Eyes glazed over. Nobody trusted it. She’d spent an inordinate amount of time and energy on satisfying the Frye standard whenever she tried to admit DNA evidence into court. In fact, DNA hadn’t helped her marriage, not that much could have. But with the proliferation of new scientific techniques had come new pressures and demands, the likes of which no one had ever anticipated or seen. Maybe if forensic science had stayed where it was when she was still at Columbia, living with a woman who eventually broke her heart and scared her straight into Greg’s arms, she would have had something left over for her private life. Gone on more vacations, or even gone on one when she didn’t bring a briefcase. Gotten to know Greg’s children, really gotten to know them. Gotten to know people she worked with, like Scarpetta, who’d never received so much as a card from Berger after Rose died, and Berger had known about that.
Marino had told her.
Maybe Berger would have gotten to know herself.
“Kay will be here in a second. I’ve got to get dressed,” she said to Lucy. “Actually, maybe you should get dressed.”
Lucy was in a Jockey undershirt and briefs. Both of them had been watching what were called snuff films in some markets, and neither of them had on much in the way of clothing. It was still early, not even ten a.m., but seemed more like late afternoon. Berger felt as if she had jet lag. She was still in the silk pajamas and robe she’d put on after getting out of the shower minutes before Lucy had shown up at her building.
In the space of less than five hours since Scarpetta, Benton, Marino, Bacardi, and Morales had been in her living room, Berger had learned the grotesque truth and had watched it as if it was happening before her eyes. She’d witnessed the tortured deaths of three people who had fallen prey to a man who was supposed to protect them: a doctor who never was, who shouldn’t have become a cop, who shouldn’t have ever been allowed within a mile of any living creature.
So far, only Jake Loudin had been located. He wasn’t about to admit he might know Mike Morales, might actually use him to euthanize pets that didn’t sell or God knows what he used him for. Maybe Morales went by the name of Juan Amate when he entered the basements of pet shops and added yet one more layer of misery to the world, for a fee. Maybe Berger would get lucky and find a way to coax Loudin into admitting, in exchange for a reduced sentence, that he’d called Morales last night after Eva Peebles was in the wrong place at the wrong time, a pet store basement. Berger really didn’t think that Loudin had asked Morales to murder anyone. But Eva Peebles’s existence was becoming an inconvenience that gave Morales the excuse to have a little more fun.
The intercom buzzed as she finished getting dressed, and Lucy was sitting on the bed, because they had been talking nonstop.
Berger picked up the house phone as she buttoned her Oxford cloth shirt.
“Jaime? It’s Kay,” Scarpetta’s voice said. “I’m at your door.” Berger pressed the zero on the keypad and remotely unlocked it, and said, “Come in, I’ll be down in a minute.”
Lucy said, “All right with you if I take a quick shower?”
33
Marino watched Headline News on his PDA as he walked swiftly along Central Park South, leading with his shoulder, weaving through other pedestrians like a football player with the goal in sight.
Benton, in his blue pinstriped suit, was sitting at a table across from a correspondent, Jim somebody. Marino couldn’t remember, because it wasn’t one of the more famous ones at this hour in the day. Below Benton’s name in bold block letters was:
DR. BENTON WESLEY, FORENSIC PSYCHOLOGIST,
MCLEAN HOSPITAL
“Thanks for joining us. And with us is Dr. Benton Wesley, former chief of the FBI’s behavioral science unit at Quantico, and you’re now, actually, at Harvard, and here at John Jay?”
“Jim, I want to get straight to the point because this is extremely urgent. We’re appealing to Dr. Oscar Bane to please contact the FBI. . . .”
“Let me just back up and tell our viewers this is in reference to cases that you can’t miss, no matter where you look—the two absolutely appalling homicides committed in New York over the past couple of nights. What can you tell us about those?”
Just ahead was Columbus Circle and the Time Warner skyscrapers, where Benton was in the studio this very second. This was a bad idea. Marino understood why Benton didn’t think there was a choice, and why he didn’t want to ask Berger first. He didn’t want her held accountable, and Benton didn’t answer to her. He didn’t answer to anyone. Marino understood, but now that Benton was making his appearance on international TV, something didn’t sit well about it.
“What we’re asking is if he’s listening, to please call the FBI.” Benton’s voice on live TV, through Marino’s earpiece. “We have reasons to be very concerned about Dr. Bane’s safety, and he is not—and I repeat—is not to contact local police or deal with any other authorities. He’s to call the FBI, and he will be escorted to safety.”
One of the things Scarpetta always said is never push somebody until that person has nothing to lose or nowhere to go. Benton always said it, too. So did Marino. Then why were they doing this? First, Berger had called Morales, and Marino had thought that was a terrible idea. She’d basically given him a head’s-up, maybe gloating a little as she stuck it to him. The brilliant Morales busted, caught. Berger was one hell of a prosecutor. She was tough, all right. But she shouldn’t have done that, and Marino still wasn’t sure why she had.
He had a funny feeling it was personal, at least in part. Scarpetta didn’t do anything like that, and she’d had her chance. When they were in Berger’s living room from midnight on, Scarpetta could have said a lot of things to taunt Morales, whom she didn’t like or trust any more than Marino did, even though they didn’t yet know his hobby was starring in his own damn snuff films. But Scarpetta had been completely professional, her usual self, with Morales sitting right there. If she’d thought he was a murderer but didn’t have a shred of proof, she would have kept her thoughts to herself. That’s who she was.
“I have to say, Dr. Wesley, this is probably the most unusual plea I’ve ever heard. I mean, maybe plea isn’t the right word, but why . . .”
Marino glanced down at the tiny figures bantering on his PDA. Berger’s building was maybe two more blocks away. She wasn’t safe. You push someone like Morales too far and rub his face in it, then what? Then he’s going to do something. Who’s he going to do it to first? The same lady he’s been trying to conquer ever since he became an investigator. The same lady he lies about, giving everybody the bullshit impression he has sex with the sex crimes DA. Not true. Not even close.
Morales wasn’t her type.
Marino had had a feeling he’d figured out who Berger’s type was, some rich guy like Greg. But as he’d watched Berger and Lucy together while everyone was in Berger’s living room, then watched Lucy follow her into the kitchen and suddenly leave the apartment, he’d changed his mind and had no doubt whatsoever.
Berger’s weakness, her passion, wasn’t men. Emotionally, physically, she was hardwired a different way.
“Oscar has every reason in the world not to trust anybody right now,” Benton was saying. “We have reason to believe certain fears he’s voiced to authorities about his own safety have merit. We’re taking them very, very seriously.”
“But hold on. There are warrants out for his arrest, for murder. Excuse me, but it sounds like you’re protecting the bad guy here.”
“Oscar, if you’re listening to me”—Benton faced the camera—“you need to call the FBI, whatever field office is local, wherever you might be. You’ll be escorted to safety.”
“Seems like everybody else ought to be worried about their safety, don’t you think, Dr. Wesley? He’s the one police suspect killed those—”
“I’m not going to discuss the case with you, Jim. Thank you for your time.”
Benton unclipped his mike and got up from the table.
“Well, this has been an
unusual moment in the New York crime investigation. Two murders have rocked this New Year, and the legendary—I guess I can use the word legendary—profiler Benton Wesley is appealing to the man everybody thinks did it . . .”
“Shit,” Marino said.
No way Oscar was going to call the FBI, God, or anyone else after hearing that.
Marino logged out and closed his browser as he walked fast. He was sweating under his old leather Harley jacket, and the cold air was making his eyes water. The sun was trying to escape heavy, dark clouds. His cell phone rang.
“Yeah,” he answered, dodging people as if they had leprosy, not looking at any of them.
“I’m going to talk to a couple agents in the field office here. About what we’re doing,” Benton said.
“I guess it went okay,” Marino said.
Benton hadn’t asked for a critique, and he didn’t respond to it.
“I’ll make a few calls here at the studio, then head over to Berger’s,” Benton said, and he sounded down in the dumps.
“It went good, I think,” Marino said. “Oscar will hear it. No doubt about it. He’s got to be in a motel or something, and that’s all he’s got is TV. They’ll keep playing the segment all day and night, that’s for sure.”
Marino looked up at the fifty-two-story glass-and-metal building, fixing on the penthouse facing the park. The grand entrance had TRUMP in huge gold letters. But then, so did everything expensive around here.
“If Oscar doesn’t ever see it on TV”—Marino seemed to be talking to himself now, Benton had gotten so quiet—“then I don’t want to think about why that might be. Unless he’s done surgery on himself, his every move is tracked by GPS—you know whose GPS, right? So you did a good thing. The only thing you could do.”
He continued until he realized the call had been lost. Marino had no idea he’d been talking to no one.
The gun barrel jammed against the base of Scarpetta’s skull didn’t evoke the fear she would have imagined. She really couldn’t comprehend it.
There seemed to be no synapse between her actions and consequence, cause and effect, if and then, now and later. All she was vividly aware of was a dismay of biblical proportions that it was her fault Morales was inside Jaime Berger’s penthouse, and that at the end of Scarpetta’s life she had managed to commit the only sin that was unforgivable. She was to blame for tragedy and pain. Her weakness and naïveté had done unto others what she had always warred against.
Everything was her fault, after all. Her family’s poverty and the loss of her father. Her mother’s unhappiness, her sister Dorothy’s borderline personality and extreme dysfunction, and every harm that had ever befallen Lucy.
“He wasn’t there when I rang the bell.” She said it again, and Morales laughed at her. “I wouldn’t have let him in.”
Berger’s eyes were unblinking and fastened to Morales as she stood motionless at the foot of her spiral staircase, her cell phone in hand. Above her was a gallery displaying magnificent works of art in her magnificent penthouse, the New York skyline all around them beyond a curved wall of spotless glass. Ahead was the sunken living room with furniture in fine woods and earth-tone upholsteries where all of them had sat not that long ago, allies, friends, together in a campaign against the enemy, who now was revealed and was here again.
Mike Morales.
Scarpetta felt the barrel of the revolver leave her skull. She didn’t turn around. She kept her eyes on Berger, hoping she understood that when she’d gotten off the elevator and rung the bell and announced herself, she was alone. Then suddenly, a force out of hell grabbed her arm and escorted her through Berger’s door. The only reason she might have been the slightest bit forewarned was a comment one of the concierges had made when Scarpetta had entered the building a few minutes ago.
The lovely young woman in her lovely suit had smiled at her and said, “The others are waiting for you, Dr. Scarpetta.”
What others?
Scarpetta should have asked. Dear God, why hadn’t she? All Morales had to do was show his badge, but even that hadn’t been necessary, most likely. He’d been here hours earlier. He was charming, persuasive, didn’t like to be told no.
Morales’s eyes looked around, his pupils dilated, and his latex-gloved hands dropped a small gym bag to the floor. He unzipped it. Inside were the retracted legs of a tripod and colorless nylon ties, and other items Scarpetta couldn’t discern, but it was the ties that caused her heart to pump harder. She knew what those ties could do, and she was afraid of them.
“Just let Jaime go and do what you want to me,” she said.
“Oh, shut up.”
As if he found her tedious.
In one snap, he lashed Berger’s wrists behind her first, and led her to the couch and pushed her down hard, making her sit.
“Behave,” he said to Scarpetta, and he lashed her wrists next, very tightly.
Instantly, her fingers contracted and the pain was terrific, as if something metal was clamped around her wrists, compressing blood vessels and biting into bone. He pushed her down on the couch, next to Berger, as a cell phone started ringing upstairs.
His eyes slowly moved from the cell phone he had removed from Berger’s grip to the gallery upstairs and the rooms beyond it.
The cell phone rang, then stopped, and water was running somewhere. And it stopped. And Scarpetta thought about Lucy the same time Morales did.
“You can stop this now, Mike. You don’t need to do this . . .” Berger started to say.
Scarpetta was on her feet and Morales shoved her hard, and she fell back onto the couch.
He bounded up the spiral stairs, his feet scarcely seeming to touch them.
Lucy toweled off her very short hair and breathed in a lungful of steam inside one of the nicest showers she’d been in for a while.
Greg’s. Glass-enclosed, with rain-forest showerheads, body jets, steam bath, surround-sound music, a heated seat if you wanted to just sit and listen to music. Berger had Annie Lennox in the CD player. Maybe it was a coincidence, since Lucy had played it last night in the loft. Greg and his whiskeys, and his fine things, and his barrister, and Lucy was baffled by a man who truly knew how to live but had chosen someone he could never do it with, all because of a slight genetic murmur.
Sort of like being one digit off in math. By the time you finished the long, complicated equation, you were light years from the answer, and you failed. Berger was the right person but the wrong answer. Lucy felt a little sorry for him but not for herself. For herself she felt a happiness that was indescribable, unlike anything she’d ever known before, and it seemed all she did was relive and relive.
It was like listening to the same intoxicating piece of music again and again, as she’d just done in the rain shower, every touch, every look, every accidental intention that resulted in a grazing of bodies that was so erotic and at the same time so moving because it really meant something. It wasn’t cheap. It wasn’t guilt-ridden or headed into shame. It felt perfectly right, and she simply didn’t believe it could be happening to her.
This was a dream she’d never known enough to have, because no part of her had ever feared or wanted it any more than she had nightmares about extraterrestrials or fantastic dreams about flying machines and race cars. Those didn’t exist or were real and within reach. Jaime Berger wasn’t an impossibility or a possibility that had ever crossed Lucy’s mind, although certainly during early encounters she’d felt a giddiness, a nervousness, on the rare occasions she’d been around her, as if she were being offered an opportunity to toy with a very large, undomesticated cat, like a cheetah or a tiger, that she would never be in the same room with, much less pet.
Lucy stood up inside the steam-filled shower, unable to see through the clouded glass, contemplating how best to have an open conversation with her aunt, to explain, to just talk.
She pushed open the door at the same time a shape moved in front of it, and steam dissolved around Mike Morales’s face. He sm
iled at her, a pistol pointed inches from her head.
“Die, bitch,” he said.
The door yielded to one blow of the battering ram and slammed against the wall.
Bacardi and a uniformed officer whose name she thought was Ben walked into the soft music of Coldplay as they entered apartment 2D and were confronted by Dr. Kay Scarpetta.
“What the hell?” Bacardi said.
Scarpetta was all over the walls. Posters, some of them from ceiling to floor, not poses but newsy photos of her on the set of CNN or walking through Ground Zero or in the morgue, preoccupied and unaware that someone was taking what Bacardi called a “thinking action shot.” Didn’t mean the person was doing something powerful, but he or she was doing it mentally.
“It’s like a freakin’ shrine,” said Ben, or whatever his name was.
The apartment at the back of the building, one floor above Terri Bridges’s, was unfurnished except for a simple maple desk facing a wall and, tucked under it, a small office chair. On the desk was a laptop, one of those new PowerBooks or AirBooks or whatever they were called, expensive and weighing almost nothing. Bacardi had heard stories about people accidentally throwing them away with a stack of newspapers, and could see how that might happen. The laptop was plugged into a charger, and “Clocks” was playing on iTunes—the volume turned low, playing over and over again, God knows for how long, because someone had selected repeat on the menu.
Also on the desk were four bud vases, cheap cut glass, and in each one a withered rose. She went to the desk and pulled down one of the rose petals.
“Yellow,” she said.
Officer Ben, as she now thought of him, was too busy looking around at the shrine to Scarpetta to care about a few dead roses, or to understand that from the female perspective, yellow mattered. Bacardi’s need of reassurance wanted red when it came to roses, but her instinct knew better. A man who gave you yellow roses was one you’d never have, and that’s the one you wanted and should move heaven and earth to get. She glanced at Officer Ben, for an instant fearing she just might have said that out loud.
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