Four Scarpetta Novels

by Patricia Cornwell

  “Most important, I want to know for a fact that Jean-Baptiste Chandonne is still on death row in Texas and is scheduled to get the needle on May seventh,” Lucy says.

  “No kidding,” Manham mutters, repeatedly clicking a pen, a nervous habit that annoys all who know him.

  “Zach?” Berger cocks an eyebrow, staring at the pen.

  “Sorry.” He slides it into the breast pocket of his starched white shirt. “Unless you two need me, I’ve got some calls to make.” He looks at both of them.

  “We’re fine. Will fill you in later,” Lucy says. “And if anybody calls looking for me, the word is that nobody knows where I am.”

  “Not ready to come up for air?” Manham smiles.

  “No.”

  He leaves, the muffled sound of the heavily padded door barely audible.

  “And Rudy?” Berger asks. “Hopefully in his apartment, taking a shower or a nap? Looks like you should be doing the same.”

  “Nope. We’re both working. He’s in his office down the hall, lost in cyberspace. Rudy the Internet junkie, which is a good thing. He has more search engines running all over the universe than England has tubes.”

  “For me to get a search warrant to have Chandonne swabbed for DNA,” Berger says, “I have to show probable cause, Lucy. And a taped phone call not only isn’t going to do it, but I’m not sure how much you want leaked outside this office. Especially since we really don’t know what the phone call means . . .”

  “Nothing,” Lucy interrupts. “You know that’s all I ever want leaking outside this office. Absolutely nothing.”

  “The unforgivable sin.” Berger smiles, her eyes touched by a gentle sadness as she looks at Lucy’s stern, determined face, a face still smooth and bright with youth, a face with sensuously full lips the hue of dark red earth.

  If it is true that people begin to die the day they are born, then Lucy seems an exception. She is an exception to all things human, it often seems to Berger, and for this reason alone, she fears that Lucy will not live long. She envisions her compelling young face and strong body on top of a stainless-steel autopsy table, a bullet through her brain, and no matter how she struggles to strike that image from her imagination, she can’t.

  “Disloyalty, even born of weakness, is the unforgivable sin,” Lucy agrees, puzzled and unsettled by the way Berger is looking at her. “What’s the matter, Jaime? You think we’ve got a leak? Jesus, it’s what I have nightmares about. The nightmare I live with. I fear it more than death.” She is getting riled up. “I catch anybody betraying . . . well, one Judas in this organization, and we’re all cooked. And so I have to be hard.”

  “Yes, you’re hard, Lucy.” Berger gets up, barely glancing at Chandonne’s captured voice patterns on the monitor. “We have an active unsolved case here in New York: Susan Pless.”

  Lucy gets up, too, her eyes intense on Berger’s, anticipating what she’s about to say next.

  “Chandonne is charged with her murder, and you know all the reasons why I gave in, folded up my tent, decided not to prosecute and let Texas have him instead.”

  “Because of the death penalty,” Lucy says.

  THE TWO OF THEM PAUSE by the soundproof door, monitors glowing, images from closed-circuit cameras flashing from one to the next, and small, bright lights winking white, green and red, as if Lucy and Berger are in the cockpit of a spacecraft.

  “I knew he’d be sentenced to death in Texas, and he was. May seventh,” Berger mutters. “But no death penalty for him here, never in New York.”

  She stuffs her legal pad inside her briefcase and snaps it shut. “One of these days the DA might allow the needle, but probably not during my tenure. But I suppose the question now, Lucy, is do we want Chandonne to die? And more to the point, do we want whoever’s in his cell in Polunsky to be executed when we can’t be certain who that person is, now that we’ve gotten these communications from the infamous Loup-Garou?”

  Berger says we, although she has gotten no communication from Jean-Baptiste Chandonne. As far as Lucy knows, only she, Marino and Scarpetta have: letters, and now a phone call that seems to have been made from the Upper East Side of Manhattan, unless technology has failed or human programmers have.

  “No judge is going to grant me a court order to get his DNA,” Berger says again in her usual, calm, self-assured tone. “Not without probable cause for a search warrant. I get it, and I’ll try to extradite him to New York and put him on trial for the murder of Susan Pless. Based on the DNA from his saliva, we’ll get a conviction even if we know that the seminal fluid in her vagina wasn’t his, was in fact Jay Talley’s, his twin brother’s. Chandonne’s attorney, Rocco Caggiano, is going to throw in every dirty trick he can think of if we bring this case back to life—so to speak.”

  Lucy avoids the subject of Rocco Caggiano. Her expression registers nothing. Waves of nausea roll through her again. She wills them to pass. I will not get sick, she silently orders herself.

  “I certainly would introduce Talley’s seminal fluid into evidence, and there the case gets dicey. The defense will argue that Jay Talley, now a fugitive, raped and murdered Susan, and all I can prove without a doubt is that Chandonne sank his teeth into her. In summary,” she is in courtroom mode, “hopefully, the donor of the seminal fluid will be of no consequence to jurors, who will be horrified that saliva found in bite marks virtually all over Susan’s upper body will prove that Chandonne tortured her. But I can’t prove he murdered her or that she was even alive when he started biting her.”

  “Shit,” Lucy says.

  “Maybe he gets convicted. Maybe the jurors believe she suffered extreme physical pain, that the murder was vicious and wanton. It’s possible he would get the death penalty, but it’s never carried out in New York. So, if convicted, he’d probably get life without possibility of parole, and then we have to live with him until he dies in prison.”

  Lucy places her hand on the doorknob and leans against thick acoustic foam rubber padding. “I’ve always wanted him dead.”

  “And I was glad he ended up in Texas,” Berger replies. “But I also want his DNA so we know for a fact that he isn’t roaming the streets somewhere, his eyes on his next victim . . .”

  “Which could be one of us,” Lucy says.

  “Let me make some calls. The first step is for me to tell a judge I intend to reopen Susan Pless’s murder and want a court order for Chandonne’s DNA. Then I’ll contact the governor of Texas. Without his sanction, Chandonne’s not going anywhere. I know enough about Governor Corley to expect serious obstinance on his part, but at least I think he’ll listen to me. It does his state proud to free the Earth of murderers. I’ll have to make a deal with him.”

  “Nothing like justice to help them out at election time,” Lucy says cynically as she opens the door.

  MID-MORNING IN POLAND, a maintenance worker named George Skrzypek is sent to room 513 of the Radisson Hotel to fix a stuck drain in a bathtub that is causing an unpleasant odor.

  He knocks on the door and calls out “maintenance” several times. When no one answers, he lets himself in, noticing right away that the guests have checked out, leaving a bed of tangled sheets spotted with seminal fluid and numerous empty wine bottles and ashtrays filthy with cigarette butts on the bedside tables.

  The closet door is open, coat hangers on the floor, and when he walks into the bathroom with his box of tools, he discovers the usual mess of toothpaste crusted on the sink and splattered on the mirror. The toilet isn’t flushed, the tub filled with scummy water, and large flies crawl on a plate of partially eaten chocolates set on the counter next to the sink. Flies drone and butt against the light over the mirror and dive-bomb Skrzypek’s head.

  Pigs.

  So many people are pigs.

  He pulls on large rubber gloves and dips his hands into the cold, greasy bathwater, feeling for the drain. It is clogged with clumps of long black hair.

  Pigs.

  Water begins to drain from the tub. He
tosses the wet, matted hair into the toilet and waves flies away from his face, disgusted as he watches them moil over the plate of chocolates. Taking off his rubber gloves, he flaps them at the fat, black, filthy pests.

  Of course, flies are not exotic insects to him, and he sees them on the job, but never this many in a room and not this time of year when the weather is cool. He moves past the bed and notes the open window, a typical sight, even in the winter, because so many guests smoke. As he reaches to shut it, he notices another fly crawling on the sill. It lifts up like a dirigible and buzzes past him into the room. An odor seeps in with the outside air, a very faint odor that reminds him of sour milk or rotten meat. He sticks his head out the window. The stench is coming from the room directly to the right. Room 511.

  THE CAR IS PARKED AT a meter on East 114th Street in Harlem, within a block of Rao’s.

  In Benton’s former life, he could get a coveted table at Rao’s because he was FBI and had special status with the family who has owned the famous, if not notorious, Italian restaurant for a hundred years. It was a hangout for the mob, and there is no telling who dines there now. Celebrities frequent its few checked cloth–covered tables. Cops love the place. The mayor of New York stays away. Parked on East 114th, in a beat-up black Cadillac that Benton bought for $2,500 cash, is probably as close to Rao’s as he will ever get again.

  He plugs a cell phone into the cigarette lighter, engine and air-conditioning running, doors locked, his scan never leaving the mirrors as he eyes rough people who have nothing better to do than walk the streets, looking for trouble. The billing address of this phone is the P.O. Box number of a woman in Washington who does not exist. The satellite location of where Benton’s call is made is of no consequence, and within two minutes, he hears U.S. Senator Frank Lord talking to a staff member who is unaware that the senator has activated mode two of his international cell phone and will now receive calls and actually transmit his conversation without any alert that can be detected by anyone other than himself.

  While the senator was testifying on live TV, he checked his watch and suddenly called for a break. Without touching the phone clipped on his belt, the caller—in this case, Benton—can hear everything the senator says.

  He hears muffled footsteps and voices.

  “. . . World’s greatest obstructionist body. If that isn’t the truth,” says Senator Lord, who is always reserved, but as tough as they come. “Damn Stevens.”

  “He’s raised filibuster to an art form, that’s certain,” another male voice sounds in Benton’s earpiece.

  When Benton left a text message on the Senator’s cell phone with the exact time he would make this call, it was the first time Benton had made any contact with him in almost a year. Senator Lord knows Benton is listening, unless he has forgotten or didn’t get the message. Doubts wrestle with Benton’s confidence. He tries to envision the senator, dressed as always in a crisp conservative suit, his posture as straight as a four-star general’s.

  But the remote one-sided meeting must be on track. The senator walked out of a hearing that was probably being aired live on C-SPAN. He wouldn’t do that without a good reason, and it would be coincidental, to say the least, if he just happened to step out at the precise time Benton let him know he would call the number in mode two.

  Also, it occurs to Benton with relief, the senator obviously has set his phone on mode two. Otherwise, Benton could not overhear his conversation. Don’t be stupid and so damn jumpy, he silently tells himself. You are not stupid. Senator Lord is not stupid. Think clearly.

  He is reminded of how much he misses seeing his old friends and acquaintances in the flesh. Hearing the voice of Senator Lord, Scarpetta’s trusted friend, a man who would do anything for her, tightens Benton’s throat. He clenches his hands, gripping his phone so tightly that his knuckles blanch.

  The man, probably a staff member, asks, “Can I get you something to drink?”

  “Not now,” Senator Lord says.

  Benton notices a muscular, bare-chested youth casually moving closer to his rusting, dented Cadillac, a hunk of junk so caked with Bondo, the car looks as if it has pigment disorder. Benton stares him down, a universal warning, and the youth veers off in another direction.

  “He’s not going to get appointed, sir,” the staff member replies, oblivious that every word he says is being broadcast to a Nokia cell phone in Harlem.

  “I’m always more optimistic than you are, Jeff. Things can turn around, surprise you,” says Senator Lord, the chairman of the Judiciary Committee and the most powerful politician in federal law enforcement, because he controls funding, and everything is about funding, even solving the most heinous crimes.

  “I want you to leave and call Sabat.” Senator Lord refers to Don Sabat, the director of the FBI. “Assure him he’ll get what he needs for his new cyber-crime unit.”

  “Yes, sir.” The staff member sounds surprised. “Well, you’ll make his day.”

  “He’s done all the right things and needs my help.”

  “I’m not sure I agree with you, Chairman, in the sense that we have some other pretty big issues, and this is going to set off a lot of . . .”

  “Thank you for taking care of it,” Senator Lord cuts him off. “I’ve got to get back in there and make these idiots think about people instead of damn political power games.”

  “And punishment. There are those who aren’t too fond of you.”

  The senator laughs. “Means I’m doing something right. Give Sabat my regards, tell him things are moving along well now, are in the works. Reassure him, I know he’s been unsettled. But we’ve really got to be diligent now, more than ever.”

  The line goes dead. Within hours, money will be wired into various accounts at The Bank of New York at Madison and 63rd, and Benton can begin withdrawals with bank cards issued in other fictitious names.

  INSIDE LUCY’S OFFICE, a light begins to flash on a computer. The news has hit the wire service. The infamous trial lawyer Rocco Caggiano appears to have committed suicide in a hotel in Poland, his body discovered by a maintenance worker who noticed a foul odor coming from one of the rooms.

  “How in the hell . . . ?” Lucy strikes a key to deactivate the flashing light. She clicks the mouse on Print.

  Search engines are her specialty, and a posse of them have been dedicated to finding any information that might be related to Rocco Caggiano. There is plenty. Rocco loved to read about himself, was a news hog, and every time Lucy has scanned some article about him or a client he represented, she has felt an uneasiness she has never experienced before. She can’t muster enough self-control to stop imagining Rudy helping Rocco shoot himself in the head.

  Pointed up.

  The barrel should be pointed up.

  A tip she learned from her Aunt Kay, whose reaction Lucy can’t imagine were she to find out what her precious niece and Rudy have done.

  “Not even forty-eight hours?” Rudy leans over her shoulder, his breath on her neck smelling like the cinnamon gum he has a habit of smacking away on when he’s not in public.

  “Sounds like our luck has continued to turn bad in Szczecin. Thanks to a maintenance worker and a stuck drain.” Lucy continues reading an AP report.

  Rudy sits next to her and leans an elbow on the desk, his chin in his hand. He reminds her of a boy who has just lost his first Little League baseball game.

  “After all that planning. Fuck. Now what? You pulled up the medical examiner’s report? Christ, don’t tell me it’s in Polish.”

  “Hold on. Let me jump out of this . . .” She clicks the mouse. “Into something else . . . I love Interpol . . .”

  The Last Precinct is a very select client, one of those entities considered part of Interpol’s massive international web. For the privilege, Lucy must pass security clearance, of course, and pay the same yearly subscription fee as a small country. She executes a search, and Rocco Caggiano’s death records are on the screen in seconds. Police and autopsy reports have bee
n translated from Polish into French.

  “Oh, no,” Lucy says with a sigh as she swivels around in the chair and looks up at Rudy. “How’s your French?”

  “You know how my French is. Limited to my tongue.”

  “You’re so vulgar. Just a single-tasking computer. You boys. One thing on the mind.”

  “I don’t always think about only one thing.”

  “You’re right. I apologize. You think about the one thing, except you do it two, three, a million times a day.”

  “And you, Mam-ouzelle Farinelli?”

  “Oh, God, your French is bad.”

  She glances at her watch, this one a formidable titanium Breitling that includes an Emergency Locator Transmitter, or ELT.

  “I thought you weren’t supposed to wear that thing unless you’re flying.” Rudy taps her watch.

  “Don’t touch it. You’ll set it off,” she teases him.

  He holds on to her arm, studying the watch, frowning at the bright blue face, tilting his head this way and that, pretending he’s stupid. Lucy starts laughing.

  “One of these days I’m gonna unscrew this big knob right here”—he taps her watch again, still holding on to her arm—“and pull the antenna all the way out. And then run like hell . . .”

  Lucy’s cell phone vibrates, and she slips it out of the case on her belt.

  “And laugh my ass off when the Coast Guard, the F-15s come roaring in . . .”

  “Yes,” she bluntly answers the phone.

  “You have such a sweet manner with people,” Rudy whispers in her ear. “If I die, will you marry me?”

  Static on the other end is bad. “Who is this?” she asks, loudly. “I can’t hear you.” The static gets worse. Lucy shrugs and ends the call. “Don’t recognize the number, do you?”

  She holds up her phone, showing Rudy the number that someone just used to call her.

  “Nope. Nine-three-six . . . ? What area code is that?”

  “Easy enough to find out.”