“He can call his local FBI field office,” Benton suggested. “Then he doesn’t have to worry about falling into the hands of some rural sheriff’s department that doesn’t know what the hell is going on. Depending on where he is.”
“He calls the FBI, they’ll take the credit for his arrest,” Morales said.
“Who gives a flying fuck who takes the credit,” Marino said. “I agree with Benton.”
“So do I,” Bacardi said. “He should call the FBI.”
“I appreciate everybody deciding on that for me,” Berger said. “But actually, I tend to agree with you. It’s much riskier if he ends up in the wrong hands. And if by some chance he’s no longer in the U.S., he can still call the FBI. As long as he ends up back here, I don’t care who gets him.”
Her eyes found Morales.
She added, “Credit isn’t an issue.”
He stared back at her. He looked at Lucy and winked. The mother-fucking prick.
Scarpetta said, “I’m not going on CNN and asking him to turn himself in. That’s not who I am. It’s not what I do. I don’t take sides.”
“You’re not serious,” Morales said. “You telling me you don’t go after the bad guys? Dr. CNN always gets the bad guy. Come on. You don’t want to ruin your reputation over a dwarf.”
“What she’s telling you is she’s the advocate of the victim,” Benton said.
“Legally, that’s correct,” Berger said. “She doesn’t work for me or the defense.”
“If everybody’s finished speaking on my behalf and has no further questions, I’d like to go home,” Scarpetta said, getting up and getting angrier.
Lucy tried to remember the last time she’d seen her aunt as angry as she was right now, especially before an audience. It wasn’t like her.
“What time do you expect Dr. Lester to start Eva Peebles’s case? I mean really start it. I’m not asking what time she said she’d start it. I don’t intend to show up down there and sit around for hours. And unfortunately, I can’t start the case without her. It’s unfortunate she’s doing it at all.”
Scarpetta looked directly at Morales, who had called Dr. Lester from the scene.
“I don’t have control over that,” Berger said. “I can call the chief medical examiner, but that’s not a good idea. I think you understand. They already think I’m a meddler down there.”
“That’s because you are,” Morales said. “Jaime the Meddler. Everybody calls you that.”
Berger ignored him and got up from her chair. She looked at her very expensive watch.
She said to Morales, “Seven o’clock is what she said, is that right?”
“That’s what Pester Lester said.”
“Since you seem to be so chummy with her, maybe you could check and make sure she really is going to start the case at seven, so Kay doesn’t take a taxi down there after being up all night, and then sit.”
“You know what?” Morales said to Scarpetta. “I’ll go pick her up. How ’bout that? And I’ll call you when we’re en route. I’ll even swing by and get you.”
“That’s the best idea you’ve had in a while,” Berger said to him.
Scarpetta said to both of them, “Thanks, but I’ll get myself there. But yes, please call me.”
When Berger returned from seeing Scarpetta and Benton to the door, Marino wanted more coffee. Lucy followed Berger into her spacious kitchen of stainless steel, wormy chestnut, and granite, deciding she had to say something now. How Berger responded would determine if there was a later.
“You heading out?” Berger’s tone turned familiar as she met Lucy’s eyes and opened a bag of coffee.
“The whiskeys in your bar,” Lucy said, rinsing the coffeepot and refilling it.
“What whiskeys?”
“You know what whiskeys,” Lucy said.
Berger took the pot from her and filled the coffeemaker.
“I don’t,” she said. “Are you telling me you want an eye opener? I wouldn’t have thought you’re the type.”
“There’s nothing funny about this, Jaime.”
Berger flipped up the on switch and leaned against the counter. She really didn’t seem to know what Lucy was talking about, and Lucy didn’t believe her.
Lucy mentioned the Irish whiskey and the Scotch that were in her bar.
“They’re on the top shelf behind glass, in your own damn bar,” Lucy said. “You can’t miss them.”
“Greg,” Berger said. “He collects. And I did miss them.”
“He collects? I didn’t know he was still around,” Lucy said, feeling worse, maybe the worst she’d ever felt.
“What I mean is those are his,” Berger said with her usual calm. “If you start opening cabinets in there, you’ll see a fortune in small-batch this and single-malt that. I did miss them. They never entered my mind, because I don’t drink his precious whiskeys. Never did.”
“Really?” Lucy said. “Then why does Morales seem to know you have them?”
“This is ridiculous, and it’s neither the time nor the place,” Berger said very quietly. “Please don’t.”
“He looked right at them as if he knew something. Has he ever been here before this morning?” Lucy said. “Maybe the Tavern on the Green gossip is more than that.”
“I not only don’t have to answer that, I won’t. And I can’t.” Berger said it without an edge, almost gently. “Maybe you could be so kind as to ask who wants coffee and what they might want in it?”
Lucy walked out of the kitchen and didn’t ask anyone anything. She unplugged her power supply. She calmly looped the cord around her hand and tucked it into a pocket of her nylon case. Then the MacBook went inside.
“Got to head back to my office,” she said to everyone as Berger returned.
Berger asked about coffee, as if everything was fine.
“We haven’t listened to the nine-one-one tape,” Bacardi suddenly remembered. “I want to hear it, anyway. Don’t know about everyone else.”
“I should hear it,” Marino said.
“I don’t need to hear it,” Lucy said. “Someone can e-mail the audio file to me if they want me to hear it. I’ll be in touch if I have any new information. I’ll see myself out,” she said to Jaime Berger without looking at her.
Chapter 30
“Poor doormen,” Scarpetta said. “I think I spooked them more than usual.”
When they arrived at their luxury apartment building, one glimpse of her crime scene case and the doormen always stayed clear. But this early morning, the reaction was stronger than usual because of the news. A serial killer was terrorizing New York’s East Side, and may have killed before, years earlier, in Maryland and Connecticut, and Benton and Scarpetta looked pretty scary themselves.
They stepped onto the elevator and rode up to the thirty-second floor. The minute they were inside the door, they started undressing.
“I wish you wouldn’t go down there,” Benton said.
He yanked off his tie as he took off his jacket, his coat already draped over a chair.
“You’ve gotten swabs, you know what killed her. Why?” he said.
Scarpetta replied, “Maybe just once today people will treat me as if I have a mind of my own or even half the one I used to have.”