Benton is shaking his head. "But your address is printed, machine-printed. How could Chandonne manage to do that?"
"How the hell do you stand this joint? Don't you even got air-conditioning? And we did swab the envelopes the letters came in, but it's that self-stick adhesive. So he didn't have to lick nothing."
This is evasion and Marino knows it. Sloughed-off skin cells can adhere to self-sticking adhesives. He doesn't want to answer Benton's question.
"How did Chandonne pull off sending you letters inside an envelope like this?" Benton shakes the photocopy at Marino. "And don't you find it just a little odd that first-class mail is x-ed out? Why might that be?"
"I guess we'll just have to get Wolfman to explain," Marino rudely replies. "I got no fucking idea."
"Yet you seem to know for a fact that the letters are from Jean-Baptiste." Benton measures each word. "Pete. You're better than this."
Marino wipes his forehead on his sleeve. "Look, so the fact is, we don't got scientific evidence to prove nothing. But it's not because we didn't take a shot at it. We did use the Luma-Lite, and we did try for DNA, and everything's whistle-clean as of this moment."
"Mitochondrial DNA? You trying for that?"
"Why bother? It would take months, and by then he'll be dead. And there's no way in hell we're going to get a goddamn thing anyway. For crying out loud, don't you think the asshole gets off on somehow using a National Academy of Justice envelope? How's that for a fuck-you? Don't you think he gets off on making us do all these tests when he knows we'll come up with zip? All he had to do was cover his hands with toilet paper or whatever when he touched anything."
"Maybe," Benton says.
Marino is about to erupt. He is exasperated beyond his limit.
"Easy, Pete," Benton says. "You would think less of me if I didn't ask."
Marino stares off without blinking.
"My opinion?" Benton goes on. "He wrote the letters and was deliberate about not leaving evidence. I don't know how he managed to use a National Academy of Justice envelope, and yes, that is a huge fuck-you. Frankly, I'm surprised you haven't heard from him before now. The letters sound authentic. They do not have the off-key ring of a crank. We know Jean-Baptiste has a breast fetish." He says this clinically. "We know it is very likely he has information that could destroy his criminal family and the cartel. It fits with his insatiable need to dominate and control that he presents the conditions he has."
"And what about him saying the Doc wants to see him?"
"You tell me."
"She never wrote him. I asked her point-blank. Why the hell would she write that piece of shit? I told her about the National Academy of Justice envelopes, that the letter to her and me came in one. I showed her a photocopy…"
"Of what?" Benton interrupts.
"A photocopy of the National Academy of Justice envelope." Marino is getting exasperated. "The one her and my letters from Wolfman came in. I told her if she gets one of these goddamn National Academy of Justice letters herself, not to open it, not to even touch it. Do you really believe he wants her to be his executioner?"
"If he intends to die…"
"Intends?" Marino interrupts him. "I don't believe ol' Wolfмe Boy's got much to say about that."
"A lot can happen between now and then, Pete. Remember who his connections are. I wouldn't be too sure of anything. And by the way, when Lucy got her letter, was it also sent in a postage-paid National Academy of Justice envelope?"
Yup.
"The fantasy of a woman doctor administering the lethal injection and watching him die would be erotic to him," Benton muses.
"Not just any doctor. We're talking about Scarpetta!"
"He victimizes to the end, dominates and controls another human being to the end, forces a person to commit an act that will scar forever." Benton pauses before he adds, "You kill someone, you never forget him, now do you? We have to take the letters seriously. I do believe they are from him-fingerprints, DNA or not."
"Yeah, well I believe they're from him, too, and that he means what he says, and that's why I'm here, if you ain't figured it out yet. If we can get Wolfman to sing, we move in on all his daddy's lieutenants and put the Chandonne cartel out of business. And you got nothing to worry about anymore."
"Who is we?"
"I wish you'd quit saying that!" Marino gets up to help himself to another beer. Anger and frustration flare again. "Don't you get it?" he calls out, rummaging inside the refrigerator. "After May seventh, after we got the goods and Wolfman's dead, there ain't no reason for you to be Tom what's-his-name anymore!"
"Who is we?"
Marino snorts like a bull as he pops open a bottle of Dos Equis this time. " We is me. We is Lucy."
"Does Lucy know you came to see me today?"
"No. I didn't tell no one and won't."
"Good." Benton doesn't move in his chair.
"Wolfman gives us pawns to knock off the board," Marino plans on without him. "Maybe he's already given us our first pawn by ratting out Rocco. I can only figure that somebody must have ratted him out if he's suddenly a fugitive."
"I see. How honorable of Chandonne, if your son is his first pawn. Will you visit Rocco in prison, Pete?"
Marino suddenly smashes the beer bottle in the sink. Glass shatters. He strides over to Benton and gets in his face.
"Shut up about him, you hear me? I hope he gets fucking AIDS in prison and dies! All the suffering he's caused! Now it should be his goddamn turn!"
"Whose suffering?" Benton doesn't flinch at Marino's hot, beery breath. "Your suffering?"
"Start with his mother's suffering. And keep on going." Marino still has a hard time thinking about Doris, his ex-wife and Rocco's mother.
She was Marino's sweetheart when he was in his prime. He still thought of her as his sweetheart long after he stopped paying attention to her. He was stunned when she left him for another man.
While this is crossing Marino's mind, he is yelling at Benton, "You can come home, you fucking idiot! You can live your life again!"
Marino sits down on the couch, breathing hard, his face a deep red that reminds Benton of the 575M Maranello Ferrari he has seen around Cambridge. Its color is a deep burgundy called Barcetta, and thinking of that car reminds him of Lucy, who has always been in love with fast, powerful machines.
"You can see the Doc, and Lucy, and…"
"Untrue," Benton whispers. "Jean-Baptiste Chandonne has manipulated himself into this position. He is exactly where he wants to be. Connect the dots, Pete. Go back to how it started after he was arrested. He shocked everyone by offering an unsolicited confession to yet another murder, this one in Texas, and then, of all things, pled guilty. Why? Because he wanted to be extradited to Texas. It was his choice, not the governor of Virginias."
"No way," Marino challenges. "Our ambitious Virginia governor didn't want to piss off Washington by pissing off France-the anti-death penalty capital of the world. So we gave Chandonne to Texas."
Benton shakes his head. "Not so. Jean-Baptiste gave Jean-Baptiste to Texas."
"And how the hell would you know, anyway? You talking to people? I thought you didn't talk to no one."
Benton doesn't reply.
"I don't get it," Marino goes on. "Why would Wolfman give a shit about Texas?"
"He knew he would die quickly there, and he wanted to die quickly. It was part of his master plan. He had no intention of rotting on death row for ten or fifteen years. And his chances of gamesmanship are much greater in Texas. Virginia might very well fold to political pressure and stay his execution.
"Virginia is also claustrophobic. His every move would be watched. He would get away with much less, because law-enforcement and corrections officers would make it their mission to ensure his safety and good behavior. He would be monitored to the extreme. Don't tell me that if he were in Virginia, his mail wouldn't be secretly checked. The hell with his legal rights."