Besides, he was a bullshit artist who circulated all sorts of wild stories about himself and laughed his ass off when other cops believed him. Supposedly, his cousin was the president of Bolivia, and his father had moved the family to America because he believed in capitalism and was tired of herding llamas. Supposedly, Morales had grown up in the projects of Chicago and had been a pal of Barack Obama until politics interfered, which seemed reasonable to those who didn’t know better. No presidential candidate would want to be friends with someone who used words like bro and looked like a member of a street gang, right down to his half-mast baggy jeans, big gold chains and rings, and cornrow hair.
“Been running queries all day—not to be confused with homos, bro,” Morales said.
“Got no idea what the hell you’re talking about.”
“Queer-ies? I forgot you got no sense of humor and barely finished high school. Looking for the usual patterns, trends, modus operandi, complaints, from here to Dollywood, and I think I hit on something.”
“What besides Berger?” Marino said.
“What is it about women like her and Kay Scarpetta? It might be worth dying to have her hands all over me. Goddamn. Can you imagine doing her and Berger at the same time? Well, who am I talking to? Of course you can imagine it.”
Marino’s dislike of Morales instantly turned to hate. He was always screwing with Marino, putting him down, and the only reason Marino didn’t screw him back, only harder, was Marino’s self-imposed probation. Benton had asked Berger for a favor. If she hadn’t granted it, God knows where Marino would be. Probably a dispatcher in some shitbox small-town police department somewhere. Or a drunk in a homeless shelter. Or dead.
“It’s possible our killer’s struck before,” Morales said. “I’ve found two other homicides that are somewhat similar. Not New York, but remember Oscar’s self-employed and doesn’t, quote, go to the office. He’s got a car. He’s got disposable income because he gets a tax-free check from his family every birthday, and right now the limit’s up to twelve grand—their way of not feeling guilty about their freako only son. He’s got no one to support but himself. So we got no idea how much he travels or what he does, now, do we? I might just get a couple of oldie goldies cleared while I’m at it.”
Marino opened the refrigerator, found another Sharp’s, twisted off the cap, and hurled it into the sink, where it clattered like shotgun pellets smacking a pop-up metal target.
“What two other homicides?” he asked.
“Got hits on two possibles in our database. Like I said, not New York cases, which is why they didn’t come to mind. Both in the summer of 2003, two months apart. A fourteen-year-old kid hooked on oxys. Found nude, hands and ankles bound, strangled with a ligature that was missing from the scene. From a good family in Greenwich, Connecticut. Body dumped near the Bugatti dealership. Unsolved, no suspects.”
Marino said, “Where was Oscar the summer of 2003?”
“Same place he is now. Same job, living his whacked life in his same apartment. Meaning he could have been anywhere.”
“I’m not seeing the connection. The kid’s what? Doing blows for drugs and got picked up by the wrong customer? That’s what it sounds like to me. And you got reason to think Oscar Bane’s into teenage boys?”
“You ever notice we don’t know what the hell people are into until after they start raping and murdering and it comes out in the wash? It could have been Oscar. Like I said, he drives. He can afford to get around and has plenty of time on his hands. He’s strong as hell. We should keep an open mind.”
“What about the other case? Another teenage boy?”
“A woman.”
“So tell me who and why Oscar might have done her,” Marino said.
“Oops.” Morales yawned loudly. “I’m reshuffling my paperwork. Out of order, me, oh, my. She was first, then the kid. Beautiful, twenty-one, just moved to Baltimore from a rural town in North Carolina, got a nothing job with a radio station, was hoping to get into television, and instead got involved in some extracurricular activities to keep herself in oxys. So she was vulnerable to being picked up. Nude, hands bound, strangled with a ligature that wasn’t found at the scene. Body found in a Dumpster near the harbor.”
Marino said, “DNA in either case?”
“Nothing useful, and there was no sign of sexual assault. Negative for seminal fluid.”
“I’m still waiting for the connection,” Marino said. “Homicides where people are probably doing tricks for drugs and end up bound and strangled and dumped are a dime a dozen.”
“You aware Terri Bridges had a thin gold chain around her left ankle? Nobody knows where it came from. Kind of weird she had no other jewelry on, and when I pushed Oscar about the ankle bracelet, he said he’d never seen it before.”
“And?”
“And these other two cases, same thing. No jewelry except a thin gold bracelet around the left ankle. Same side as the heart, right? Like a leg iron? Like, you’re my love slave? Could be the killer’s signature. Could be Oscar’s signature. I’m getting the case files together, still data-searching and digging for other info. Will put out alerts to the usual suspects—including the posse from your past.”
“What posse from my past?” Marino’s thoughts went from dark to black.
He couldn’t see through the storm clouds rolling in his head.
“Benton Wesley. And that hot young former agent-cop-whatever who’s unfortunately untouchable to yours truly here, if rumors are to be believed. Of course, your little discovery of the laptops when you dropped by the scene earlier today without my permission just threw her a bone.”
“I don’t need your permission. You’re not my den mother.”
“Nope. The den mother would be Berger. Maybe you should ask her who’s in charge.”
“If I need to, I will. Right now, I’m doing my job. Investigating this homicide, exactly like she expects me to do.”
He drained the last of the Sharp’s and glass clanked inside the refrigerator as he went for another one. By his calculations, if each bottle was point three percent alcohol, he could achieve the first hint of a buzz if he drank at least twelve in quick succession, which he had tried before, and had felt nothing but an urgency to pee.
Morales said, “She’s got this forensic computer company Berger’s eager to use. Lucy, as in Kay Scarpetta’s niece.”
“I know who she is.”
Marino also knew about Lucy’s company in the Village, and that Scarpetta and Benton were involved with John Jay. He knew a lot of things he chose not to discuss with Morales or anyone else. What he didn’t know was that Lucy, Benton, and Scarpetta were involved in the Terri Bridges case, or that Scarpetta and Benton were in the city right this minute.
Morales’s cocky voice: “It may relieve you to know that I don’t believe Kay will be around long enough for you to have any awkward encounters.”
There could be no doubt. Morales had read that fucking gossip column.
“She’s here to examine Oscar,” Morales said.
“What the hell for?”
“Looks like she’s the blue plate special on Oscar’s menu. He demanded her, and Berger’s giving the little guy whatever his little heart wants.”
Marino couldn’t stand the thought of Scarpetta being alone with Oscar Bane. It unnerved him that Oscar had requested her specifically, because that could mean only one thing: He was far more aware of her than he ought to be.
Marino said, “You’re suggesting he might be a serial killer, so what’s he doing with the Doc? I can’t believe Berger or anybody set her up for something like this. Especially since he could get out any minute. Jesus.”
He was pacing. In a dozen steps, he could cover his apartment’s entire square footage.
“Once she’s done, maybe she’ll buzz back to Massachusetts and you got nothing to worry about,” Morales said. “Which is good, right? Since you got plenty to worry about already.”
“That right? Why don’t you tell me.”
“I’m reminding you this is a sensitive case, and you didn’t handle it all too well when Oscar Bane poured his heart out to you last month.”
“I did it by the book.”
