Four Scarpetta Novels

by Patricia Cornwell

  “Marino can’t know. Not ever,” Lucy says. “My aunt can’t know. Not ever.”

  “I should hate you,” Berger says.

  She smells faintly of perfume, a strong scent, lightly applied, and it touches Lucy’s thoughts that Berger didn’t wear perfume for her husband. He isn’t here.

  “Call it what you want,” Berger continues. “You and Rudy committed murder.”

  “Words,” Lucy replies. “The casualties of war. Self-defense. Judicial homicide. Home protection. We have words, legal excuses for committing acts that should be inexcusable, Jaime. I promise you, there was no joy in it, no delicious flavor of revenge. He was a pitiful coward, blubbering and sorry about only one thing in his entire cruel, worthless life: that it was his turn to pay the price. How could Marino have a son like that? What markers in the human genome came together to spew out Rocco?”

  “Who else knows?”

  “Rudy. Now you . . .”

  “Anyone else? Were you given instructions?” Berger presses on.

  Lucy thinks about Benton’s staged murder, about many events and conversations that she can never tell Berger. A tyrant of anguish and rage has ruled Lucy for years.

  “There are others involved, indirectly involved. I can’t talk about it. Really,” Lucy says.

  Berger doesn’t know that Benton isn’t dead.

  “Oh, fuck. What others?”

  “I said indirectly. I can’t tell you anything else. I won’t.”

  “People who give secret orders tend to vanish in the light of exposure. Are these your others? People who have given secret orders?”

  “Not directly about Rocco.” She thinks about Senator Lord, about the Chandonne cartel. “Let me just say that there are people who wanted Rocco dead. I just never had enough information to do anything about it until now. When Chandonne wrote to me, he told me what I needed to know.”

  “I see. And Jean-Baptiste Chandonne is credible. Of course, all psychopaths are. Whoever else is indirectly involved has already vanished. You can count on that.”

  “I don’t know. There are instructions about the Chandonne cartel. Oh, yes. There have been for a long time. Years. I did what I could while I was ATF, down in Miami. But it wasn’t working. Rules.”

  “That’s right. You and rules,” Berger says coldly.

  “Until Rocco, I have been ineffective.”

  “Well, you certainly were effective this time. Tell me something, Lucy. Do you think you’ll get away with it?”

  “Yes.”

  “You and Rudy made mistakes,” Berger says. “You left your tactical baton and had to go back to get it, and you were seen by several people. Never good, never good. And you staged the death scene—quite expertly, quite cleverly. Maybe too expertly, too cleverly. I would wonder about a room, a gun, a champagne bottle, et cetera, so clean that only Rocco’s fingerprints are on them. I would wonder about advanced decomposition that seems to conflict with time of death. And flies, so damn many flies. Blow flies aren’t terribly fond of cool weather.”

  “In Europe, they are more accustomed to cooler weather. As low as forty-eight degrees. The common bluebottle variety, blow fly. Of course, warmer temperatures are better.”

  “You must have learned that from your aunt Kay. She would be proud of you.”

  “You would wonder.” Lucy gets back to mistakes. “You wonder about everything. That’s why you’re who you are.”

  “Don’t underestimate the Polish authorities and medical experts, Lucy. You may not have heard the last of this. And if anything points back to you, I can’t help you. I have to consider this conversation privileged. Right now, I am your lawyer. Not a prosecutor. It’s a lie. But I will somehow live with it.

  “But whoever has given you directives, I don’t care how long ago, will not return your secret phone calls now, won’t even know your name, will frown and shrug in some cabinet meeting or over drinks at the Palm, or worse, laugh it off. The story of some overzealous private investigator.”

  “It won’t happen like that.”

  Berger slowly turns around and grabs Lucy’s wrists. “Are you so goddamn sure of yourself that you’re stupid? How can anyone so smart be so stupid?”

  The blood rises to Lucy’s cheeks.

  “The world is full of users. They’ll seduce you into the most outrageous acts for the sake of liberty and justice for all, and then they dissolve like mist. Prove to be fantasies. You begin to wonder if they were ever real, and as you rot away in a federal prison somewhere or, God forbid, are extradited to a foreign country, you will slowly but surely believe it was all a delusion, because everybody else believes you are delusional, some nutcase who committed murder because she was on some secret mission for the CIA, the FBI, the fucking Pentagon, Her Majesty’s Secret Service, the Easter Bunny.”

  “Stop it,” Lucy exclaims. “It’s not like that.”

  Berger’s hands move up to Lucy’s shoulders. “For the first time in your life, listen to someone!”

  Lucy blinks back tears.

  “Who?” Berger demands to know. “Who sent you on this goddamn horrific mission? Is it someone I know?”

  “Please stop it! I can’t and won’t ever tell you! There’s so much . . . Jaime, you’re better off not knowing. Please trust me.”

  “Jesus!” Berger’s grip lightens, but she doesn’t let go of her. “Jesus, Lucy. Look at you. You’re shaking like a leaf.”

  “You can’t do this.” Lucy angrily steps away. “I’m not a child. When you touch me . . .” She steps back some more. “When you touch me, it means something different. It still does. So don’t. Don’t.”

  “I know what it means,” Berger says. “I’m sorry.”

  AT TEN P.M., SCARPETTA climbs out of a taxi in front of Jaime Berger’s building.

  Still unable to reach her niece, Scarpetta is pricked by anxiety that has worsened with each call she has made. Lucy doesn’t answer her apartment or her cell phone. One of her associates at her office said he doesn’t know where she is. Scarpetta begins to think about her reckless, fire-breathing niece and contemplates the worst. Her ambivalence about Lucy’s new career has not abated. Hers is an unregimented, dangerous and highly secretive life that may suit her personality, but it frustrates Scarpetta and frightens her. She can be impossible to get hold of, and Scarpetta rarely knows what Lucy is doing.

  Inside Jaime Berger’s luxurious high-rise, a doorman greets Scarpetta.

  “May I help you, ma’am?”

  “Jaime Berger,” Scarpetta replies. “The penthouse.”

  LUCY IS TEMPTED TO DASH from the building when she realizes that her aunt is headed up in the elevator.

  “Calm down,” Berger says.

  “She doesn’t know I’m here,” Lucy says, upset. “I don’t want her to know I’m here. I can’t see her right now.”

  “You’re going to have to see her at some point. May as well be now.”

  “But she doesn’t know I’m here,” Lucy repeats herself. “What am I going to tell her?”

  Berger gives her an odd look as they hover near the door, waiting for the sound of the elevator.

  “Is the truth such a bad thing?” Berger replies angrily. “You could tell her that. Now and then, telling the truth is very therapeutic.”

  “I’m not a liar,” Lucy says. “That’s one thing I’m not, unless it is for the sake of work, especially the undercover work.”

  “The problem is when the boundaries merge,” Berger says as the elevator arrives. “Go sit in the living room.” As if Lucy is a child. “Let me talk to her first.”

  Berger’s foyer is marble, a table centered with fresh flowers across from the spotless brass elevator. She hasn’t seen Scarpetta in several years and is dismayed when she walks out of the elevator. Kay Scarpetta looks exhausted, her suit badly wrinkled, her eyes anxious.

  “Does anybody on Earth answer the phone anymore?” she says first thing. “I’ve tried Marino, Lucy, you. In your case, your line was busy and
has been busy for an hour. So at least I assumed someone was home.”

  “I had it off the hook . . . . I wanted no interruptions.”

  This makes no sense to Scarpetta. “I’m so sorry to barge in on you like this. I’m frantic, Jaime.”

  “I can tell. Before you come in, I want you to know that Lucy is here.” She states this matter-of-factly. “I didn’t want to shock you. But I expect you are relieved.”

  “Not entirely. Her office stonewalled me, meaning Lucy did.”

  “Kay, please come in,” Berger says.

  They walk into the living room.

  “Hi.” Lucy hugs her aunt.

  Her response is stiff. “Why are you treating me like this?” she asks, not caring if Berger hears.

  “Treating you like what?” Lucy returns to the living room and sits on the couch. “Come on.” She motions for Scarpetta to join her. “You, too, Jaime.”

  “Not unless you’re going to tell her,” Berger says. “Otherwise, I want no part in the conversation.”

  “Tell me what?” Scarpetta sits next to Lucy. “Tell me what, Lucy?”

  “I guess you’ve heard that Rocco Caggiano allegedly committed suicide in Poland,” Berger tells her.

  “I haven’t heard any news today about anything,” Scarpetta replies. “Was either on the phone or in a plane, then a taxi. Now I’m here. What do you mean allegedly?”

  Lucy stares down at her feet and says nothing. Berger stands at the edge of the living room and is silent.

  “You disappeared for days. No one would tell me where you were,” Scarpetta begins quietly. “Were you in Poland?”

  A long pause, then Lucy lifts her eyes. “Yes, I was.”

  “Dear God,” Scarpetta mutters. “Alleged suicide,” she repeats.

  Lucy explains the tip about the murdered journalists that Chandonne divulged to her in a letter. She explains further information from him about Rocco’s whereabouts. Then she tells her aunt about the Red Notice.

  “So Rudy and I found him, found him in the hotel he always stays in when he does his dirty business in Szczecin. We told him about the Red Notice, and he knew that was it. The end. Because, apprehended or not, the Chandonnes would make sure he didn’t live very long.”

  “So he killed himself,” Scarpetta says, looking straight into Lucy’s eyes, searching them.

  Lucy doesn’t reply. Berger walks out of the room.

  “Interpol has posted the information,” Lucy then says, somewhat inanely. “The police say his death is a suicide.”

  This appeases Scarpetta temporarily, only because she doesn’t have the strength to probe further.

  She opens her briefcase and shows Lucy the letter from Chandonne, and then Lucy goes into Berger’s office.

  “Please come,” Lucy starts to say.

  “No,” Berger replies, the look in her eyes one of disappointment, of judgment. “How can you lie to her?”

  “I didn’t and I haven’t.”

  “By omission. The whole truth, Lucy.”

  “I’ll get there. When it’s time. Chandonne wrote her. You’ve got to see it. There’s something really bizarre going on.”

  “There sure is.” Berger gets up from her desk.

  They return to the living room and look at the letter and envelopes through their protective plastic.

  “That’s not like the letter I got,” Lucy says immediately. “It was block printing. It wasn’t mailed regular post. I guess Rocco mailed it for him. Rocco mailed a lot of things for him. Why would Chandonne write Marino and me in block printing?”

  “What did the paper look like?” Scarpetta asks.

  “Notebook paper. Lined paper.”

  “The paper in the prison commissary is plain white, twenty-pound cheap stock. The same thing most of us use in our printers.”

  “If he didn’t send those letters to Marino and me, then who did?” Lucy feels sluggish, her system overloaded.

  Based on the information in the letter to her, she orchestrated Rocco Caggiano’s death. When she and Rudy held him hostage in the hotel room, Rocco never actually admitted to murdering the journalists. Lucy recalls him rolling his eyes toward the ceiling—his only response. She can’t know as fact what he really meant by that gesture. She can’t know as fact that the information she sent to Interpol is correct. What she offered was enough for an arrest, but not necessarily a conviction because, in fact, Lucy doesn’t know the facts. Did Rocco really meet with the two journalists mere hours before their murders? Even if he did, was he the one who shot them?

  Lucy is responsible for the Red Notice. The Red Notice is why Rocco knew his life was over, no matter what he confessed or didn’t confess. He became a fugitive, and if Lucy and Rudy hadn’t brought about his death, the Chandonnes would have. He should be dead. He needed to be dead. Lucy tells herself the world is better off because Rocco isn’t in it.

  “Who wrote me that goddamn letter?” Lucy says. “Who wrote the one to Marino and the first one to you?” She looks at Scarpetta. “The ones that came in those National Academy of Justice postage-paid envelopes? They sound like they were written by Chandonne.”

  “I agree with that,” Scarpetta says. “And the coroner in Baton Rouge got one, too.”

  “Maybe Chandonne changed his handwriting and paper when he wrote this one.” Lucy indicates the letter with its beautiful calligraphy. “Maybe the bastard’s not in prison at all.”

  “I heard about the phone calls to your office. Zach got hold of me on my cell phone. I think we can’t assume at all that Chandonne is still in prison,” Scarpetta replies.

  “Seems to me,” Berger says, “that he wouldn’t have access to lined paper or National Academy of Justice envelopes if he’s still in prison. How hard do you suppose it would it be to create facsimiles of those postage-paid envelopes on a computer?”

  “God, I feel so stupid,” Lucy says. “I can’t tell you what I feel. Of course it could be done. Just scan in an envelope, then type in the address you want, and print it on the same type of envelope. I could do it in five minutes.”

  Berger looks at her for a long time. “Did you, Lucy?”

  She is stunned. “Me do it? Why would I do it?”

  “You just admitted that you could,” Berger somberly says. “It appears you’re quite capable of doing a lot of things, Lucy. And it’s convenient that information in the letter to you resulted in your going to Poland to find Rocco, who is now dead. I’m leaving the room. The prosecutor in me doesn’t want to hear any further lies or confessions. If you and your aunt want to talk for a while, please help yourselves. I have to put the phone back on the hook. I have calls to make.”

  “I haven’t lied,” Lucy says.

  SIT DOWN,” SCARPETTA SAYS, as if Lucy is no longer a grown-up.

  The lights are out in the living room, and the New York skyline surrounds them with its brilliant possibilities and soaring power. Scarpetta could stare at it for hours, the way she does the sea. Lucy sits next to her on Berger’s couch.

  “This is a good place to be,” Scarpetta says, gazing out at millions of lights.

  She looks for the moon but can’t find it behind buildings. Lucy is quietly crying.

  “I’ve often wondered, Lucy, what would have happened had I been your real mother. Would you have adopted such a dangerous world and stormed through it so brazenly, so outrageously, so stunningly? Or would you be married with children?”

  “I think you know the answer to that,” Lucy mutters, wiping her eyes.

  “Maybe you would have been a Rhodes scholar, gone to Oxford and become a famous poet.”

  Lucy looks at her to see if she’s joking. She’s not.

  “A gentler life,” her aunt says softly. “I raised you, or, better stated, I attended to you as best I could and can’t imagine loving any child more than I did—and do—love you. But through my eyes, you found the ugliness in the world.”

  “Through your eyes I found decency, humanity and justice,” Lucy repli
es. “I wouldn’t change anything.”

  “Then why are you crying?” She picks out distant planes glowing like small planets.

  “I don’t know.”

  Scarpetta smiles. “That’s what you used to say when you were a little girl. Whenever you were sad and I’d ask you why, you’d say I don’t know. Therefore, my very astute diagnosis is that you are sad.”

  Lucy wipes more tears from her face.

  “I don’t know exactly what happened in Poland,” her aunt then says.

  Shifting her position on the couch, Scarpetta arranges pillows behind her back, as if inviting a long story. She continues to look past Lucy, out windows into the glittering night, because it is harder for people to have difficult conversations while they are looking at each other.

  “I don’t need you to tell me. But I think you need to tell me, Lucy.”

  Her niece stares out at the city crowded around them. She thinks of dark, high seas and ships lit up. Ships mean ports, and ports mean the Chandonnes. Ports are the arteries for their criminal commerce. Rocco may have been only one vessel, but his connection to Scarpetta, to all of them, had to be severed.

  Yes. It had to be.

  Please forgive me, Aunt Kay. Please say it’s all right. Please don’t lose your respect for me and think I’ve become one of them.

  “Ever since Benton died, you’ve been a Fury, a spirit of punishment, and there isn’t enough power in this entire city to satisfy your hunger for it,” Scarpetta talks on, still gently. “This is a good place for you to be,” she says, as both of them stare out at the lights of the most powerful city on Earth. “Because one of these days when you’re glutted with power, maybe you’ll realize that too much of it is unbearable.”

  “You say that to explain yourself,” Lucy comments with no trace of rancor. “You were the most powerful medical examiner in the country, perhaps in the world. You were the Chief. Maybe it was unbearable, that power and admiration.”

  Lucy’s beautiful face is not quite as sad now.

  “So much has seemed unbearable,” Scarpetta replies. “So much. But no. I didn’t find my power unbearable when I was the Chief. I have found losing my power unbearable. You and I feel differently about power. I am not proving anything. You are always proving something when it is so unnecessary.”