He meant Jack Fielding, and it was unlikely he would have entered anybody’s head. He was a solid forensic pathologist and meant well and in the main was loyal to Scarpetta, but he was a musclebrain with ragged moods and an assortment of physical problems such as high cholesterol and skin disorders from his years of pumping iron and pumping himself full of anabolic steroids. He didn’t have the energy to parade as Scarpetta on the Internet, and he wasn’t cunning or cruel, and to give Terri Bridges the benefit of the doubt, if she wasn’t Scarpetta612, then it was cruel of somebody to lead her on. In the beginning, at least, she’d idolized Scarpetta. She’d tried hard to get in touch with her. If she finally thought Scarpetta was responding to her, that had to be a thrill until her hero started to diss her.

  Lucy said, “Aunt Kay? You left CNN on the night of December twenty-eighth and were within two blocks of John Jay. And you walked back to the apartment, just like you always do?”

  The apartment was on Central Park West, and very close to CNN and John Jay.

  “Yes,” Scarpetta said.

  Another e-mail, this one dated yesterday. Again, the IP traced to John Jay.

  Date: Mon, 31 December 2007 03:14:31

  From: “Scarpetta”

  To: “Terri”

  Terri,

  I’m sure you realize my time in NY is unpredictable and I have so little control over the OCME because I’m certainly not the chief, just a low-level consultant there.

  I was thinking, why not meet in Watertown where I make the rules? I’ll give you a tour of my office, and no problem about seeing an autopsy or anything else you need. Happy New Year and look forward to seeing you soon.—Scarpetta

  Lucy forwarded it to all of them as she read it out loud.

  “I wasn’t in New York yesterday afternoon,” Scarpetta said. “I couldn’t have e-mailed this from John Jay. Not that I would have. And I don’t give tours of the morgue.”

  “The emphasis about your not being the chief here in New York,” Berger said. “Someone is belittling you with your own lips, so to speak. Of course, I’m wondering about Terri being Scarpetta six-twelve and sending the e-mails to herself as if they’re from Scarpetta. Think what a coup that would be for her thesis. My question, Lucy, is do you see any reason we should completely dismiss the possibility that the imposter was Terri?”

  As Lucy listened to Berger’s voice, she thought she heard a special warmth in it.

  It had happened so swiftly, and Berger had been surprisingly sure of what she wanted. She had been surprisingly bold. Then the bitter wind had rushed in as Berger had opened the door and left.

  Lucy said over the phone to her aunt, “These e-mails to Terri, allegedly from you, would explain why she quoted you in her thesis and seemed to think she knew you.”

  “Kay? Did you get any indication of this from Oscar?” Berger asked.

  “I can’t tell you what he said to me. But I won’t deny that I got such an indication.”

  “So you did.” Berger’s reply. “So he definitely knew about this correspondence. Whether he saw it or not is another matter.”

  “If Terri’s not the imposter,” Marino said, “who deleted all of the e-mails? And what for?”

  “Exactly,” Berger said. “Right before she was murdered. Right before Oscar was supposed to come over for dinner. Or did someone else make the deletions and put the laptops in the closet?”

  Lucy said, “If Terri made the deletions because she was worried about someone seeing them, she should have emptied the damn trash. Even an idiot knows you can recover deleted files from the trash, especially if the deletions are recent.”

  “This much I think we can be sure of,” Scarpetta said. “No matter why she or someone else deleted the e-mails, Terri Bridges wasn’t expecting to be murdered last night.”

  Lucy said, “No. She couldn’t have been expecting her own death. Unless she planned to commit suicide.”

  “And then removed the ligature from her neck after the fact? I don’t think so,” said Marino, as if he’d taken Lucy literally.

  “There was no ligature to remove,” Scarpetta said. “She was garroted. Nothing was tied or locked around her neck.”

  Lucy said, “I have to find out who Scarpetta six-twelve is, and which photograph this person supposedly sent. There are no photographs, no JPEG images in the trash. It’s possible she deleted it before she deleted all these other e-mails, and flushed her cache.”

  “Then what?” Berger’s voice.

  “Then we’ll have to try recovering it from this laptop the same way we’re recovering her text files from the other one,” Lucy said. “Do the same thing you were watching earlier when you were here with me.”

  “Any other possible explanation about the photograph?” It was Scarpetta who asked.

  Lucy said, “If she, assuming we’re talking about Terri, accessed an attached e-mailed photograph from a different device—such as a BlackBerry or another computer somewhere—then it won’t be on the laptop she used for the Internet.”

  “That’s what I’ve been trying to tell you,” Scarpetta said. “There’s a power cord in her office that doesn’t go to either of the laptops you have. There must be another one somewhere.”

  “We should go from here to Oscar’s apartment.” Marino’s voice, to the others. “Morales had the key. He’s still got it?”

  “Yes,” Berger said. “He has it. Oscar could be there. We don’t know where he is.”

  “I don’t believe for a minute he’s there.” Benton’s voice now.

  “You were just talking to Morales? What did he want?” Berger asked him.

  “He suspects Oscar figured he was about to get arrested—said one of the guards told him that Oscar didn’t do well after Kay left. Morales said, and remember to consider the source, that Oscar feels betrayed by Kay. Feels lied to and disrespected, and he’s glad Terri didn’t witness how abusive Kay was to Oscar during the examination. She supposedly put chemicals on Oscar and caused him a lot of pain.”

  “Abuse?” Scarpetta asked.

  They were having this conversation as if they’d forgotten Lucy was on the phone. She continued to search through deleted e-mails.

  “That was the word Morales used,” Benton’s voice.

  “I certainly wasn’t abusive, and whoever this Morales is, he knows damn well I can’t say what went on in there.” Scarpetta talking to Benton. “He knows Oscar’s not under arrest. So I really can’t defend myself if he starts tossing around words like that.”

  “I don’t believe Oscar made those comments,” Benton said. “He knows you can’t repeat anything. So if he really didn’t trust you, he would assume that you would defend yourself if he did start misrepresenting you. He would assume you would breach confidentiality because you have no integrity. And I’ll talk to the guard, myself.”

  “I agree,” Berger said. “Morales is probably the source of the comments.”

  “He’s a shit stirrer,” Marino said.

  “He has a message for you,” Benton said.

  “Yeah, I bet he does,” Marino said.

  “The witness you interviewed earlier today, the woman across the street?” Benton said, and it seemed they had forgotten that Lucy was listening.

  “I hadn’t talked to him about it,” Marino said.

  “Well, he knows about it,” Benton said to him.

  “I had to get the dispatcher to talk the lady into letting me in. She thought I was an ax murdere
r and called nine-one-one. Maybe he heard about it that way.”

  “Apparently, she called nine-one-one again,” Benton told him. “Just a little while ago.”

  “She’s scared shitless,” Marino said. “Because of what happened to Terri.”

  “To report animal abuse,” Benton said.

  “Don’t tell me. Because of her dead puppy?”

  “What?”

  “That’s what I’m asking,” Marino said. “What are you talking about?”

  “Apparently, the woman told the nine-one-one operator to pass on the message to Jaime that it was the same man who, quote, got off the hook earlier this month. And she, the lady who called, said she took a picture with her cell phone and can prove he’s at it again.”

  “Jake Loudin,” Berger said. “Who’s this claiming she took a picture of him?”

  “All I know is the nine-one-one operator passed on the message to Morales. I guess because of his connection with Jaime.”

  Lucy popped open a Diet Pepsi, listening and reading as Jet Ranger snored.

  “What damn connection?” Marino sounded angry. “Tavern on the goddamn Green? I’m telling you, I don’t like that guy. He’s an asshole.”

  “He says you might want to go talk to your witness again, long and short of it,” Benton said. “And maybe Jaime will want to, since it seems related to her big animal-cruelty case. But maybe first all of us should meet him at Oscar’s apartment while we’ve got the chance.”

  “The lady lives across the street,” Marino said. “She was drinking when I saw her this afternoon. She started talking about getting another dog. I don’t know why she wouldn’t have said something about Loudin earlier. We were talking about dogs and Jaime’s anti-cruelty task force. We could go see her first, since we’re right here, then go to Oscar’s. He’s on the other side of the park, not far from where your apartment is. Not far from John Jay.”

  “I think we should split up.” Berger’s voice. “You two go to Oscar’s. Marino and I will stay here.”

  “I’d like to get back to John Jay,” Scarpetta said. “How does it work if the IP traces to John Jay? Wouldn’t the person who sent the e-mails have to be located there?”

  Silence.

  Scarpetta repeated her question and said, “Lucy? You still with us?”

  “I’m sorry,” Lucy said. “I forgot I was here.”

  “I didn’t know she was on the phone,” Benton said. “Maybe you could set your cell phone on the desk. I’m sorry, Lucy. Hello, Lucy.”

  The cell phone clunked as Scarpetta set it down.

  Lucy said, “Whoever Scarpetta six-twelve is would have had to be physically within range of John Jay’s wireless network to join it. For example, the person would have to be there using one of the college’s computers—which isn’t likely at almost midnight, when the buildings were locked, and that’s when the last e-mail was sent, right before midnight on December twenty-eighth. Or the person could have brought his or her own laptop or something smaller such as a BlackBerry, an iPhone, a PDA, some device that’s capable of logging on to the Internet. And that’s what I’m thinking—that this individual had something like a PDA and just stood on the sidewalk in front of one of the buildings and hijacked the wireless network. I’m assuming the cops found Terri’s cell phone? Or a BlackBerry or PDA if she had one? The photograph Scarpetta six-twelve sent? It could have been sent by a BlackBerry, a PDA, something like that, as I’ve mentioned.”

  “Her cell phone’s being gone through.” It was Marino. “No other phones, BlackBerries, or devices you could use for the Internet. Assuming the inventory we got here is correct. Just the one phone. Plain vanilla flip phone. Was on the kitchen counter, plugged in, recharging. That and the earpiece. Also recharging.”

  All of them continued to discuss and speculate, and then there was a brief lapse as Marino and Berger contacted the e-mail provider for Scarpetta six-twelve.

  They got the information Lucy needed.

  “The password’s stiffone, all one word.” Berger spelled it for Lucy over the phone. “Marino, maybe you could get with John Jay’s security to find out if they noticed anyone in front of the classroom building late on the night of December twenty-eighth, and again yesterday, mid-afternoon?”

  “In both instances, the twenty-eighth and last night,” Benton said, “the building would have been closed due to the hour and the holiday.”

  “Are there security cameras?” Berger asked.

  Lucy said, “You know what I’m thinking. I’m thinking the IP’s deliberate to make it look like the e-mails are really from Aunt Kay. She’s connected with John Jay, so why wouldn’t she be sending e-mails from their wireless network? Point is, whoever’s stolen Aunt Kay’s identity by sending these e-mails doesn’t care if the IP was traced, and likely hoped or even assumed it would be. Otherwise, this person would have used an anonymous proxy—a program on a remote server that grabs files for you and disguises your real address. Or some other type of anonymizer that gives you a temporary address every time you send an e-mail, so people can’t find your real IP.”

  “That’s my big battle.” Berger made her favorite complaint about the Internet.

  It was one Lucy liked to hear. The devil Berger fought was one Lucy knew.

  “White-collar crime, stalking, identity theft,” Berger added. “I can’t tell you my aggravation.”

  “What about the account information for Scarpetta six-twelve?” Marino was asking Lucy, as if nothing dysfunctional had ever gone on between them.

  He was just more guarded, which made him somewhat polite, for once.

  “Anything more than the generic they gave me?” he asked.

  “Name’s listed as Dr. Kay Scarpetta. Address and phone number are her office in Watertown. All public information,” Lucy said. “No profile, no options that would have required the person who set up the account to use a credit card.”

  “Same thing as Terri’s accounts.” Berger’s voice.

  “Same thing with a million accounts,” Lucy said. “I’m in Scarpetta six-twelve right now, and the only e-mails sent or received were to and from Terri Bridges.”

  “Don’t you think that might hint it was Terri who opened that account to make it look as if Kay were writing to her?” Berger suggested.

  “What about the MAC, the machine access code?” Benton asked.

  Lucy said, as she scrolled through e-mails, “Doesn’t match either of these laptops, but all that means is Terri or someone didn’t carry one of these laptops to John Jay and send the e-mails from that network. But you’re right. The sole purpose of Scarpetta six-twelve seems to be for an imposter to correspond with Terri Bridges, which would have added credence to the theory that the imposter and Terri were the same person, were it not for one thing.”

  The one thing she was talking about was on her screen.

  “I’m talking as I’m going through the Scarpetta six-twelve account,” she said. “And this is something that’s really important. Really, really important.”

  So important, Lucy almost couldn’t believe it.

  She said, “At eight-eighteen last night, Scarpetta six-twelve wrote an e-mail that was saved as a draft and never sent. I’m forwarding it to all of you, and I’m going to read it out loud to you in a sec. This rules out Terri or Oscar writing it. Do you hear what I’m saying? This e-mail I’m talking about rules out either one of them being Scarpetta six-twelve.”

  “Shit.” Marino’s voice. “Someone wrote an e-mail while this place was crawling with cops? Fact is, her body was probably already at the morgue by then.”

  “Her body arrived at the morgue at around eight, as I recall,” Scarpetta said.

  “So someone writes an e-mail to Terri and decides not to send it for some reason.” Lucy tried to work it out. “As in maybe the person somehow found out Terri was dead right while in the middle of writing to her? And then just saved the e-mail as a draft?”

  “Or wanted us to find it and make that assump
tion, draw some sort of conclusion from it,” Scarpetta said. “Remember, we don’t know how much of this is intended to deliberately lead us or, better put, mislead us.”

  “That’s my hunch.” Berger’s voice. “This is deliberate. Whoever’s behind it is smart enough to know we’d see these e-mails eventually. The person wants us to see what we’re seeing.”

  “To jerk us around,” Marino said. “And it’s working. I’m feeling jerked around as hell.”

  “Two things are indisputable,” Benton said. “Terri had been dead for hours by the time that e-mail was written and saved as a draft. And Oscar was already at Bellevue, so he definitely wasn’t sending e-mails to anyone. So he couldn’t have written the one you’re talking about. Lucy? Can you read it, please?”

  She read out loud what was on her screen:

  Date: Mon, 31 December 2007 20:18:31

  From: “Scarpetta”

  To: “Terri”

  Terri,

  After three glasses of champagne and some of that whiskey that costs more than your books, I can be candid. In fact, I’m going to go ahead and be brutally candid with you. It’s my New Year’s resolution—to be brutal.

  While I think you’re bright enough to have an excellent grasp of forensic psychology, I don’t think you could ever do anything but teach, if you insist on staying in the field. The sad fact? Suspects, inmates, victims would never accept a dwarf, and I don’t know how jurors would respond, either.

  Would you ever consider being a morgue assistant where your appearance is immaterial? Who knows? Maybe one day you could work for me!

  —Scarpetta

  Lucy said, “The IP’s not John Jay. Not an address we’ve seen so far.”

  “I’m glad she never got that.” Scarpetta sounded solemn. “That’s terrible. If she wasn’t sending them to herself, after all, she probably really did think they were from me. And Oscar probably thought so, too. I’m glad neither she nor Oscar ever read that, glad it was never sent. How incredibly cruel.”

  “That’s what I’m getting at,” Marino said. “The person’s a piece of shit. Is playing games, having fun with us. This is for our benefit, to fuck with us, rub our noses in it. Who else was going to see this unsent e-mail except those of us investigating Terri’s murder? Mainly it’s for the Doc’s benefit. You ask me, somebody’s really got it in for the Doc.”