Patricia Cornwell - The Scarpetta Factor

He called Alex Bachta’s cell phone again. This time the producer answered.

“I’m looking for Kay.” Benton didn’t bother saying hello.

“She left a few minutes ago, walked out with Carley,” Alex said.

“With Carley?” Benton said, baffled. “Are you sure?”

“Absolutely. They were leaving at the same time and walked out together.”

“Do you know where they were going?”

“You sound worried. Everything all right? Just so you know, the information about the yellow cab and Hannah-”

“I’m not calling about that,” Benton cut him off.

“Well, everybody else is. Not our idea. Carley’s on her own and she’ll have to stand by it. I don’t care what her source is. She’s accountable.”

Benton paced in front of the windows, not interested in Carley or her career. “Kay’s not answering her phone,” he said.

“I can try to reach Carley for you. Is there a problem?”

“Tell her I’m trying to get hold of Kay and it’s best they get in a cab.”

“Seems like a weird thing to say, considering. I don’t know if I’d recommend a cab right now,” Alex said, and Benton wondered if he was trying to be funny.

“I don’t want her walking. I’m not trying to alarm anybody,” Benton said.

“Then you are worried that this killer might come after-”

“You don’t know what I’m worried about, and I don’t want to waste time discussing it. I’m asking you to get hold of Kay.”

“Hold on. I’m going to try Carley right now,” Alex said, and Benton could hear him entering a number on a different phone, leaving Carley a voicemail: “… So call me ASAP. Benton ’s trying to reach Kay. I don’t know if you’re still with her. But it’s urgent.” He got back to Benton. “Maybe they forgot to turn their phones back on after the show.”

“Here’s the phone number for the concierge desk in our building,” Benton said. “They can put you through to me if you hear anything. And I’ll give you my cell.”

He wished Alex hadn’t used the word urgent. He gave him the numbers and thought about calling Marino next, sitting back down and dropping the phone in his lap, not wanting to talk to him or even hear his voice again tonight, but he needed his help. The lights of high-rises across the Hudson were mirrored in water along the shore, the river dark in the middle, a void, not even a barge in sight, an empty, frigid darkness, what Benton felt in his chest when he thought about Marino. Benton wasn’t sure what to do and for a moment did nothing. It angered him that whenever Scarpetta was at risk, Marino was the first person who came to mind, to anybody’s mind, as if he was appointed by some higher power to take care of her. Why? Why did he need Marino for anything?

Benton was still angry as hell, and it was at times like this that he felt it most. In some ways he felt it more than he had at the time of the incident. It would be two years this spring, a violation that in fact was criminal. Benton knew all about it, every gory detail, had faced it after it had happened. Marino drunk as hell and crazy, blamed it on booze and the sexual-performance drug he was taking, one factor added to another, didn’t matter. Everybody was sorry, couldn’t be sorrier. Benton had handled the situation with grace and facility, certainly with humanity, had gotten Marino into treatment, had gotten him a job, and by now Benton should be past it. But he wasn’t. It hung over him like one of those planes, bright and huge like a planet, not moving and maybe about to slam into him. He was a psychologist and he had no insight into why he couldn’t get out of the way or was in the same damn airspace to begin with.

“It’s me,” Benton said when Marino answered on the first ring. “Where are you?”

“In my shitcan apartment. You want to tell me what the hell just happened? Where did Carley Crispin get this shit? When Berger finds out, Jesus Christ. She’s on the helicopter and doesn’t know. Who the hell got to Carley? It’s not like she could just pull that info out of nowhere. Someone must have said something. Where the hell did she get the scene photograph? I’ve been trying to get hold of Bonnell. Big surprise, I’m getting voicemail. I’m sure she’s on her phone, probably the commissioner on down the line, everybody wanting to know if we got a serial murderer driving a cab in the city.”

Marino had been watching Scarpetta on The Crispin Report. That figured. Benton felt a twinge of resentment, then felt nothing. He wasn’t going to allow himself to sink into his dark pit.

“I don’t know what happened. Someone got to Carley, obviously. Maybe Harvey Fahley, maybe someone else. You sure Bonnell wouldn’t-” Benton started to say.

“Are you fucking kidding me? Like she’s going to leak details about her own case to CNN?”

“I don’t know her, and she was worried about the public not being warned.”

“Take it from me, she’s not going to be happy about this,” Marino said, as if he and Bonnell were new best friends.

“Are you near your computer?”

“Can be. Why? What does the Doc have to say?”

“I don’t know. She’s not home yet,” Benton said.

“You don’t know? How come you’re not with her?”

“I never go to CNN, never go over there with her. She doesn’t like it. You know how she is.”

“She walked over by herself?”

“It’s six blocks, Marino.”

“Doesn’t matter. She shouldn’t.”

“Well, she does. Every time, walks by herself, insists on it-has ever since she started appearing on shows more than a year ago. Won’t take a car service and won’t let me go with her, assuming I’m in the city the same time she is, and often I’m not.” Benton was rambling and sounded irritable. He was annoyed that he was explaining himself. Marino made him feel like a bad husband.

“One of us should be with her when she’s got live TV,” Marino said. “It’s advertised when she’s going to be on, advertised on their website, on commercials, days in advance. Someone could be outside the building waiting for her before or after. One of us should be with her, just like I do with Berger. When it’s live, it’s pretty damn obvious where people are and when.”

It was exactly what Benton was worried about. Dodie Hodge. She’d called Scarpetta on TV. Benton didn’t know where Dodie was. Maybe in the city. Maybe nearby. She didn’t live far from here. Just on the other side of the George Washington Bridge.

“I’ll tell you what. I’ll let you give Kay a lecture on security and see if she pays more attention to you than she does to me,” Benton was saying.

“Probably I should keep an eye on her without her knowing it.”

“A quick way to make her hate you.”

Marino didn’t respond, and he could have. He could say that Scarpetta didn’t have it in her to hate him or she would have hated him long before now. She would have begun hating him that spring night in Charleston a year and a half ago when Marino, drunk and enraged, had assaulted her inside her own home. But Benton was quiet. What he’d just said about hate seemed to linger, to hang like one of those planes not moving, and he was sorry he’d said it.

“Dodie Hodge,” Benton said. “The caller supposedly from Detroit. I can tell you the reason I know her name is she sent us an anonymous Christmas card. Sent one to Kay and me.”

“If that’s what you can tell me, then there’s other stuff you can’t tell me. Let me guess. From the land of fruit and nuts. Bellevue, Kirby, McLean ’s. One of your patients, explaining why she’d supposedly read some article you wrote about the shitty clearance rate. All true, though. Another twenty years, nothing will get solved. Everybody will live in forts with machine guns.”