Cornwell, Patricia - Kay Scarpetta 06 - From Potter's Field.txt

by From Potter's Field (lit)

  'CAIN is infected by a virus,' I said. 'In summary.'

  'An unusual one. This isn't a virus oriented toward crashing the hard disk or trashing data. This virus isn't generic. It is specific for the Crime Artificial Intelligence Network because its purpose is to allow someone access to CAIN and the VICAP database.

  This virus is like a master key. It opens up every room in the house.'

  'And it's attached to an existing program.'

  'You might say it has a host,' she said. 'Yes. Some program routinely used. A virus can't cause its damage unless the computer goes through a routine or subroutine which causes a host program - like autoexec.bat in DOS - to be read.'

  'I see. And this virus is not embedded in any files that are read when the computer is booted, for example.'

  Lucy shook her head.

  'How many program files are there in CAIN?'

  'Oh my God,' she said. 'Thousands. And some of them are long enough to wrap around this building. The virus could be attached anywhere, and the situation is further complicated because I didn't do all of the programming. I'm not as familiar with files others wrote.'

  Others meant Carrie Grethen, who had been Lucy's programming partner and intimate friend. Carrie had also known Gault and was responsible for the ERF break-in. Lucy would not talk about her and avoided saying her name.

  'Is there any possibility this virus might be attached only to programs Carrie wrote?' I asked.

  The expression did not change on Lucy's face. 'It might be attached to one of the programs I didn't write. It might also be attached to one I did. I don't know. I'm looking. It may take a long time.'

  The telephone rang.

  'That's probably Jan.' She got up and went into the kitchen.

  I glanced at my watch. I was due down in the unit in half an hour. Lucy placed her hand over the receiver. 'Do you care if Jan drops by? We're going running.'

  'I don't mind in the least,' I said.

  'She wants to know if you want to run with us.'

  I smiled and shook my head. I couldn't keep up with Lucy even if she smoked two packs a day, and Janet could pass for a professional athlete. The two of them gave me the vague sensation of being old and left in the wrong drawer.

  'How about something to drink?' Lucy was off the phone and inside the refrigerator.

  'What are you offering?' I watched her slight figure bent over, one arm holding open the door while the other slid cans around on shelves.

  'Diet Pepsi, Zima, Gatorade and Perrier.'

  'Zima?'

  'You haven't had it?'

  'I don't drink beer.'

  'It's not like beer. You'll like it.'

  'I didn't know they had room service here,' I said with a smile.

  'I got some stuff at the PX.'

  'I'll have Perrier.'

  She came over with our drinks.

  'Aren't there antivirus programs?' I said.

  'Antivirus programs only find known viruses like Friday the Thirteenth, the Maltese Amoeba, the Stoned virus, Michelangelo. What we're dealing with inside CAIN was created specifically for CAIN. It was an inside job. There is no antivirus program unless I write one.'

  'Which you can't do until you find the virus first.'

  She took a big swallow of Gatorade.

  'Lucy, should CAIN be shut down?'

  She got up. 'Let me check on Jan. She can't get through those outer doors and I doubt we'll hear her knocking.'

  I got up too and carried my bags into my bedroom with its plain decor and simple pine wardrobe. Unlike other rooms, the security suite had private baths. Through windows I had an unspoiled view of snow-patched fields unrolling into endless woods. The sun was so bright it felt like spring, and I wished there were time to bathe. I wanted to scrub New York away.

  'Aunt Kay? We're out of here,' Lucy called as I brushed my teeth.

  I quickly rinsed my mouth and returned to the living room. Lucy had slipped on a pair of Oakleys and was stretching by the door. Her friend had one foot propped up on a chair as she tightened a shoelace.

  'Good afternoon, Dr. Scarpetta,' Janet said to me, quickly straightening up. 'I hope you don't mind my stopping by. I didn't mean to disturb you.'

  Despite my efforts at putting her at ease, she always acted like a corporal startled by Patton walking in. She was a new agent, and I had first noticed her when I was a guest lecturer here last month. I remembered showing slides about violent death and crime scene preservation while she kept her eyes on me from the back of the room. In the dark I could feel her studying me from her chair, and it made me curious that during breaks she did not speak to anyone. She would disappear downstairs.

  Later I learned she and Lucy were friends, and perhaps that and shyness explained Janet's demeanor toward me. Well built from hours in the gym, she had shoulder-length blond hair and blue eyes that were almost violet. If all went well, she would graduate from the Academy in less than two months.

  'If you'd ever like to run with us, Dr. Scarpetta, you'd be welcome,' Janet politely repeated her invitation.

  'You are very kind.' I smiled. 'And I am flattered that you would think I could.'

  'Of course you could.'

  'No, she couldn't.' Lucy finished her Gatorade and set the empty bottle on the counter. 'She hates running. She thinks negative thoughts the whole time she's doing it.'

  I returned to the bathroom as they went out the door, and I washed my face and stared in the mirror. My blond hair seemed grayer than it had this morning and the cut had somehow gotten worse. I wore no makeup, and my face looked like it had just come out of the dryer and needed to be pressed. Lucy and Janet were unblemished, taut and bright, as if nature took joy in sculpting and polishing only the young. I brushed my teeth again and that made me think of Jane.

  Benton Wesley's unit had changed names many times and was now part of HRT. But its location remained sixty feet below the Academy in a windowless area that once had been Hoover's bomb shelter. I found Wesley in his office talking on the phone. He glanced at me as he flipped through paperwork in a thick file.

  Spread out in front of him were scene photographs from a recent consultation that had nothing to do with Gault. This victim was a man who had been stabbed and slashed 122 times. He had been strangled with a ligature, his body found facedown on a bed in a motel room in Florida.

  'It's a signature crime. Well, the blatant overkill and the unusual configuration of the bindings,' Wesley was saying. 'Right. A loop around each wrist, handcuff style.'

  I sat down. Wesley had reading glasses on and I could tell he had been running his fingers through his hair. He looked tired. My eyes rested on fine oil paintings on his walls and autographed books behind glass. He was often contacted by people writing novels and scripts, but he did not flaunt celebrity connections. I think he found them embarrassing and in poor taste. I did not believe he would talk to anyone if the decision were left completely up to him.

  'Yes, it was a very bloody method of attack, to say the least. The others were, too. We're talking about a theme of domination, a ritual driven by rage.'

  I noticed he had several pale blue FBI manuals on his desk that were from ERF. One of them was an instruction manual for CAIN that Lucy had helped write, and pages were marked in numerous places with paper clips. I wondered if she had marked them or if he had, and my intuition answered the question as my chest got tight. My heart hurt the way it always did when Lucy was in trouble.

  'That threatened his sense of domination.' Wesley met my eyes. 'Yes, the reaction's going to be anger. Always, with someone like this.'

  His tie was black with pale gold stripes, and typically his shirt was white and starched. He wore Department of Justice cuff links, his wedding band and an understated gold watch with a black leather band that Connie had given him for their twenty-fifth wedding anniversary. He and his wife came from money, and the Wesleys lived quietly well.

  He hung up the phone and took off his glasses.

  'What's t
he problem?' I asked, and I hated the way he made my pulse pick up.

  He gathered photographs and dropped them inside a manilla envelope. 'Another victim in Florida.'

  'The Orlando area again?'

  'Yes. I'll get you reports as soon as we get them.'

  I nodded and changed the subject to Gault. 'I'm assuming you know what happened in New York,' I said.

  'The pager.'

  I nodded again.

  'I'm afraid I know.' He winced. 'He's taunting us, showing his contempt. He's playing his games, only it's getting worse.'

  'It's getting much worse. But we shouldn't focus only on him,' I said.

  He listened, eyes locked on mine, hands folded on the case file of the murdered man he had just been discussing on the phone.

  'It would be all too easy to become so obsessed with Gault that we don't really work the cases. For example, it is very important to identify this woman we think he murdered in Central Park.'

  'I would assume everyone thinks that's important, Kay.'

  'Everyone will say they think it is important,' I replied, and anger began quietly stirring. 'But in fact, the cops, the Bureau want to catch Gault, and identifying this homeless lady isn't a priority. She's just another poor, nameless person prisoners will bury in Potter's Field.'

  'Obviously, she is a priority to you.'

  'Absolutely.'

  'Why?'

  'I think she has something yet to say to us.'

  'About Gault?'

  'Yes.'

  'On what are you basing this?'

  'Instinct,' I said. 'And she's a priority because we are bound morally and professionally to do everything we can for her. She has a right to be buried with her name.'

  'Of course she does. NYPD, the Transit Police, the Bureau - we all want her identified.'

  But I did not believe him. 'We really don't care,' I flatly said. 'Not the cops, not the medical examiners, and not this unit. We already know who killed her, so who she is no longer matters. That's the black and white of it when you're talking about a jurisdiction as overwhelmed by violence as New York is.'

  Wesley stared off, running his tapered fingers over a Mont Blanc pen. 'I'm afraid there's some truth in what you're saying.' He looked back at me. 'We don't care because we can't. It isn't because we don't want to. I want Gault caught before he kills again. That's my bottom line.'

  'As it should be. And we don't know that this dead woman can't help with that. Maybe she will.'

  I saw depression and felt it in the weariness of his voice. 'It would seem her only link to Gault is that they met in the museum,' he said. 'We've been through her personal effects, and nothing among them might lead us to him. So my question is, what else might you learn from her that would help us catch him?'

  'I don't know,'1 said. 'But when I have unidentified cases in Virginia, I don't rest until I've done all I can to solve them. This case is in New York, but I'm involved because I work with your unit and you have been invited into the investigation.'

  I talked with conviction, as if the case of Jane's vicious murder were being tried in this room. 'If I am not allowed to uphold my own standards,' I went on, 'then I cannot serve as a consultant for the Bureau any longer.'

  Wesley listened to all this with troubled patience. I knew he felt much of the same frustration that I did, but there was a difference. He had not grown up poor, and when we had our worst fights, I held that against him.

  'If she were an important person,' I said, 'everyone would care.'

  He remained silent.

  'There is no justice if you're poor,' I said, 'unless the issue is forced.'

  He stared at me.

  'Benton, I'm forcing the issue.'

  'Explain to me what you want to do,' he said.

  'I want to do whatever it takes to find out who she is. I want you to support me.'

  He studied me for a moment. He was analyzing. 'Why this victim?' he asked.

  'I thought I'd just explained that.'

  'Be careful,' he said. 'Be careful that your motivation isn't subjective.'

  'What are you suggesting?'

  'Lucy.'

  I felt a rush of irritation.

  'Lucy could have been as badly head injured as this woman was,' he said. 'Lucy's always been an orphan, of sorts, and not so long ago she was missing, wandering around in New England, and you had to go find her.'

  'You're accusing me of projecting.'

  'I'm not accusing you. I'm exploring the possibility with you.'

  'I'm simply attempting to do my job,' I said. 'And I have no desire to be psychoanalyzed.'

  'I understand.' He paused. 'Do whatever you need to do. I'll help in any way I can. And I'm sure Pete will, too.'

  Then we switched to the more treacherous subject of Lucy and CAIN, and this Wesley did not want to talk about. He got up for coffee as the phone in the outer office rang, and his secretary took another message. The phone had not stopped ringing since my arrival, and I knew it was always like this. His office was like mine. The world was full of desperate people who had our numbers and no one else to call.

  'Just tell me what you think she did,' I said when he got back.

  He set my coffee before me. 'You're speaking like her aunt,' he said.

  'No. Now I'm speaking like her mother.'

  'I would rather you and I talk about this like two professionals,' he said.

  'Fine. You can start by filling me in.'

  'The espionage that began last October when ERF was broken into is still going on,' he said. 'Someone is inside CAIN.'

  'That much I know.'

  'We don't know who is doing it,' he said.

  'We assume it's Gault, I suppose,' I said.

  Wesley reached for his coffee. He met my eyes. 'I'm certainly no expert in computers. But there's something you need to see.'

  He opened a thin file folder and withdrew a sheet of paper. As he handed it to me I recognized it as a printout from a computer screen.

  'That's a page of CAIN's audit log for the exact time that the most recent message was sent to the VICAP terminal in the Transit Police Department's Communications Unit,' he said. 'Do you notice anything unusual?'

  I thought of the printout Lucy had shown me, of the evil message about 'Dead Cops.' I had to stare for a minute at the log-ins and log-outs, the IDs, dates and times before I realized the problem. I felt fear.

  Lucy's user ID was not traditional in that it was not comprised of the initial of her first name and first seven letters of her surname. Instead, she called herself LUCYTALK, and according to this audit trail she had been signed on as the superuser when CAIN had sent the message to New York.

  'Have you questioned her about this?' I asked Wesley.

  'She's been questioned and wasn't concerned because as you can see from the printout, she's on and off the system all day long, and sometimes after hours, as well.'

  'She is concerned. I don't care what she said to you, Benton. She feels she's been moved to the security floor so she can be watched.'

  'She is being watched.'

  'Just because she was signed on at the same time the message was sent to New York doesn't mean she sent it,' I persisted.

  'I realize that. There's nothing else in the audit log to indicate she sent it. There's nothing to indicate anybody sent it, for that matter.'

  'Who brought this to your attention?' I then asked, for I knew Wesley did not routinely look at audit logs.

  'Burgess.'

  'Then, someone from ERF brought it to his attention first.'

  'Obviously.'

  'There are still people over there who don't trust Lucy, because of what happened last fall.'

  His gaze was steady. 'I can't do anything about that, Kay. She has to prove herself. We can't do that for her. You can't do that for her.'

  'I'm not trying to do anything for her,' I said hotly. 'All I ask is fairness. Lucy is not to blame for the virus in CAIN. She did not put it there. She's trying to do something a
bout it, and frankly, if she can't, I don't think anyone will be able to help. The entire system will be corrupted.'

  He picked up his coffee but changed his mind and set it back down.