“Maybe now that you have your notes in front of you, Paulo, your memory will be jogged.”
“I didn’t release these notes to you. I can’t imagine how you got them.” He has to say that repeatedly, and Benton has to play along.
“If you store patient notes in an electronic format on the hospital server, you might want to leave the file- sharing function off,” Benton says over the line. “Because if someone figures out what hard disk these very confidential files are on, they can be accessed.”
“The Internet is a treacherous place.”
“The Canadian tourist was murdered almost a year ago,” Benton says. “Same type of mutilation. Tell me how it is you didn’t think of that case — didn’t think of your patient — after what was done to Drew Martin? Chunks of flesh cut from the same area of the body. Nude, dumped in a place where it will be discovered quickly and shockingly. And no evidence.”
“It doesn’t appear he rapes them.”
“We don’t know what he does. Especially if he forces them to sit in a tub of cold water for God knows how long. I’d like to get Kay on the line. I called her right before I called you. Hopefully, she’s at least glanced at what I sent.”
Dr. Maroni waits. He stares at the image on his screen as rain falls hard beyond his apartment and the canal rises. He opens the shutters far enough to see that the water is more than a foot deep on the sidewalks. He’s grateful he has no need to go out today. Flooding is not the adventure for him that it seems to be for the tourists.
“Paulo?” Benton is back. “Kay?”
“I’m here.”
“She has the files,” Benton says to Dr. Maroni. “You’re looking at the two photographs?” he says to Scarpetta. “And the other files?”
“What he did to Drew Martin’s eyes,” she says right off. “No evidence of this with the woman murdered near Bari. I’m looking at her autopsy report. In Italian. I’m making out what I can. And I’m wondering why you have the autopsy report included in the file of this patient, the Sandman, I presume?”
“Clearly, he calls himself that,” Dr. Maroni says. “Based on Dr. Self’s e-mails. And you’ve looked at some of them?”
“I’m looking now.”
“Why the autopsy report was in your patient’s file,” Benton reminds him. “The Sandman’s file.”
“Because I was concerned. But I had no proof.”
“Asphyxia?” Scarpetta questions. “Based on petechiae, and an absence of other findings.”
“Possible she could have been a drowning?” Dr. Maroni asks, the files Benton forwarded to him printed and on his lap. “Possible Drew was, too?”
“No, Drew absolutely wasn’t. She was strangled with a ligature.”
“The reason I think of a drowning is the tub in Drew’s case,” Dr. Maroni says. “And now this latest photograph of the woman in the copper tub. But I understand if I’m wrong.”
“You’re wrong about Drew. But victims in tubs prior to death — or what we unfortunately assume is death — I agree. We have to consider drowning if we have no evidence otherwise. I will tell you with certainty,” Scarpetta repeats, “that Drew didn’t drown. But this doesn’t mean the victim from Bari didn’t. And we can’t know what’s happened to this woman in the copper tub. We can’t say she’s even dead, although I’m afraid of it.”
“She looks drugged,” Benton says.
“I strongly suspect the three women in question have that in common,” Scarpetta says. “The victim in Bari was compromised, based on her alcohol level, which was three times the legal limit. Drew’s was more than twice the legal limit.”
“Compromises them so he can control them,” Benton says. “So nothing would hint to you the victim in Bari was drowned? Nothing at all on the report? What about diatoms?”
“Diatoms?” Dr. Maroni asks.
“Microscopic algae,” Scarpetta says. “First, someone would have had to check, which isn’t likely if drowning isn’t suspected.”
“Why would it be? She was found alongside a road,” Dr. Maroni says.
“Second,” Scarpetta says, “diatoms are ubiquitous. They’re in water. They’re airborne. The only examination that might yield significant information is if bone marrow or internal organs are examined. And you’re right, Dr. Maroni. Why would they have been? As for the victim in Bari, I’m suspicious she may have been a victim of opportunity. Perhaps the Sandman — from now on I’ll refer to him as that…”
“We don’t know how he referred to himself back then,” Dr. Maroni says. “My patient certainly never mentioned this name.”
“I’ll call him the Sandman for the sake of clarity,” Scarpetta says. “Perhaps he was cruising bars, discos, tourist attractions, and it was her tragic misfortune to be in the wrong place at the wrong time. Drew Martin, on the other hand, doesn’t strike me as random.”
“We don’t know that, either.” Dr. Maroni smokes his pipe.
“I think I do know that,” she says. “He began writing e-mails to Dr. Self about Drew Martin last fall.”
“Assuming he’s the killer.”
“He sent Dr. Self the photograph of Drew in the tub that he took within hours of her murder,” Scarpetta says. “In my book, that makes him the killer.”
“Please tell me more about her eyes,” Dr. Maroni says to her.
“Based on this report, the killer didn’t remove the Canadian victim’s eyes. Drew’s eyes were removed, the sockets filled with sand, the eyelids glued shut. Thankfully, based on what I know, it appears this was done postmortem.”
“Not sadism but symbolism,” Benton says.
“The Sandman sprinkles sand in your eyes and makes you go to sleep,” Scarpetta says.
“This is the mythology I point out,” Dr. Maroni says. “Freudian, Jungian, but relevant. We ignore the
“I’m not ignoring anything. I wish you hadn’t ignored what you knew about your patient. You worried he might have something to do with the tourist’s murder and said nothing,” Benton says.
Debating. Hinting of mistakes and blame. The three-way conversation continues as the city of Venice floods. Then Scarpetta says she is in the middle of work at the labs, and if there is nothing more they need from her, she’ll get off the phone. She does, and Dr. Maroni resumes his defense.
“That would have been a violation. I had no proof, no evidence whatsoever,” he says to Benton. “You know the rules. What if we ran to the police every time a patient makes violent allusions or references to violent acts that we have no reason to believe are true? We’d be reporting patients to the police daily.”
“I think your patient should have been reported, and I think you should have asked Dr. Self more about him.”
“I think you’re not an FBI agent who can arrest people anymore, Benton. You’re a forensic psychologist at a psychiatric hospital. You’re on the faculty of Harvard Medical School. Your first loyalty is to the patient.”
“Maybe I’m not capable of that anymore. After two weeks of Dr. Self, I don’t feel the same about anything. Including you, Paulo. You protected your patient, and now at least two other women are dead.”
“If he did it.”
“He did.”
“Tell me what Dr. Self did when you confronted her with these images. The one of Drew in the tub. The room looks Italian and old,” Dr. Maroni says.
“It would be in Rome or near Rome. It would have to be,” Benton says. “We can assume she was murdered in Rome.”
“And then this second image?” He clicks on a second file that was in Dr. Self’s e-mail. A woman in a tub, this one copper. She appears to be in her thirties, with long, dark hair. Her lips are swollen and bloody, her right eye swollen shut. “What did Dr. Self say when you showed her this most recent image that the Sandman sent to her?”
“When it was sent, she was in the magnet. When I showed it to her later, it was the first time she’d seen it. Her main concern was we hacked — her word — into her e-mail and that we’d violated her legal rights, and we’d
