Blow Fly

71

BENTON DID NOT CALL on a landline, because he did not want the inaudible conversation taped.

The technical tools that Lucy most likely has and can't live without would not include a cell phone that automatically tapes a live conversation, especially since very few people have her cell phone number, and those who do are not the sort she would secretly tape. This ploy was far simpler than the last one, and there is no risk that Lucy can try voice analysis to decipher what Jean-Baptiste s nonsensical taped voice had to say, which was nothing.

Benton simply spliced fragments of Jean-Baptiste's taped voice with static, to give the impression of an attempt to talk when one is in a very bad cell. Already she will have traced the call-just as she did the last one-to Polunsky. She will have no satellite capabilities, because the garbled call is gone, lost in space-again, because Benton did not call any of her office lines.

She will be angry. When she gets sufficiently irritated, nothing can stop her. Jean-Baptiste Chandonne is fucking with her. This is what she will think, and Benton knows Lucy well enough to be certain she has made the mistake of hating Chandonne. Hate interferes with clear thinking. She will wonder how Chandonne can be calling her from Polunsky and from New York, if her satellite technology is to be trusted.

In the end, Lucy always trusts her technology.

A second call from Polunsky, and now she will begin to believe, seriously believe, that Chandonne must have a phone with a Texas Department of Criminal Justice billing address. She is no more than a breath away from believing that Jean-Baptiste Chandonne has escaped.

Scarpetta will decide she must encounter him face-to-face, behind protective glass, inside the Polunsky Unit. Chandonne will refuse to see anybody else, and that is his right.

Yes, Kay, yes. It's for you, it's for you. Please. Face him before it's too late. Let him talk!

Benton is getting frantic.

Baton Rouge, Lucy!

Chandonne said Baton Rouge, Lucy!

Are you listening to me, Lucy?