“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.
“I mean, you’re saying Carley could have looked at everything on your friggin’ BlackBerry? Shit,” he said.
“You wear glasses,” Scarpetta said. “You always have your glasses on. I wear reading glasses and don’t always have them on. So imagine when I’m walking all over my building or walking outside to pick up a sandwich and need to make a call and can’t see to type in the damn password.”
“You can make the font bigger.”
“This damn present from Lucy makes me feel ninety years old. So I disabled the password. Was it a good idea? No. But I did it.”
“You tell her?” Marino said.
“I was going to do something about it. I don’t know what I was going to do. I guess I was going to try to adapt, put the password back, and didn’t get around to it. I didn’t tell her. She can remotely delete everything on it, and I don’t want her to do that yet.”
“Nope. You get it back and nothing on it links the BlackBerry to you except the serial number? I can still charge Carley with a felony because the value’s over two-fifty. But I’d rather make it a bigger deal than that.” He’d given it a lot of thought. “If she stole data, I’ve got more to work with. All the shit you got on your BlackBerry? Now maybe we make a case for identity theft, a class-C felony, maybe I show intent, make a case for her planning on selling information from the medical examiner’s office, making a profit by going public with it. Maybe we give her a nervous breakdown.”
“I hope she doesn’t do something stupid.”
Marino wasn’t sure who Scarpetta meant: Carley Crispin or Lucy.
“If there’s no data on your phone,” he started to reiterate.
“I told her not to nuke it. To use her term.”
“Then she won’t,” Marino said. “Lucy’s an experienced investigator, a forensic computer expert who used to be a federal agent. She knows how the system works, and she probably knows you weren’t using your damn password, too. Since she set up a network on a server, and don’t ask me to speak her jargon about what she set up to supposedly do us a favor. Anyway, she’s coming here to bring the warrant by.”
Scarpetta was quiet.
“What I’m saying is she probably could check and know about your password, right?” Marino said. “She could know you quit using one, right? I’m sure she checks stuff like that, right?”
“I don’t think I’m the one she’s been checking on of late,” Scarpetta answered.
Marino was beginning to realize why she was acting like something was eating at her, something besides her stolen smartphone or possibly a squabble with Benton. Marino didn’t comment, the two of them sitting in his beat-up car in front of one of the nicest hotels in New York City, a doorman looking at them and not venturing outside, leaving them alone. Hotel staff know a cop car when they see one.
“I do think she’s been checking on someone, though,” Scarpetta then said. “I started thinking about it after going through the GPS log I told you about. Lucy can know where any of us are at any time, if she wants. And I don’t think she’s been tracking you or me. Or Benton. I don’t think it’s a coincidence that she suddenly decided we should have these new smartphones.”
Marino had his hand on the door handle, not sure what to say. Lucy had been off, been different, been antsy and angry and a little paranoid for weeks, and he should have paid more attention. He should have made the same connection, one that was seeming more obvious the longer the suggestion lingered inside his dark, dirty car. It had never occurred to Marino that Lucy was spying on Berger. It wouldn’t have entered his mind because he wouldn’t want to believe it. He didn’t want any reminder of what Lucy could do when she felt cornered or simply felt justified. He didn’t want to remember what she’d done to his son. Rocco was born bad, was a hardened criminal who didn’t give a fuck about anyone. If Lucy hadn’t taken him out, someone else would have, but Marino didn’t like the reminder. He almost couldn’t stomach it.
“All Jaime does is work. I can’t imagine why Lucy would be that paranoid, and I can’t imagine what will happen if Jaime realizes… well, if it’s true. I hope it’s not. But I know Lucy, and I know something’s not right and hasn’t been right. And you’re not saying anything, and this probably isn’t the time to discuss it,” Scarpetta said. “So, how are we going to handle Carley?”
“When one person works all the time, sometimes the other person can get a little out of whack. You know, act different,” Marino said. “I got the same problem with Bacardi at the moment.”
“Are you tracking her with a WAAS-enabled GPS receiver you built into a smartphone that was a present?” Scarpetta said bitterly.
“I’m like you, Doc. Been tempted to throw this new phone in the damn lake,” he said seriously, and he felt bad for her. “You know how crappy I type, even on a regular keyboard, and the other day I thought I was hitting the volume button and took a fucking picture of my foot.”
“You wouldn’t track Bacardi with a GPS even if you thought she was having an affair. That’s not what people like us do, Marino.”
“Yeah, well, Lucy’s not us, and I’m not saying she’s doing that.” He didn’t know it for a fact, but she probably was.
“You work for Jaime. I don’t want to ask if there’s any basis…” She didn’t finish.
“There isn’t. She’s not doing nothing,” Marino said. “I can promise you that. If she was screwing around, had something going on the side, believe me, I’d know. And it’s not like she doesn’t have opportunity. Believe me, I know that, too. I hope it somehow turns out Lucy’s really not doing what you’re saying. Spying. Jaime finds out something like that, she won’t let it go.”
“Would you let it go?”
“Hell, no. You got a problem with me, just say it. You think I’m doing something, just say it. But don’t give me a free fancy phone so you can spy on me. That’s a deal-breaker if you supposedly trust someone.”