The Scarpetta Factor

4

The chief medical examiner of New York City was bent over his microscope when Scarpetta lightly knocked on his open door.

“You know what happens when you absent yourself from a staff meeting, don’t you?” Dr. Brian Edison said without looking up as he moved a slide on the stage. “You get talked about.”

“I don’t want to know.” Scarpetta walked into his office and sat in an elbow chair on the other side of his partner’s desk.

“Well, I should qualify. The topic of discussion wasn’t about you, per se.” He swiveled around so he faced her, his white hair unruly, his eyes intense, hawklike. “But tangentially. CNN, TLC, Discovery, every cable network under the sun. You know how many calls we get each day?”

“I’m sure you could hire an extra secretary for that alone.”

“When in fact we’re having to let people go. Support staff, technicians. We’ve cut back on janitorial services and security,” he said. “Lord knows where it will end if the state does what it threatens and slashes our budget by another thirty percent. We’re not in the entertainment business. Don’t want to be, can’t afford to be.”

“I’m sorry if I’m causing problems, Brian.”

He was probably the finest forensic pathologist Scarpetta personally knew and was perfectly clear about his mission, which was somewhat different from hers, and there was no way around it. He viewed forensic medicine as a public health service and had no use for the media in any manifestation beyond its role of informing the public about matters of life and death, such as hazards and communicable diseases, whether it was a potentially deadly crib design or an outbreak of the hantavirus. It wasn’t that his perception was wrong. It was simply that everything else was. The world had changed, and not necessarily for the better.

“I’m trying to navigate my way along a road I didn’t choose,” Scarpetta said. “You walk the highest of roads in a world of low roads. So, what do we do?”

“Stoop to their level?”

“I hope you don’t think that’s what I’m doing.”

“How do you feel about your career with CNN?” He picked up a briarwood pipe that he was no longer allowed to puff inside the building.

“I certainly don’t think of it as a career,” she said. “It’s something I do to disseminate information in a way that I deem is necessary in this day and age.”

“If you can’t beat ’em, join ’em.”

“I’ll stop if you want, Brian. I’ve told you that from the start. I would never do anything, at least not intentionally, to embarrass this office or compromise it in the slightest.”

“Well, we don’t need to go round and around this topic again,” he said. “In theory, I don’t disagree with you, Kay. The public is as badly misinformed about criminal justice and all things forensic as it has ever been. And yes, it’s fouling up crime scenes and court cases and legislation and where tax dollars are allocated. But in my heart I don’t believe that appearing on any of these shows is going to solve the problem. Of course, that’s me, and I’m rather set in my ways and from time to time feel compelled to remind you of the Indian burial grounds you must step around. Hannah Starr being one of them.”

“I assume that was the point of the discussion at the staff meeting. The discussion that wasn’t about me, per se,” Scarpetta replied.

“I don’t watch these shows.” He idly toyed with the pipe. “But the Carley Crispins, the Warner Agees of the world, seem to have made Hannah Starr their hobbyhorse, the next Caylee Anthony or Anna Nicole Smith. Or God forbid you’re asked about our murdered jogger when you’re on TV tonight.”

“The agreement with CNN is I don’t talk about active cases.”

“What about your agreement with this Crispin woman? She doesn’t seem to be known for playing by the rules, and it will be her shooting off her mouth live on the air tonight.”

“I’ve been asked to discuss microscopy, specifically the analysis of hair,” Scarpetta said.

“That’s good, probably helpful. I do know a number of our colleagues in the labs are worried their scientific disciplines are fast being viewed as nonessential because the public, the politicians, think DNA is the magic lamp. If we rub it enough, all problems are solved and the hell with fibers, hair, toxicology, questioned documents, even fingerprints.” Dr. Edison placed his pipe back in an ashtray that hadn’t been dirty in years. “We’re comfortable with Toni Darien’s identification, I presume. I know the police want to release that information to the public.”

“I have no problem with releasing her name, but I certainly don’t intend to release any details about my findings. I’m worried her crime scene was staged, that she wasn’t murdered where she was found and may not have been jogging when she was assaulted.”

“Based on?”

“A number of things. She was struck on the back of the head, one blow to the posterior aspect of the left temporal bone.” Scarpetta touched her head to show him. “A survival time possibly of hours, as evidenced by the large fluctuant and boggy mass, and the hemorrhagic edematous tissues underneath the scalp. Then at some point after she died, a scarf was tied around her neck.”

“Ideas about the weapon?”

“A circular comminuted fracture that pushed multiple bone fragments into the brain. Whatever she was hit with has at least one round surface that is fifty millimeters in diameter.”

“Not punched out but fragmented,” he considered. “So, we’re not talking about something like a hammer, not something round with a flat surface. And not something like a baseball bat if the surface is fifty millimeters and round. About the size of a billiard ball. Curious as to what that might have been.”

“I think she’s been dead since Tuesday,” Scarpetta said.

“She was beginning to decompose?”

“Not at all. But her livor was set, the pattern consistent with her being on her back for quite some time after death, at least twelve hours, unclothed, with her arms by her sides, palms down. That’s not the way she was found, not the way her body was positioned in the park. She was on her back, but her arms were up above her head, slightly bent at the elbows, as if she might have been dragged or pulled by her wrists.”

“Rigor?” he asked.

“Easily broken when I tried to move her limbs. In other words, rigor had been full and was beginning to pass. Again, that takes time.”

“She wouldn’t have been difficult to manipulate, to move, and I assume that’s what you’re implying. That her body was dumped in the park, which would be rather difficult to do if she was stiff,” he said. “Any drying? What you might expect if she’d been somewhere cool that had kept her well preserved for a day or two?”

“Some drying of her fingers, her lips, and tache noir-her eyes were slightly open, and the conjunctiva was brown due to drying. Her axillary temp was fifty degrees,” Scarpetta continued. “The low last night was thirty-four; the high during the day was forty-seven. The mark left by the scarf is a superficial circumferential dry brown abrasion. There’s no suffusion, no petechia of the face or conjunctiva. The tongue wasn’t protruding.”

“Postmortem, then,” Dr. Edison concluded. “Was the scarf tied at an angle?”

“No. Mid-throat.” She showed him on her own neck. “Tied in a double knot in front, which I didn’t cut through, of course. I removed it by cutting through it from the back. There was no vital response whatsoever, and that was true internally, as well. The hyoid, thyroid, and strap muscles were intact and free of injury.”

“Underscoring your speculation that she might have been murdered in one location and dumped where she was found, at the edge of the park, in plain view during daylight, perhaps so she would be found quickly this morning when people were up and out,” he said. “Evidence she might have been bound at some point? What about sexual assault?”

“No contusions or impressions from bindings that I could see. No defense injuries,” Scarpetta said. “I found two contusions on the inner aspect of each upper thigh. The posterior fourchette shows superficial abrasion with very slight bleeding and adjacent contusion. The labia are reddened. No secretions visible at the introitus or in the vaginal vault, but she has an irregular abrasion of the posterior wall. I collected a PERK.”

She referred to a Physical Evidence Recovery Kit, which included swabs for DNA.

“I also examined her with a forensic light and collected whatever was there, including fibers, mostly from her hair,” she went on. “A lot of dust and debris in her head hair, which I shaved at the edges of the laceration. Under a hand lens I could see several flecks of paint, some embedded in the depths of the wound. Bright red, bright yellow, black. We’ll see what trace says. I’m encouraging everyone in the labs to expedite things as much as possible.”

“I believe you always tell them that.”

“Another detail of interest. Her socks were on the wrong feet,” Scarpetta said.

“How can socks be on the wrong feet? Do you mean inside out?”

“Running socks designed anatomically correctly for the right and left feet, and actually designated as such. An L on the left sock, an R on the right. Hers were on backwards, right sock on the left foot and left sock on the right.”

“Possible she did that herself, didn’t notice when she was getting dressed?” Dr. Edison was putting on his suit jacket.

“Possible, of course. But if she was that particular about her running attire, would she put her socks on the wrong feet? And would she be out running in the rain and cold and not wearing gloves, not wearing anything to keep her ears warm, and no coat, just a fleece? Mrs. Darien says Toni hated running in bad weather. She also can’t account for the unusual watch Toni had on. An oversized black plastic digital watch with the name BioGraph stamped on it, possibly collects some type of data.”

“You Google it?” Dr. Edison got up from his desk.

“And had Lucy do a search. She’ll look into it further after DNA’s done with it. So far no such watch or device called a BioGraph, it appears. I’m hoping one of Toni’s doctors or someone else she knew might have an idea why she was wearing it and what it is.”

“You do realize your part-time is turning into full-time.” He picked up his briefcase and retrieved his coat from the back of the door. “I don’t think you’ve been back to Massachusetts once this entire month.”

“It’s been a little busy here.” She got up and started collecting her belongings.

“Who’s running your railroad there?”

“The train tracks are fast leading back to Boston,” she said as she put on her coat and they walked out together. “A repeat of the old days, which is a shame. My northeastern district office in Water-town will be shut down, probably by summer. As if the Boston office isn’t overwhelmed enough.”

“And Benton ’s going back and forth.”

“The shuttle,” Scarpetta said. “Sometimes Lucy gives him a lift on her helicopter. He’s been here a lot.”

“Nice of her to help out with the watch, the BioGraph. We can’t afford her computer skills. But when DNA’s done with it and if Jaime Berger agrees, if there’s some sort of data in whatever the device is, I’d like to know what. I have a meeting at City Hall in the morning, in the bull pen with the mayor, et al. Our business is bad for tourism. Hannah Starr. Now Toni Darien. You know what I’m going to hear.”

“Maybe you should remind them that if they continue to cut our budget, our business is going to be worse for tourism because we’re not going to be able to do our job.”

“When I first started here in the early nineties, ten percent of all homicides in the country were committed right here in New York,” he said as they walked through the lobby, Elton John playing on the radio. “Twenty-three hundred homicides my first year. Last year, we had fewer than five hundred, a seventy-eight percent decrease. Everybody seems to forget that. All they remember is the latest sensational slaying. Filene and her music. Should I take away her radio?”

“You wouldn’t,” Scarpetta said.

“You’re right. People work hard here, and there’s not much to smile about.”

They emerged into a cold wind on the sidewalk, First Avenue loud with traffic. Rush hour was at its peak, taxis careening and honking, and the wailing of sirens, ambulances racing to the modern Bellevue hospital complex several blocks away and to NYU’s Langone Medical Center next door. It was after five and completely dark out. Scarpetta dug in her shoulder bag for her BlackBerry, remembering she needed to call Benton.

“Good luck tonight,” Dr. Edison said, patting her arm. “I won’t be watching.”

Dodie Hodge and her Book of Magick in its black cover with yellow stars. She carried it with her everywhere.

“Spells, rituals, charms, selling things like bits of coral, iron nails, small silk bags of tonka beans,” Benton was telling Dr. Clark. “We had some real issues with her at McLean. Other patients and even a few hospital employees buying into her self-professed spiritual gifts and seeking her counsel and talismans for a price. She claims to have psychic abilities and other supernatural powers, and as you might expect, people, particularly those who are troubled, are extremely vulnerable to someone like that.”

“Seems she didn’t have psychic abilities when she stole those DVDs from the bookstore in Detroit. Or she might have predicted she’d get caught,” Dr. Clark said, moving along the road to truth, the destination just ahead.

“If you ask her, she didn’t steal them. They were rightfully hers because Hap Judd is her nephew,” Benton said.

“And this relationship is real, or another falsehood? Or, in your opinion, a delusion?”

“We don’t know if she’s related to him,” Benton answered.

“Seems like that would be easy enough to find out,” Dr. Clark said.

“I placed a call to his agent’s office in L.A. earlier today.” Benton ’s statement was a confession. He wasn’t sure why he’d just offered it, but he’d known he would.

Dr. Clark waited, didn’t fill the silence, his eyes on Benton.

“The agent didn’t confirm or deny, said she wasn’t in a position to discuss Hap Judd’s personal life,” Benton continued as the wave of anger came back, only bigger this time. “Then she wanted to know why I was asking about someone named Dodie Hodge, and the way she said it made me think she knew exactly who I was talking about, even though she was pretending otherwise. Of course, I was extremely limited in what I could divulge, simply said that I’d been given information and was trying to corroborate it.”

“You didn’t say who you were or why you were interested.”

Benton ’s silence was his answer. Nathan Clark knew him very well, because Benton had allowed it. They were friends. He might be Benton ’s only friend, the only one Benton permitted to enter his restricted areas, the only one other than Scarpetta, and even she had her limits, avoided areas she was afraid of, and this was all about the area she feared most. Dr. Clark was drawing the truth out of Benton, and Benton wasn’t going to stop it. It needed to be done.

“That’s the problem with being former FBI, isn’t it?” Dr. Clark said. “Hard to resist going undercover, getting information any way you can. Even after how many years in the private sector?”

“She probably thought I was a journalist.”

“That’s how you identified yourself?”

No answer.

“As opposed to stating who you are and where you were calling from and why. But that would have been a HIPAA violation,” Dr. Clark went on.

“Yes, it would have.”

“What you did wasn’t.”

Benton was silent, allowing Dr. Clark to go as far as he wanted.

“We probably need to have a meaningful discussion about you and the FBI,” Dr. Clark said. “It’s been a while since we talked about those years when you were a protected witness and Kay thought you’d been murdered by the Chandonne family crime cartel, the darkest of times, when you were in hiding, living a horror beyond what most people can fathom. Perhaps you and I should explore how you’re feeling these days about your past with the FBI. Maybe it isn’t past.”

“That was a long time ago. Another life ago. Another Bureau ago.” Benton didn’t want to talk about it and he did. He allowed Dr. Clark to keep going. “But it’s probably true. Once a cop.”

“Always a cop. Yes, I know the cliché. I venture to say this is about more than clichés. You’re admitting to me that you acted like a law enforcement agent today, a cop, instead of a mental health practitioner whose priority is the welfare of his patient. Dodie Hodge has roused something in you.”

Benton didn’t answer.

“Something that’s never really been asleep. You just thought it had,” Dr. Clark continued.

Benton remained silent.

“So, I’m asking myself, what might have been the trigger? Because Dodie’s not really the trigger. She’s not important enough. More likely she’s a catalyst,” Dr. Clark said. “Do you agree with me?”

“I don’t know what she is. But you’re right. She’s not the trigger.”

“I’m inclined to think Warner Agee’s the trigger,” Dr. Clark said. “In the past three weeks or so he’s been a frequent guest on the same show Kay’s on tonight, touted as the forensic psychiatrist to the FBI, the original profiler, the supreme expert on all things serial and psychopathic. You have strong feelings about him, understandably. In fact, you once told me you had homicidal feelings toward him. Does Kay know Warner?”

“Not personally.”

“Does she know what he did to you?”

“We don’t talk about that time,” Benton replied. “We’ve tried to move on, to start over. There’s a lot I can’t talk about, but even if I could, she doesn’t want to, wouldn’t want to. Truthfully, the more I analyze it, I’m not sure what she remembers, and I’ve been careful not to push her.”

“Maybe you’re afraid of what might happen if she remembers. Maybe you’re afraid of her anger.”

“She has every right to feel it. But she doesn’t talk about it. I believe she’s the one who’s afraid of her anger,” Benton said.

“What about your anger?”

“Anger and hate are destructive. I don’t want to be angry or hateful.” Anger and hate were eating a hole in his stomach, as if he’d just swallowed acid.

“I’m going to assume you’ve never told her the details about what Warner did to you. I’m going to assume that seeing him on TV and in the news has been extremely upsetting, has opened the door to a room you’ve done your best not to enter,” Dr. Clark said.

Benton didn’t comment.

“Possible you might be considering that Warner deliberately targeted the same show Kay is on because he relishes being in direct competition with you? I believe you’ve mentioned to me that Carley Crispin has been pushing to get both you and Kay on at the same time. In fact, I think she’s gone so far as to say that on the air. Believe I saw or heard that somewhere. You refuse to go on that show, and rightly so. And then what happens? Warner is on instead. A conspiracy? A plot against you on Warner’s part? Is this all about his competition with you?”

“Kay is never on any show when other people are, doesn’t participate in panels, refuses to be part of what she calls The Hollywood Squares of alleged experts yelling at each other and arguing. And she’s almost never on that show, on The Crispin Report.”

“The man who tried to steal your life from you after you returned from the dead is becoming a celebrity expert, is becoming you, the man he has most envied. And now he’s appearing on the same show, the same network, your wife is on.” Dr. Clark made his point again.

“Kay’s not on that show regularly and is never on when other people are,” Benton repeated. “Only a guest now and then on Carley’s show-against my advice, I might add. Twice she’s been on as a favor to the producer. Carley needs all the help she can get. Her ratings are slipping. Actually, this fall, more like an avalanche.”

“I’m relieved you’re not defensive or evasive about this.”

“I just wish she’d stay away from it, that’s all. Away from Carley. Kay’s too fucking nice, too fucking helpful, feels she has to be the world’s teacher. You know how she is.”

“Easily recognized these days, I imagine. Somewhat difficult for you? Perhaps threatening?”

“I wish she’d stay off TV, but she has to live her life.”

“As I understand it, Warner stepped into the limelight about three weeks ago, about the time Hannah Starr disappeared,” Dr. Clark then said. “Prior to that he was behind the scenes over there. Very rarely a face on The Crispin Report.”

“The only way someone uninteresting and uncharismatic, a nobody, can get on prime-time TV is to talk to Carley with gross inappropriateness about a sensational case. To be a fucking whore, in other words.”

“I’m relieved you don’t have an opinion about Warner Agee’s character.”

“It’s wrong, completely wrong. Even someone as fucked up as that knows it’s wrong,” Benton said.

“So far you’ve been unwilling to say his name or reference him directly. But maybe we’re getting warmer.”

“Kay doesn’t know the details of what happened in that motel room in Waltham, Massachusetts, in 2003.” Benton met Dr. Clark’s eyes. “She doesn’t know the details of anything, not really, doesn’t know the intricacies of the machine, the design of the machine that drove the operation. She thinks I masterminded the whole thing, chose to go into a protected witness program, that it was completely my idea, that I’m the one who profiled the Chandonne cartel and predicted I would be dead, that everyone around me would be dead, if the enemy wasn’t led to believe I was already dead. If I were alive, they would have come after me, come after Kay, come after everyone. Sure. Well, get in line, and they came after Kay anyway, Jean-Baptiste Chandonne did, and it’s a miracle she’s alive. It wasn’t how I would have handled it. I would have handled it the way I eventually did, take out the people trying to take me out, trying to take Kay and others out. I would have done what I needed to do without the machine.”

“What is the machine?”

“The Bureau, the Department of Justice, Homeland Security, the government, a certain individual who gave tainted advice. That was the machine set into motion because of this tainted advice, because of self-serving advice.”

“Warner’s advice. His influence.”

“There were certain people behind the scenes influencing the suits. One person in particular who wanted me out of the way, wanted me punished,” Benton said.

“Punished for what?”

“For having a life that this individual wanted. I was guilty of that, it would seem, although anyone who knows my life might wonder why anyone would want it.”

“If they know your interior life, perhaps,” Dr. Clark said. “Your torments, your demons, perhaps. But on the surface, you’re pretty enviable, would appear to have everything. Looks, a pedigree that includes money, you were FBI, their star profiler, and now you’re a prominent forensic psychologist affiliated with Harvard. And you have Kay. I can see why someone might covet your life.”

“Kay thinks I was a protected witness, went under deep cover for six years and, after I came out, resigned from the Bureau,” Benton said.

“Because you turned on the Bureau and lost all respect for it.”

“Some people believe that’s the reason.”

“Does she?”

“Probably.”

“When the truth is you’ve felt the Bureau turned on you and lost all respect for you. That it betrayed you because Warner did,” Dr. Clark said.

“The Bureau invited opinions from its expert and got information and advice. I can see why there would have been concern about my safety. Regardless of any biased influence, those in decision-making positions had very good reason to be concerned. I can see why they’d be concerned about my stability after the fact, after what I’d been through.”

“Then you think Warner Agee was right about the Chandonnes and the necessity of faking your death? Then you think he was right about your stability and deciding that you were no longer fit for duty?”

“You know the answer. I was fucked,” Benton said. “But I don’t think television appearances are about a rivalry with me. I suspect it’s about something else that has nothing to do with me, at least not directly. I could have done without the reminder, that’s all. I could have done without it.”

“It is interesting. Warner’s been quiet, if not invisible, for the entirety of his rather lengthy and not particularly noteworthy career,” Dr. Clark said. “Now, suddenly, he’s all over the national news. Admittedly, I’m perplexed and possibly off base about what the real motive might be. Not sure it’s about you, or at least not entirely about you and his envy or lust for fame. I agree with you. It’s probably about something else. So, what might it be? Why now? Perhaps he’s simply in it for the money. Maybe like a lot of people, he’s in financial trouble, and at his age, that’s damn scary.”

“News shows don’t pay for guest appearances,” Benton answered.

“But guest appearances, if titillating and provocative enough, if they improve a show’s ratings, can lead to other ways of getting paid. Book deals, consulting.”

“It’s very true that a lot of people have lost their retirement and are looking for ways to survive. Personal gain. Ego gratification. No way for me to know the motivation,” Benton replied. “Except it’s obvious that Hannah Starr has presented an opportunity for him. Had she not disappeared, he wouldn’t be on TV, he wouldn’t be getting all this attention. Like you said, before that, he was behind the scenes.”

“Him and he. Pronouns. We’re talking about the same person after all. This is progress.”

“Yes. Him. Warner. He’s unwell.” Benton felt defeat and relief at the same time. He felt grief, and he felt drained. “Not that he was ever well. He’s not a well person, never was, never will be. Destructive and dangerous and remorseless, yes. A narcissist, a sociopath, a megalomaniac. But he’s not well, and at this stage of his miserable life, likely is decompensating further. I venture to say he’s motivated by his insatiable need for validation, by whatever he perceives is his reward if he goes public with his obsolete and unfounded theories. And maybe he needs money.”

“I agree he’s unwell. I just don’t want you to be unwell,” Dr. Clark said.

“I’m not unwell. I admit I haven’t enjoyed seeing his fucking face all over the fucking news and having him take fucking credit for my career or even mentioning my name, the fucking bastard.”

“Would it make you feel any better to know my sentiments about Warner Agee, who I’ve met more times than I’d like to remember over the years?”

“Knock yourself out.”

“Always at professional meetings, when he’d try to ingratiate himself somehow or, better yet, belittle me.”

“What a shock.”

“Let’s just forget what he did to you,” Dr. Clark continued.

“Will never happen. He should go to fucking jail for it.”

“He probably should go to hell for it. He’s a horror of a human being. How’s that for candor?” Dr. Clark replied. “At least there’s something to be said for being old and falling apart, every day wondering if this day will be worse or maybe a little better. Maybe I won’t topple over or spill coffee down the front of my shirt. The other night I was flipping through channels and there he was. I couldn’t help myself. I had to watch. He was going on and on, spewing all this nonsense about Hannah Starr. Not only are we talking about a case that isn’t adjudicated, but the woman hasn’t even been found dead or alive, and he’s speculating about all the gruesome things that some serial killer may have done to her. The pompous old fool. I’m surprised the FBI doesn’t find a discreet way to silence that lamb. He’s a terrible embarrassment, gives the Behavioral Analysis Unit one hell of a black eye.”

“He’s never been involved in the BAU and wasn’t involved with the Behavioral Science Unit when I headed it,” Benton said. “That’s part of the myth he perpetuates. He was never FBI.”

“But you were. And now you’re not.”

“You’re right. I’m not.”

“So I’ll recap and summarize, and then I really do have to go or I’ll miss a very important appointment,” Dr. Clark said. “You were asked by the Detroit district attorney’s office to conduct a psychological evaluation of this defendant, Dodie Hodge, which didn’t give you the right to begin investigating her for other perceived crimes.”

“No, I didn’t have that right.”

“Receiving a singing Christmas card didn’t give you that right.”

“It didn’t. But it’s not just a singing card. It’s a veiled threat.” Benton wasn’t going to give in on that point.

“Depends on whose perspective. Like proving a Rorschach image is a squashed bug or a butterfly. Which is it? Some might say your perception of the card as a veiled threat is regressive on your part, clear evidence that your long years of law enforcement, of exposure to violence and trauma, have resulted in an overprotectiveness of people you love and an underlying and pervasive fear that the bastards are out to get you. You push too hard on this and you run the risk of coming across as the one with a thought disorder.”

“I’ll keep my disordered thoughts to myself,” Benton said. “I won’t make comments about people who are beyond repair and a plague.”

“Good idea. It’s not up to us to decide who’s beyond repair and a plague.”

“Even if we know it to be true.”

“We know a lot of things,” Dr. Clark said. “A lot of it I wish I didn’t know. I’ve been doing this since long before the word profiler existed, when the FBI was still using tommy guns and was more hell-bent on finding Communists than so-called serial killers. Do you think I’m in love with all of my patients?” He got out of his chair, holding on to the armrests. “Do you think I love the one I spent several hours with today? Dear Teddy, who deemed it reasonable and helpful to pour gasoline into a nine-year-old girl’s vagina. As he thoughtfully explained it to me, so she wouldn’t get pregnant after he raped her. Is he responsible? Is an unmanaged schizophrenic, himself a victim of repeated sexual abuse and torture as a child, to blame? Should he get lethal injection, a firing squad, the chair?”

“Being blamed and being held responsible are two different things,” Benton said as his phone rang.

He answered, hoping it was Scarpetta.

“I’m out front.” Her voice in his ear.

“Out front?” He was alarmed. “Of Bellevue?”

“I walked.”

“Christ. Okay. Wait in the lobby. Don’t wait outside. Come inside the lobby and I’ll be right down.”

“Is something wrong?”

“It’s cold out, nasty out. I’ll be right down,” he said, getting up from his desk.

“Wish me luck. I’m off to the Tennisport.” Dr. Clark paused in the doorway, coat and hat on, bag slung over a shoulder, like a Norman Rockwell painting of a frail old shrink.

“Go easy on McEnroe.” Benton started packing his briefcase.

“The ball machine is on very slow speed. And it always wins. Afraid I’m reaching the end of my tennis career. I was on the court next to Billie Jean King the other week. Took a spill, was covered with red clay from head to toe.”

“What you get for showing off.”

“I was picking up balls with a hopper and tripped on the goddamn tape and there she was, hovering over me to see if I was all right. What a way to meet a hero. Take care of yourself, Benton. Give my best to Kay.”

Benton deliberated about the singing card from Dodie, decided to tuck it in his briefcase, he wasn’t sure why. He couldn’t show it to Scarpetta, but he didn’t want to leave it here. What if something else happened? Nothing else was going to happen. He was just anxious, overwrought, haunted by ghosts from the past. Everything was going to be fine. He locked his office door, walking fast, in a hurry, nothing to be anxious about, but he was. He was as anxious as he’d been in a very long time. A feeling of foreboding, his psyche bruised, and he imagined it as purplish and injured. It’s remembered emotions, not real anymore, he said, hearing his own voice in his head. It was a long time ago. That was then, and nothing is wrong right now. The doors of his colleagues were shut, everyone gone, some on vacation. Christmas was in exactly one week.

He headed to the elevator, the entrance of the prison ward across from it, the usual noise coming from that direction. Loud voices, someone yelling, “Coming through,” because the guard in the control room never opened the barrier doors fast enough. Benton caught a glimpse of an inmate in the blaze orange jumpsuit of Rikers Island, shackled and escorted, a cop on either side of him, probably a malingerer faking some malady, maybe something self-inflicted, so he could spend the holidays here. Benton was reminded of Dodie Hodge as steel doors slammed shut and he got on the elevator. He was reminded of his six years of nonexistence, isolated and trapped in the persona of a man who wasn’t real, Tom Haviland. Six years of being dead because of Warner Agee. Benton couldn’t stand the way he felt. It was hideous to want to hurt someone, and he knew what it felt like, had done it more than once in the line of duty but never because it was what he fantasized about, a desire like lust.

He wished Scarpetta had called sooner, hadn’t set out alone in the dark in this part of the city, which had more than its demographic share of the homeless, of indigents and drug addicts and psychiatric alumni, the same patients in and out until the overstrained system couldn’t fit them anywhere anymore. Then maybe they pushed a commuter off a subway platform in front of a train or attacked a crowd of strangers with a knife, caused death and destruction because they heard voices and nobody listened.

Benton walked swiftly through what seemed to be endless corridors, past the cafeteria and gift shop, weaving through a steady traffic of patients and visitors, and hospital personnel in lab coats and scrubs. The halls of Bellevue Hospital Center were decked out for the holidays, with cheerful music piped in and bright decorations, as if that somehow made it all right to be sick or injured or criminally insane.

Scarpetta was waiting for him near the glass front doors, in her long, dark coat and black leather gloves, and she didn’t notice him yet in the crowd as he walked toward her, mindful of people around her, of the way some of them looked at her as if she was familiar. His reaction to her was always the same, a poignant mixture of excitement and sadness, the thrill of being with her tainted by the remembered pain of believing he never would again. Whenever he watched her from a distance and she was unaware, he relived the times he’d done it in the past, secretly and deliberately, spying on her, yearning for her. At times he wondered how life would have turned out for her if what she’d believed had been true, if he really was dead. He wondered if she would be better off. Maybe she would. He had caused her suffering and harm, brought danger to her, damaged her, and he couldn’t forgive himself.

“Maybe you should cancel tonight,” he said when he got to her.

She turned to him, surprised, happy, her deep blue eyes like the sky, her thoughts and feelings like the weather, light and shadow, bright sun and clouds and haze.

“We should go have a nice, quiet dinner,” he added, taking her arm, keeping her close, as if they needed each other to stay warm. “Il Cantinori. I’ll call Frank, see if he can fit us in.”

“Don’t torment me,” she said, her arm tight around his waist. “Melanzane alla parmigiana. A Brunello di Montalcino. I might eat your share and drink the whole bottle.”

“That would be incredibly greedy.” He kept her protectively close as they walked toward First Avenue. The wind blasted, and it was beginning to rain. “You really could cancel, you know. Tell Alex you’ve got the flu.” He signaled for a taxi and one darted toward them.

“I can’t, and we have to get home,” she said. “We have a conference call.”

Benton opened the cab’s back door. “What conference call?”

“Jaime.” Scarpetta slid across to the other side of the backseat and he climbed in after her. She gave the driver their address and said to Benton, “Fasten your seat belt.” Her quirky habit to remind people, even if they didn’t need to be told. “Lucy thinks they can get out of Vermont in a couple of hours, that the front should have cleared south of us by then. In the meantime, Jaime wants you, me, Marino, all of us, on the phone. She called me about ten minutes ago when I was on the sidewalk, on my way here. It wasn’t a good time to talk, so I don’t know details.”

“Not even a clue what she wants?” Benton asked as the taxi cut over to Third Avenue, headed north, the windshield wipers dragging loudly in a misty rain, the tops of lighted buildings shrouded.

“This morning’s situation.” She wasn’t going to be specific in front of their driver, didn’t matter if he understood English or could hear them.

“The situation you’ve been involved in all day.” Benton meant the Toni Darien case.

“A tip called in this afternoon,” Scarpetta said. “Apparently, somebody saw something.”