Postmortem

  “I thought I knew all your stories. It doesn’t feel good that I don’t and had to find out from the Internet. Absurd or not, details like this will be bounced around all over the place, probably already are. You can’t escape it, not even on CNN, where you have friends. When you’re on the set, someone will be obliged to ask. I guess you’ll have to get used to it. I guess we both will.”

  She wasn’t thinking about the exposure or getting used to it. She was thinking about Marino.

  “That’s what Lucy was talking about when she called you a little while ago,” Scarpetta said. “She was saying something about him.”

  Benton said nothing. That was his answer. Yes, Lucy had been talking about Marino.

  “What did you mean about him having nowhere else to turn? Or were you talking about somebody else? Don’t keep anything from me. Not now.”

  “What he did. Hit-and-run. That’s how Lucy thinks of it,” Benton said, and she had gotten better at knowing when he was being evasive. “Because he disappeared, and I’ve explained until I’m blue in the face that when someone feels he has no place to turn, he looks for an out. This isn’t new. You know the story. And you know Lucy.”

  “What story? I’ve never known the story. He disappeared, and I never believed he killed himself. That’s not Marino. He wouldn’t have the nerve or the stupidity, and most of all he’s afraid of going to hell. He believes there really is a physical hell located somewhere in the molten core of the earth, and if he ends up there he’ll be on fire for all eternity. He confessed that to me on another drunken occasion. He’s wished hell on half the planet because he’s terrified of it for himself.”

  The look in Benton’s eyes was unutterably sad.

  “I don’t know what story you’re talking about, and I don’t believe you,” she said. “Something else has happened.”

  They held each other’s eyes.

  Benton said, “He’s here. He’s been here since last July. The first weekend in July, exactly.”

  He went on to tell her that Marino worked for Berger, who found out from the gossip column the real reason Marino had left Charleston, a sordid detail she certainly didn’t know when she hired him. Now Lucy knew about Marino because Berger had just met with her and had told her.

  “That’s why Lucy called,” he said. “And knowing you as well as I do, I suspect you would have wanted me to help Marino, despite it all. And you would have wanted me to honor his wish that he go into treatment and basically start his life again without your knowledge.”

  “You should have told me a long time ago.”

  “I couldn’t divulge details about him to anyone. Any more than you can tell me what Oscar told you. Doctor-patient confidentiality. Marino called me at McLean not long after he disappeared from Charleston and asked me to get him into a treatment center. He asked me to confer with his therapist up there, to oversee, to intervene.”

  “And then get him a job with Jaime Berger? And that’s a secret, too? What’s that got to do with doctor-patient confidentiality?”

  “He asked me not to tell you.”

  Benton’s voice said he’d done the right thing, but the look in his eyes belied his certainty.

  “This isn’t about doctor-patient confidentiality or your even being decent,” Scarpetta said. “You know what it’s about. Your reasoning is completely irrational because there’s no way he could work for Jaime Berger and I wouldn’t find out, eventually. Which is exactly what’s happened.”

  She started flipping through the police report because she didn’t want to look at him. She felt someone behind her before the person spoke, and turned around, startled by the man in Benton’s doorway.

  In his baggy gang clothing, thick gold chains, his hair in cornrows, he looked as if he’d just escaped from the prison ward.

  “Kay, you and Detective Morales haven’t met, I don’t think,” Benton said, and he wasn’t particularly friendly about it.

  “I bet you don’t remember, but we almost met once,” Morales said as he brazenly walked in and looked her over.

  “I’m sorry.” Meaning she didn’t remember, and she didn’t offer to shake his hand.

  “Last Labor Day weekend. In the morgue,” he said.

  He had an unsettling energy that made her edgy and uncomfortable, and she imagined that whatever he did was thought out quickly and done in a hurry, and that it was his nature to dominate whatever he touched.

  “A couple of tables away from where you were busy looking at that guy found in the East River, floating off the shore of Ward’s Island?” he said. “I can tell you don’t remember me. Question was whether he was tired of life and jumped off the footbridge, or someone hastened his journey to the Great Beyond, or maybe he’d had a heart attack and fell off the embankment. One of Pester Lester’s cases. Turns out, she failed to connect the dots—didn’t recognize the telltale fern-like pattern on his torso was—guess what? Arborization from being struck by lightning, which she had ruled out because she didn’t find any burns in his socks, the bottom of his shoes, shit like that. You used a compass to show his belt buckle was magnetized, which is typical in lightning strikes, right? Anyway, you wouldn’t remember me. Was in and out, grabbing a couple bullets that needed to go to the labs.”

  He pulled an evidence form out of the back pocket of his half-mast voluminous jeans, unfolded it, and started filling it out, leaning over the desk, so close to her his elbow brushed against her shoulder as he wrote, obliging her to move her chair. He handed her the form and the pen, and she filled out the rest and signed it. Then he took the envelopes of Oscar Bane’s evidence and left.

  “Needless to say,” Benton remarked, “Berger’s got her hands full with him.”

  “He’s in her squad?”

  “No, that might make it easier. Then maybe she could control him, at least a little,” Benton said. “He’s rather ubiquitous. Whenever a case is high-profile, he somehow manages to show up. Such as the lightning death he mentioned. And by the way, he probably won’t forgive you for not remembering him, which is why he had to point it out three times.”

  13

  Benton leaned back in his fake leather chair and was quiet as Scarpetta scanned paperwork on the other side of the small scarred desk.

  He loved the straight bridge of her nose, the strong lines of her jaw and cheekbones, and the deliberate but graceful way she moved when she did the slightest thing, such as turning a page. In his mind, she looked no different than the first time they’d met, when she’d appeared in the doorway of her conference room, her blond hair out of place, no makeup on, the pockets of her long white lab coat filled with pens, tissues, pink telephone slips for calls she had no time to return but somehow would.

  He’d recognized on the spot that for all of her strength and seriousness, she was thoughtful and kind. He’d seen it in her eyes during that first encounter, and he saw it in them now, even when she was preoccupied, even when he had hurt her yet again. He couldn’t imagine not having her, and felt a pang of hatred pierce him, hatred of Marino. What Benton had immersed himself in all of his adult life was now inside his home. Marino had let the enemy in, and Benton didn’t know how to make it leave.

  “What time did the police arrive at the scene? And why are you staring at me?” Scarpetta asked without looking up at him.

  “About quarter past six. I messed things up. Please don’t be angry with me.”

  “Notified how?” She turned a page.

  “Nine-one-one. He claims he found Terri’s body around five, but he didn’t call nine-one-one until six. Nine minutes past six, to be exact. The police were there within minutes. About five minutes.”

  When she didn’t answer him, he picked up a paper clip, started unbending it. He didn’t used to fidget.

  “They found the outer door locked,” he said. “There are three other apartments in the building, no one home, no doorman. The police couldn’t get into the building, but her apartment’s on the ground floor, so they went around to
the back, to the windows, and through a gap in the curtains they saw Oscar in the bathroom, cradling a woman’s body. She was covered by a blue towel. He was crying hysterically, holding her, stroking her. The cops rapped on the glass until they got his attention and he let them in.”

  He was talking in choppy sentences, his brain sluggish and slightly disorganized, probably because he was extremely stressed. He worked on the paper clip. He watched her.

  After a lengthy silence, she looked up at him and said, “Then what? Did he talk to them?”

  She’s comparing notes, he thought. Wants to line up what I know with what Oscar said to her. She’s being clinical, impersonal, because she’s not going to forgive me, he thought.

  “I’m sorry. Please don’t be angry with me,” he said.

  She held his gaze and said, “I’m wondering why she had nothing on but a bra and a robe. If a stranger was at her door, would she answer it like that?”

  “We can’t work through it now.” Benton meant their relationship, not the case. “Can we put it on a shelf?”

  It was the way they phrased it when private matters presented themselves in the wrong place, at the wrong time. Her lingering gaze and the way her eyes turned a deeper shade of blue told him she would. She would put it on a shelf for now because she loved him, even if he didn’t deserve it.

  “It’s a good question. The way she might have been dressed when she answered the door,” he said. “I have a few observations, when we get to that part.”

  “What exactly did Oscar do when the police were inside the apartment with him?” she asked.

  “He was sobbing, knees buckling, yelling. So insistent on returning to the bathroom that two officers had to hold on to him while they tried to get him to talk. He said he cut off the flex-cuff. It was on the bathroom floor near a pair of scissors he said he’d removed from the cutlery block in the kitchen.”

  “Did he call it a flex-cuff at the scene? Or is that what the police called it? Where did the term flex-cuff come from? It’s important we know who said it first.”

  “Don’t know.”

  “Well, someone knows.”

  Benton bent the paper clip into a figure-eight as what they’d placed on the shelf kept falling off. At some point they would talk, but talking didn’t fix broken trust any more than it fixes broken bones. Lies and more lies. The necessary axis of his life was lies, all well intended or professionally and legally necessary, which was why, in fact, Marino was a threat. The foundation of Marino’s relationship with her had never been lies. When he forced himself on her, he wasn’t showing contempt or hate or trying to humiliate. Marino was taking what he wanted when she wouldn’t give it, because it was the only way he could kill an unrequited love he could no longer survive. His betrayal of her was actually one of the most honest things he’d ever done.

  “And we don’t know what’s become of the ligature she was strangled with,” Benton said. “It appears the killer removed it from her neck after she was dead and left with it. Police suspect it was another flex-cuff.”

  “Based on?”

  “Would be unusual to bring two different types of ligatures to the scene,” Benton said.

  He worked the straightened paper clip back and forth until it broke.

  “And of course it’s assumed the killer brought the flex-cuff—or cuffs—with him. Not exactly the sort of thing most people have lying around the house.”

  “Why remove the flex-cuff from her neck and leave with it, and not bother with the one around her wrists? If that’s what happened,” she said.

  “We don’t know this person’s mind. Not much to go on except circumstances. I suspect it comes as no surprise to you they think Oscar did it.”

  “Based on?”

  “Either the killer had a key or she must have let him in, and as you pointed out, she was wearing a bathrobe, not much else. So let’s talk about that. Why was she so comfortable, so trusting? How did she know who was buzzing the outer door? There’s no camera, no intercom. The implication, in my opinion, is she was expecting someone. She unlocked the outer door after dark when the building was empty, then she unlocked her apartment door. Or someone did. Violent offenders love holidays. Lots of symbolism, and nobody’s around. If Oscar killed her, last night was an ideal time to do it and stage it as something else.”

  “That’s what the police believe happened, I assume you’re saying.”

  She’s making comparisons again, Benton thought. What does she know?

  “To them it makes the most sense,” he replied.

  “When the police arrived, was her apartment door locked or unlocked?”

  “Locked. Oscar locked the apartment door at some point after he was inside. What’s a little peculiar is after he called nine-one-one, he didn’t unlock the apartment building’s outer door, maybe prop it open. And he didn’t unlock the apartment door. I don’t know how he thought the police would get in.”

  “I don’t find that peculiar in the least. No matter what he did or didn’t do, he probably was afraid.”

  “Of what?”

  “If he didn’t kill her, he was likely afraid the killer might come back.”

  “How would the killer get back into the building? If he didn’t have a key?”

  “People don’t always think about every detail when they’re afraid. Your first impulse when you’re afraid is to lock the doors.”

  She’s checking out Oscar’s story. He must have told her he locked Terri’s apartment door because he was afraid.

  “What did he say when he called nine-one-one?” she asked.

  “I’ll let you listen for yourself,” Benton said.

  The CD was already in his computer, and he opened an audio file and turned up the volume:

  911 OPERATOR: “Nine-one-one, what is your emergency?”

  OSCAR (hysterical): “Yes! Police . . . ! My girlfriend . . . !”

  911 OPERATOR: “What’s the problem, sir?”

  OSCAR (almost inaudible): “My girlfriend . . . when I walked in . . . !”

  911 OPERATOR: “Sir, what’s the problem?”

  OSCAR (screaming): “She’s dead! She’s dead! Someone killed her! Someone strangled her!”

  911 OPERATOR: “She was strangled?”

  OSCAR: “Yes!”

  911 OPERATOR: “Do you know if the person who strangled her is still in the house?”

  OSCAR (crying, almost inaudible): “No . . . She’s dead . . . !”

  911 OPERATOR: “We have units en route. Just stay where you are, okay?”

  OSCAR (crying, unintelligible): “They . . .”

  911 OPERATOR: “They? Is someone with you?”

  OSCAR: “No . . .” (inaudible)

  911 OPERATOR: “Stay on the line. The police are almost there. What happened?”

  OSCAR: “I got here and she was on the floor . . .” (unintelligible)

  Benton closed the file and said, “Then he hung up and wouldn’t answer when the operator called him back. If he’d stayed on the line, it would have been easier and quicker for the police to get inside the apartment. Instead of them having to go around back and bang on the window.”

  “He sounded genuinely terrified and hysterical,” Scarpetta said.

  “So did Lyle Menendez when he called nine-one-one to report his parents had been murdered. And we know how that story ended.”

  “Just because the Menendez brothers—” she started to say.

  “I know. I know it doesn’t mean Oscar killed Terri Bridges. But we don’t know he didn’t,” Benton said.

  “And your explanation for why he said they? As if implying more than one person killed her?” Scarpetta asked.

  “His paranoia, obviously,” Benton said. “Which I do think he genuinely feels. But that isn’t necessarily to his advantage in terms of how the police view it. Paranoid people commit murder because of their paranoid delusions.”

  “And that’s what you’re really thinking?” Scarpetta said. “That basically this
is a domestic homicide?”

  She doesn’t believe it, Benton thought. She believes something else. What did Oscar say to her?

  He answered, “I can understand why the police think it. But I’d like some real evidence.”

  “What else do we know?”

  “What he said.”

  “At the scene or when he was in the detective’s car, Morales’s car?”

  “Oscar wasn’t cooperative with him once they were out of the apartment,” Benton said.

  He tossed the bits of paper clip into his wastepaper basket, and they binked against empty metal.

  “By that point,” Benton said, “all he wanted was to go to Bellevue. Said he wouldn’t talk unless it was to me. Then he demanded that you come here. And here we are.”

  He started on another paper clip. She watched him work on it.

  “What did he tell the police while he was still inside the apartment?” she asked.

  “Said when he arrived at the building, all the lights were out. He unlocked the outer door. Then he rang her apartment bell, and the door swung open and he was attacked by an intruder. Who quickly fled. Oscar locked the front door, turned on the lights, looked around, and found her body in the bathroom. He said there was no ligature around her neck, but he saw a reddish mark.”

  “And he knew she was dead, yet waited to call the police. Because? What was his reason, in your opinion?” Scarpetta asked.

  “He had no concept of time. He was beside himself. Who knows what’s true? But no probable cause for arrest. Doesn’t mean the cops weren’t more than happy to grant his request and lock him up. Doesn’t help he’s a muscle-bound dwarf who for the most part lives and works in cyberspace.”

  “You know about his profession. What else?”

  “We know everything about him except what he chooses not to tell us. How about you?” Maiming the paper clip. “Any thoughts?”

  “I can speak theoretically.”

  He gave her silence so she would fill it.

  “I’ve had numerous cases when the police weren’t called right away,” she said. “When the killer needed time to stage the crime scene to look like something else. Or whoever found the body attempted to cover up what really happened. Embarrassment, shame, life insurance. Asphyxiophilia, for example—sexual hanging that turns tragic and the person dies of asphyxiation. Usually accidental. Mother walks in, sees her son in black leather, a mask, chains, nipple clips. Maybe cross-dressing. He’s hanging from a rafter, pornography everywhere. She doesn’t want the world to remember her son like that and doesn’t call for help until she’s gotten rid of the evidence.”