Calculating and quick enough to return to his car and toss in his coat, making sure his story about being attacked as he was entering her house, and his torn T-shirt and injuries, was plausible to the police. But when did Oscar do that, assuming it was true? Scarpetta guessed it was after he raked his nails over his own flesh and struck himself with the flashlight, then realized it wasn’t possible to explain the injuries if they were inflicted while he was wearing a coat.
“Souvenirs,” Scarpetta said. “Maybe a killer who takes souvenirs and leaves one. If we consider the possibility that the ankle bracelet was put on the body by the killer, possibly after the murder. Like the silver rings in that case you had in California years ago. Four coeds, and in each homicide, the killer put a silver ring on the victim’s wedding finger. But the symbolism of a silver ring strikes me as completely different from an ankle bracelet.”
“One is possession—as in, with this ring, I make you mine,” Benton said. “The other is control—as in, I’m putting a shackle around your ankle. I own you.”
More photos: a table set for two. Candles, wineglasses, linen napkins in blue napkin rings, and dinner and bread plates and salad bowls. In the center of the table, a flower arrangement. Great attention to details, everything perfectly appointed, perfectly matched, and centered and straight but lacking in imagination and warmth.
“She was obsessive,” Scarpetta observed. “A perfectionist. But she went to trouble for him. I think Oscar mattered to her. Was there music playing when the police arrived?”
“Nothing in the report.”
“The television on? There’s one in the living room, but it’s off in the photograph. Any hint as to what she might have been doing when someone arrived at her door? Other than cooking at some point during the afternoon?”
“What you see in the photos, what’s in the reports, is pretty much all we know.” He paused. “Because you’re the only one Oscar would really talk to.”
She scanned the report out loud. “Oven set at two hundred, a whole chicken inside, suggesting it was cooked. She was just keeping it warm. Fresh spinach in a pot, hadn’t been cooked yet. Stove off.”
Another photo: a black plastic flashlight on the carpet near the front door.
Another photo: clothing neatly laid out on a bed. A low-cut sweater, red. Looked like cashmere. Red pants. Looked like silk. Shoes? No sign of them. No sign of her panties.
Another photo: no sign of makeup on Terri’s suffused face.
Scarpetta reconstructed: Terri was going to dress festively and provocatively in bright red that was soft to the touch. She had on a sexy bra, a not-so-sexy robe and slippers, perhaps waiting until shortly before Oscar arrived to put on makeup and finish getting dressed, alluringly, in red. Where were her shoes? Maybe she didn’t always wear them indoors, especially in her own apartment. Where were her panties? Some women don’t wear panties. Maybe she was one of them. But if so, Scarpetta found that inconsistent with what Oscar had told her about Terri’s obsession with cleanliness, with “germs.”
“Do we know if she had a habit of not wearing panties?” she asked Benton.
“Got no idea.”
“And shoes. Where are they? She’d gone to so much trouble to pick out what she was going to wear, but no shoes? Three possibilities. She hadn’t picked them out yet. The killer took them. Or she didn’t wear shoes in the house. And that’s curious and a little hard for me to accept. Someone obsessive-compulsive about neatness, cleanliness, isn’t likely to walk around barefoot. And when she was in her robe, she had on slippers. Wasn’t barefoot then. Someone obsessive-compulsive about dirt and bacteria is likely to wear panties.”
“I wasn’t aware she was obsessive-compulsive,” Benton said.
Scarpetta realized she’d revealed something she shouldn’t have.
“Oscar didn’t talk about her when I evaluated him, as you know.” Benton wasn’t going to let go of her indiscretion. “I didn’t pick up on anything that might indicate Terri was obsessive-compulsive, or overly vigilant about cleanliness, neatness. Beyond what you see in the photos. And yes, you can tell she’s very organized and tidy. That’s been suggested, but not to the degree of a compulsion. So if she wasn’t likely to walk around barefoot and without panties, we’re back to the possibility of a killer who took souvenirs. That points away from Oscar. For him to remove those from the scene, then hurry back to be there when the police arrived, strikes me as far-fetched.”
“I’m inclined to agree.”
“You don’t think Oscar did it, do you?” Benton said.
“I think the police had better not make the assumption that the killer is a, quote, deranged little person safely locked up here on the prison ward. That’s what I think,” she said.
“Oscar isn’t crazy—not a nice word, but I’m using it. He doesn’t have a personality disorder. Isn’t sociopathic, narcissistic, borderline. His SCID revealed an inclination toward anger and avoidance, and it appears something triggered paranoia and reinforced his feeling that he needs to disaffiliate himself from others. In summary, he’s afraid of something. He doesn’t know who to trust.”
Scarpetta thought of the CD Oscar claimed to have hidden in his library.
In Murray Hill, Marino walked along a dark, tree-lined street, looking through the eyes of a predator.
Terri Bridges’s brownstone was tucked between a playground and a doctor’s office, both closed last night. Across the street, on either side of her peculiar neighbor’s two-story building, were a French bistro and a bakery, also closed last night. He had checked, had carefully researched the area, and had come to the same conclusion that Morales had: When Terri opened her door to her killer, there was no one watching.
Even if someone happened to walk past, the person probably had no idea what he was looking at when a lone figure climbed the steps and buzzed the front door, or opened it with a key. Marino suspected the truth of the matter was the perpetrator had stayed out of sight until he was sure no one was in the area, and that returned Marino’s thoughts to Oscar Bane.
If his intention was to kill Terri last night, it didn’t matter if he was spotted. He was her boyfriend. He was supposed to have dinner with her, or people would assume he was, and parking his Jeep Cherokee right out front was smart because that would be the normal thing to do if he had no violent intentions. After talking to Bacardi, there was no doubt about what type of crime Marino was dealing with. This was exactly what it appeared to be—a sexually motivated premeditated act committed by someone whose murder kit included bindings, a lubricant, and a ten-karat-gold ankle bracelet.
Either Oscar was innocent or he was going to be hard as hell to catch, because he had every reason to show up at Terri’s house late yesterday afternoon. By all appearances, Terri was expecting him for dinner. By all appearances, she was expecting a romantic evening with him. The crime scene so far seemed virtually useless, because remnants of Oscar would be everywhere, including on Terri’s dead body. The perfect crime? Maybe, were it not for one oddball thing: Oscar’s insistence, which predated Terri’s death by a month, that he was being spied on, brainwashed, that his identity had been stolen.
Marino thought about Oscar’s ranting and raving over the phone. Unless he was psychotic, why would he draw attention to himself like that if he were a serial killer who had already murdered at least two people?
Marino felt guilty and worried. What if he had listened to Oscar more carefully, maybe encouraged him to come to the DA’s office and sit down with Berger? What if Marino had even halfway given him the benefit of the doubt? Would he still be walking down this dark sidewalk on this cold, windy night?