She cut him off. “You’ve never told Marino, have you? About John Jay, about your apartment here?”
“I haven’t told him Kay’s in and out of New York. I haven’t told him about Lucy’s moving here.”
“No, in other words.”
“I can’t remember the last time I talked to him, and have no idea what he might have found out on his own. But you’re right. I never expected anything like this to happen when I recommended you hire him. However, it wasn’t my place to divulge—”
She cut him off again. “Divulge? You divulged plenty, just not the whole truth.”
“It would be hearsay. . . .”
“His was such a sad story. And savvy prosecutor that I am, I fell for it without question. Marino and his problem with alcohol. Quits his job because he can’t deal with your engagement to Kay, and he’s depressed and self-destructive. A month in a treatment center, good as new, and I should hire him. After all, he started out his career with NYPD, and he wasn’t a stranger to me. I believe the phrase you used was mutually beneficial. ”
“He’s a damn good investigator. At least give me credit for that.”
“Did you really think—for even five minutes—that he’d never find out? That Kay and Lucy would never find out, for God’s sake? At any given moment, Kay could be summoned to my office to go over an autopsy report that Marino has something to do with—which will probably happen, by the way. She’s in and out of the morgue as a consultant. She’s on CNN every other week.”
“For all he knows, she does CNN by satellite from Boston.”
“Oh, please. Marino hasn’t had a lobotomy since you saw him last. But I’m starting to wonder if you have.”
“Look,” Benton said, “I hoped if enough time passed . . . Well, we’d deal with it. And I don’t pass on tawdry stories that are, if we’re honest, nothing more than rumors.”
“Nonsense. What you wanted was to avoid dealing with reality, and that’s how this entire mess has happened.”
“I was putting off dealing with it. Yes.”
“Putting it off until when? The next life?”
“Until I figured out what to do about it. I lost control of it.”
“Now we’re getting close to the facts of the case. This isn’t about hearsay, and you know it. It’s about your head in the sand,” she said.
“All I wanted, Jaime, was to restore some civility. Restore something. To move on and do so without malice, without irrevocable damage.”
“To magically make everybody friends again. Restore the past, the good ol’ days. Happily ever after. Delusions. Fairy tales. I imagine Lucy hates him. Probably Kay doesn’t. She’s not the sort to hate.”
“I don’t know what the hell Lucy will do when she sees him. And she will. Then what? It’s a big concern. It’s not funny.”
“I’m not laughing.”
“You’ve seen her in action. This is serious.”
“I was hoping she’d outgrown killing people in the line of what she considers duty.”
“She’s going to see him eventually, or know about it, at least,” Benton said. “Since you’ve decided to avail yourself of her forensic computer skills.”
“Which, by the way, I found out from the DA in Queens County and a couple of cops. Not from you. Because you didn’t want me to know she was here, either, because you hoped I’d never use her—nice de facto uncle that you are. Because if I decided to use her, one day she’d show up at my office, and guess who she might run into?”
“When you talked to her on the phone, is that what happened?” Benton asked. “You said something about Marino?”
“To my knowledge, she doesn’t know about him. Yet. Because no. I didn’t mention him. I was too busy worrying about this woman who was murdered last night and what might be on her laptops and what Lucy could do to help. I was too busy thinking about the last time I saw Lucy in my own apartment after she’d come back from Poland, and you and I both know what she did over there. Brilliant, brash. A vigilante with no respect for boundaries. Now she’s started this forensic computer investigation company. Connextions. Interesting name, I thought, as in connections and What’s next? And we all know, whatever’s next, Lucy will be there first. And what a relief. It didn’t sound like the Lucy I once knew. Showed less of a need to overpower and impress, more thoughtful, more reflective. She used to be into all these acronyms, remember? When she was the wunderkind doing a summer internship at Quantico. CAIN. Criminal Artificial Intelligence Network. She designs a system like that when she’s, what, still in high school? No bloody wonder she was so obnoxious, such a renegade, so out of bounds. And friendless. But maybe she’s changed. When I talked to her—granted, over the phone, not in person—she sounded mature, not so grandiose and self-absorbed, and she appreciated my reaching out to her first. Certainly not the old Lucy.”
Benton was rather stunned that she remembered so much about the old Lucy or seemed so fascinated by the new one.
“These were the things going through my mind when she was telling me that the programming she did way back when’s now as obsolete as Noah’s ark, and I’d be amazed by what’s possible now,” Berger said. “No. I didn’t mention Marino. I don’t think she has a clue he’s currently assigned to my sex crimes unit and actively working the same case I just asked her to work. Obviously not. Or she would have reacted, said something. Well, she’s about to know. I’m going to have to tell her.”
“And that’s still a good idea? Getting her involved?”
“Probably not. But I’m in a bit of a quandary, if I’ve not made that perfectly plain. I don’t intend to un-invite her at this precise moment because, frankly, if her abilities are what they’re cracked up to be, I need her. Internet crime is one of our biggest problems, and it’s beating us. We’re up against a world of invisible criminals who in many instances don’t seem to leave evidence, or if they do, it’s deliberately misleading. I’m not going to let Marino or a gossip column or your insecurities and marital issues derail what I’ve got in the works. I will do what’s best for this case. Period.”
“I know Lucy’s capabilities. Frankly, you’d be foolish not to take advantage of her,” Benton said.
“That’s about the long and short of it. I’ll have to take advantage of her. A city government budget can’t afford someone like her.”
“She’d probably do it for free. She doesn’t need the money.”
“Nothing’s free, Benton.”
“And it’s true. She’s changed. Not the same person you knew last time you saw her, when you could have had her brought up on—”
“Let’s don’t talk about what I could have done. Whatever she confessed to me that night five or so years ago, I don’t remember. The rest of it, she never told me. As far as I’m concerned, she never went to Poland. However, I’m trusting there won’t be a repeat of that sort of thing. And I sure as hell don’t need another FBI, ATF situation.”
Early in her career, Lucy basically had been fired by both.
“You’ll get the laptops to her when?” Benton asked.
“Soon. I have the search warrant to go through the contents, all my ducks in a row.”
“I’m a little surprised you didn’t get on this right away, last night,” he said. “Whatever’s in her laptops may tell us what we need to know.”
“Simple answer. We didn’t have them last night. They weren’t found on the first search. Marino came across them during a second one late this morning.”