Patricia Cornwell - The Scarpetta Factor

“I have the same information from RTCC that Marino does. You happen to notice Barstow ’s employment history?” Berger was asking Marino. “A couple of livery companies, a taxi driver, in addition to a lot of other jobs. Bartender, waiter. He worked for a taxi company as recently as 2007. Looks like he’s been doing a lot of things while going to school part-time, to Manhattan Community College, on and off for the past three years, based on what I’m seeing.”

Bonnell had gotten up and flipped open a notepad, was standing next to Marino.

She said, “Trying to get his associate’s degree in video arts and technology. Plays bass guitar, used to play in a band, would like to get involved in producing rock concerts, and still hoping for his big break in the music business.”

Reading her notes, her thigh touching Marino.

“Of late, he’s been working part-time at a digital production company,” she went on, “doing odd jobs, mostly working the desk, being a runner, what he called a production assistant and I’d call a gopher. He’s twenty-eight. I talked to him about fifteen minutes. He said he only knew Toni because of any contact he might have with her in the building, that he-and I quote-had never dated her but had thought about asking her out.”

“Did you ask him directly if he’d ever dated her or thought about it?” Berger said. “Or did he volunteer it?”

“Volunteered it. Also volunteered that he hadn’t seen her for several days. He says he was in his apartment all last night, had a pizza sent in and watched TV because the weather was so bad and he was tired.”

“Offering a lot of alibis,” Berger said.

“It would be fair to conclude that, but also not unusual in cases like this. Everybody figures they’re a suspect. Or they have something going on in their lives they don’t want us to know about, if nothing else,” Bonnell replied, flipping pages. “Described her as friendly, someone who didn’t complain a lot, and he wasn’t aware of her being the party type or bringing people into the building, such as-and again I quote-a lot of guys. I noted he was extremely upset and scared. It doesn’t appear he’s a taxi driver now,” she added, as if the detail was important.

“We don’t know that as fact,” Berger said. “We don’t know that he doesn’t have access to taxicabs, what he might do off the books so he doesn’t pay taxes, for example, like a lot of the freelance drivers in the city, especially these days.”

“The red scarf looks similar to the one I removed from Toni’s neck,” Scarpetta said, and Marino imagined her sitting somewhere with Benton, looking at a computer screen, probably their apartment on Central Park West, not far from CNN. “Solid red, a bright red made of a high-tech fabric that’s thin but very warm.”

“That’s what it looks like she has on,” Berger said. “What these video clips and the text message on her mother’s phone seem to establish is she was alive yesterday when she left her building at one minute past seven and was still alive an hour later at around eight. Kay, you started to tell us you might have a different opinion about her time of death, different from what’s implied by these video clips, for example.”

“My opinion is that she wasn’t alive last night.” Scarpetta’s voice, even keel, as if what she’d just said shouldn’t surprise anyone.

“Then what did we just look at?” Bonnell asked, frowning. “An imposter? Someone else wearing her coat and entering her building? Someone who had keys?”

“Kay? Just so we’re clear? Now that you’ve seen the video clips? You still of the same opinion?” Berger asked.

“My opinion is based on my examination of her body, not video clips,” Scarpetta answered. “And her postmortem artifacts, specifically her livor and rigor mortis, place her time of death at much earlier than last night. As early as Tuesday.”

“Tuesday?” Marino was amazed. “As in day before yesterday?”

“It’s my opinion she received her head injury at some point on Tuesday, possibly in the afternoon, several hours after she ate a chicken salad,” Scarpetta said. “Her gastric contents were partially digested romaine lettuce, tomatoes, and chicken meat. After she was struck in the head, her digestion would have quit, so the food remained undigested as she died, which I think took a little time, possibly hours, based on the vital response to her injury.”

“She had lettuce and tomatoes in her refrigerator,” Marino remembered. “So maybe she ate her last meal in her apartment. You sure that couldn’t have happened when she was in there last night, when it appears she was there for an hour? During that interval we just watched on the video clip?”

“Would make sense,” Bonnell said. “She ate, and several hours later, at nine or ten o’clock, let’s say, she was out and was assaulted.”

“It wouldn’t make sense. What I saw when I examined her indicates that she wasn’t alive last night, and it’s very unlikely she was alive yesterday.” Scarpetta’s calm voice.

She almost never sounded flustered or sharp and never was a smart ass, and she sure as hell had a right to sound any way she wanted. After all the years Marino had worked with her, most of his career in one city or another, it was his experience that if a dead body told her something, it was true. But he was having a hard time with what she was saying. It didn’t seem to make any sense.

“Okay. We’ve got a lot to discuss,” Berger spoke up. “One thing at a time. Let’s focus on what we’ve just seen on these video clips. Let’s just assume the figure in the green coat isn’t an imposter, is in fact Toni Darien, and that she also text-messaged her mother last night.”

Berger didn’t buy what Scarpetta was saying. Berger thought Scarpetta was mistaken, and incredibly, Marino wondered it, too. It entered his mind that maybe Scarpetta had started believing her own legend, really thought she could figure out the answer to anything and was never wrong. What was that phrase CNN used all the time? The exaggerated way her crime-busting abilities were described? The Scarpetta Factor. Shit, Marino thought. He’d seen it happen time and again, people believe their own press and quit doing the real work, and then they fuck up and make fools of themselves.

“The question is,” Berger continued, “where was Toni after she left her apartment building?”

“Not at work,” Marino said, trying to remember if Scarpetta ever made the kind of error that impeaches an expert, gets a case ruined in court.

He couldn’t think of a single example. But she didn’t used to be famous and on TV all the time.

“Let’s start with work, with High Roller Lanes.” Berger’s voice was strong and loud over speakerphone. “Marino, let’s start with you and Detective Bonnell.”

Marino was disappointed when Bonnell got up and moved to the other side of the desk. He made a drinking motion, maybe she could bring out the Diet Cokes. He had a different feeling as he looked at her, noting the color in her cheeks, the brightness of her eyes, how energized she seemed. He could feel her against his arm even though she was nowhere near him, could feel the firm roundness, the weight of her against him, and he imagined what she looked like, what she would feel like, and he was attentive and awake in a way he hadn’t been in a while. She had to know what she was doing when she was brushing against him.

“First off, let me describe the place because it’s not your typical bowling alley,” he said.

“More like something out of Vegas,” Bonnell said, opening a paper bag, getting out two Diet Cokes, handing one to him, her eyes touching his briefly, like sparks.

“Right,” Marino said as he opened the can, Diet Coke spurting up and running over, dripping on his desk. He mopped up the mess with several sheets of paper, wiped his hands on his pants. “Definitely a place for high-roller bowlers. Neon lights, movie screens, leather couches, and a glitzy lounge with a huge mirrored bar. Twenty-something lanes, pool tables, a damn dress code. You can’t go in there looking like a bum.”