Patricia Cornwell - The Scarpetta Factor

“Historically, cops don’t wear seat belts for a reason,” he replied. “Going back to the beginning of time, cops don’t wear them. You don’t wear your belt and you never have the interior light on. Why? Because the only thing worse than having some drone open fire on you while you’re belted inside your car is to be belted in and have the interior light on so the asshole can see you better.”

“I can give you statistics,” Scarpetta said, looking out her window and kind of quiet. “All the dead people who might have been okay if they’d had their belts on. Not sure I can give you a single example of someone who ended up dead because he did have his belt on.”

“What about if you go off an embankment and end up in the river?”

“You don’t have your belt on, maybe your head hits the windshield. Knocking yourself out isn’t very helpful if you’re submerged in water. Benton just got a phone call from the FBI,” she said. “I don’t guess anybody might tell me what’s going on.”

“Maybe he knows, because I sure as hell don’t.”

“You heard from them?” she asked, and Marino sensed she was sad.

“Not even fifteen minutes ago while I was on my way to pick you up. Did Benton say anything? Was it a profiler named Lanier?” Marino turned onto Park Avenue and was reminded of Hannah Starr.

The Starrs’ mansion wasn’t too far from where he and Scarpetta were headed.

“He was on the phone when I left,” she said. “All I know is he was talking to the FBI.”

“So he didn’t say nothing about what she wanted.” He assumed it was Marty Lanier, that she’d called Benton after talking with Marino.

“I don’t know the answer. He was on the phone when I left,” she repeated.

She didn’t want to talk about something. Maybe she and Benton had been arguing, or maybe she was edgy and down in the dumps because of her stolen BlackBerry.

“I’m not connecting the dots here,” Marino went on, couldn’t help himself. “Why would they call Benton? Marty Lanier’s an FBI profiler. Why does she need to call a former FBI profiler?”

It gave him secret pleasure to say it out loud, to put a dent in Benton ’s shiny armor. He wasn’t FBI anymore. He wasn’t even a cop.

“ Benton ’s been involved in a number of cases that have to do with the FBI.” She wasn’t defensive about it and was talking quietly and somberly. “But I don’t know.”

“You’re saying the FBI asks his advice?”

“On occasion.”

Marino was disappointed to hear it. “That’s surprising. I thought him and the Bureau hated each other.” As if the Bureau was a person.

“He isn’t consulted because he’s former FBI. He’s consulted because he’s a respected forensic psychologist, has been very active in offering his assessments and opinions in criminal cases in New York and elsewhere.”

She was looking at Marino from the darkness of the passenger seat, the torn headliner sagging just inches from her hair. He should just order foam-backed cloth and high-temperature glue and replace the damn thing.

“All I can say for sure is it has to do with the tattoo.” He retreated from the subject of Benton. “While I was at RTCC, I suggested we cast a wider net and search more than the NYPD data warehouse because we got zip on the tattoo, the skulls, the coffin, on that guy’s neck. We did get something on Dodie Hodge. In addition to being arrested in Detroit last month, I found a TAB summons that involved her causing a disturbance on a city bus here in New York, telling someone to FedEx himself to hell. Well, kind of interesting, since the card she sent Benton was in a FedEx envelope, and the guy with the tattoo who delivered your FedEx package had on a FedEx cap.”

“Isn’t that a little bit like connecting mail because it all has postage stamps?”

“I know. It’s probably a stretch,” Marino said. “But I can’t help but wonder if there’s a connection between him and this mental patient who sent you a singing Christmas card and then called you on live TV. And if so, I’m going to be worried because guess what? The guy with the tattooed neck ain’t a candidate for a good citizenship award if he’s in the FBI’s database, right? He’s in there because he’s been arrested or is wanted for something somewhere, possibly a federal crime.”

He slowed down, the Hotel Elysée’s red awning up ahead on the left.

Scarpetta said, “I disabled my password on the BlackBerry.”

It didn’t sound like something she’d do. He didn’t know what to say at first and realized she felt embarrassed. Scarpetta was almost never embarrassed.

“I get sick and tired of having to unlock it all the time, too.” He could sympathize up to a point. “But no way I wouldn’t have a password.” He didn’t want to sound critical, but what she’d done wasn’t smart. It was hard for him to imagine she’d be that careless. “So, what’s up with that?”

He started getting nervous as he thought of his own communications with her. E-mails, voicemails, text messages, copies of reports, photographs from the Toni Darien case, including those he’d taken inside her apartment, and his commentary.

“I mean, you’re saying Carley could have looked at everything on your friggin’ BlackBerry? Shit,” he said.

“You wear glasses,” Scarpetta said. “You always have your glasses on. I wear reading glasses and don’t always have them on. So imagine when I’m walking all over my building or walking outside to pick up a sandwich and need to make a call and can’t see to type in the damn password.”

“You can make the font bigger.”

“This damn present from Lucy makes me feel ninety years old. So I disabled the password. Was it a good idea? No. But I did it.”

“You tell her?” Marino said.

“I was going to do something about it. I don’t know what I was going to do. I guess I was going to try to adapt, put the password back, and didn’t get around to it. I didn’t tell her. She can remotely delete everything on it, and I don’t want her to do that yet.”

“Nope. You get it back and nothing on it links the BlackBerry to you except the serial number? I can still charge Carley with a felony because the value’s over two-fifty. But I’d rather make it a bigger deal than that.” He’d given it a lot of thought. “If she stole data, I’ve got more to work with. All the shit you got on your BlackBerry? Now maybe we make a case for identity theft, a class-C felony, maybe I show intent, make a case for her planning on selling information from the medical examiner’s office, making a profit by going public with it. Maybe we give her a nervous breakdown.”

“I hope she doesn’t do something stupid.”

Marino wasn’t sure who Scarpetta meant: Carley Crispin or Lucy.

“If there’s no data on your phone,” he started to reiterate.

“I told her not to nuke it. To use her term.”

“Then she won’t,” Marino said. “Lucy’s an experienced investigator, a forensic computer expert who used to be a federal agent. She knows how the system works, and she probably knows you weren’t using your damn password, too. Since she set up a network on a server, and don’t ask me to speak her jargon about what she set up to supposedly do us a favor. Anyway, she’s coming here to bring the warrant by.”

Scarpetta was quiet.

“What I’m saying is she probably could check and know about your password, right?” Marino said. “She could know you quit using one, right? I’m sure she checks stuff like that, right?”

“I don’t think I’m the one she’s been checking on of late,” Scarpetta answered.

Marino was beginning to realize why she was acting like something was eating at her, something besides her stolen smartphone or possibly a squabble with Benton. Marino didn’t comment, the two of them sitting in his beat-up car in front of one of the nicest hotels in New York City, a doorman looking at them and not venturing outside, leaving them alone. Hotel staff know a cop car when they see one.