Patricia Cornwell - The Scarpetta Factor

“Even better.”

“I got to admit I almost quit. I really thought about it.” He picked up where he’d left off in his story. “The first time I was showed this office, I was like, you got to be shitting me.”

He’d honestly thought Jaime Berger was joking, that the number over the door was the usual sick humor of people in criminal justice. It had even occurred to him that maybe she was rubbing his nose in the truth about why he’d ended up with her to begin with-that she’d hired him as a favor, was giving him a second chance after the bad thing he’d done. What a reminder every time he walked into his office. All those years he and Scarpetta had been together and then he hurt her like that. He was glad he didn’t remember much, had been fucked up, shitface drunk, had never meant to put his hands on her, to do what he did.

“I don’t consider myself superstitious,” he was telling Bonnell, “but I grew up in Bayonne, New Jersey. Went to Catholic school, was confirmed, was even an altar boy, which didn’t last long because I was always getting into fights, started boxing. Not the Bayonne Bleeder, probably wouldn’t have made it fifteen rounds with Mu hammad Ali, but I was a semifinalist in the National Golden Gloves one year, thought of turning pro, became a cop instead.” Making sure she knew a few things about him. “It’s never been contested by anyone that six-six-six is the symbol of the Beast, a number to be avoided at all costs. And I always have, whether it’s an address, a post office box, a license plate, the time of day.”

“The time of day?” Bonnell questioned, and Marino couldn’t tell if she was amused, her demeanor difficult to anticipate or decipher. “There’s no such time as sixty-six minutes past six,” she said.

“Six minutes past six on the sixth day of the month, for example.”

“Why won’t she move you? Isn’t there some other place you can work?” Bonnell dug into her pocketbook and pulled out a thumb drive, tossing it to him.

“This everything?” Marino plugged it into his computer. “Apartment, crime scene, and WAV files?”

“Except the pictures you took when you were there today.”

“I got to download them from my camera. Nothing all that important. Probably nothing you didn’t get when you were there with the CSU guys. Berger says I’m on the sixth floor and my office is the sixty-sixth one in sequence. I told her yeah, well, it’s also in the book of Revelation.”

“Berger’s Jewish,” Bonnell said. “She doesn’t read the book of Revelation.”

“That’s like saying if she doesn’t read the paper nothing happened yesterday.”

“It’s not like that. Revelation isn’t about something that happened.”

“It’s about something that’s going to happen.”

“Something that’s going to happen is a prediction or wishful thinking or a phobia,” Bonnell said. “It’s not factual.”

His desk phone rang.

He snapped it up and said, “Marino.”

“It’s Jaime. I think we have everybody.” Jaime Berger’s voice.

Marino said, “We were just talking about you.” He was watching Bonnell, found it hard not to look at her. Maybe because she was unusually big for a woman, super deluxe in every department.

“Kay? Benton? Everybody still on?” Berger said.

“We’re here.” Benton sounded far away.

“I’m putting you on speakerphone,” Marino said. “I’ve got Detective Bonnell from Homicide with me.” He pushed a button on his phone and hung up. “Where’s Lucy?”

“At the hangar, getting the helicopter prepped. Hopefully we’ll be flying out in a few hours,” Berger said. “The snow’s finally stopped. If all of you go into your e-mail, you should find two files she sent before she headed out to the airport. Following Marino’s advice, we’ve gotten analysts at the Real Time Crime Center to log in to the server that operates the surveillance camera outside Toni Darien’s apartment building. I’m sure all of you know that NYPD has an agreement with several of the major CCTV security camera providers so it can access surveillance recordings without tracking down system administrators for passwords. Toni’s building happens to be covered by one of these providers, so RTCC was able to access the network video server and has gone through some of the recordings in question, focusing as a matter of priority on this past week and comparing images with recent photos of Toni, including her driver’s license photo, and photos of her on Facebook, MySpace. Amazing what’s out there. The file called Recording One, we’ll start with that. I’ve already looked at it, and also the second file, and what I’ve seen corroborates information received several hours ago that we’ll discuss in more detail in a few minutes. You should be able to download the video and open it. So let’s do that now.”

“We’ve got it.” Benton ’s voice, and he didn’t sound friendly. Never did these days.

Marino found the e-mail Berger was talking about and opened the video clip as Bonnell got up from her chair and came around to watch it, squatting next to him. There was no audio, just images of traffic in front of Toni Darien’s brick building on Second Avenue, cars, taxis, and buses in the background, people walking past, dressed for the rainy winter weather, some of them holding umbrellas, oblivious to the camera that was recording them.

“Right about now she’s coming into view.” Berger always sounded like she was in charge, even if she was just talking normally, didn’t matter about what. “In a dark-green parka with fur trim around the hood. She’s wearing the hood up and has black gloves on and a red scarf. A black shoulder bag, black pants, and running shoes.”

“Be good to get a close-up of the running shoes.” Scarpetta’s voice. “To see if they’re the same ones she had on when she was found this morning. Asics Gel-Kayano, white with a red lightning flash and red accents on the heel collar. Size nine and a half.”

“The shoes in this, whitish with some red,” Marino said, aware of how close Bonnell was to him. He could feel her warmth next to his leg, next to his elbow.

The figure in the green parka was captured from the back, her face not visible because of where she was in relation to the camera and because of the fur-trimmed hood. She turned right and skipped up the wet front steps of the apartment building and already had her keys out, suggesting to Marino that she was organized and gave thought to what she was doing, was aware of her surroundings and security-conscious. She unlocked the door and disappeared inside. The time stamp on the video was five-forty-seven p.m., December 17, yesterday. Then a pause, and another recording of the same figure in the green parka with the hood up, the same large black bag over her shoulder, coming out of the building and going down the steps, turning right and walking off in the rainy night. The time stamp was seven-oh-one p.m., December 17.

“I’m curious.” It was Benton talking. “Since we can’t see her face, how do the analysts at RTCC know who it is?”

“I wondered the same thing,” Berger said. “But I believe it’s because of earlier images that obviously are her-ones you’ll see shortly. According to RTCC, what we’re looking at now is the last image of her, the last time she’s recorded entering or leaving her building. It appears she returned to her apartment and was there for a little more than an hour, then left. The question is, where was she after that?”

“I should add,” and it was Scarpetta talking, “that the time on the text message Grace Darien received from Toni’s cell phone was approximately an hour after this second video clip. At around eight p.m.”

“I left Mrs. Darien a voicemail,” Marino said. “We’ll get the phone from her so we can see what else is on it.”