“Remember what I said?” Scarpetta had been changing her clothes while she talked to her. “Confidentiality is critical, because some details are known only by the killer, the medical examiner, and the police. That’s why I can’t tell you more at this time.”
Here she was, the torchbearer for discretion and ethical conduct, and for all she knew, someone had found Grace Darien’s information in a BlackBerry that wasn’t password-protected and had contacted the distraught woman. Scarpetta couldn’t stop thinking about what Carley had blasted all over the news, the detail about the yellow cab and its allegedly connecting Toni Darien to Hannah Starr, and the false information about Hannah’s decomposing head hair being found. Of course a journalist, especially a cold-blooded, desperate one, would want to talk to the Grace Dariens of the world, and the list of possible egregious violations caused by Scarpetta’s missing smartphone was getting longer as she remembered more. She continued conjuring up names of contacts she’d been keeping since the beginning of her career, first on paper, then eventually in electronic format, exported from cell phone to cell phone as she upgraded, finally ending up in the device Lucy had bought.
Hundreds of names were in Scarpetta’s contacts subfolder, she guessed, many of them people who might never trust her again if someone like Carley Crispin called them on their cell phones, on their direct lines, or at home. Mayor Bloomberg, Commissioner Kelly, Dr. Edison, countless powerful officials here and abroad, in addition to Scarpetta’s extensive network of forensic colleagues and physicians and prosecutors and defense attorneys, and her family, friends, doctors, dentist, hairstylist, personal trainer, housekeeper. Places she shopped. What she ordered on Amazon, including books she read. Restaurants. Her accountant. Her private banker. The list got longer the more she thought about it, longer and more troubling. Saved voicemails that were visualized on the screen and could be played without entering a password. Documents and PowerPoint presentations that included graphic images she’d downloaded from e-mails-including Toni Darien’s scene photographs. The one Carley had shown on the air could have come from Scarpetta’s phone, and then her anxieties turned to IM, instant messaging, all those applications that allowed and prompted constant contact.
Scarpetta didn’t believe in IM, considered such technologies a compulsion, not an improvement, possibly one of the most unfortunate and foolhardy innovations in history, people typing on tiny touch screens and keypads while they should be paying attention to rather important activities such as driving, crossing a busy street, operating dangerous machinery, such as aircraft or trains, or sitting in a classroom, a lecture hall, attending Grand Rounds or the theater or a concert, or paying attention to whoever was across from them in a restaurant or next to them in bed. Not long ago, she caught a medical student on rotation in the New York office instant messaging during an autopsy, pushing tiny keys with latex-sheathed thumbs. She’d kicked him out of the morgue, expelled him from her tutelage, and encouraged Dr. Edison to ban all electronic devices from any area beyond the anteroom, but that was never going to happen. It was too late for that, would be turning back the hands on the clock, and no one would comply.
The cops, the medicolegal investigators, the scientists, the pathologists, the anthropologists, the odontologists, the forensic archaeologists, the mortuary, the ID techs and security guards, weren’t going to give up their PDAs, iPhones, BlackBerrys, cell phones, and pagers, and despite her continual warnings to her colleagues about disseminating confidential information via instant messaging or even e-mails or, God forbid, taking photographs or making video recordings on these devices, it happened anyway. Even she had fallen prey to sending text messages and downloading images and information far more than was wise, had gotten somewhat lax about it. These days she spent so much time in taxis and airports, the flow of information never pausing, never giving anyone a break, almost none of it password-protected, because she’d gotten frustrated, or maybe because she didn’t like feeling controlled by her niece.
Scarpetta clicked on her inbox. The most recent e-mail, sent just minutes ago, was from Lucy, with the provocative subject heading:
FOLLOW THE BREAD CRUMBS
Scarpetta opened it.
Aunt Kay: Attached is a GPS data log of tactical tracking updated every 15 secs. I’ve included only key times and locations, beginning at approx. 1935 hours when you hung your coat in the makeup room closet, presumably the BlackBerry in a pocket. A pic is worth a thousand words. Go through the slideshow and form your own conclusion. I know what mine is. Needless to say, I’m glad you’re safe. Marino told me about the FedEx. -L
The first image in the slideshow was what Lucy called a “bird’s eye of the Time Warner Center,” or basically a close-on aerial view. This was followed by a map with the street address, including the latitude and longitude. Unquestionably, Scarpetta’s BlackBerry had been at the Time Warner Center at seven thirty five p.m., when she first arrived at the north tower entrance on 59th Street, was cleared through security, took the elevator to the fifth floor, walked down the hallway to the makeup room, and hung her coat in the closet. At this point, only she and the makeup artist were in the room, and it wasn’t possible anyone could have gone into the pocket of her coat during the twenty-some minutes she was in the chair, being touched up and then just sitting and waiting, watching Campbell Brown on the television that was always on in there.
As best Scarpetta could recall, a sound technician miked her at around eight-twenty, which was at least twenty minutes earlier than usual, now that she thought about it, and she was led to the set and seated at the table. Carley Crispin didn’t appear until a few minutes before nine and sat across from her, sipped water with a straw, exchanged pleasantries, and then they were on the air. During the show and until Scarpetta left the building at close to eleven p.m., the location of her BlackBerry, according to Lucy, remained the same, with one proviso:
If your BB was moved to a different location at the same address-to another room or another floor, for example-lat and long coordinates wouldn’t change. So can’t tell. Only know it was in the building.
After that, at almost eleven p.m., when Carley Crispin and Scarpetta left the Time Warner Center, the BlackBerry left the Time Warner Center, too. Scarpetta followed its journey in the log, in the slideshow, clicking on a bird’s-eye, this one Columbus Circle, and then another bird’s-eye of her apartment building on Central Park West, which was captured at eleven-sixteen p.m. At this point, one might conclude that Scarpetta’s BlackBerry was still in her coat pocket and what the WAAS receiver was tracking and recording every fifteen seconds was her own locations as she walked home. But that couldn’t be the case. Benton had tried to call her numerous times. If the BlackBerry was in Scarpetta’s coat pocket, why didn’t it ring? She hadn’t turned it off. She almost never did.
More significant, Scarpetta realized, when she’d entered her building, her BlackBerry hadn’t. The next images in the slideshow were a series of bird’s-eye aerial photos, maps, and addresses that showed a curious journey her BlackBerry had taken, beginning with a return to the Time Warner Center, then following Sixth Avenue and coming to a stop at 60 East 54th Street. Scarpetta enlarged the bird’s-eye, studying a cluster of granite grayish buildings tucked amid high-rises, cars, and cabs frozen on the street, recognizing in the background the Museum of Modern Art, the Seagram Building, the French Gothic spire of Saint Thomas Church.
Lucy’s note: