“When the police arrived, was her apartment door locked or unlocked?”
“Locked. Oscar locked the apartment door at some point after he was inside. What’s a little peculiar is after he called nine-one-one, he didn’t unlock the apartment building’s outer door, maybe prop it open. And he didn’t unlock the apartment door. I don’t know how he thought the police would get in.”
“I don’t find that peculiar in the least. No matter what he did or didn’t do, he probably was afraid.”
“Of what?”
“If he didn’t kill her, he was likely afraid the killer might come back.”
“How would the killer get back into the building? If he didn’t have a key?”
“People don’t always think about every detail when they’re afraid. Your first impulse when you’re afraid is to lock the doors.”
She’s checking out Oscar’s story. He must have told her he locked Terri’s apartment door because he was afraid.
“What did he say when he called nine-one-one?” she asked.
“I’ll let you listen for yourself,” Benton said.
The CD was already in his computer, and he opened an audio file and turned up the volume:
911 OPERATOR:“Nine-one-one, what is your emergency?”
OSCAR(hysterical): “Yes! Police . . . ! My girlfriend . . . !”
911 OPERATOR:“What’s the problem, sir?”
OSCAR(almost inaudible): “My girlfriend . . . when I walked in . . . !”
911 OPERATOR:“Sir, what’s the problem?”
OSCAR(screaming): “She’s dead! She’s dead! Someone killed her! Someone strangled her!”
911 OPERATOR:“She was strangled?”
OSCAR:“Yes!”
911 OPERATOR:“Do you know if the person who strangled her is still in the house?”
OSCAR(crying, almost inaudible): “No . . . She’s dead . . . !”
911 OPERATOR:“We have units en route. Just stay where you are, okay?”
OSCAR(crying, unintelligible): “They . . .”
911 OPERATOR:“They? Is someone with you?”
OSCAR:“No . . .” (inaudible)
911 OPERATOR:“Stay on the line. The police are almost there. What happened?”
OSCAR:“I got here and she was on the floor . . .” (unintelligible)
Benton closed the file and said, “Then he hung up and wouldn’t answer when the operator called him back. If he’d stayed on the line, it would have been easier and quicker for the police to get inside the apartment. Instead of them having to go around back and bang on the window.”
“He sounded genuinely terrified and hysterical,” Scarpetta said.
“So did Lyle Menendez when he called nine-one-one to report his parents had been murdered. And we know how that story ended.”
“Just because the Menendez brothers—” she started to say.
“I know. I know it doesn’t mean Oscar killed Terri Bridges. But we don’t know he didn’t,” Benton said.
“And your explanation for why he said they ? As if implying more than one person killed her?” Scarpetta asked.
“His paranoia, obviously,” Benton said. “Which I do think he genuinely feels. But that isn’t necessarily to his advantage in terms of how the police view it. Paranoid people commit murder because of their paranoid delusions.”
“And that’s what you’re really thinking?” Scarpetta said. “That basically this is a domestic homicide?”
She doesn’t believe it,Benton thought. She believes something else. What did Oscar say to her?
He answered, “I can understand why the police think it. But I’d like some real evidence.”
“What else do we know?”
“What he said.”
“At the scene or when he was in the detective’s car, Morales’s car?”
“Oscar wasn’t cooperative with him once they were out of the apartment,” Benton said.
He tossed the bits of paper clip into his wastepaper basket, and they binked against empty metal.
“By that point,” Benton said, “all he wanted was to go to Bellevue. Said he wouldn’t talk unless it was to me. Then he demanded that you come here. And here we are.”
He started on another paper clip. She watched him work on it.
“What did he tell the police while he was still inside the apartment?” she asked.
“Said when he arrived at the building, all the lights were out. He unlocked the outer door. Then he rang her apartment bell, and the door swung open and he was attacked by an intruder. Who quickly fled. Oscar locked the front door, turned on the lights, looked around, and found her body in the bathroom. He said there was no ligature around her neck, but he saw a reddish mark.”
“And he knew she was dead, yet waited to call the police. Because? What was his reason, in your opinion?” Scarpetta asked.
“He had no concept of time. He was beside himself. Who knows what’s true? But no probable cause for arrest. Doesn’t mean the cops weren’t more than happy to grant his request and lock him up. Doesn’t help he’s a muscle-bound dwarf who for the most part lives and works in cyberspace.”
“You know about his profession. What else?”
“We know everything about him except what he chooses not to tell us. How about you?” Maiming the paper clip. “Any thoughts?”
“I can speak theoretically.”
He gave her silence so she would fill it.
“I’ve had numerous cases when the police weren’t called right away,” she said. “When the killer needed time to stage the crime scene to look like something else. Or whoever found the body attempted to cover up what really happened. Embarrassment, shame, life insurance. Asphyxiophilia, for example—sexual hanging that turns tragic and the person dies of asphyxiation. Usually accidental. Mother walks in, sees her son in black leather, a mask, chains, nipple clips. Maybe cross-dressing. He’s hanging from a rafter, pornography everywhere. She doesn’t want the world to remember her son like that and doesn’t call for help until she’s gotten rid of the evidence.”
“Another theory?”
“The person’s so bereft, so unwilling to let his loved one go, he spends time with the body, stroking it, holding it, covering it if it’s nude, removing restraints. Restoring his person to the way she was, as if somehow that will bring her back.”
“Rather much what he did, isn’t it,” Benton said.
“I had a case where the husband found his wife dead in bed, an overdose. He climbed in next to her, held her, didn’t call the police until rigor was fully developed and she was cold.”
Benton looked at her for a long moment and said, “Remorse in domestic cases. Husband kills wife. Child kills mother. Overwhelming remorse, grief, panic. Doesn’t call the police right away. Holds the body, strokes it, talks to it, cries. Something precious that’s broken and can’t be fixed. Forever changed, forever gone.”
“A type of behavior more typical with impulse crimes,” she said. “Not premeditated ones. This murder doesn’t seem impulsive. When an offender brings his own weapon, his own bindings, like duct tape or flex-cuffs, that’s premeditated.”
Benton accidentally poked his fingertip with the twisted paper clip and watched a bead of blood form. He sucked the blood away.
She said, “No first-aid kit in my crime scene case, which probably isn’t very smart, now that I think of it. We should clean that up, find a Band-Aid. . . .”
“Kay, I don’t want you in the middle of this.”
“You’re the one who put me in the middle of it. Or at least permitted it.” She stared at his finger. “It would be good if you let it bleed as much as possible. I don’t like puncture wounds. They’re worse than cuts.”
“I didn’t mean to put you in the middle of it, wasn’t my choice.”
He started to say he didn’t make choices for her, but that would be another lie. She reached across the
