Pete Marino materialized in the middle of the barricaded street, backlit by a blaze of halogen lights, as if he had emerged from the afterlife.
Rotating beacons flashed across his big weathered face and un-stylish wire-rimmed glasses, and he was tall and broad in a down jacket, cargo pants, and boots. Pulled low over his bald head was an NYPD cap with an Aviation Unit patch over the bill, an old Bell 47 helicopter that brought to mind M*A*S*H. A gift from Lucy, a backhanded one. Marino hated flying.
“I’m assuming you made Lobo’s acquaintance,” Marino said when he reached Scarpetta and Benton. “He taking good care of you? I don’t see no hot chocolate. Right about now bourbon would be good. Let’s go sit in my car before you get frostbit.”
Marino started walking them to his car, parked north of the bomb truck, which was flooded by halogens on light poles. Cops had removed the tarp and lowered a steel ramp, a special one Scarpetta had seen on other occasions in the past, with serrated tread the size of saw teeth. If you tripped and fell on the ramp, it would shred you to the bone, but if you stumbled while carrying a bomb, you had a bigger problem. The Total Containment Vessel, or TCV, was mounted on the diamond-steel flatbed and looked like a bright-yellow diving bell sealed shut by a spider yoke that an ESU cop loosened and removed. Beneath it was the lid, about four inches thick, and the ESU cop attached a steel cable to it, using a winch to lower it to the flatbed. He pulled out a wood-framed nylon-webbed tray, placed the winch control on it, and clamped the cable out of the way, making preparations for the bomb tech whose job it would be to lock Scarpetta’s suspicious package inside fourteen tons of high-tensile steel before it was driven away to be defeated by New York’s finest.
“I’m so sorry about this,” Scarpetta said to Marino as they got into his dark-blue Crown Vic, a safe distance from the truck and its TCV. “I’m sure it will turn out to be nothing.”
“And I’m sure Benton would agree with me. We’re never sure of anything,” Marino said. “You and Benton did the right thing.”
Benton was looking up at the CNN marquee, neon-red beyond the Trump International Hotel with its shiny silver unisphere, a scaled-down version of the ten-story globe in Flushing Meadows, only this steely representation of the planet was about Donald Trump’s expanding universe, not about the space age. Scarpetta watched the news ticker, the same out-of-context nonsense crawling by, and wondered if Carley had orchestrated the timing of it, deciding she must have.
No way Carley would want her ambush launched in bright lights while she was walking the intended victim home. Wait an hour, then cause Scarpetta trouble with the FBI and maybe make her think twice about going on any television show ever again. Goddamn it. Why was behavior like that necessary? Carley knew her ratings were bad, that was why. A desperate and sensational attempt to hang on to her career. And maybe sabotage. Carley had overheard Alex’s proposal, knew what was in store for her. Not a suspicion anymore. Scarpetta was convinced.
Marino unlocked his car and said to Scarpetta, “How ’bout you sit up front so you and me can talk. Sorry, Benton, got to stick you in back. Lobo and some of the other bomb guys were just in Mumbai finding out whatever they can so we don’t have the same shit happen here. The trend in terrorist tactics, and Benton probably knows this, isn’t suicide bombers anymore. It’s small groups of highly trained commandos.”
Benton didn’t answer, and Scarpetta could feel his hostility like static electricity. When Marino tried too hard to be inclusive or friendly, he made the situation worse, and Benton would be rude, and next Marino had to assert himself because he would feel put down and angry. A tedious and ridiculous vacillation, one demeanor, then the other, back and forth, and Scarpetta wished it would stop. Goddamn it, she’d had enough.
“Point is, you couldn’t be in better hands. These guys are the best, will take good care of you, Doc.” As if Marino had made sure of it personally.
“I feel awful about this.” Scarpetta shut her door and reached for the shoulder harness, out of habit, but changed her mind. They weren’t going anywhere.
“Last I checked, it wasn’t you who did anything.” Benton ’s voice behind her.
Marino started the engine and turned the heat on high. “Probably a box of cookies,” he said to Scarpetta. “You and Bill Clinton. Same thing. Wrong address and the bomb squad gets called. Turns out to be cookies.”
“Just what I wanted to hear,” she said.
“You’d rather it be a bomb?”
“I’d rather none of this had happened.” She couldn’t help it. She was mortified. She felt guilty, as if all of this was her fault.
“You don’t need to apologize,” Benton said. “You don’t take chances, even if nine times out of ten it’s nothing. We’ll hope it’s nothing.”
Scarpetta noticed what was displayed on the screen of the Mobile Data Computer mounted on the dash, a map depicting the Westchester County Airport in White Plains. Maybe it was related to Berger, to her flying in this evening with Lucy, assuming they hadn’t already arrived. Strange, though. Didn’t make sense for Marino to have the airport map displayed. At the moment, nothing was making sense. Scarpetta was confused and unsettled and felt humiliated.
“Anybody know anything yet?” Benton asked Marino.
“A couple news choppers spotted in the area,” he said. “No way this is going to be quiet. You bring in the mother of all bomb trucks and that’s it, will be a police escort like a friggin’ presidential motorcade when they drive the Doc’s package to Rodman’s Neck. Me calling Lobo direct cut out a lot of bullshit, but I can’t keep this on the QT. Not that you needed the attention, since I see your name up there in lights, bashing the FBI.”
“I didn’t bash the FBI,” Scarpetta said. “I was talking about Warner Agee, and it was off the air and off the record.”
“No such thing,” Benton said.
“Especially not with Crispy Crispin, claim to fame burning her sources. I don’t know why the hell you go on that show,” Marino said. “Not that we have time to get into it, but what a friggin’ mess. See how deserted the street is right now? If Carley keeps up with her yellow-cab crap, the streets will be this empty from now on, which is probably what she wants. Another scoop, right? Thirty thousand yellow cabs and not a single fare, and crowds of people rioting in a panic on the streets like King Kong’s on the loose. Merry Christmas.”
“I’m curious about why you have Westchester County Airport on your computer screen.” Scarpetta didn’t want to discuss her blunders on CNN, and she didn’t want to talk about Carley or listen to Marino’s hyperbole. “Have you heard from Lucy and Jaime? I would have thought they would have landed by now.”
“You and me both,” Marino said. “Was doing a MapQuest, trying to figure out the quickest route, not that I’m headed there. It’s about them heading here.”
“Why would they be heading here? Do they know what’s happening?” Scarpetta didn’t want her niece showing up in the middle of this.
In Lucy’s former life as a special agent and certified fire investigator for ATF, she routinely dealt with explosives and arson. She was good at it, excelled at anything technical and risky, and the more others shied away from something or failed at it, the quicker she was to master it and show them up. Her gifts and fierceness didn’t win her friends. While she was emotionally more limber now that she was beyond her twenties, give and take with people still didn’t come naturally to her, and respecting boundaries and the law was almost impossible. If Lucy was here, she’d have an opinion and a theory, and maybe a vigilante remedy, and at the moment, Scarpetta wasn’t in the mood.
“Not here as in where we’re at,” Marino was saying. “Here as in them heading back to the city.”
“Since when do they need MapQuest to find their way back to the city?” Benton asked from the back.
“A situation I really can’t get into.”
Scarpetta looked at Marino’s familiar rugged profile, looked at what was illuminated on the computer screen mounted above the universal console. She turned around to look at Benton in the backseat. He was staring out his window, watching the squad emerge from the apartment building.
“Everybody’s got their cell phones turned off, I assume,” Benton said. “What about your radio?”
“It ain’t on,” Marino said, as if he’d been accused of being stupid.
The bomb tech in the EOD suit and helmet was coming out of the building, shapeless padded arms stretched out, holding a black frag bag.
“They must have seen something on x-ray they didn’t like,” Benton commented.
“And they’re not using Android,” Marino said.
“Using who?” Scarpetta said.
“The robot. Nicknamed Android because of the female bomb tech. Her name’s Ann Droiden. Weird about people’s names, like doctors and dentists with names like Hurt, Paine, and Puller. She’s good. Good-looking, too. All the guys always wanting her to handle their package, if you know what I mean. Must be a tough life, her being the only female on the bomb squad. Reason I’m familiar”-as if he needed to explain why he was going on and on about a pretty bomb tech named Ann-“is she used to work at Two Truck in Harlem where they keep the TCV, and she still drops by now and then to hang out with her old pals at ESU. The Two’s not far from my apartment, just a few blocks. I wander over there, have coffee, bring a few treats to their company boxer, nicest damn dog, Mac. A rescue. Whenever I can, if everybody’s tied up, I take Mac home so he’s not by his lonesome in the quarters all night.”
“If they’re using her instead of the robot, then whatever’s in that box isn’t motion-sensitive,” Scarpetta said. “They must be certain of that.”
“If it was motion-sensitive, I guess we’d be peeling you off the moon, since you carried it up to your apartment,” Marino said with his usual diplomacy.
“It could be motion-sensitive and on a timer. Obviously, it’s not,” Benton said.
Police kept people back, making sure no one was within at least a hundred yards of the bomb tech as she made her way down the building’s front steps, her face obscured by a visor. She walked slowly, somewhat stiffly but with surprising agility, toward the truck, its diesel engine throbbing.
“They lost three responders in Nine-Eleven. Vigiano, D’Allara, Curtin, and the bomb squad lost Danny Richards,” Marino said. “You can’t see it from here, but their names are painted on the bomb truck, on all the trucks at the Two. They got a little memorial room in there, off the kitchen, a shrine with some of the guys’ gear recovered with their bodies. Keys, flashlights, radios, some of it melted. Gives you a different feeling when you seen a guy’s melted flashlight, you know?”
Scarpetta hadn’t seen Marino in a while. Inevitably, when she came to New York, she was overscheduled and somewhat frantic. It hadn’t occurred to her that he might be lonely. She wondered if he was having problems with his girlfriend, Georgia Bacardi, a Baltimore detective he’d gotten serious about last year. Maybe that was over or on its way to being over, and if so, no big surprise. Marino’s relationships tended to have the life span of a butterfly. Now Scarpetta felt worse. She felt bad about carrying a package upstairs without examining it first, and she felt guilty about Marino. She should check on him when she was in the city. She should check on him even when she wasn’t, a simple phone call or e-mail now and then.
The bomb tech had reached the truck, and her booted feet gripped the serrated tread on the ramp as she climbed up. It was difficult to see past Marino, out the window and down the street, but Scarpetta recognized what was happening, was no stranger to the procedure. The tech would set the frag bag on the tray and slide it back inside the TCV. Using the winch control, she would retract the steel cable to pull the massive steel lid back over the round opening, then replace the spider yoke and tighten it, likely with her bare hands. At most, bomb techs wore thin Nomex gloves or maybe nitrile to protect them from fire or potentially toxic substances. Anything heavily padded would make it impossible to perform the simplest task and probably wouldn’t save fingers in a detonation anyway.
When the tech was done, other cops and Lieutenant Lobo convened at the back of the bomb truck, sliding the ramp back in place, covering the containment vessel with the tarp, buttoning up. The truck roared north on the sealed-off street, marked units in front and back, the convoy a moving sea of rapid bursts of light headed for the West Side Highway. From there it would follow a prescribed safe route to the NYPD range at Rodman’s Neck, probably to the Cross Bronx and 95 North, whatever would best buffer traffic, buildings, and pedestrians from shock waves, a biological hazard, radiation, or shrapnel, should a device explode en route and somehow defeat its containment.
Lobo was walking toward them. When he reached Marino’s car, he climbed into the back next to Benton, a rush of cold air washing in as he said, “I had images sent to your e-mail.” He shut his door. “From the security cameras.”
Marino began typing on the Toughbook clamped into the pedestal between the front seats, the map of White Plains replaced by a screen asking for his username and password.
“Your FedEx guy’s got an interesting tattoo,” Lobo said, leaning forward, chewing gum. Scarpetta smelled cinnamon. “A big one on the left side of his neck, kind of hard to see because he’s dark-skinned.”
Marino opened an e-mail and loaded the attachment. A still from a security video recording filled the screen, a man in a FedEx cap walking toward the concierge desk.
Benton repositioned himself to get a better look and said, “Nope. Got no idea. Don’t recognize him.”
The man wasn’t familiar to Scarpetta, either. African American, high cheekbones, beard and mustache, the FedEx cap pulled low over eyes masked by reflective glasses. The collar of his black wool coat partially obscured a tattoo that covered the left side of his neck, up to his ear, a tattoo of human skulls. Scarpetta counted eight skulls but couldn’t see what they were piled on top of, just a linear edge of something.
“Can you enlarge it?” She pointed at the tattoo, at what looked like the edge of a box that with a click of the trackpad got bigger. “Maybe a coffin. Skulls piled inside a coffin. Which immediately makes me wonder if he’s served in Iraq or Afghanistan. Skulls, skeletons, skeletons climbing out of coffins, tombstones. Memorials for fallen soldiers, in other words. Usually, each skull represents a lost comrade. Tattoos like this have become popular in the last few years.”
“The RTCC can do a search on it,” Marino said. “If this guy’s in the database for some reason, maybe we can get a hit on his tattoo. We got a whole database of tattoos.”
The sharp scent of cinnamon returned, reminding Scarpetta of fire scenes, of the symphony of unexpected odors in places that had burned to the ground. Lobo touched her shoulder and said, “So, nothing about this guy’s familiar. Doesn’t bring anything to mind.”
“No,” she said.
“Looks like a mean bastard,” Lobo added.
“The concierge, Ross, said there wasn’t anything about him that was cause for alarm,” Scarpetta said.
“Yeah, that’s what he said.” Chewing gum. “Course, he also got the job in your building because he was out of work after getting fired by the last building. For leaving the desk unattended. Least he was honest about it. Course, he failed to mention he was charged with possession of a controlled substance last March.”
“We sure he’s got no connection with this guy?” Benton meant the man on the computer screen.
“Not sure of anything,” Lobo said. “But this guy?” Indicating the man with the tattooed neck. “He’s probably not FedEx, to state the obvious. You can buy caps like that on eBay, no problem. Or make one. What about when you were walking back from CNN?” Lobo asked Scarpetta. “You see anyone, especially anyone that for some reason caught your eye?”
“A homeless person sleeping on a bench is all that comes to mind.”
“Where?” Benton asked.
“Near Columbus Circle. Right there.” Scarpetta turned around and pointed.
She realized the emergency vehicles and the curious were gone, and halogen lights had been extinguished, the street returned to incomplete darkness. Soon traffic would resume, residents would reenter the building, and traffic cones, barriers, and yellow tape would vanish as if nothing had happened. She knew of no other city where emergencies could be contained so rapidly and the usual order of things resumed just as fast. The lessons of 9/11. Expertise at a terrible price.
“Nobody in the area now,” Lobo said. “Nobody on any benches, but all this activity would have cleared them out. And nobody else caught your eye when you were walking home?”
“No,” Scarpetta replied.
“It’s just that sometimes when people leave antisocial presents, they like to hang around and watch or show up after the fact to see the damage they caused.”
“Any other photos?” Benton asked, his breath touching Scarpetta’s ear and stirring her hair.
Marino clicked on two more video stills, displaying them side by side, full-length shots of the man with the tattoo walking through the apartment building lobby, toward the desk, and away from it.
“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?”
Benton didn’t answer because he knew better. He knew what to do and what not to do on the rare occasion Scarpetta got this upset, and she thought she smelled the package again, and then she smelled the embayment, the Laguna Veneta. The shallow salt water and the warmth of the spring sun as she and Benton climbed out of the water taxi at the landing stage in Colonna, following the fondamenta to Calle San Cipriano. Factory visits weren’t allowed, but that hadn’t stopped her, tugging Benton by the hand past a barge filled with waste glass, to the “Fornace-Entrata Libera” entrance sign and inside, asking for a demonstration in an open space with furnaces like crematoriums and dark-red-painted brick walls and high ceilings. Aldo the artisan was small with a mustache, in shorts and sneakers, from a dynasty of glassblowers, an unbroken lineage stretching back seven hundred years, his ancestors having never left the island, not allowed to venture beyond the lagoon upon penalty of death or having their hands cut off.
Scarpetta had commissioned him on the spot to make something for them, for Benton and her, the happy couple, whatever Aldo liked. It was a special trip, a sacred one, and she wanted to be reminded of the day, of every minute. Benton later said he’d never heard her talk so much, explaining her fascination with the science of glass. Sand and soda lime transitioning into what is neither a liquid nor a solid, but no empirical data that it continues to flow after it’s been fashioned into a windowpane or a vase, she’d said in her less-than-perfect Italian. After it’s crystallized, only vibrational degrees of freedom remain active, but the form is set. A bowl still looks like a bowl a thousand years later, and prehistoric obsidian blades don’t lose their edge. Somewhat of a mystery, maybe why she loved glass. That and what it does to visible light, Scarpetta had said. What happens when color agents are added, such as iron, cobalt, boron, manganese, and selenium for green, blue, purple, amber, and red.
Scarpetta and Benton had returned to Murano the next day to pick up their sculpture after it had been slowly annealed in the kiln and was cool and cocooned in Bubble Wrap. She’d hand-carried it, tucked it in the overhead bin all the way home from a professional trip not at all intended for pleasure, but Benton had surprised her. He’d asked her to marry him. Those days in Italy had become, at least for her, more than memorable. They were an imagined temple where her thoughts retreated when she was both happy and sad, and her temple felt trampled on and sullied as she set the glass sculpture back on the cherry coffee table, where it belonged. She felt violated, as if she’d walked in and discovered their home bur glarized, ransacked, a crime scene. She began pacing about, looking for anything else out of place or missing, checking sinks and soaps to see who washed his hands or flushed the toilets.
“No one was in the bathrooms,” she announced.
She opened the windows in the living room to get rid of the odor.
“I smell the package. You must smell it,” she said.
“I don’t smell anything.” Benton was standing by the front door with his coat on.
“Yes,” she insisted. “You must smell it. It smells like iron. You don’t smell it?”
“No,” he said. “Maybe you’re remembering what you smelled. The package is gone. It’s gone and we’re safe.”
“It’s because you didn’t touch it and I did. A fungal-metallic odor,” she explained. “As if my skin came in contact with iron ions.”
Benton reminded her very calmly that she had been wearing gloves when she held the package that might be a bomb.
“But it would have touched my bare flesh between my gloves and the cuffs of my coat when I was holding it.” She walked over to him.
The package had left a bouquet on her wrists, an evil perfume, lipid peroxides from the oils on the skin, from sweat, oxidized by enzymes causing corrosion, decomposition. Like blood, she explained. The odor smelled like blood.
“The way blood smells when it’s smeared over the skin,” she said, and she held up her wrists and Benton sniffed them.
He said, “I don’t smell anything.”
“Some petroleum-based something, some chemical, I don’t know what. I know I smell rust.” She couldn’t stop talking about it. “There’s something in that box that’s bad, very bad. I’m glad you didn’t touch it.”
In the kitchen, she washed her hands, her wrists, her forearms with dish detergent and water, as if scrubbing for surgery, as if deconning. She used Murphy Oil Soap on the coffee table where the package had been. She fussed and fumed while Benton silently stood by, watching her, trying not to interfere with her venting, trying to be understanding and rational, and his demeanor only made her more annoyed, more resentful.
“You could at least react to something,” she said. “Or maybe you don’t care.”
“I care very much.” He took off his coat. “It’s not fair to say I don’t. I realize how awful this is.”
“I can’t tell you care. I never can. I’ve never been able to tell.” As if it was Benton who had left her the package that might be a bomb.
“Would it make you feel better if I lost my temper?” His somber face looked at her.
“I’m taking a shower.”
She angrily undressed as she stalked off down the hall to the master bedroom and stuffed her clothes into a dry-cleaning bag. She dropped her underwear into a hamper. She got into the shower, turning on the water as hot as she could stand it, and the steam drove the odor deeper up her nose, into her sinuses, the odor of the package, of fire and brimstone, and the heat and her senses started another slide show. Philadelphia and darkness and hell burning, ladders stretching into the night sky, the sounds of saws cutting holes in the roof and water gushing out of hoses, fifteen hundred gallons a minute, a master stream from the top of the truck for a big fire like that.
Water arched from trucks around the block, and the charred carcass of a car was twisted like an ice cube tray, the tires burned off. Melted aluminum and glass, and beads of copper, scrubbing on walls and deflection of steel, alligatored wood around broken windows, and heavy black smoke. A utility pole looked like a burned match. They said it was a rolling fire, the sort that fools firefighters, not too hot and then so hot it boils your hat. Wading through filthy water, a rainbow of gasoline floating on top of it, flashlights probing the pitch-dark, dripping sounds, water dripping from square ax holes in the tar-paper roof. The thick air smelled like acrid scorched marshmallows, sweet and sharp and sick, as they led her to him, to what was left. Much later they said he was dead when it started, lured there and shot.
Scarpetta turned off the water and stood in the steam, breathing in clouds of it through her nose and mouth. She couldn’t see through the glass door, it was so fogged up, but shifting light was Benton walking in. She wasn’t ready to talk to him yet.
“I brought you a drink,” he said.
The light shifted again, Benton moving past the shower. She heard him pull out the vanity chair, sitting.
“Marino called.”
Scarpetta opened the door and reached out for the towel hanging next to it, pulling it inside the shower. “Please shut the bathroom door so it doesn’t get cold in here,” she said.
“Lucy and Jaime are just a few minutes out from White Plains.” Benton got up and shut the door. He sat back down.
“They still haven’t landed? What the hell is going on?”
“They got such a late start because of the weather. Just a lot of delays because of weather. He talked to Lucy on the helicopter phone. They’re fine.”
“I told him not to do that, goddamn it. She doesn’t need to be talking on the damn phone when she’s flying.”
“He said he talked to her just for a minute. He didn’t tell her what’s happened. He’ll fill her in when they’re on the ground. I’m sure she’ll call you. Don’t worry. They’re fine.” Benton ’s face looking at her through steam.
She was drying off inside the shower with the glass door half open. She didn’t want to come out. He didn’t ask her what was wrong, why she was hiding inside the shower like a little kid.
“I’ve searched everywhere-again-for your phone. It’s not in the apartment,” he added.
“Did you try calling it?”
“Betting it’s on the closet floor in the makeup room at CNN. Where you always hang your coat, if I’m not mistaken.”
“Lucy can find it if I ever talk to her again.”
“I thought you talked to her earlier today while she was still in Stowe.” His way of encouraging her to be reasonable.
“Because I called her.” It wasn’t possible for Scarpetta to be reasonable right now. “She never calls me, hardly ever these days. Maybe if she ever gets around to calling once in a while, such as when she’s delayed because of a blizzard or hasn’t landed yet.”
Benton looked at her.
“She can find my damn phone then. She sure as hell should, since it was her idea to install a Wide Area Augmentation System- enabled receiver in my BlackBerry, in your BlackBerry, in Jaime’s BlackBerry, in Marino’s BlackBerry, in the nape of her bulldog’s neck, so she can know where we are-or, more precisely, where our phones and her dog are-with a position accuracy of something like ten feet.”
Benton was quiet, looking at her through the steamy air. She was still in the shower drying off, which was useless because of the steam. She would dry herself and then sweat.
“Same technology the FAA’s considering for use in flight approaches and autopilot landings, of course.” It was as if someone else was talking through her mouth, someone she didn’t know or like. “Maybe they’re using it in drones, who the hell gives a shit. Except my goddamn phone knows exactly where it goddamn is even if I don’t right this goddamn minute, and that sort of tracking is child’s play for Lucy. I’ll send her an e-mail. Maybe she’ll get around to finding my phone.” Toweling her hair, about to cry and not sure why. “Maybe she’ll call because she’s just a little concerned that someone might have left a bomb for me.”
“Kay, please don’t be so upset…”
“You know I really hate it when someone tells me not to be upset. I spend my entire life not being upset because I’m fucking not allowed to be fucking upset. Well, right now I’m upset and I’m going to feel it because I can’t seem to help it. If I could help it I wouldn’t be upset now, would I.” Her voice shook.
She felt shaky all over, as if she was coming down with something. Maybe she was getting sick. A lot of the staff at the OCME had the flu. It was going around. She closed her eyes, leaning against wet tile that was getting cool.
“I told her to call me before they took off from Vermont.” She tried to calm down, to ward off the grief and rage overwhelming her. “She used to call me before she took off and landed or just to say hello.”
“You don’t know that she didn’t call. You can’t find your phone. I’m sure she’s tried to call.” Benton ’s conciliatory voice, the way he sounded when he was trying to de-escalate a situation that was rapidly becoming explosive. “Let’s try to retrace your steps. Do you remember taking it out at any time after leaving the apartment?”
“No.”
“But you’re sure it was in your coat pocket when you left the apartment.”
“I’m not sure of a damn thing right now.”
She remembered dropping her coat in one of the makeup chairs when she was talking to Alex Bachta. Maybe it had fallen out then, was still in the chair. She’d send Alex an e-mail, ask him to have someone look for it and keep it locked up until she could retrieve it. She hated that phone, and she’d done something stupid. She’d done something so stupid she almost couldn’t believe it. The BlackBerry wasn’t password-protected, and she wasn’t going to tell Benton. She wasn’t going to tell Lucy.
“Lucy will track it down,” Benton said. “Marino mentioned you might want to go to Rodman’s Neck to see what they find, if you’re curious. He’ll pick you up whenever you want. First thing, like around seven. I’ll go with you.”
She wrapped the towel around her and stepped onto a no-slip bamboo mat. Benton, shirtless and barefoot, pajama bottoms on, sat with his back to the vanity. She hated how she felt. She didn’t want to feel like this. Benton hadn’t done anything to deserve it.
“I think we should find out everything we can from the bomb guys, the labs. I want to know who the hell sent that package and why and what exactly it is.” Benton was watching her, the air warm and filmy with steam.
“Yes, the box of cookies some thoughtful patient of yours left for me,” she said cynically.
“I guess it could be battery-operated cookies and a test tube- shaped bottle of liquor that smells like an accelerant.”
“And Marino wants you to go, too? Not just me? Both of us?” She combed her hair, but the mirror over the sink was too steamed up to see.
“What’s the matter, Kay?”
“I’m just wondering if Marino specifically invited you, that’s all.” She wiped off the mirror with a washcloth.
“What’s wrong?”
“Let me guess. He didn’t invite you. Or if he did, he didn’t mean it.” Combing her hair, looking at her reflection. “I’m not surprised he didn’t invite you or didn’t mean it if he did. After the way you treated him today. On the conference call. Then in his car.”
“Let’s don’t get started about him.” Benton lifted his glass, straight bourbon on the rocks.
She could smell Maker’s Mark, reminding her of a case she’d worked in the long-ago past. A man scalded to death in a river of fire when barrels of whisky began bursting in a distillery warehouse engulfed in flames.
“I wasn’t friendly or unfriendly,” Benton added. “I was professional. Why are you in such a bad mood?”
“ ‘Why’?” she asked, as if he couldn’t possibly be serious.
“Besides the obvious.”
“I’m tired of the cold war you have with Marino. No point in pretending. You have one, and you know it,” she said.
“We don’t have one.”
“I don’t think he does anymore; God knows he used to. He honestly seems beyond it, but you don’t, and then he gets defensive, gets angry. I find it a remarkable irony, after all those years he had a problem with you.”
“Let’s be accurate, his problem was with you.” Benton ’s patience was dissipating with the steam. Even he had his limits.
“I’m not talking about me right this minute, but if you’re going to bring it up, yes, he had a significant problem with me. But now he doesn’t.”
“I agree he’s better. We’ll hope it lasts.” Benton played with his drink as if he couldn’t make up his mind what to do with it.
In the diffusing steam, Scarpetta could make out a note she’d left for herself on the granite countertop: Jaime-call Fri. a.m. In the morning she would have an orchid delivered to One Hogan Place, Berger’s office, a belated birthday gesture. Maybe a sumptuous Princess Mikasa. Berger’s favorite color was sapphire blue.
“ Benton, we’re married,” Scarpetta said. “Marino couldn’t be more aware of that and he’s accepted it, probably with relief. I imagine he must be much happier because he’s accepted it, has a serious relationship, has made a new life for himself.”
She wasn’t so sure about Marino’s serious relationship or his new life, not after the loneliness she’d sensed earlier when she was sitting next to him in his car. She imagined him dropping by the ESU garage, by the Two, as he called it, in Harlem, to hang out with a rescued dog.
“He’s moved on, and now you need to,” she was saying. “I want it to end. Whatever you have to do. End it. Don’t just pretend. I can see through it, even if I don’t say anything. We’re all in this together.”
“One big happy family,” Benton said.
“That’s what I mean. Your hostility, your jealousy. I want it to end.”
“Have a sip of your drink. You’ll feel better.”
“Now I’m feeling patronized and getting angry.” Her voice was shaking again.
“I’m not patronizing you, Kay.” Softly. “And you’re already angry. You’ve been angry for a long time.”
“I feel you’re patronizing me, and I’ve not been angry for a long time. I don’t understand why you’d say something like that. You’re being provocative.” She didn’t want to fight, hated fighting, but she was pushing things in that direction.
“I’m sorry if it feels I’m patronizing you. I’m not, honest to God. I don’t blame you for being angry.” He sipped his drink, staring at it, moving the ice around in it. “The last thing I want to be is provocative.”
“The problem is you really don’t forgive and you certainly don’t forget. That’s your problem with Marino. You won’t forgive him and you certainly won’t forget, and in the end, how does that help anything? He did what he did. He was drunk and drugged and crazy and he did something he shouldn’t have done. Yes, he did. Maybe I should be the one who doesn’t forgive or forget. It was me he goddamn manhandled and abused. But it’s the past. He’s sorry. So sorry, he avoids me. I go weeks and have no contact with him. He’s overly polite when he’s around me, around us, overly inclusive toward you, almost obsequious, and all it does is make things more uncomfortable. We’ll never get past this unless you allow it. It’s up to you.”
“It’s true I don’t forget,” he said grimly.
“Not exactly equitable when you consider what some of us have had to forgive and forget,” she said, so upset it frightened her. She felt as if she might explode like the package that was hauled away.
His hazel eyes looked at her, watching her carefully. He sat very still, waiting for whatever would come next.
“Especially Marino. Especially Lucy. The secrets you forced them to keep. It was bad enough for me but so unfair to them, having to lie for you. Not that I’m interested in dredging up the past.” But she couldn’t stop herself. The past was climbing up and halfway out her throat. She swallowed hard, trying to stop the past from spilling out of her and all over their life, Benton ’s and her life together.
He watched her, a softness, a sadness, in his eyes that was immeasurable, sweat collecting in the hollow of his neck, disappearing into the silver hair on his chest, trickling down his belly, soaking into the waistband of the polished-cotton gray pajamas she’d bought for him. He was lean and well-defined, with tight muscles and skin, still a striking man, a beautiful man. The bathroom was like a greenhouse, humid and warm from the long shower that had made her feel no less contaminated, no less filthy and foolish. She couldn’t wash away the peculiar-smelling package or Carley Crispin’s show or the CNN marquee or anything, and she felt powerless.
“Well, don’t you have a comment?” Her voice shook badly.
“You know what this is.” He got up from the chair.
“I don’t want us to argue.” Tears welled up in her eyes. “I must be tired. That’s all. I’m tired. I’m sorry I’m so tired.”
“The olfactory system is one of the oldest parts of our brain, sends information that governs emotions, memory, behavior.” He was behind her and slipped his arms around her waist, both of them looking into the hazy mirror. “Individual odor molecules stimulating all sorts of receptors.” Kissing the back of her neck, hugging her. “Tell me what you smelled. Tell me in as much detail as you can.”
She couldn’t see anything in the mirror now, her eyes flooded with tears. She muttered, “Hot pavement. Petroleum. Burning matches. Burning human flesh.”
He reached for another towel and rubbed her hair with it, massaging her scalp.
“I don’t know. I don’t know exactly,” she said.
“You don’t need to know exactly. It’s what it made you feel, that’s what we need to know exactly.”
“Whoever left that package got what he wanted,” she said. “It was a bomb even if it turns out it’s not.”