“I told him not to come,” Scarpetta said. “Not that he can help us with my BlackBerry, but not to Rodman’s Neck, either. There’s a lot going on. He’s got things to do.”
Marino didn’t ask her why or what. He didn’t let on how happy he was not to have Benton around, not to be subjected to him and his attitudes. Benton had never been friendly to Marino, not the entire twenty years they’d known each other. They’d never been pals, never socialized, never done a damn thing together. It wasn’t like knowing another cop, never had been. Benton didn’t fish or bowl or give a rat’s ass about motorcycles or trucks; the two of them had never hung out in the bar, trading stories about cases or women, the way guys talk. Truth was, the only thing Marino and Benton had in common was the Doc, and he tried to remember the last time he’d been alone with her. It felt really good to have her to himself. He was going to take care of her problem. Carley Crispin was toast.
Scarpetta said the same thing she always did: “Fasten your seat belt.”
He started the car and pulled on his shoulder harness, as much as he hated to strap himself in. One of those old habits, like smoking and drinking, that he might break but never forget or feel particularly good about. So what if he was better off. He couldn’t stand wearing a seat belt, and that wasn’t going to change, and he just hoped like hell he was never in a situation when he needed to bolt out of his car and oops, oh shit, still had the seat belt on and ended up dead. He wondered if that same special unit was still roaming around doing random checks on cops, out to nail someone’s ass for not having his belt on and get him grounded for six months.
“Come on. You must know of situations where these damn things end up killing someone,” he said to Scarpetta, who would know the honest answer if anyone did.
“What things?” she said as he pulled away from her building.
“Seat belts. You know, these vehicular straitjackets you’re always preaching about, Dr. Worst-Case Scenario. All those years in Richmond? They didn’t have cops-turned-snitches driving around, looking to get the rest of us in trouble for not having our seat belts on. No one cared, and I never wore one. Not once. Not even when you used to get in my car and start your nagging about all the different ways I might get hurt or die if I didn’t watch out.” It put him in a good mood to remember those days, to be driving with her, without Benton. “Remember that time I got in the shoot-out in Gilpin Court? If I hadn’t been able to bail out of the car, guess what would have happened?”
“It wasn’t your reflex to disengage a seat belt because you had a terrible habit,” she said. “And as I recall, you were chasing that particular drug dealer and not the other way around. I don’t believe your seat belt was a factor, whether it was fastened or not.”
“Historically, cops don’t wear seat belts for a reason,” he replied. “Going back to the beginning of time, cops don’t wear them. You don’t wear your belt and you never have the interior light on. Why? Because the only thing worse than having some drone open fire on you while you’re belted inside your car is to be belted in and have the interior light on so the asshole can see you better.”
“I can give you statistics,” Scarpetta said, looking out her window and kind of quiet. “All the dead people who might have been okay if they’d had their belts on. Not sure I can give you a single example of someone who ended up dead because he did have his belt on.”
“What about if you go off an embankment and end up in the river?”
“You don’t have your belt on, maybe your head hits the windshield. Knocking yourself out isn’t very helpful if you’re submerged in water. Benton just got a phone call from the FBI,” she said. “I don’t guess anybody might tell me what’s going on.”
“Maybe he knows, because I sure as hell don’t.”
“You heard from them?” she asked, and Marino sensed she was sad.
“Not even fifteen minutes ago while I was on my way to pick you up. Did Benton say anything? Was it a profiler named Lanier?” Marino turned onto Park Avenue and was reminded of Hannah Starr.
The Starrs’ mansion wasn’t too far from where he and Scarpetta were headed.
“He was on the phone when I left,” she said. “All I know is he was talking to the FBI.”
“So he didn’t say nothing about what she wanted.” He assumed it was Marty Lanier, that she’d called Benton after talking with Marino.
“I don’t know the answer. He was on the phone when I left,” she repeated.
She didn’t want to talk about something. Maybe she and Benton had been arguing, or maybe she was edgy and down in the dumps because of her stolen BlackBerry.
“I’m not connecting the dots here,” Marino went on, couldn’t help himself. “Why would they call Benton? Marty Lanier’s an FBI profiler. Why does she need to call a former FBI profiler?”
It gave him secret pleasure to say it out loud, to put a dent in Benton ’s shiny armor. He wasn’t FBI anymore. He wasn’t even a cop.
“ Benton ’s been involved in a number of cases that have to do with the FBI.” She wasn’t defensive about it and was talking quietly and somberly. “But I don’t know.”
“You’re saying the FBI asks his advice?”
“On occasion.”
Marino was disappointed to hear it. “That’s surprising. I thought him and the Bureau hated each other.” As if the Bureau was a person.
“He isn’t consulted because he’s former FBI. He’s consulted because he’s a respected forensic psychologist, has been very active in offering his assessments and opinions in criminal cases in New York and elsewhere.”
She was looking at Marino from the darkness of the passenger seat, the torn headliner sagging just inches from her hair. He should just order foam-backed cloth and high-temperature glue and replace the damn thing.
“All I can say for sure is it has to do with the tattoo.” He retreated from the subject of Benton. “While I was at RTCC, I suggested we cast a wider net and search more than the NYPD data warehouse because we got zip on the tattoo, the skulls, the coffin, on that guy’s neck. We did get something on Dodie Hodge. In addition to being arrested in Detroit last month, I found a TAB summons that involved her causing a disturbance on a city bus here in New York, telling someone to FedEx himself to hell. Well, kind of interesting, since the card she sent Benton was in a FedEx envelope, and the guy with the tattoo who delivered your FedEx package had on a FedEx cap.”
“Isn’t that a little bit like connecting mail because it all has postage stamps?”
“I know. It’s probably a stretch,” Marino said. “But I can’t help but wonder if there’s a connection between him and this mental patient who sent you a singing Christmas card and then called you on live TV. And if so, I’m going to be worried because guess what? The guy with the tattooed neck ain’t a candidate for a good citizenship award if he’s in the FBI’s database, right? He’s in there because he’s been arrested or is wanted for something somewhere, possibly a federal crime.”
He slowed down, the Hotel Elysée’s red awning up ahead on the left.
Scarpetta said, “I disabled my password on the BlackBerry.”
It didn’t sound like something she’d do. He didn’t know what to say at first and realized she felt embarrassed. Scarpetta was almost never embarrassed.
“I get sick and tired of having to unlock it all the time, too.” He could sympathize up to a point. “But no way I wouldn’t have a password.” He didn’t want to sound critical, but what she’d done wasn’t smart. It was hard for him to imagine she’d be that careless. “So, what’s up with that?”
He started getting nervous as he thought of his own communications with her. E-mails, voicemails, text messages, copies of reports, photographs from the Toni Darien case, including those he’d taken inside her apartment, and his commentary.