Patricia Cornwell - The Scarpetta Factor

“No FedEx uniform,” Scarpetta observed. “Plain dark pants, black boots, and a black coat buttoned up to his neck. And gloves, and I think Ross was right. I think I see a hint of fur, could be lined with something like rabbit fur.”

“Still nothing ringing any bells,” Lobo said.

“Not for me,” Benton said.

“Or me,” Scarpetta agreed.

“Well, whoever he is, he’s either the messenger or the sender, and the question of the night is if you know of anybody who might want to hurt you or threaten you,” Lobo said to her.

“Specifically, I don’t.”

“What about in general?”

“In general it could be anyone,” she said.

“What about any unusual fan mail, communications sent to your office in Massachusetts or to the ME’s office here? Maybe to CNN?”

“Nothing comes to mind.”

“Something comes to my mind,” Benton said. “The woman who called you on the show tonight. Dodie.”

“Exactly,” Marino said.

“Exactly?” Lobo said.

“Dodie Hodge, possibly a former patient at McLean ’s.” Marino always got the name of the hospital wrong. There was no apostrophe S, never had been. “Didn’t run her through the RTCC yet because I got interrupted by the Doc’s little incident.”

“I don’t know her,” Scarpetta said, and the reminder of the caller who had mentioned Benton by name, referring to some article he’d never written, sent another wave of queasiness through her.

She turned around and said to Benton, “I’m not going to ask.”

“I can’t say anything,” he answered.

“Allow me, since I don’t give a shit about protecting nutcases,” Marino said to her. “This particular lady checks out of McLean’s, and Benton gets a singing Christmas card from her, which is also addressed to you, and next thing you get called on live TV and a package is delivered.”

“Is this true?” Lobo asked Benton.

“Can’t verify any of it, and I never said she was a patient at McLean.”

“You going to tell us she wasn’t?” Marino pushed.

“I’m not going to tell you that, either.”

“Okay,” Lobo said. “How ’bout this. Do we know if this patient, Dodie Hodge, is in this area, maybe in the city right now?”

“Maybe,” Benton said.

“Maybe?” Marino said. “Don’t you think we should be told if she is?”

“Unless we know she’s actually done something illegal or is a threat,” Benton started to say. “You know how it works.”

“Oh, geez. Regulations that protect everybody but innocent people,” Marino said. “Yeah, I know how it works. Whack jobs and juveniles. These days you got eight-year-old kids shooting people. But by all means protect their confidentiality.”

“How was the singing card delivered?” Lobo asked.

“FedEx.” Benton said that much. “I’m not saying there’s no connection. I’m not saying there is. I don’t know.”

“We’ll check with CNN, trace the call Dodie Hodge made to the show,” Lobo said. “See where she made it from. And I need a recording of the show, and we’re going to want to find her, talk to her. She ever give you any reason to worry she might be dangerous?” he asked Benton. “Never mind. You can’t talk about her.”

“No, I can’t.”

“Good. When she blows somebody up, maybe then,” Marino said.

“We don’t know who left the package, except that it’s a black male with a tattoo on his neck,” Benton said. “And we don’t know what’s in the package. We don’t know for a fact it’s some sort of explosive device.”

“We know enough to make me uncomfortable,” Lobo said. “What we saw on x-ray. Some wires, button batteries, a microswitch, and what really disturbs me, a small transparent container, sort of like a test tube with some type of stopper in it. No radiation detected, but we didn’t use any other detection equipment, didn’t want to get that close.”

“Great,” Marino said.

“Did you smell anything?” Scarpetta asked.

“I didn’t approach it,” Lobo said. “Those of us who went to your floor worked out of the stairwell, and the tech who entered your apartment was fully contained in the bomb suit. She wasn’t going to smell anything unless the odor was really strong.”

“You going to deal with it tonight?” Marino asked. “So maybe we know what the hell’s in it?”

“We don’t render things safe at night. Droiden, who’s also a Hazmat tech, is en route to Rodman’s Neck, should be there shortly for the transfer from the TCV to a day box. She’ll use detectors to determine if there’s a possibility of chemical, biological, radiological, or nuclear contamination, if something’s off-gassing that they can safely pick up. Like I said, no radiation alarms went off and no evidence of a white powder, but we don’t know. On x-ray we did see a vial-like shape that obviously could have something in it, which is of concern. The package will be locked up in a day box, and we’ll take care of it first thing in the morning, render it safe so we can see what we’re dealing with.”

“You and I will be talking,” Marino said to Lobo as he got out of the car. “I’ll probably be at RTCC all night, seeing what I can find on this Dodie whack job and the tattoo and anything else that comes up.”

“Good deal.” Lobo shut the door.

Scarpetta watched him walk off toward a dark-blue SUV. She slipped her hands in her pockets for her phone, and was reminded it wasn’t her coat and she didn’t have her BlackBerry.

“We need to make sure Lucy doesn’t hear about this on the news or see a briefing on OEM,” she said.

The Office of Emergency Management published constant updates on the Internet, and personnel with a need to know had access to briefings on everything from missing manhole covers to homicides. If Lucy saw that the bomb squad had been dispatched to Central Park West, she would be unnecessarily worried.

“Last I checked they were still in the air,” Marino said. “I can call her on the helicopter phone.”

“We’ll call when we get inside.” Benton wanted to get out of the car. He wanted to get away from Marino.

“Don’t call the helicopter phone. She doesn’t need to be distracted while she’s flying,” Scarpetta said.

“Tell you what,” Marino decided. “Why don’t the two of you go inside and try to relax and I’ll get hold of them. I got to tell Berger what’s going on anyway.”

Scarpetta thought she was fine until Benton opened their apartment door.

“Dammit,” she exclaimed, taking off the ski jacket and throwing it down on a chair, suddenly so angry she was tempted to yell.

The police had been considerate, not so much as a dirty footprint on the hardwood floor, her handbag undisturbed on the narrow table in the entryway where she’d left it before heading over to CNN. But the millefiori sculpture she’d watched a master glass artisan make on the Venetian island of Murano had been returned to the wrong spot. It wasn’t on the coffee table but on the stone-top sofa table, and she pointed this out to Benton, who didn’t say a word. He knew when to be silent, and this was one of those times.

“There are fingerprints on it.” She held the sculpture up to the light, showing him discernible ridges and furrows, whorls and a tented arc, identifiable patterns of minutiae on the bright-colored glass rim. Evidence of a crime.

“I’ll clean it,” he said, but she wouldn’t give it to him.

“Someone didn’t have gloves on.” She furiously wiped the glass with the hem of her silk blouse. “It must have been the bomb tech. Bomb techs don’t wear gloves. What’s her name. Ann. She didn’t have on gloves. She picked it up and moved it.” As if the bomb tech named Ann was a burglar. “What else did they touch in here, in our apartment?”