Scarpetta

with.”

     Scarpetta barely read it, didn’t need to, and she replied, “There’s no Sister Polly, and what was described didn’t happen, not like that. It was a different nun, and there certainly was no salacious whipping in the bathroom.”

     “But some truth.”

     “Yes. Miami, the scholarship to parochial school. And my father’s protracted, terminal illness.”

     “And his grocery store. Did the other girls in school call you a Florida cracker?”

     “I don’t want to talk about this, Benton.”

     “I’m trying to determine what’s true and who would know it. What’s already out there? Any of this?”

     “You know what’s out there. And no. None of this, true or false, is out there. I don’t know where the information came from.”

     He said, “I’m not as concerned about what’s false. I want to know what’s out there that’s true, and if there’s a publicized source for what’s in these columns. Because if there isn’t, as you seem to be suggesting, then someone close to you is leaking information to whoever this hack writer is.”

     “Marino,” she reluctantly said. “He knows things about me that other people don’t.”

     “Well, obviously the Charleston information. Although I can’t imagine him using that word.”

     “What word, Benton?”

     He didn’t answer.

     “You can’t bring yourself to say it, can you? The word rape. Even though that’s not what happened.”

     “I don’t know what happened,” he said quietly. “That’s my problem. I only know as much as you’ve let me know.”

     “Would you somehow feel better if you’d watched?”

     “Jesus Christ.”

     “You need to see every detail, as if that will give you closure,” Scarpetta said. “Who’s the one always saying there’s no such thing as closure? I believe that would be both of us. And now this columnist, and whoever is leaking information to him or her, wins. Why? Because we’re sitting here upset, not trusting each other, estranged. Truth is, you probably know far more about what happened than Marino does. I sincerely doubt he remembers much of what he did or said that night. For his sake, I hope I’m right.”

     “I don’t want to be estranged, Kay. I don’t know why this bothers me more than it seems to bother you.”

     “Of course you know why, Benton. You feel even more powerless than I did because you couldn’t stop it, and at least I stopped some of it. I stopped the worst of it.”

     He pretended to read the two columns again. What he was really doing was composing himself.

     “Would he know the Florida information?” he asked. “What did you tell him about your childhood? Or let me restate the question. The part that’s true”—he indicated what was on the computer—“is that from information you gave him?”

     “Marino’s known me for almost twenty years. He’s met my sister, my mother. Of course he knows some details about my life. I don’t remember everything I’ve said to him, but it’s no great secret among those close to me that I grew up in a not-so-nice Miami neighborhood, and we had no money, and my father lingered with cancer for many years before dying. And that I did pretty well in school.”

     “The girl who broke your pencils?”

     “This is ridiculous.”

     “I take that as a yes.”

     “There was a girl who did that. A bully. I don’t remember her name.”

     “Did a nun slap you across the face?”

     “Because I confronted the girl, and she tattled on me, not the other way around, and one of the sisters punished me. That was it. No titillating bathroom scene. And it’s absurd we’re having this conversation.”

     “I thought I knew all your stories. It doesn’t feel good that I don’t and had to find out from the Internet. Absurd or not, details like this will be bounced around all over the place, probably already are. You can’t escape it, not even on CNN, where you have friends. When you’re on the set, someone will be obliged to ask. I guess you’ll have to get used to it. I guess we both will.”

     She wasn’t thinking about the exposure or getting used to it. She was thinking about Marino.

     “That’s what Lucy was talking about when she called you a little while ago,” Scarpetta said. “She was saying something about him.”

     Benton said nothing. That was his answer. Yes, Lucy had been talking about Marino.

     “What did you mean about him having nowhere else to turn? Or were you talking about somebody else? Don’t keep anything from me. Not now.”

     “What he did. Hit-and-run. That’s how Lucy thinks of it,” Benton said, and she had gotten better at knowing when he was being evasive. “Because he disappeared, and I’ve explained until I’m blue in the face that when someone feels he has no place to turn, he looks for an out. This isn’t new. You know the story. And you know Lucy.”

     “What story? I’ve never known the story. He disappeared, and I never believed he killed himself. That’s not Marino. He wouldn’t have the nerve or the stupidity, and most of all he’s afraid of going to hell. He believes there really is a physical hell located somewhere in the molten core of the earth, and if he ends up there he’ll be on fire for all eternity. He confessed that to me on another drunken occasion. He’s wished hell on half the planet because he’s terrified of it for himself.”

     The look in Benton’s eyes was unutterably sad.

     “I don’t know what story you’re talking about, and I don’t believe you,” she said. “Something else has happened.”

     They held each other’s eyes.

     Benton said, “He’s here. He’s been here since last July. The first weekend in July, exactly.”

     He went on to tell her that Marino worked for Berger, who found out from the gossip column the real reason Marino had left Charleston, a sordid detail she certainly didn’t know when she hired him. Now Lucy knew about Marino because Berger had just met with her and had told her.

     “That’s why Lucy called,” he said. “And knowing you as well as I do, I suspect you would have wanted me to help Marino, despite it all. And you would have wanted me to honor his wish that he go into treatment and basically start his life again without your knowledge.”

     “You should have told me a long time ago.”

     “I couldn’t divulge details about him to anyone. Any more than you can tell me what Oscar told you. Doctor-patient confidentiality. Marino called me at McLean not long after he disappeared from Charleston and asked me to get him into a treatment center. He asked me to confer with his therapist up there, to oversee, to intervene.”

     “And then get him a job with Jaime Berger? And that’s a secret, too? What’s that got to do with doctor- patient confidentiality?”

     “He asked me not to tell you.”

     Benton’s voice said he’d done the right thing, but the look in his eyes belied his certainty.

     “This isn’t about doctor-patient confidentiality or your even being decent,” Scarpetta said. “You know what it’s about. Your reasoning is completely irrational because there’s no way he could work for Jaime Berger and I wouldn’t find out, eventually. Which is exactly what’s happened.”

     She started flipping through the police report because she didn’t want to look at him. She felt someone behind her before the person spoke, and turned around, startled by the man in Benton’s doorway.

     In his baggy gang clothing, thick gold chains, his hair in cornrows, he looked as if he’d just escaped from the prison ward.

     “Kay, you and Detective Morales haven’t met, I don’t think,” Benton said, and he wasn’t particularly friendly about it.

     “I bet you don’t remember, but we almost met once,” Morales said as he brazenly walked in and looked her over.

     “I’m sorry.” Meaning she didn’t remember, and she didn’t offer to shake his hand.

     “Last Labor Day weekend. In the morgue,” he said.