Book of the Dead

Chapter 2

The three of them sit in a candlelit corner of Tullio, a popular trattoria with a travertine facade, near the theaters, and an easy walk from the Spanish Steps.

Candlelit tables are covered in pale gold cloths, and the dark-paneled wall behind them is filled with bottles of wine. Other walls are hung with watercolors of rustic Italian scenes. It’s quiet here except for a table of drunk Americans. They’re oblivious and preoccupied, as is the waiter in his beige jacket and black tie. No one has any idea what Benton, Scarpetta, and Captain Poma are discussing. If anyone comes close enough to hear, they change their conversation to harmless topics and tuck photographs and reports back into folders.

Scarpetta sips a 1996 Biondi Santi Brunello that is very expensive but not what she would have picked had she been asked, and usually she is asked. She returns her glass to the table without removing her eyes from the photograph beside her simple Parma ham and melon, which she will follow with grilled sea bass, then beans in olive oil. Maybe raspberries for dessert, unless Benton’s deteriorating demeanor takes away her appetite. And it might.

“At the risk of sounding simple,” she is quietly saying, “I keep thinking there’s something important we’re missing.” Her index finger taps a scene photograph of Drew Martin.

“So now you don’t complain about going over something again and again,” Captain Poma says, openly flirtatious now. “See? Good food and wine. They make us smarter.” He taps his head, mimicking Scarpetta tapping the photograph.

She is pensive, the way she gets when she leaves the room without going anywhere.

“Something so obvious we’re completely blind to it, everyone’s been blind to it,” she continues. “Often we don’t see something because — as they say — it’s in plain view. What is it? What is she saying to us?”

“Fine. Let’s look for what’s in plain view,” says Benton, and rarely has she seen him so openly hostile and withdrawn. He doesn’t hide his disdain of Captain Poma, now dressed in perfect pinstripes. His gold cuff links engraved with the crest of the Carabinieri flash when they catch the light of the candle.

“Yes, in plain view. Every inch of her exposed flesh — before anybody touched it. We should study it in that condition. Untouched. Exactly as he left it,” Captain Poma says, his eyes on Scarpetta. “How he left it is a story, is it not? But before I forget, to our last time together in Rome. At least for now. We should drink a toast to that.”

It doesn’t seem right to raise their glasses with the dead young woman watching, her naked, savaged body right there on the table, in a sense.

“And a toast to the FBI,” says Captain Poma. “To their determination to turn this into an act of terrorism. The ultimate soft target — an American tennis star.”

“It’s a waste of time to even allude to such a thing,” Benton says, and he picks up his glass, not to toast but to drink.

“Then tell your government to stop suggesting it,” Captain Poma says. “There, I will say this bluntly since we’re alone. Your government is spreading this propaganda from behind the scenes, and the reason we didn’t discuss this earlier is because the Italians don’t believe anything so ridiculous. No terrorist is responsible. The FBI to say such a thing? It’s stupid.”

“The FBI isn’t sitting here. We are. And we aren’t the FBI, and I’m weary of your references to the FBI,” Benton replies.

“But you were FBI most of your career. Until you quit and disappeared from sight as if you were dead. For some reason.”

“If this were an act of terrorism, someone would have claimed responsibility by now,” Benton says. “I’d rather you don’t mention the FBI or my personal history again.”

“An insatiable appetite for publicity and your country’s current need to scare the hell out of everybody and rule the world.” Captain Poma refills their wineglasses. “Your Bureau of Investigation interviewing witnesses here in Rome, stepping all over Interpol, and they’re supposed to work with Interpol, have their own representatives there. And they fly in these idiots from Washington who don’t know us, much less how to work a complex homicide—”

Benton interrupts him. “You should know by now, Captain Poma, that politics and jurisdictional infighting are the nature of the beast.”

“I wish you would call me Otto. As my friends do.” He moves his chair closer to Scarpetta, and with him comes the scent of his cologne, then he moves the candle. He glances in disgust at the table of obtuse, hard-drinking Americans and says, “You know, we try to like you.”

“Don’t try,” Benton says. “No one else does.”

“I’ve never understood why you Americans are so loud.”

“Because we don’t listen,” Scarpetta says. “That’s why we have George Bush.”

Captain Poma picks up the photograph near her plate, studies it as if he’s never seen it before. “I’m looking at what’s in plain view,” he says. “And all I see is the obvious.”

Benton stares at the two of them sitting so close, his handsome face like granite.

“It’s better to assume there’s no such thing as obvious. It’s a word,” Scarpetta says, sliding more photographs out of an envelope. “A reference to one’s personal perceptions. And mine may be different from yours.”

“I believe you demonstrated that quite exhaustively at state police headquarters,” the captain says, while Benton stares.

She looks at Benton, a lingering look that communicates her awareness of his behavior and how unnecessary it is. He has no reason to be jealous. She has done nothing to encourage Captain Poma’s flirtations.

“In plain view. Well, then. Why don’t we start with her toes,” Benton says, barely touching his buffalo mozzarella and already on his third glass of wine.

“That’s actually a good idea.” Scarpetta studies photographs of Drew. She studies a close-up of Drew’s bare toes. “Neatly manicured. Nails painted recently, consistent with her getting a pedicure before she left New York.” She repeats what they know.

“Does that matter?” Captain Poma studies a photograph, leaning so close to Scarpetta that his arm is touching hers, and she feels his heat and smells his scent. “I don’t think so. I think it matters more what she was wearing. Black jeans, a white silk shirt, a black silk — lined black leather jacket. Also, black panties and a black bra.” He pauses. “It’s curious her body didn’t have any fibers from these, just the fibers from the sheet.”

“We don’t know for a fact it was a sheet,” Benton reminds him sharply.

“Also, her clothing, her watch, necklace, leather bracelets, and earrings haven’t been found. So the killer took these things,” the captain says to Scarpetta. “For what reason? Perhaps souvenirs. But we will talk about her pedicure, since you think it important. Drew went to a spa on Central Park South right after she got to New York. We have details of this appointment, charged to Drew’s credit card — her father’s credit card, actually. From what I’m told, he was most indulgent with her.”

“I think it’s been well established she was spoiled,” Benton says.

“I think we should be careful using words like that,” Scarpetta says. “She earned what she had, is the one who practiced six hours a day, trained so hard — had just won the Family Circle Cup and was expected to win other…”

“That’s where you live,” Captain Poma says to her. “Charleston, South Carolina. Where the Family Circle Cup is played. Odd, isn’t it. That very night she flew to New York. And from there to here. To this.” He indicates the photographs.

“What I’m saying is money can’t buy championship titles, and spoiled people usually don’t work as passionately as she did,” Scarpetta says.

Benton says, “Her father spoiled her but couldn’t be bothered with parenting. Same with her mother.”

“Yes, yes,” Captain Poma agrees. “What parents permit a sixteen-year-old to travel abroad with two eighteen-year-old friends? Especially if she’d been acting moody. Up and down.”

“When your child becomes more difficult, it gets easier to give in. Not resist,” Scarpetta says, thinking about her niece, Lucy. When Lucy was a child, God, their battles. “What about her coach? Do we know anything about that relationship?”

“Gianni Lupano. I spoke to him, and he said he was aware she was coming here and wasn’t happy about it because of major tournaments in the next few months, such as Wimbledon. He wasn’t helpful and seemed angry with her.”

“And the Italian Open here in Rome next month,” Scarpetta points out, finding it unusual the captain didn’t mention it.

“Of course. She should train, not run off with friends. I don’t watch tennis.”

“Where was he when she was murdered?” Scarpetta asks.

“New York. We’ve checked with the hotel where he said he stayed, and he was registered at that time. He also commented she had been moody. Down one day, up the next. Very stubborn and difficult and unpredictable. He wasn’t sure how much longer he could work with her. Said he had better things to do than put up with her behavior.”

“I’d like to know if mood disorders run in her family,” Benton says. “I don’t suppose you bothered to ask.”

“I didn’t. I’m sorry I wasn’t astute enough to think of it.”

“It would be extremely useful to know if she had a psychiatric history her family’s been secretive about.”

“It’s well known she’d struggled with an eating disorder,” Scarpetta says. “She’s talked openly about it.”

“No mention of a mood disorder? Nothing from her parents?” Benton continues his cool interrogation of the captain.

“Nothing more than her ups and downs. Typical teenager.”

“Do you have children?” Benton reaches for his wine.

“Not that I know of.”

“A trigger,” Scarpetta says. “Something was going on with Drew that no one’s telling us. Perhaps what’s in plain view? Her behavior’s in plain view. Her drinking’s in plain view. Why? Did something happen?”

“The tournament in Charleston,” Captain Poma says to Scarpetta. “Where you have your private practice. What is it they call it? The Lowcountry? What is Lowcountry, exactly?” He slowly swirls his wine, his eyes on her.

“Almost sea level, literally low country.”

“And your local police have no interest in this case? Since she played a tournament there just maybe two days before she was murdered?”

“Curious, I’m sure—” Scarpetta starts to say.

“Her murder has nothing to do with the Charleston police,” Benton interrupts. “They have no jurisdiction.”

Scarpetta gives him a look, and the captain watches both of them. He’s been watching their tense interaction all day.

“No jurisdiction hasn’t stopped anybody from showing up and flashing their badges,” Captain Poma says.

“If you’re alluding to the FBI again, you’ve made your point,” says Benton. “If you’re alluding to my being former FBI again, you’ve definitely made your point. If you’re alluding to Dr. Scarpetta and me — we were invited by you. We didn’t just show up, Otto. Since you’ve asked us to call you that.”

“Is it me or is this not perfect?” The captain holds up his glass of wine as if it is a flawed diamond.

Benton picked the wine. Scarpetta knows more about Italian wines than he does, but tonight he finds it necessary to assert his dominance, as if he has just plummeted fifty rungs on the evolutionary ladder. She feels Captain Poma’s interest in her as she looks at another photograph, grateful the waiter doesn’t seem inclined to come their way. He’s busy with the table of loud Americans.

“Close-up of her legs,” she says. “Bruising around her ankles.”

“Fresh bruises,” Captain Poma says. “He grabbed her, maybe.”

“Possibly. They aren’t from ligatures.”

She wishes Captain Poma wouldn’t sit so close to her, but there’s no where else for her to move unless she pushes her chair into the wall. She wishes he wouldn’t brush against her when he reaches for photographs.

“Her legs are recently shaven,” she goes on. “I would say shaven within twenty-four hours of her death. Barely any stubble. She cared about how she looked even when she was traveling with friends. That might be important. Was she hoping to meet someone?”

“Of course. Three young women looking for young men,” Captain Poma says.

Scarpetta watches Benton motion for the waiter to bring another bottle of wine.

She says, “Drew was a celebrity. From what I’ve been told, she was careful about strangers, didn’t like to be bothered.”

“Her drinking doesn’t make much sense,” Benton says.

“Chronic drinking doesn’t,” Scarpetta says. “You can look at these photographs and see she was extremely fit, lean, superb muscle development. If she’d become a heavy drinker, it would appear it hadn’t been going on long, and her recent success would indicate that as well. Again, we have to wonder if something recently had happened. Some emotional upheaval?”

“Depressed. Unstable. Abusing alcohol,” Benton says. “All making the person more vulnerable to a predator.”

“And that’s what I think happened,” Captain Poma says. “Randomness. An easy target. Alone at the Piazza di Spagna, where she encountered the gold-painted mime.”

The gold-painted mime performed as mimes do, and Drew dropped another coin into his cup, and he performed once more to her delight.

She refused to leave with her friends. The last thing she ever said to them was, “Beneath all that gold paint is a very handsome Italian.” The last thing her friends ever said to her was, “Don’t assume he’s Italian.” It was a valid comment, since mimes don’t speak.

She told her friends to go on, perhaps visit the shops of Via dei Condotti, and she promised to meet them at the Piazza Navona, at the fountain of rivers, where they waited and waited. They told Captain Poma they tasted free samples of crispy waffles made of eggs and farina and sugar, and giggled as Italian boys shot them with bubble guns, begging them to buy one. Instead, Drew’s friends got fake tattoos and encouraged street musicians to play American tunes on reed pipes. They admitted they had gotten somewhat drunk at lunch and were silly.

They described Drew as “a little drunk,” and said she was pretty but didn’t think she was. She assumed people stared because they recognized her, when often it was because of her good looks. “People who don’t watch tennis didn’t necessarily recognize her at all,” one of the friends told Captain Poma. “She just didn’t get how beautiful she was.”

Captain Poma talks on through their main course, and Benton, for the most part, drinks, and Scarpetta knows what he thinks — she should avoid the captain’s seductions, should somehow move out of range, which in truth would require nothing less than her leaving the table, if not the trattoria. Benton thinks the captain is full of shit, because it defies common sense that a medico legale would interview witnesses as if he is the lead detective in the case, and the captain never mentions the name of anyone else involved in the case. Benton forgets that Captain Poma is the Sherlock Holmes of Rome, or, more likely, Benton can’t stomach the thought, he is so jealous.

Scarpetta makes notes as the captain recounts in detail his long interview with the gold-painted mime, who has what appears to be an infallible alibi: He was still performing in his same spot at the base of the Spanish Steps until late afternoon — long after Drew’s friends returned to look for her. He claimed to vaguely remember the girl, but he had no idea who she was, thought she was drunk, and then she wandered off. In summary, he paid little attention to her, he said. He is a mime, he said. He acted like a mime at all times, he said. When he’s not a mime, he works at night as a doorman at the Hotel Hassler, where Benton and Scarpetta are staying. At the top of the Spanish Steps, the Hassler is one of the finest hotels in Rome, and Benton insisted on staying there in its penthouse for reasons he has yet to explain.

Scarpetta has barely touched her fish. She continues to look at the photographs as if for the first time. She doesn’t contribute to Benton and Captain Poma’s argument about why some killers grotesquely display their victims. She adds nothing to Benton’s talk of the excitement these sexual predators derive from the headline news or, even better, from lurking nearby or in the crowd, watching the drama of the discovery and the panic that follows. She studies Drew’s mauled naked body, on its side, legs together, knees and elbows bent, hands tucked under the chin.

Almost as if she’s sleeping.

“I’m not sure it’s contempt,” she says.

Benton and Captain Poma stop talking.

“If you look at this”—she slides a photograph closer to Benton—“without the usual assumption in mind that this is a sexually degrading display, you might wonder if there’s something different. Not about religion, either. Not praying to Saint Agnes. But the way she’s positioned.” She continues to say things as they come to her. “Something almost tender about it.”

“Tender? You’re joking,” Captain Poma says.

“As in sleeping,” Scarpetta says. “It doesn’t strike me that she’s displayed in a sexually degrading way — victim on her back, her arms, her legs spread, et cetera. The more I look, I don’t think so.”

“Maybe,” Benton says, picking up the photograph.

“But nude for everyone to see,” Captain Poma disagrees.

“Take a good look at her position. I could be wrong, of course, just trying to open my mind to other interpretations, putting aside my prejudices, my angry assumptions that this killer is filled with hate. It’s just a feeling I’m getting. The suggestion of a different possibility, that maybe he wanted her found but his intention wasn’t to sexually degrade,” she says.

“You don’t see contempt? Rage?” Captain Poma is surprised, seems genuinely incredulous.

“I think what he did made him feel powerful. He had a need to overpower her. He has other needs that at this moment we can’t possibly know,” she says. “And I’m certainly not suggesting there’s no sexual component. I’m not saying there isn’t rage. I just don’t think these are what drive him.”

“Charleston must feel very lucky to have you,” he says.

“I’m not sure Charleston feels anything of the sort,” she says. “At least, the local coroner most likely doesn’t.”

The drunk Americans are getting louder. Benton seems distracted by what they’re saying.

“An expert like yourself right there. Very lucky is how I would consider it if I were the coroner. And he doesn’t avail himself of your talents?” Captain Poma says, brushing against her as he reaches for a photograph he doesn’t need to look at again.

“He sends his cases to the Medical University of South Carolina, has never had to contend with a private pathology practice before. Not in Charleston or anywhere. My contracts are with some of the coroners from outlying jurisdictions where there’s no access to medical examiner facilities and labs,” she explains, distracted by Benton.

He indicates for her to pay attention to what the drunk Americans are saying.

“…I just think when it’s undisclosed this and undisclosed that, it’s fishy,” one of them pontificates.

“Why would she want anybody to know? I don’t blame her. It’s like Oprah or Anna Nicole Smith. People find out where they are, they show up in droves.”

“How sickening. Imagine being in the hospital…”

“Or in Anna Nicole Smith’s case, in the morgue. Or in the damn ground…”

“…And mobs of people out there on the sidewalk, yelling out your name.”

“Can’t take the heat, get out of the kitchen, is what I say. Price you pay for being rich and famous.”

“What’s going on?” Scarpetta asks Benton.

“It would seem our old friend Dr. Self had some sort of emergency earlier today and is going to be off the air for a while,” he replies.

Captain Poma turns around and looks at the table of noisy Americans. “Do you know her?” he asks.

Benton says, “We’ve had our run-ins with her. Mainly, Kay has.”

“I believe I read something about that when I was researching you. A sensational, very brutal homicide case in Florida that involved all of you.”

“I’m glad to know you researched us,” Benton says. “That was very thorough.”

“Only to make myself familiar before you came here.” Captain Poma meets Scarpetta’s eyes. “A very beautiful woman I know watches Dr. Self regularly,” he says, “and she tells me she saw her on the show last fall. It had something to do with her winning that very big tournament in New York. I admit I don’t pay much attention to tennis.”

“The U.S. Open,” Scarpetta says.

“I’m not aware Drew was on her show,” Benton says, frowning as if he doesn’t believe him.

“She was. I’ve checked. This is very interesting. Suddenly, Dr. Self has a family emergency. I’ve been trying to get in touch with her, and she has yet to respond to my inquiries. Perhaps you could intercede?” he says to Scarpetta.

“I seriously doubt that would be helpful,” she says. “Dr. Self hates me.”

They walk back, following Via Due Macelli in the dark.

She imagines Drew Martin walking these streets. She wonders who she encountered. What does he look like? How old is he? What did he do to inspire her trust? Had they met before? It was daylight, plenty of people out, but so far no witnesses have come forward with convincing information that they saw anybody who fit her description at any time after she left the mime. How can that be possible? She was one of the most famous athletes in the world, and not one person recognized her on the streets of Rome?

“Was what happened random? Like a lightning strike? That’s the question we seem no closer to answering,” Scarpetta says as she and Benton walk through the balmy night, their shadows moving over old stone. “She’s by herself and intoxicated, perhaps lost on some deserted side street, and he sees her? And what? Offers to show her the way and leads her where he can gain complete control of her? Perhaps where he lives? Or to his car? If so, he must speak at least a little English. How could no one have seen her? Not one person.”

Benton says nothing, their shoes scuffing on the sidewalk, the street noisy with people emerging from restaurants and bars, very loud, with motor scooters and cars that come close to running them over.

“Drew didn’t speak Italian, scarcely a word of it, so we’re told,” Scarpetta adds.

The stars are out, the moon soft on Casina Rossa, the stucco house where Keats died of tuberculosis at age twenty-five.

“Or he stalked her,” she goes on. “Or perhaps he was acquainted with her. We don’t know and probably never will unless he does it again and is caught. Are you going to talk to me, Benton? Or shall I continue my rather fragmented, redundant monologue?”

“I don’t know what the hell’s going on between the two of you, unless this is your way of punishing me,” he says.

“With who?”

“That goddamn captain. Who the hell else?”

“The answer to the first part is nothing’s going on, and you’re being ridiculous to think otherwise, but we’ll get back to that. I’m more interested in the punishment part of your statement. Since I have no history of punishing you or anyone.”

They begin climbing the Spanish Steps, an exertion made harder by hurt feelings and too much wine. Lovers are entwined, and rowdy youths are laughing and boisterous and pay them no mind. Far away, what seems a mile high, the Hotel Hassler is lit up and huge, rising over the city like a palace.

“One thing not in my character,” she resumes. “Punishing people. Protect myself and others, but not punish. Never people I care about. Most of all”—out of breath—“I would never punish you.”

“If you intend to see other people, if you’re interested in other men, I can’t say I blame you. But tell me. That’s all I ask. Don’t put on displays like you did all day. And tonight. Don’t play fucking high school games with me.”

“Displays? Games?”

“He was all over you,” Benton says.

“And I was all over everywhere else trying to move away from him.”

“He’s been all over you for all day long. Can’t get close enough to you. Stares at you, touches you right in front of me.”

“Benton…”

“And I know he’s this good-looking, well, maybe you’re attracted to him. But I won’t tolerate it. Right in front of me. Goddamn it.”

“Benton…”

“Same with God knows who. Down there in the Deep South. What do I know?”

“Benton!”

Silence.

“You’re talking crazy. Since when, in the history of the universe, have you ever worried about my cheating on you? Knowingly.”

No sound but their footsteps on stone, their labored breathing.

“Knowingly,” she repeats, “because the one time I was with someone else was when I thought you were…”

“Dead,” he says. “Right. So you’re told I’m dead. Then a minute later you’re fucking some guy young enough to be your son.”

“Don’t.” Anger begins to gather. “Don’t you dare.”

He is quiet. Even after the bottle of wine he drank all by himself, he knows better than to push the subject of his feigned death when he was forced into a protected witness program. What Benton put her though. He knows better than to attack her as if she’s the one who was emotionally cruel.

“Sorry,” he says.

“What’s really the matter?” she says. “God, these steps.”

“I guess we can’t seem to change it. As you say about livor and rigor. Set. Fixed. Let’s face it.”

“I won’t face whatever it is. As far as I’m concerned, there’s no it. And livor and rigor are about people who are dead. We’re not dead. You just said you never were.”

Both of them are breathless. Her heart is pounding.

“I’m sorry. Really,” he says, referring to what happened in the past, his faked death and her ruined life.

She says, “He’s been too attentive. Forward. So what?”

Benton is used to the attention other men pay to her, has always been rather unperturbed by it, even amused, because he knows who she is, knows who he is, knows his enormous power and that she has to deal with the same thing — women who stare at him, brush against him, want him shamelessly.

“You’ve made a new life for yourself in Charleston,” he says. “I can’t see your undoing it. Can’t believe you did it.”

“Can’t believe…?” And the steps go up and up forever.

“Knowing I’m in Boston and can’t move south. Where does that leave us.”

“It leaves you jealous. Saying ‘fuck,’ and you never say ‘fuck.’ God! I hate steps!” Unable to catch her breath. “You have no reason to be threatened. It’s not like you to feel threatened by anyone. What’s wrong with you?”

“I was expecting too much.”

“Expecting what, Benton?”

“Doesn’t matter.”

“It certainly does.”

They climb the endless flight of steps and stop talking, because their relationship is too much to talk about when they can’t breathe. She knows Benton is angry because he’s scared. He feels powerless in Rome. He feels powerless in their relationship because he’s in Massachusetts, where he moved with her blessing, the chance to work as a forensic psychologist at the Harvard-affiliated McLean Hospital too good to ignore.

“What were we thinking?” she says, no more steps, and she reaches for his hand. “Idealistic as ever, I suppose. And you could return a little energy with that hand of yours, as if you want to hold mine, too. For seventeen years we’ve never lived in the same city, much less the same house.”

“And you don’t think it can change.” He laces his fingers through hers, taking a deep breath.

“How?”

“I suppose I’ve entertained this secret fantasy you’d move. With Harvard, MIT, Tufts. I guess I thought you might teach. Perhaps at a medical school or be content to be a part-time consultant at McLean. Or maybe Boston, the ME’s office. Maybe end up chief.”

“I could never go back to a life like that,” Scarpetta says, and they are walking into the hotel’s lobby that she calls Belle Époque because it is from a beautiful era. But they are oblivious to the marble, the antique Murano glass and silk and sculptures, to everything and everyone, including Romeo — that really is his name — who during the day is a gold-painted mime, most nights a doorman, and of late, a somewhat attractive and sullen young Italian who doesn’t want any further interrogations about Drew Martin’s murder.

Romeo is polite but avoids their eyes and, like a mime, is completely silent.

“I want what’s best for you,” Benton says. “Which is why, obviously, I didn’t get in your way when you decided to start your own practice in Charleston, but I was upset about it.”

“You never told me.”

“I shouldn’t tell you now. What you’ve done is right and I know it. For years you’ve felt you really don’t belong anywhere. In a sense, homeless, and in some ways unhappy ever since you left Richmond — worse, sorry to remind you, were fired. That goddamn piss-ant governor. At this stage in your life, you’re doing exactly what you should.” As they board the elevator. “But I’m not sure I can stand it anymore.”

She tries not to feel a fear that is indescribably awful. “What do I hear you saying, Benton? That we should give up? Is that what you’re really saying?”

“Maybe I’m saying the opposite.”

“Maybe I don’t know what that means, and I wasn’t flirting.” As they get out on their floor. “I never flirt. Except with you.”

“I don’t know what you do when I’m not around.”

“You know what I don’t do.”

He unlocks the door to their penthouse suite. It is splendid with antiques and white marble and a stone patio big enough to entertain a small village. Beyond, the ancient city is silhouetted against the night.

“Benton,” she says. “Please, let’s don’t fight. You’re flying back to Boston in the morning. I’m flying back to Charleston. Let’s don’t push each other away so it somehow makes it easier to be away from each other.”

He takes off his coat.

“What? You’re angry that I’ve finally found a place to settle down, started again in a place that works for me?” she says.

He tosses his coat over a chair.

“In all fairness,” she says, “I’m the one who has to start all over again, create something out of nothing, answer my own phone, and clean up the damn morgue myself. I don’t have Harvard. I don’t have a multimillion-dollar apartment in Beacon Hill. I have Rose, Marino, and sometimes Lucy. That’s it, so I end up answering the phone myself half the time. The local media. Solicitors. Some group that wants me as a luncheon speaker. The exterminator. The other day, it was the damn Chamber of Commerce — how many of their damn phone directories do I want to order. As if I want to be listed in the Chamber of Commerce directory as if I’m a dry cleaner or something.”

“Why?” Benton says. “Rose has always screened your calls.”

“She’s getting old. She can do but so much.”

“Why can’t Marino answer the phone?”

“Why anything? Nothing’s the same. Your making everyone think you were dead fractured and scattered everyone. There, I’ll say it. Everybody’s changed because of it, including you.”

“I had no choice.”

“That’s the funny thing about choices. When you don’t have one, nobody else does, either.”

“That’s why you’ve put down roots in Charleston. You don’t want to choose me. I might die again.”

“I feel as if I’m standing all alone in the middle of a fucking explosion, everything flying all around me. And I’m just standing here. You ruined me. You fucking ruined me, Benton.”

“Now who’s saying ‘fuck’?”

She wipes her eyes. “Now you’ve made me cry.”

He moves closer to her, touches her. They sit on the couch and gaze out at the twin bell towers of Trinità dei Monti, at the Villa Medici on the edge of the Pincian Hill, and far beyond, Vatican City. She turns to him and is struck again by the clean lines of his face, his silver hair, and his long, lean elegance that is so incongruous with what he does.

“How is it now?” she asks him. “The way you feel, compared to back then? In the beginning.”

“Different.”

“Different sounds ominous.”

“Different because we’ve been through so much for so long. By now it’s hard for me to remember not knowing you. It’s hard for me to remember I was married before I met you. That was someone else, some FBI guy who played by the rules, had no passion, no life, until that morning I walked into your conference room, the important so-called profiler, called in to help out with homicides terrorizing your modest city. And there you were in your lab coat, setting down a huge stack of case files, shaking my hand. I thought you were the most remarkable woman I’d ever met, couldn’t take my eyes off of you. Still can’t.”

“Different.” She reminds him of what he said.

“What goes on between two people is different every day.”

“That’s okay as long as they feel the same way.”

“Do you?” he says. “Do you still feel the same way? Because if…”

“Because if what?”

“Would you?”

“Would I what? Want to do something about it?”

“Yes. For good.” He gets up and finds his jacket, reaches into a pocket, and comes back to the couch.

“For good, as opposed to for bad,” she says, distracted by what’s in his hand.

“I’m not being funny. I mean it.”

“So you don’t lose me to some foolish flirt?” She pulls him against her and holds him tight. She pushes her fingers through his hair.

“Maybe,” he says. “Take this, please.”

He opens his hand, and in his palm is a folded piece of paper.

“We’re passing notes in school,” she says, and she’s afraid to open it.

“Go on, go on. Don’t be a chicken.”

She opens it, and inside is a note that says, Will you? and then a ring. It’s an antique, a thin platinum band of diamonds.

“My great-grandmother’s,” he says, and he slides it over her finger, and it fits.

They kiss.

“If it’s because you’re jealous, that’s a terrible reason,” she says.

“I just happened to have it with me after it’s been in a safe for fifty years? I’m really asking you,” he says. “Please say you will.”

“And how do we manage? After all your talk about our separate lives?”

“For Christ’s sake, for once don’t be rational.”

“It’s very beautiful,” she says of the ring. “You better mean it, because I’m not giving it back.”