The Body Farm

by Patricia Cornwell

  “Oh, I think it is,” said Grigg. “I just don’t buy your theory about Pleasants.”

  “Let me finish.” Lucy’s penetrating gaze scanned the faces of the men. “I thought I would give you a briefing on how the two files were sent via America Online to Dr. Scarpetta’s e-mail address.”

  It always sounded odd when she called me by my professional name.

  “I know I’m curious.” Ring had his chin propped on a hand now, studying her.

  “First, you would need a scanner,” she went on. “That’s not hard. Something with color capabilities and decent resolution, as low as seventy-two dots per inch. But this looks like higher resolution to me, maybe three hundred dpi. We could be talking about something as simple as a hand-held scanner for three hundred and ninety-nine dollars, to a thirty-five-millimeter slide scanner that can run into the thousands . . .”

  “And what kind of computer would you hook this up to,” Ring said.

  “I was getting to that.” Lucy was tired of being interrupted by him. “System requirements: Minimum of eight megs RAM, a color monitor, software like FotoTouch or ScanMan, a modem. Could be a Macintosh, a Performa 6116CD or even something older. The point is, scanning files into your computer and sending them through the Internet is very accessible to your average person, which is why telecommunications crimes are keeping us so busy these days.”

  “Like that big child pornography, pedophile case you all just cracked,” Grigg said.

  “Yes, photos sent as files through the World Wide Web, where children can talk to strangers again,” she said. “What’s interesting in the situation at hand, is scanning black and white is no big deal. But when you move into color, that’s getting sophisticated. Also the edges and borders in the photos sent to Dr. Scarpetta are relatively sharp, not much background noise.”

  “Sounds to me this is someone who knew what he was doing,” Grigg said.

  “Yes,” she agreed. “But not necessarily a computer analyst or graphic artist. Not at all.”

  “These days, if you’ve got access to the equipment and a few instruction books, anyone can do it,” said Frankel, who also worked in computers.

  “All right, the photos were scanned into the system,” I said to Lucy. “Then what? What is the path that led them to me?”

  “First you upload the file, which in this case is a graphic or GIF file,” she replied. “Generally, to send this successfully, you have to determine the number of data bits, stop bits, the parity setting, whatever the appropriate configuration is. That’s where it’s not user-friendly. But AOL does all that for you. So in this case, sending the files was simple. You upload and off they go.” She looked at me.

  “And this was done over the telephone, basically,” Wesley said.

  “Right.”

  “What about tracing that?”

  “Squad Nineteen’s already on it.” Lucy referred to the FBI unit that investigated illegal uses of the Internet.

  “I’m not sure what the crime would be in this case,” Wesley pointed out. “Obscenity, if the photos are fakes, and unfortunately, that isn’t illegal.”

  “The photographs aren’t fake,” I said.

  “Hard to prove.” He held my gaze.

  “What if they’re not fake?” Ring asked.

  “Then they’re evidence,” Wesley said, adding after a pause, “A violation of Title Eighteen, Section Eight-seventy-six. Mailing threatening communications.”

  “Threats toward who?” Ring asked.

  Wesley’s eyes were still on me. “Clearly, toward the recipient.”

  “There’s been no blatant threat,” I reminded him.

  “All we want is enough for a warrant.”

  “We got to find the person first,” Ring said, stretching and yawning in his chair like a cat.

  “We’re watching for him to log on again,” Lucy replied. “It’s being monitored around the clock.” She continued hitting keys on her laptop, checking the constant flow of messages. “But if you imagine a global telephone system with some forty million users, and no directory, no operators, no directory assistance, that’s what you’ve got with the Internet. There’s no list of membership, nor does AOL have one, unless you voluntarily choose to fill out a profile. In this case, all we have is the bogus name deadoc.”

  “How did he know where to send Dr. Scarpetta’s mail?” Grigg looked at me.

  I explained, and then asked Lucy, “This is all done by charge card?”

  She nodded. “That much we’ve traced. An American Express Card in the name of Ken L. Perley. A retired high-school teacher. Norfolk. Seventy, lives alone.”

  “Do we have any idea how someone might have gotten access to his card?” Wesley asked.

  “It doesn’t appear Perley uses his credit cards much. Last time was in a Norfolk restaurant, a Red Lobster. This was on October second, when he and his son went out to dinner. The bill was twenty-seven dollars and thirty cents, including the tip, which he put on AmEx. Neither he nor the son remembers anything unusual that night. But when it was time to pay the bill, the credit card was left on the table in plain view for quite a long interval because the restaurant was very busy. At some point while the card was out, Perley went to the men’s room, and the son stepped outside to smoke.”

  “Christ. That was intelligent. Did someone from the wait staff notice anyone coming over to the table?” Wesley said to Lucy.

  “Like I said, it was busy. We’re running down every charge made that night to get a list of customers. Problem’s going to be the people who paid cash.”

  “And I suppose it’s too soon for the AOL charges to have come up on Perley’s American Express,” he said.

  “Right. According to AOL, the account was just opened recently. A week after the dinner at the Red Lobster, to be exact. Perley’s being very cooperative with us,” Lucy added. “And AOL is leaving the account open without charge in the event the perpetrator wants to send something else.”

  Wesley nodded. “Though we can’t assume it, we should consider that the killer, at least in the Atlantic landfill case, may have been in Norfolk as recently as a month ago.”

  “This case is definitely sounding local.” I made that point again.

  “Possible any of the bodies could have been refrigerated?” Ring asked.

  “Not this one,” Wesley was quick to answer. “Absolutely not. This guy couldn’t stand looking at his victim. He had to cover her up, cut through the cloth, and my guess is, didn’t go very far away to dispose of her.”

  “Shades of ‘The Tell-Tale Heart,”’ Ring said.

  Lucy was reading something on her laptop screen, quietly hitting keys, her face tense. “We just got something from Squad Nineteen,” she said, continuing to scroll down. “Deadoc logged on fifty-six minutes ago.” She looked up at us. “He sent e-mail to the president.”

  • • •

  The electronic mail was sent directly to the White House, which was no great feat since the address was public and readily available to any user of the Internet. Once again, the message was oddly in lowercase and used spaces for punctuation, and it read: apologize if not I will start on france.

  “There are a number of implications,” Wesley was saying to me as gunshots from the range upstairs thudded like a distant, muffled war going on. “And all of them make me nervous about you.”

  He stopped at the water fountain.

  “I don’t think this has anything to do with me,” I said. “This has to do with the president of the United States.”

  “That’s symbolic, if you want to know my guess. Not literal.” We started walking. “I think this killer is disgruntled, angry, feels a certain person in power or perhaps people in power are responsible for his problems in life.”

  “Like the Unabomber,” I said as we took the elevator up.

  “Very similar. Perhaps even inspired by him,” he said, glancing at his watch. “Can I buy you a beer before you leave?”

  “Not unless someone else i
s driving.” I smiled. “But you can talk me into coffee.”

  We walked through the gun-cleaning room, where dozens of FBI and DEA agents were breaking down their weapons, wiping them and blasting parts with air. They glanced at us with curious eyes, and I wondered if they had heard the rumors. My relationship with Wesley had been an item of gossip for quite a long time at the Academy, and it bothered me more than I let on. Most people, it seemed, maintained their belief that his wife had left because of me when, in fact, she had left because of another man.

  Upstairs, the line was long in the PX, a mannequin modeling the latest sweatshirt and range pants, and Thanksgiving pumpkins and turkeys in the windows. Beyond, in the Boardroom, the TV was loud, and some people were already into popcorn and beer. We sat as far away from everyone as we could, both of us sipping coffee.

  “What’s your slant on the France connection?” I asked.

  “Obviously, this individual is intelligent and follows the news. Our relations with France were very strained during their nuclear weapons testing. You may recall the violence, vandalism, boycotting of French wine and other products. There was a lot of protesting outside French embassies, the U.S. very much involved.”

  “But that was a couple years ago.”

  “Doesn’t matter. Wounds heal slowly.” He stared out the window at darkness gathering. “And more to the point, France would not appreciate our exporting a serial killer to them. I can only suppose that is what deadoc is implying. Cops from France and other nations have been worrying for years that our problem would eventually become theirs. As if violence is a disease that can spread.”

  “Which it is.”

  He nodded, reaching for his coffee again.

  “Maybe that would make more sense if we believed the same person killed ten people here and in Ireland,” I said.

  “Kay, we can’t rule out anything.” He sounded tired as he said that again.

  I shook my head. “He’s taking credit for someone else’s murders and now threatening us. He probably has no idea how different his M.O. is from what we’ve seen in the past. Of course, we can’t rule out anything, Benton. But I know what my findings tell me, and I believe identifying this recent victim is going to be the key.”

  “You always believe that.” He smiled, playing with his coffee stirrer.

  “I know who I work for. Right this minute, I work for that poor woman whose torso is in my freezer.”

  It was now completely dark out, the Boardroom filling fast with healthy, clean-living men and women in color-coded fatigues. The noise was making it difficult to talk, and I needed to see Lucy before I left.

  “You don’t like Ring.” Wesley reached around to the back of his chair and collected his suit jacket. “He’s bright and seems sincerely motivated.”

  “You definitely profiled the last part wrong,” I said as I got up. “But you are right about what you said first. I don’t like him.”

  “I thought that was rather obvious by your demeanor.”

  We moved around people who were looking for chairs and setting down pitchers of beer.

  “I think he’s dangerous.”

  “He’s vain and wants to make a name for himself,” Wesley said.

  “And you don’t think that’s dangerous?” I looked over at him.

  “It describes almost everyone I’ve ever worked with.”

  “Except for me, I hope.”

  “You, Dr. Scarpetta, are an exception to just about everything I can think of.”

  We were walking through a long corridor, heading to the lobby, and I did not want to leave him right now. I felt lonely and wasn’t sure why.

  “I would love for us to have dinner,” I said, “but Lucy’s got something to show me.”

  “What makes you think I don’t already have plans?” He held the door for me.

  The thought bothered me, even though I knew he was teasing.

  “Let’s wait until I can get away from here,” he said, and we were walking toward the parking lot now. “Maybe over the weekend, when we can relax a little more. I’ll cook this time. Where are you parked?”

  “Over here.” I pointed the key’s remote control.

  Doors unlocked and the interior light went on. Typically, we did not touch. We never had when someone might see.

  “Sometimes I hate this,” I said as I got into my car. “It’s fine to talk about body parts, rape and murder all day long, but not to hug each other, hold hands. God forbid anybody should see that.” I started the engine. “Tell me how normal that is? It’s not like we’re still having an affair or committing a crime.” I yanked my seatbelt across my chest. “Is there some don’t-ask-don’t-tell FBI rule no one’s let me in on?”

  “Yes.”

  He kissed me on the lips as a group of agents walked by. “So don’t tell anyone,” he said.

  Moments later, I parked in front of the Engineering Research Facility, or ERF, a huge, space age–looking building where the FBI conducted its classified technical research and development. If Lucy knew all of what went on in the labs here, she did not tell, and there were few areas of the building where I was allowed, even when escorted by her. She was waiting by the front door as I pointed the remote control at my car, which was not responding.

  “It won’t work here,” she said.

  I looked up at the eerie rooftop of antennae and satellite dishes, sighing as I manually locked doors with the key.

  “You’d think I’d remember after all these times,” I muttered.

  “Your investigator friend, Ring, tried to walk me over here after the consultation,” she said, scanning her thumb in a biometric lock by the door.

  “He’s not my friend,” I told her.

  The lobby was high-ceilinged and arranged with glass cases displaying clunky, inefficient radio and electronic equipment used by law enforcement before ERF was built.

  “He asked me out again,” she said.

  Corridors were monochromatic and seemed endless, and I was forever impressed with the silence and sense that no one was here. Scientists and engineers worked behind shut doors in spaces big enough to accommodate automobiles, helicopters and small planes. Hundreds of Bureau personnel were employed at ERF, yet they had virtually no contact with any of us across the street. We did not know their names.

  “I’m sure there are a million people who would like to ask you out,” I said as we boarded an elevator, and Lucy scanned her thumb again.

  “Usually not after they’ve been around me very long,” she said.

  “I don’t know, I haven’t gotten rid of you yet.”

  But she was very serious. “Once I start talking shop, the guys turn off. But he likes a challenge, if you know the type.”

  “I know it all too well.”

  “He wants something from me, Aunt Kay.”

  “Would you like to hazard a guess? And where are you taking me, by the way?”

  “I don’t know. But I just have this feeling.” She opened a door to the virtual environment lab, adding, “I have a rather interesting idea.”

  Lucy’s ideas were always more than interesting. Usually they were frightening. I followed her into a room of virtual system processors and graphic computers stacked on top of each other, and countertops scattered with tools, computer boards, chips and peripherals like DataGloves and helmet-mounted displays. Electrical cords were bundled in thick hanks and tied back from the blank expanse of linoleum flooring where Lucy routinely lost herself in cyberspace.

  She picked up a remote control and two video displays blinked on, and I recognized the photographs deadoc had sent to me. They were big and in color on the screens, and I began to get nervous.

  “What are you doing?” I asked my niece.

  “The basic question has always been, does an immersion into an environment actually improve the operator’s performance,” she said, typing computer commands. “You never got a chance to be immersed in this environment. The crime scene.”

  Both of us
stared at the bloody stumps and lined-up body parts on the monitors, and a chill crept through me.

  “But suppose you could have that chance now?” Lucy went on. “What if you could be inside deadoc’s room?”

  I started to interrupt, but she would not let me.

  “What else might you see? What else might you do?” she said, and when she got like this, she was almost manic. “What else might you learn about the victim and him?”

  “I don’t know if I can use something like this,” I protested.

  “Sure you can. Now what I haven’t had time to do is add the synthetic sound. Well, except for the typical canned auditory cues. So a squelch is something opening, a click’s a switch being turned on or off, a ding usually means you’ve just bumped into something.”

  “Lucy,” I said as she took my left arm, “what the hell are you talking about?”

  She carefully pulled a DataGlove over my left hand, making sure it was snug.

  “We use gestures for human communication. And we can use gestures, or positions as we call them, to communicate with the computer, too,” she explained.

  The glove was black Lycra with fiber-optic sensors mounted on the back of it. These were attached to a cable that led to the high-performance host computer that Lucy had been typing on. Next she picked up a helmet-mounted display that was connected to another cable, and fear fluttered through my breast as she headed my way.

  “One VPL Eyephone HRX,” she cheerfully said. “Same thing they’re using at NASA’s Ames Research Center, which is where I discovered it.” She was adjusting cables and straps. “Three hundred and fifty thousand color elements. Superior resolution and wide field of vision.”

  She placed the helmet on top of my head, and it felt heavy and covered my eyes.

  “What you’re looking into are liquid crystal displays, or LCDs, your basic video displays. Glass plates, electrodes and molecules doing all kinds of cool things. How does it feel?”

  “Like I’m going to fall down and suffocate.”

  I was beginning to panic the way I had when I’d first learned how to scuba dive.

  “You’re not going to do either.” She was very patient, her hand steadying me. “Relax. It’s normal to be phobic at first. I’ll tell you what to do. Now you stand still and take deep breaths. I’m going to put you in.”