The Scarpetta Factor

7

Dr. Warner Agee sat on the unmade bed inside his small suite of English antiques, the curtains closed to afford him privacy.

His hotel room was surrounded by buildings, eye-to-eye with other windows, and he couldn’t help but think about his former wife and what it was like when he was forced to find his own place to live. He’d been appalled when he noticed how many downtown Washington apartments had telescopes, some decorative but functional, others for serious viewing. For example, an Orion binocular mount and tripod set in front of a reclining chair that didn’t face a river or a park but another high-rise. The Realtor was crowing about the view as Agee peered directly into the condo across the way at someone buck naked, walking around, the drapes not drawn.

What purpose was there for telescopes and binoculars in congested areas of major cities like Washington, D.C., or here in New York unless it was spying, unless it was voyeurism? Obtuse neighbors undressing, having sex, arguing and fighting, bathing, sitting on the toilet. If people thought they had privacy in their own homes or hotel rooms, think again. Sexual predators, robbers, terrorists, the government-don’t let them see you. Don’t let them hear you. Make sure they aren’t watching. Make sure they aren’t listening. If they don’t see or hear you, they can’t get you. Security cameras on every corner, vehicle tracking, spy cams, sound amplifiers, eavesdropping, observing strangers in their most vulnerable and humiliating moments. All it takes is one piece of information in the wrong hands and your entire life can change. If you’re going to play that game, do it to others before they can do it to you. Agee didn’t leave blinds or curtains open, not even during the day.

“You know what the best security system is? Window shades.” Advice he’d been giving his entire career.

Truer words never spoken, exactly what he’d said to Carley Crispin the first time they met at one of Rupe Starr’s dinner parties when she was a White House press secretary and Agee was a consultant who traveled in many orbits, not just the FBI’s. The year was 2000, and what a bombshell she’d been, outrageously attractive, with flaming red hair, edgy, smart, and a catbird when she wasn’t talking to reporters and could say what she really thought. Somehow the two of them ended up in Rupe Starr’s rare-book library, perusing old tomes on a few favorite subjects of Agee’s, the flying heretic Simon Magus and the flying saint Joseph of Cuper tino, who indisputably had the ability to levitate. Agee had introduced her to Franz Anton Mesmer and explained the healing powers of animal magnetism, and then Braid and Bernheim and their theories on hypnosis and nervous sleep.

It was natural that Carley with her journalistic passions would be less interested in the paranormal and more drawn to the bookcase of photo albums, all bound in Florentine leather, the rogues gallery of Rupe’s so-called friends, as Agee referred to the most popular section in the rare-book room. For a long stretch of solitary hours on the third floor of that massive house, Agee and Carley cynically perused decades of pictures, the two of them sitting side by side, pointing out the people they recognized.

“Amazing the friends money will buy, and he thinks they mean it. That’s what I’d find sad if I could bring myself to feel sorry for a multi-fucking-billionaire,” Agee said to someone who trusted no one because she was as amoral and just as much a user as anyone Rupe Starr might ever meet.

Only Rupe never made Carley any money. She was simply an attraction for the other guests, the same thing Agee was. You couldn’t even get an interview at Rupe’s special club without a minimum of a million dollars, but you could be a guest if he liked you and thought you were an amusement of one sort or another. He’d invite you to dinners, to parties, as entertainment for his real guests. The ones with money to invest. Actors, professional athletes, the newest wizards on Wall Street would descend upon the Park Avenue mansion, and for the privilege of making Rupe richer would get to mingle with other luminaries whose commodity wasn’t cash. Politicians, television anchors, newspaper columnists, forensic experts, trial lawyers-it could be anyone in the news or with a good story or two who fit the profile of whomever Rupe was trying to impress. He researched his potential clients to find out what moved them, and then he would recruit. He didn’t have to know you to put you on his B list. You’d get a letter or a phone call. Rupert Starr requests the pleasure of your company.

“Like throwing peanuts to the elephants,” Agee had told Carley on an evening he’d never forget. “We’re the peanuts, they’re the elephants. Heavyweights we’ll never be, even if we live to be as old as elephants, and the unfair irony is some of these elephants aren’t old enough to join the circus. Look at this one.” Tapping his finger on the picture of a ferociously pretty girl staring boldy into the camera, her arm around Rupe. The year written on the page was 1996.

“Must be some young actress.” Carley was trying to figure out which one.

“Guess again.”

“Well, who?” Carley asked. “She’s pretty in a different way. Like a very pretty boy. Maybe it is a boy. No, I think I see breasts. Yup.” Moving Agee’s hand as she turned the page, and her touch startled him a little. “Here’s another one. Definitely not a boy. Wow. Rather gorgeous if you get past her Rambo clothing and no makeup; she’s got a very nice body, very athletic. I’m trying to remember what I’ve seen her in.”

“You haven’t and you’ll never guess.” Leaving his hand where it was, hoping she might move it again. “Here’s a hint. FBI.”

“Must be organized crime if she can afford to be in this Starr-studded collection.” As if human beings were no different than Rupe’s precious antique cars. “On the wrong side of the law, that’s the only FBI connection she could have if she’s filthy rich. Unless she’s like us.” Meaning the B list.

“She’s not like us. She could buy this mansion and still have plenty left.”

“Who the hell is she?”

“Lucy Farinelli.” Agee found another photograph, this one of Lucy in the Starr basement garage, sitting behind the wheel of a Duesenberg, seeming intent on figuring out a priceless antique speedster she wouldn’t hesitate to drive and maybe did on that particular day or some other day when she was in Starr Counting House, counting out her money.

Agee didn’t know. He hadn’t been to the mansion at the same time Lucy had, for the simple reason that Agee would be the last person invited for her entertainment or pleasure. At the very least she would remember him from Quantico, where as a high-school wunderkind she’d helped design and program the Criminal Artifi cial Intelligence Network, what the Bureau simply referred to as CAIN.

“Okay, I do know who that is.” Carley was intrigued once she realized Lucy’s connections to Scarpetta, and especially to Benton Wesley, who was tall with chiseled granite good looks, “the model for that actor in The Silence of the Lambs,” in her words. “What’s his name, who played Crawford?”

“Pure horseshit. Benton wasn’t even at Quantico when it was filmed. Was off in the field somewhere working a case, and even he will tell you as much, arrogant prick that he is,” Agee said, more than just ire aroused. He was feeling other stirrings.

“Then you know them.” She was impressed.

“The whole gaggle. I know them, and at best they might know about me, might know of me. I’m not friends with them. Well, excluding Benton. He knows me rather intimately. Life and its dysfunctional interconnections. Benton fucks Kay. Kay loves Lucy. Benton gets Lucy an internship with the FBI. Warner gets fucked.”

“Why do you get fucked?”

“What is artificial intelligence?”

“A substitute for the real thing,” she’d said.

“You see, it can be difficult if you have these.” Touching his hearing aids.

“You seem to hear me well enough, so I have no idea what you mean.”

“Suffice it to say I might have been given some tasks, some opportunities, if a computer system hadn’t come along that could do them instead,” he’d said.

Perhaps it was the wine, a very fine Bordeaux, but he began to tell Carley about his ungratifying and unfair career and the toll it had taken, people and their problems, cops and their stresses and traumas, and the worst were the agents who weren’t allowed to have problems, weren’t allowed to be human, were FBI first and foremost and forced to unload on a Bureau-ordained psychologist or shrink. Babysitting, hand-holding, rarely being asked about criminal cases, never if they were sensational. He illustrated what he meant with a story set at the FBI Academy, Quantico, Virginia, in 1985, when an assistant director named Pruitt had told Agee that someone who was deaf couldn’t possibly go into a maximum-security prison and conduct interviews.

There were inherent risks in using a forensic psychiatrist who wore hearing aids and read lips, and to be blunt, the Bureau wasn’t going to use someone who might misinterpret what violent offenders were saying or had to continuously ask them to repeat themselves. Or what if they misinterpreted what Agee said to them? What if they misinterpreted what he was doing, a gesture, the way he crossed his legs or tilted his head? What if some paranoid schizophrenic who had just dismembered a woman and stabbed out her eyes didn’t like Agee staring at his lips?

That was when Agee had known who he was to the FBI, who he would always be to the FBI. Someone impaired. Someone imperfect. Someone who wasn’t commanding enough. It wasn’t about his ability to evaluate serial killers and assassins. It was about appearances, about the way he might represent the Almighty Bureau. It was about being an embarrassment. Agee had said he understood Pruitt’s position and would do anything the FBI needed, of course. It was either do it their way or no way, and Agee had always wanted to get close to the fire of the FBI ever since he’d been a frail little boy playing cops and robbers, playing army and Al Capone, shooting cap guns he could barely hear.

The Bureau could use him internally, he was told. Critical incidents, stress management, the Undercover Safeguard Unit, basically psychological services for law enforcement with an emphasis on agents coming up from deep cover. Included in the mix were the supervisory special agents, the profilers. Since the Behavioral Science Unit was still relatively new to training and development, the Bureau should be more than a little concerned about what the profilers were exposed to on a regular basis and whether it interfered with intelligence gathering and operational effectiveness. At this point in the somewhat one-sided dialogue, Agee asked Pruitt if the FBI had given much thought to paper assessments of the offenders themselves, because Agee could help with that. If he could have access to raw data such as interview transcripts, evaluations, scene and autopsy photographs, the entirety of case files, which he could assimilate and analyze, he could create a meaningful database and establish himself as the resource he ought to be.

It wasn’t the same thing as sitting down with a murderer, but it was better than being Florence Nightingale with a bedside manner, a support system while the real work, the satisfying work that was recognized and rewarded, went to inferiors who didn’t have nearly the training or intelligence or insight he did. Inferiors like Benton Wesley.

“Of course, you don’t need manual data analysis if you have artificial intelligence, if you have CAIN,” Agee told Carley as they’d looked at photographs in Rupe Starr’s library. “By the early nineties, statistical computations and different types of sorting and analysis were being done automatically, all of my efforts imported into Lucy’s nifty artificial-intelligence environment. For me to continue what I was doing would have been akin to cleaning cotton by hand after Eli Whitney invented the cotton gin. I was back to evaluating agents-that’s all I was good for in the eyes of the F-ing-BI.”

“Imagine how I feel knowing the president of the United States is getting credit for my ideas.” Carley, as usual, had made it about her.

Then he’d given her a tour of the mansion while the other guests partied several floors away, and in a guest room, he took her to bed, knowing full well that what had excited her wasn’t him. It was sex and violence, power and money, and the conversation about them, the entity of Benton and Scarpetta and Lucy and anyone else who fell under their spell. Afterward, Carley wanted nothing else and Agee wanted more, wanted to be with her, wanted to make love to her for the rest of his days, and when she’d finally told him that he must stop writing her e-mails and leaving her messages, it was too late. The damage was done. He couldn’t always be sure who overheard his conversations or how loud he was, and all it had taken was one lapse, one voicemail he was leaving on Carley’s phone while his wife happened to be outside his closed office door, about to come in with a sandwich and a cup of tea.

The marriage ended quickly, and he and Carley maintained infrequent long-distance contact; mostly he kept up with her in the news as she moved into a variety of media venues. Then almost a year ago he read a story about plans for a show, The Crispin Report, pegged as hard-biting journalism and cop shop talk with an emphasis on current cases and call-ins from viewers, and Agee decided to contact her with a proposal, maybe more than one. He was lonely. He hadn’t gotten over her. Frankly, he needed money. His legitimate consulting services were very rarely used anymore, his ties with the FBI having been severed not long after Benton’s were, in part inspired by the situation with him, which was viewed as sticky by some and as sabotage by others. For the past five years, Agee’s ventures had taken him elsewhere, a scavenger mostly paid pit tances in cash for services he rendered to industries and individuals and organizations that profited handsomely from their ability to manipulate customers, clients, patients, the police, he didn’t care who. Agee had done nothing but bend the knee to others who were inferior to him, traveling constantly, quite a lot in France, sinking deeper into invisibility and debt and despair, and then he met with Carley, whose prospects were equally perilous, neither of them young anymore.

What someone in her position needed most of all was access and information, he’d pitched to her, and the problem she was going to encounter was that the experts essential to her success wouldn’t be willing to appear on camera. The good people don’t talk. They can’t. Or, like Scarpetta, they have contracts and you don’t dare ask. But you could tell, Agee had said. That was the secret he taught Carley. Come onto the set already armed with what you need to know, and don’t ask-tell. He could hunt and gather behind the scenes, and supply her with transcripts so her breaking news could be backed up, validated, or at least not disproved.

Of course he would be happy to appear on the air with her whenever she wanted. It would be unprecedented, he’d pointed out. He’d never been on camera before or in photographs and rarely gave interviews. He didn’t say it was because he’d never been asked, and she didn’t volunteer that she knew that was the reason. Carley wasn’t a decent person, and neither was he, but she’d been kind enough to him, as kind as she was capable of being. They tolerated each other and fell into a rhythm, a harmony of professional conspiracy, but it had yet to become anything more, and by now he’d accepted that their night of Bordeaux in the Starr mansion was not to be repeated.

It wasn’t a coincidence, because he didn’t believe in them, that what brought Agee and Carley together originally would be part of a bigger destiny. She didn’t believe in ESP or poltergeists and was neither a sender nor a receiver of telepathy-any information that might come her way too masked by sensory noise. But she trusted what was in the Starrs-specifically, Hannah, Rupe’s daughter-and when she disappeared, they instantly seized it as an opportunity, the case they had been waiting for. They had a right to it, had claims to it, because of a prior connection that wasn’t random in Agee’s mind but an information transfer from Hannah, whom he’d gotten to know at the mansion and had introduced to his paranormal preoccupations and then introduced her to people here and abroad, one of them the man she married. It wasn’t inconceivable to him that Hannah might begin to send telepathic signals after she vanished. It wasn’t inconceivable that Harvey Fahley would send something next. Not a thought or an image but a message.

What to do about him. Agee was extremely anxious and getting irritated, having replied to Harvey ’s e-mail about an hour ago and hearing nothing further. There wasn’t the luxury of time to wait any longer if Carley was to break the news tonight, and do it with the forensic pathologist who had autopsied Toni sitting right there. What could be better timing? It should be Agee sitting right there. That would be better timing, but he hadn’t been invited. He wouldn’t be asked when Scarpetta was on the show, couldn’t be on the set or in the same building. She refused to appear with him, didn’t consider him credible, according to Carley. Maybe Agee would give Scarpetta a lesson in credibility and do a favor for Carley. He needed a transcript.

How to get Harvey on the phone. How to engage him in a conversation. How to hijack his information. Agee contemplated e-mailing him a second time and including his own phone number, asking Harvey to call him, but it wouldn’t help if he did. The only way it would suit Agee’s purposes would be if Harvey dialed the 1-800 number for the hearing-impaired Web-based telephone service, but then Harvey would know that he was being monitored by a third party, a captioner who was transcribing every word he said in real time. If he was as cautious and traumatized as he seemed to be, he wasn’t going to allow any such thing.

If Agee initiated the call, however, then Harvey would have no idea that what he said was being transcribed, was proof, almost as good as a recording but perfectly legal. It was what Agee did all the time when he interviewed sources on Carley’s behalf, and on the infrequent occasion when the person complained or claimed he or she had said no such thing, Carley produced the transcript, which did not include Agee’s side of the conversation, only what the source said, which was even better. If there was no record of Agee’s questions and comments, then what the subject of the interview said could be interpreted rather much any way Carley pleased. Most people just wanted to be important. They didn’t care if they were misquoted, as long as she got their name right or, when appropriate, kept them anonymous.

Agee impatiently tapped the space bar of his laptop, waking it up, checking for any new e-mails in his CNN mailbox. Nothing of interest. He had been checking every five minutes, and Harvey wasn’t writing him back. Another prick of irritation and anxiety, more intense this time. He reread the e-mail Harvey had sent to him earlier:

Dear Dr. Agee,

I’ve watched you on The Crispin Report and am not writing to go on it. I don’t want attention.

My name is Harvey Fahley. I’m a witness in the case of the murdered jogger who I just saw on the news has been identified as Toni Darien. I was driving past Central Park on 110th Street early this morning and am positive I saw her being pulled out of a yellow cab. I now suspect it was her dead body being pulled out. This was just minutes before it was found.

Hannah Starr also was last seen in a yellow cab.

I’ve given my statement to the police, an investigator named L.A. Bonnell, who told me I can’t talk to anyone about what I saw. Since you’re a forensic psychiatrist, I believe I can trust that you’ll handle my information intelligently and in the strictest of confidence.

My obvious concern is whether the public should be warned, but I don’t feel it’s for me to do it, and anyway, I can’t or I’ll get in trouble with the police. But if someone else is hurt or killed, I’ll never be able to live with myself. I already feel guilty about not stopping my car instead of driving past. I should have stopped to check on her. It was probably too late, but what if it hadn’t been? I’m really upset about this. I don’t know if you see private patients, but I might need to talk to someone eventually.

I’m asking you to please handle my information as you think proper and appropriate, but do not reveal it came from me.

Sincerely, Harvey Fahley

Agee clicked on his sent folder and found the e-mail he’d written in response forty-six minutes ago, reviewing it again, wondering if there was something he said in it that might have discouraged Harvey from answering him:

Harvey:

Please give me a phone number where I can reach you, and we will handle this judiciously. In the meantime, I strongly advise that you not discuss this with anyone else.

Regards, Dr. Warner Agee

Harvey hadn’t answered because he didn’t want Agee to call him. That was likely it. The police had told Harvey not to talk, and he was afraid to divulge more than he already had, possibly regretted he’d contacted Agee to begin with, or maybe Harvey hadn’t checked his e-mail in the past hour. Agee couldn’t find a telephone listing for Harvey Fahley, had come across one on the Internet, but it was nonworking. He could have said thank you or at the very least acknowledged receiving Agee’s e-mail. Harvey was ignoring him. He might contact someone else. Poor impulse control, and next, Harvey divulges valuable information to another source and Agee is cheated again.

He pointed the remote at the TV and pressed the power button, and CNN blinked on. Another commercial announcing Kay Scarpetta’s appearance tonight. Agee looked at his watch. In less than an hour. A montage of images: Scarpetta climbing out of a medical examiner’s white SUV, her crime scene bag slung over her shoulder; Scarpetta in a white Tyvek disposable jumpsuit on the mobile platform unit, a colossal tractor-trailer with sifting stations set up for mass disasters, such as passenger plane crashes; Scarpetta on the set of CNN.

“What we need is the Scarpetta Factor and here for that is our own Dr. Kay Scarpetta. The best forensic advice on television, right here on CNN.” The anchors’ standard line these days before segueing into an interview with her. Agee kept hearing it in his memory as if he was hearing it in his bedroom, watching the silent commercial on the silent TV. Scarpetta and her special factor saving the day. Agee watched images of her, images of Carley, a thirty-second spot advertising tonight’s show, a show Agee should be on. Carley was frantic about her ratings, was sure she wasn’t going to make it another season if something didn’t change dramatically, and if she got canceled, what would Agee do? He was a kept man, kept by lesser mortals, kept by Carley, who didn’t feel about him the way he felt about her. If the show didn’t go on, neither did he.

Agee got off the bed to retrieve his full-shell hearing aids from the bathroom counter, and he looked in the mirror at his bearded face, his receding gray hair, the person staring back at him both familiar and strange. He knew himself and he didn’t. Who are you anymore? Opening a drawer, he noticed scissors and a razor, and he placed them on a small towel that was beginning to smell sour, and he turned on his hearing aids and the telephone was ringing. Someone complaining about the TV again. He lowered the volume, and CNN went from what had been barely discernible white noise to moderately loud noise that for people with normal hearing would be quite loud and jarring. He returned to the bed to begin his preparations, retrieving two cell phones, one a Motorola with a Washington, D.C., number that was registered to him, the other a disposable Tracfone he’d paid fifteen dollars for at a touristy electronics store in Times Square.

He paired his hearing aid’s Bluetooth remote with his Motorola cell phone and on his laptop logged on to the Web-based caption-telephone service. He clicked on Incoming Calls at the top of the screen and typed in his D.C. cell phone number. Using the disposable phone, he dialed the 1-800 number for the service, and after the tone was prompted to enter the ten-digit number he wanted to call-his D.C. cell phone number, followed by the pound sign.

The disposable phone in his right hand called the Motorola cell phone in his left, and it rang, and he answered it, holding it against his left ear.

“Hello?” In his normal deep voice, a voice both pleasant and reassuring.

“It’s Harvey.” In a nervous tenor voice, the voice of someone young, someone very upset. “Are you alone?”

“Yes, I’m alone. How are you? You sound distressed,” Agee said.

“I wish I hadn’t seen it.” The tenor voice faltering, about to cry. “Do you understand? I didn’t want to see something like that, to be involved. I should have stopped my car. I should have tried to help. What if she was still alive when I saw her being dragged out of the yellow cab?”

“Tell me exactly what you saw.”

Agee talking reasonably, rationally, comfortably settled into his role of psychiatrist, rotating the phones back and forth to his left ear as his conversation with himself was transcribed in real time by a captioner he’d never met or spoken to, someone identified only as operator 5622. Bold black text appeared in the Web browser window on Agee’s computer screen as he talked in two different voices on two different phones, interjecting mutterings and noises that sounded like a bad connection while the captioner transcribed only the impersonated Harvey Fahley’s dialogue:

“… When the investigator was talking to me she said something about the police knowing Hannah Starr is dead because of hair recovered, head hair that’s decomposed. (unclear) From where? Uh, she didn’t, the investigator didn’t say. Maybe they already know about a cabdriver because Hannah was seen getting into one? Maybe they know a lot they’ve not released because of the implication, how bad it would be for the city. Yes, exactly. Money. (unclear) But if Hannah’s decomposing head hair was found in a cab and nobody released that information, (unclear) bad, really bad. (unclear) Look, I’m losing you. (unclear) And I shouldn’t be talking anyway. I’m really scared. I need to get off the phone.”

Warner Agee ended the call and highlighted the text, copying it onto a clipboard and pasting it into a Word document. He attached the file to an e-mail that would land on Carley’s iPhone in a matter of seconds:

Carley:

Appended is a transcript of what a witness just told me in a phone interview. As Usual: Not for publication or release, as we must protect my source’s identity. But I hereby offer the transcript as proof in the event the network is questioned.-Warner

He clicked on send.

The set of The Crispin Report brought to mind a black hole. Black acoustical tile, a black table and black chairs on a black floor beneath a train yard of black-painted light rigs. Scarpetta supposed the implication was hard news sobriety and credible drama, which was CNN’s style and exactly what Carley Crispin didn’t offer.

“DNA isn’t a silver bullet,” Scarpetta said, live on the air. “Sometimes it isn’t even relevant.”

“I’m shocked.” Carley, in hot pink that clashed with her coppery hair, was unusually animated tonight. “The most trusted name in forensics doesn’t believe DNA is relevant?”

“That’s not what I said, Carley. The point I’m making is the same one I’ve been making for two decades: DNA isn’t the only evidence and doesn’t take the place of a thorough investigation.”

“Folks, you heard it right here!” Carley’s face, filler-plumped and paralyzed by Botox, stared into the camera. “DNA’s not relevant.”

“Again, that’s not what I said.”

“Dr. Scarpetta. Now, let’s be honest. DNA is relevant. In fact, DNA could end up being the most relevant evidence in the Hannah Starr case.”

“Carley…?”

“I’m not going to ask you about it,” Carley interrupted with a raised hand, trying a new ploy. “I’m citing Hannah Starr as an example. DNA could prove she’s dead.”

In studio monitors: the same photograph of Hannah Starr that had been all over the news for weeks. Barefoot and beautiful, a low-cut white sundress, on a sidewalk by the beach, smiling wistfully before a backdrop of palm trees and a variegated blue sea.

“And that’s what a lot of people in the criminal-justice community have decided,” Crispin continued. “Even if you’re not going to admit it in public. And by not admitting the truth”-she was beginning to sound accusatory-“you’re allowing dangerous conclusions to be made. If she’s dead, shouldn’t we know it? Shouldn’t Bobby Fuller, her poor husband, know it? Shouldn’t a formal homicide investigation be opened and warrants gotten?”

In the monitors, another photo that had been in circulation for weeks: Bobby Fuller and his tooth-whitened grin, in tennis clothes, in the cockpit of his four-hundred-thousand-dollar red Porsche Carrera GT.

“Isn’t it true, Dr. Scarpetta?” Carley said. “In theory, couldn’t DNA prove somebody’s dead? If you had DNA from hair recovered from some location, such as a vehicle, for example?”

“It’s not possible for DNA to prove a person is dead,” Scarpetta said. “DNA is about identity.”

“DNA could certainly tell us that the source of the hair found in a vehicle, for example, is Hannah.”

“I’m not going to comment.”

“And furthermore, if her hair showed evidence of decomposition.”

“I can’t discuss the facts of this case.”

“Can’t or won’t?” Carley said. “What is it you don’t want us to know? Maybe the inconvenient truth that experts like you might just be wrong about what really happened to Hannah Starr?”

Another recycled image on the monitors: Hannah in a Dolce & Gabbana suit, her long blond hair pulled back, glasses on, sitting at a Biedermeier desk in a corner office overlooking the Hudson.

“That her tragic disappearance might just be something entirely different from what everyone, including you, has assumed.” Carley’s questions, stated as facts, were taking on the tone of an F. Lee Bailey cross-examination.

“Carley, I’m a medical examiner in New York City. I’m sure you understand why I can’t have this conversation.”

“Technically, you’re a private contractor, not a New York City employee.”

“I’m an employee and answer directly to the chief medical examiner of New York City,” Scarpetta said.

Another photo: the 1950s blue brick façade of the NYC chief medical examiner’s office.

“You work pro bono. I believe that’s been in the news-you donate your time to the New York office.” Carley turned to the camera. “For my viewers who might not know, let me explain that Dr. Kay Scarpetta is a medical examiner in Massachusetts and also works part-time, without pay, for the New York City ME ’s office.” To Scarpetta, “Not that I completely understand how you can work for New York City and the Commonwealth of Massachusetts.”

Scarpetta didn’t enlighten her.

Carley picked up a pencil as if she might take notes and said, “Dr. Scarpetta, the very fact that you say you can’t talk about Hannah Starr is because you believe she’s dead. If you didn’t believe she was dead, it wouldn’t be an issue for you to voice your opinion. She can’t be your case unless she’s dead.”

Not true. Forensic pathologists can, when needed, examine living patients or get involved in cases of missing persons who are presumed dead. Scarpetta wasn’t going to offer a clarification.

Instead she said, “It’s improper to discuss the details of any case that’s under investigation or hasn’t been adjudicated. What I agreed to do on your show tonight, Carley, was to have a general discussion about forensic evidence, specifically trace evidence, one of the most common types of which is the microscopic analysis of hair.”

“Good. Then let’s talk about trace evidence, about hair.” Tapping the pencil on paperwork. “Isn’t it a fact that tests done on hair could prove it was shed after someone was dead? If hair was discovered in a vehicle, for example, that had been used to transport a dead body?”

“DNA isn’t going to tell you someone is dead,” Scarpetta repeated.

“Then hypothetically, what could hair tell us, saying hair identified as Hannah’s was recovered from some location, such as a vehicle?”

“Why don’t we discuss microscopic hair examination in general. Since this is what you and I agreed we’d talk about tonight.”

“In general, then,” Carley said. “Tell us how you might be able to determine that hair is from a dead person. You find hair somewhere, let’s say inside a vehicle. How can you tell if the person who shed it was alive or dead at the time?”

“Postmortem root damage or lack of it can tell us if head hair was shed by a living person or a dead body,” Scarpetta answered.

“Precisely my point.” Tapping her pencil like a metronome. “Because according to my sources, there has been hair recovered in the Hannah Starr case, and it definitely showed evidence of the damage you would associate with death and decomposition.”

Scarpetta had no idea what Carley was talking about and wondered bizarrely if she might be confusing details of the Hannah Starr case with those from missing toddler Caylee Anthony, whose head hairs recovered from the family car trunk allegedly showed signs of decomposition.

“So, how do you explain hair damaged the way it gets after death if the person isn’t dead?” Carley nailed Scarpetta with a stare that looked perpetually startled.

“I don’t know what you mean by ‘damaged,’ ” Scarpetta said, and it crossed her mind she should walk off the set.

“Damaged by, let’s say insects, for example.” Carley tapped the pencil loudly. “Sources have informed me that hair found in the Hannah Starr case shows evidence of damage, the sort of damage you see after death.” To the camera, “And this hasn’t been released to the public yet. We’re discussing it for the first time right here, right now, on my show.”

“Insect damage doesn’t necessarily mean the person who shed hair is dead.” Scarpetta answered the question, avoiding the topic of Hannah Starr. “If you naturally shed hair in your home, in your car, in your garage, the hair can be and in fact likely will be damaged by insects.”

“Maybe you can explain to our viewers how insects damage hair.”

“They eat it. Microscopically, you can see the bite marks. If you find hair with evidence of this type of damage, you generally assume the hair wasn’t shed recently.”

“And you assume the person is dead.” Carley pointed the pencil at her.

“Based on that finding alone, no, you couldn’t draw that conclusion.”

In the monitors: microscopic images of two human head hairs magnified 50X.

“Okay, Dr. Scarpetta, we have pictures you asked us to show our viewers,” Carley announced. “Tell us exactly what we’re looking at.”

“Postmortem root banding,” Scarpetta explained. “Or, in the words of the eminent trace evidence examiner Nick Petraco, an opaque ellipsoidal band which appears to be composed of a collection of parallel elongated air spaces along the hair shaft nearest the scalp.”

“Whew, let’s translate for the viewers, how ’bout it.”

“In the photos you’re looking at, it’s the dark area at the bulb-shaped root. See the dark banding? Suffice it to say, this phenomenon doesn’t occur in living people.”

“And these are Hannah Starr’s hairs we’re looking at,” Carley said.

“No, they’re certainly not.” If she walked off the set, it would only make matters worse. Just get through this, Scarpetta told herself.

“No?” A dramatic pause. “Then whose are they?”

“I’m simply showing examples of what the microscopic analysis of hair can tell us,” Scarpetta answered, as if the question was reasonable, when it absolutely wasn’t. Carley knew damn well the hair wasn’t from the Hannah Starr case. She knew damn well the image was generic, was from a PowerPoint presentation Scarpetta routinely gave at medicolegal death investigation schools.

“They’re not Hannah’s hairs, and they’re not related to her disappearance?”

“They’re an example.”

“Well, I guess this is what they mean by ‘the Scarpetta Factor.’ You pull some trick out of your hat to support your theory, which clearly is that Hannah’s dead, which is why you’re showing us hairs shed by a dead person. Well, I agree, Dr. Scarpetta,” Carley said slowly and emphatically. “I believe Hannah Starr is dead. And I believe it’s possible what happened to her is connected to the jogger who was just brutally murdered in Central Park, Toni Darien.”

In the monitors: a photograph of Toni Darien in tight pants and a skimpy blouse, bowling lanes in the background; another photograph-this one of her body at the crime scene.

Where the hell did that come from? Scarpetta didn’t show her shock. How did Carley get her hands on a scene photograph?

“As we know,” Carley Crispin said to the camera, “I have my sources and can’t always go into detail about who they are, but I can verify the information. Suffice it to say, I have information that at least one witness has reported to the NYPD that Toni Darien’s body was seen being dragged out of a yellow cab early this morning, that apparently a taxi driver was pulling her body out of his yellow cab. Are you aware of this, Dr. Scarpetta?” To the slow tempo of pencil tap-taps.

“I’m not going to talk about the Toni Darien investigation, either.” Scarpetta tried not to get distracted by the scene photograph. It looked like one of the photos taken by an OCME medicolegal investigator this morning.

“What you’re saying is there’s something to talk about,” Carley said.

“I’m not saying that.”

“Let me remind everyone that Hannah Starr was last seen getting into a yellow taxi after she had dinner with friends in Greenwich Village the day before Thanksgiving. Dr. Scarpetta, you’re not going to talk about it, I know. But let me ask you something you should be able to answer. Isn’t part of the medical examiner’s mission prevention? Aren’t you supposed to figure out why somebody died so maybe you can prevent the same thing from happening to someone else?”

“Prevention, absolutely,” Scarpetta said. “And prevention sometimes requires that those of us responsible for public health and public safety exercise extreme caution about the information we release.”

“Well, let me ask you this. Why wouldn’t it be in the best interest of the public to know there might be a serial killer who’s driving a yellow cab in New York City, looking for his next victim? If you had access to a tip like that, shouldn’t you publicize it, Dr. Scarpetta?”

“If information is verifiable and would protect the public, yes, I agree with you. It should be released.”

“Then why hasn’t it been?”

“I wouldn’t necessarily know whether such information has or hasn’t been, or if it’s factual.”

“How is it possible you wouldn’t know? You get a dead body in your morgue and hear from the police or a credible witness that a yellow taxi might be involved, and you don’t think it’s your responsibility to pass along the tip to the public so some other poor innocent woman doesn’t get brutally raped and murdered?”

“You’re straying into an area that is beyond my direct knowledge and jurisdiction,” Scarpetta replied. “The function of the medical examiner is to determine cause and manner of death, to supply objective information to those whose job it is to enforce the law. It’s not an expectation that the medical examiner should act as an officer of the court or release so-called tips based on information or possibly rumors gathered and generated by others.”

The teleprompter was letting Carley know she had a caller on hold. Scarpetta suspected the producer, Alex Bachta, might be trying to derail what was happening, was alerting Carley to quit while she was ahead. Scarpetta’s contract had just been about as violated as it could get.

“Well, we have a lot to talk about,” Carley said to her viewers. “But first let’s take a call from Dottie in Detroit. Dottie, you’re on the air. How are things in Michigan? You folks glad the election’s over and we’ve finally been told we’re in a recession, in case you didn’t know?”

“I voted for McCain and my husband just got laid off from Chrysler and my name’s not-” A quiet, breathy voice sounded in Scarpetta’s earpiece.

“What’s your question?”

“My question’s for Kay. You know, I feel close to you, Kay. I just wish you could drop by and have coffee, because I know we’d be good friends and I’d love to offer you spiritual guidance you’re not going to get from any lab-”

“What’s your question?” Carley cut in.

“What kind of tests they might do to see if a body has begun decomposing. I believe they can test air these days with some kind of robot-”

“I haven’t heard anything about a robot,” Carley interrupted again.

“I wasn’t asking you, Carley. I don’t know what to believe anymore except forensic science certainly isn’t solving what’s wrong with the world. The other morning I was reading an article by Dr. Benton Wesley, who is Kay’s highly respected forensic psychologist husband, and according to him, the clearance rate for homicides has dropped thirty percent in the past twenty years and is expected to continue to plummet. Meanwhile, one out of every thirty adults or about that is in prison in this country, so imagine if we caught everybody else who deserves it. Where are we going to put them and how can we afford it? I wanted to know, Kay, if it’s true about the robot.”

“What you’re referring to is a detector that’s been dubbed a mechanical sniffer or electronic nose, and yes, you’re right,” Scarpetta said. “There is such a thing, and it’s used in place of cadaver dogs to search for clandestine graves.”

“This question’s for you, Carley. It’s a pity you’re so banal and rude. Just look at how you disgrace yourself night after-”

“Not a question.” Carley disconnected the call. “And I’m afraid we’re out of time.” She stared into the camera and shuffled papers on the desk-papers that were nothing more than a prop. “Join me tomorrow night on The Crispin Report for more exclusive details about the shocking disappearance of Hannah Starr. Is she connected to the brutal murder of Toni Darien, whose brutalized body was found in Central Park this morning? Is the missing link a yellow taxi, and should the public be warned? Talking with me again will be former FBI forensic psychiatrist Warner Agee, who believes both women may have been murdered by a violent sexual psychopath who could be a cabdriver in New York City and that city officials may be withholding this information to protect tourism. That’s right. Tourism.”

“Carley, we’re off the air.” A cameraman’s voice.

“Did we get that last part about tourism? I should have hung up on that woman sooner,” Carley said to the dark set. “I’m assuming there were a hell of a lot of callers on hold.”

Silence. Then, “We got the part about tourism. A real cliff-hanger, Carley.”

“Well, that should get the phones ringing around here,” Carley said to Scarpetta. “Thanks so much. That was great. Didn’t you think it was great?”

“I thought we had an agreement.” Scarpetta removed her earpiece.

“I didn’t ask you about Hannah or Toni. I made statements. You can’t expect me to ignore credible information. You don’t have to answer anything you’re uncomfortable with, and you handled yourself perfectly. Why don’t you come back tomorrow night? I’ll have you and Warner on. I’m going to ask him to work up a profile of the cabdriver,” Carley said.

“Based on what?” Scarpetta said heatedly. “Some antiquated anecdotal theory of profiling that isn’t based on empirical research? If Warner Agee has something to do with the information you just released, you’ve got a problem. Ask yourself how he would know it. He’s not remotely involved in these cases. And for the record, he was never an FBI profiler.”

Scarpetta unclipped her mike, got up from the table, and stepped over cables, heading out of the studio alone. Emerging into a brightly lit long hallway, she passed poster-size photographs of Wolf Blitzer, Nancy Grace, Anderson Cooper, and Candy Crowley, and inside the makeup room she was surprised to discover Alex Bachta sitting on a high swivel chair. He was staring blankly at a TV with the sound turned low as he talked on the phone. She retrieved her coat from a hanger in the closet.

“… Not that there was any doubt, but I’d agree, yes, a fait ac compli. We can’t have this sort of… I know, I know,” Alex said to whoever was on the line. “Got to go.”

He looked serious and tired in his rumpled shirt and tie as he hung up. Scarpetta noticed how gray his neatly trimmed beard was getting, how creased his face was, and the bags under his eyes. Carley had that effect on people.

“Don’t ask me again,” Scarpetta said to him.

Alex motioned for her to shut the door as lights on the phone began to flash.

“I quit,” she added.

“Not so fast. Have a seat.”

“You violated my contract. More important, you violated my trust, Alex. Where did you get the scene photograph, for God’s sake?”

“Carley does her own research. I had nothing to do with it. CNN had nothing to do with it. We had no idea Carley was going to say a fucking thing about yellow cabs and hairs being found. Jesus Christ, I hope it’s true. Huge headlines, well, that’s great. But it damn well better be true.”

“You hope it’s true there’s a serial killer driving a yellow cab in the city?”

“Not what I mean. Jesus, Kay. A damn hornet’s nest, the phones are going crazy. The NYPD deputy commissioner of public information is denying it. Categorically denying it. He said the detail about Hannah Starr’s decomposing head hair being found is unfounded, complete crap. Is he right?”

“I’m not going to help you with this.”

“Fucking Carley. She’s so damn competitive, so damn jealous of Nancy Grace, Bill Kurtis, Dominick Dunne. She’d better have something to back up what she just said, because people are flying all over us. I can’t imagine what tomorrow will be like. Interestingly enough, though, the yellow cab connection? Neither denied nor confirmed by NYPD. So, what do you make of that?”

“I’m not going to make anything of it,” Scarpetta said. “My job as a forensic analyst isn’t to help you work cases on the air.”

“It would have been better if we’d had B roll of the mechanical sniffer.” Alex shoved his fingers through his hair.

“I didn’t know the subject was going to come up. I’d been promised Hannah Starr wouldn’t come up. It was never a question that Toni Darien would. Good God. You know she’s an OCME case, was at my office this morning. You promised me, Alex. What happened to contracts?”

“I’m trying to envision what it looks like. Rather hard to take it seriously, some crime-busting tool called a sniffer. But then I suppose most police departments don’t have access to cadaver dogs.”

“You can’t bring in experts who are actively working criminal cases and allow this sort of thing to happen.”

“If you had explained cadaver dogs. That would have been amazing.”

“I would have been happy to go into detail about that, but not the other. You agreed the Starr case was off-limits. You know damn well the Toni Darien case is off-limits.”

“Look. You were great tonight, okay?” He met her eyes and sighed. “I know you don’t think so and you’re upset. I know you’re pissed, understandably. So am I.”

Scarpetta dropped her coat in a makeup chair and sat. “I probably should have resigned months ago, a year ago. Never done it to begin with. I promised Dr. Edison I would never discuss active cases, and he took me at my word. You’ve put me in jeopardy.”

“I didn’t. Carley did.”

“No, I did. I put myself in jeopardy when I of all people know better. I’m sure you can find some forensic pathologist or criminal ist who’d love to do this and would be happy to voice sensational opinions and speculations instead of being cautiously theoretical and objective the way I am.”

“Kay…”

“I can’t be a Carley. That’s not who I am.”

“Kay, The Crispin Report is in the toilet. Not just the ratings, but she’s being blasted by reviewers, by bloggers, and I’m getting complaints from the top, have been getting them for a while. Carley used to be a decent journalist, but no longer, that’s for damn sure. She wasn’t my idea, and in all fairness to the network, she’s known from the start this is an audition.”

“Whose idea was she, then? You’re the executive producer. What audition?”

“A former White House press secretary, she used to be a huge deal. I don’t know what’s happened. It was a mistake, and in all fairness, she knew the show was a trial run. For one thing, she promised to use her legitimate connections to get outstanding guests like you.”

“She’s gotten me because three times now you’ve put a gun to my head about it.”

“Trying to salvage what isn’t salvageable. I’ve tried. You’ve tried. We’ve given her every opportunity. Doesn’t matter whose idea, none of it matters, and her guests, other than you, suck, are bottom of the barrel, because who wants to go on with her? That fossil of a forensic psychiatrist Dr. Agee, if I have to listen to another second of his pedantic monologues. Bottom line in this business, one season that’s not so hot and maybe you try again. Two seasons and you’re out. In her case, the answer’s obvious. She belongs on some local news broadcast in a small town somewhere. Maybe doing weather or a cooking show or Ripley’s Believe It or Not! She sure as hell doesn’t belong on CNN.”

“I assume what you’re getting at is you’re canceling her,” Scarpetta said. “Not good news, especially this time of year and in this economy. Does she know?”

“Not yet. Please don’t mention anything. Look, I’ll get right to it.” He leaned against the edge of the makeup counter, dug his hands into his pockets. “We want you to take her place.”

“I hope you’re joking. I couldn’t possibly. And it’s not really what you want, anyway. I’m not a good fit for this sort of theater.”

“It’s theater, all right. Theater of the absurd,” Alex said. “That’s what she’s turned it into. Took her less than a year to completely fuck it up. We’re not at all interested in you doing the same sort of show, doing Carley’s bullshit show, hell, no. A crime show in the same time slot, but that’s where the similarities end. What we’ve got in mind is completely different. It’s been in discussion for a while now, actually, and all of us here feel the same way. You should have your own show, something perfectly suited to who and what you are.”

“Something suited to who and what I am would be a beach house and a good book, or my office on a Saturday morning when no one is around. I don’t want a show. I told you I would help out as an analyst only-and only if it didn’t interfere with my real life or do harm.”

“What we do is real life.”

“Remember our early discussions?” Scarpetta said. “We agreed that as long as it didn’t interfere with my responsibilities as a practicing forensic pathologist. After tonight, there can be no doubt it’s interfering.”

“You read the blogs, the e-mails. The response to you is phenomenal.”

“I don’t read them.”

“The Scarpetta Factor,” Bachta said. “A great name for your new show.”

“What you’re suggesting is the very thing I’m trying to get away from.”

“Why get away from it? It’s become a household word, a cliché.”

“Which is what I sure as hell don’t want to become,” she said, trying not to sound as offended as she felt.

“What I mean is, it’s the buzz. Whenever something seems unsolvable, people want the Scarpetta Factor.”

“Because you started the so-called buzz by having your people say it on the air. By introducing me that way. By introducing what I have to say that way. It’s embarrassing and misleading.”

“I’m sending a proposal over to your apartment,” Alex said. “Take a look and we’ll talk.”