Patricia Cornwell - The Scarpetta Factor

Scarpetta’s conversational French wasn’t good, but she could read it fairly well. She scanned a letter from a committee member of the Global Consciousness Project, thanking Agee for agreeing to participate in a discussion on the use of scientific tools in looking for structure in random data during major global events, such as 9/11. The committee member was pleased that he would be seeing Agee again and wondered if his research in psychokinesis was still encountering difficulties in replicating its findings. The problem, of course, is the raw material of human subjects and the legal and ethical constraints, she translated.

“Why are you thinking about killing and dying?” she asked Lucy. “Who do you want to kill, and do you wish you were dead?” she said, and again was answered by silence. “You’d better tell me, Lucy. I intend to stay in this room with you for as long as it takes.”

“Hannah,” Lucy answered.

“You want to kill Hannah Starr?” Scarpetta glanced up at her. “Or you did kill her or you wish she was dead?”

“I didn’t kill her. I don’t know if she’s dead and don’t care. I just want her punished. I want to do it personally.”

Agee had written the committee member back in French: While it is true that human subjects are biased and as a result tend to be unreliable, this obstacle can be sidestepped if the subjects in a study are monitored in a way that obviates self-consciousness.

“Punished for what? What did she do to you that merits your personally taking care of it?” Scarpetta asked.

She opened another accordion file. More on parapsychology. Journal articles. Agee was fluent in French and prominent in the field of paranormal psychology, the study of the “seventh sense,” the science of the supernatural. The Paris-based Institute of Anomalous Psychology paid his expenses when he traveled and may have been supplying him with stipends and other fees, including grant monies. The Lecoq Foundation that funded the IAP was keenly interested in Agee’s work. There were repeated mentions of Monsieur Lecoq’s eagerness to meet with Agee and discuss their “mutual passions and interests.”

“She did something to you,” Scarpetta continued, and it wasn’t a question. Lucy must know Hannah. “What happened? Did you have an affair with her? Did you have sex with her? What?”

“I didn’t have sex with her. But…”

“But what? You either did or you didn’t. Where did you meet her?”

An abstract. Dans cet article, publié en 2007, Warner Agee, l’un des pionniers de la recherche en parapsychologie, en particulier l’expérience de mort imminente et de sortie hors du corps…

“She wanted me to try something, to start something, to make an overture,” Lucy said.

“A physical one.”

“She assumed everybody wanted to try something with her, to hit on her,” Lucy said. “I didn’t. She flirted. She flaunted it. We were alone. I thought Bobby was going to be there, but he wasn’t. It was just her, and she teased me. But I didn’t. The fucking bitch.”

Near-death and out-of-body experiences. People who die and come back to life with paranormal gifts and abilities: healing and mind over matter. The belief that thoughts can control our own bodies and influence physical systems and objects, Scarpetta kept reading… such as electronic devices, noise, and dice, in the same way that lunar phases can influence casino payout rates.

She asked Lucy, “So, what exactly did Hannah do that was so terrible?”

“I used to tell you about my financial planner.”

“The one you called the Money Man.”

Agee’s tax return for 2007. Income from a retirement fund but no other fees, yet it was clear from correspondence and other paperwork that he was getting money from somewhere or someone. Possibly from the Lecoq Foundation in Paris.

“Her father. Rupe Starr. He was the Money Man,” Lucy said. “From the beginning, when I wasn’t even twenty yet and started doing so well, he managed me. If it hadn’t been for him? Well, I might have given everything away, you know, I was just so happy inventing, dreaming, coming up with ideas I could execute. Creating something out of nothing and making people want it.”

2008. No trips to France. Agee was back and forth to Detroit. Where was he getting his cash?

“At one point I was doing some cool digital stuff that I thought might have promise for animation,” Lucy was saying, “and this person I’d gotten to know who worked for Apple gave me Rupe’s name. You probably know that he was one of the most well-respected and successful money managers on Wall Street.”

“I’m wondering why you felt you could never talk to me about him or your money,” Scarpetta said.

“You didn’t ask.”

What was in Detroit besides the failing auto industry? Scarpetta picked up Lucy’s MacBook.

“I must have asked.” But she couldn’t think of an occasion when she had.

“You didn’t,” Lucy said.

Googling the Lecoq Foundation and finding nothing. Googling Monsieur Lecoq and finding only the expected multiple references to the nineteenth-century French detective novel by Émile Gabo riau. Scarpetta couldn’t find any reference to a real person named Monsieur Lecoq who was a wealthy philanthropist invested in paranormal psychology.

“And you certainly don’t hesitate to interrogate me about anything else that comes to your mind,” Lucy continued. “But you never asked me any specifics about my finances, and if I mentioned the Money Man, you didn’t even ask about him.”

“Maybe I was afraid.” Scarpetta reflected on that sad probability. “So I shied away from the subject by rationalizing that I shouldn’t pry.”

Googling Motor City Casino Hotel and the Grand Palais in Detroit. Receipts from both hotels over the past few years but no evidence Agee had ever stayed in either of them. Doing what? Gambling? Was he a gambler and got rooms comped, perhaps? How could he afford to be a gambler? A piece of paper from a personalized memo pad: From the Desk of Freddie Maestro and what looked like a PIN and City Bank of Detroit and an address written with a felt-tip pen. Why was the name Freddie Maestro familiar? Was the PIN for an ATM?

“Right,” Lucy said. “You can talk about dead bodies and sex but not about someone’s net worth. You can dig through some dead person’s pockets and dresser drawers and personal files and receipts but not ask me very basic questions about how I make my living and who I’m in business with. You never asked me,” Lucy emphasized. “I figured you didn’t want to know because you believed I was doing something illegal. Stealing or cheating the government, so I let it go because I sure as hell wasn’t going to defend myself to you or anyone.”

“I didn’t know because I didn’t want to know.” Scarpetta’s own insecurity because she’d grown up poor. “Because I wanted a level playing field.” Her own inadequacy because she was powerless when she was a child and her family had no money and her father was dying. “And I can’t compete with you when it comes to making money. I’m pretty good at holding on to what I’ve got, but I’ve never had the Midas touch or been in the business of business for the sake of business. I’m not particularly good at it.”

“Why would you want to compete with me?”

“That’s my point. I didn’t. I wouldn’t because I can’t. Maybe I was afraid of losing your respect. And why would you respect my business acumen? If I’d been a brilliant businesswoman, I wouldn’t have gone to law school, to med school, spent twelve years of postgraduate education so I could earn less than a lot of Realtors or car salesmen.”

“If I was such a brilliant businesswoman we wouldn’t be having this conversation,” Lucy said.