“And the absence of her panties? Unless they’re simply not mentioned in the report. Rather unusual to have a bra on under your robe, but no panties. I’m assuming they’ll check the scissors for fibers to see if that’s what was used to cut off her clothing. As for any fibers that might be on whatever Oscar was wearing? One would expect fibers from her body, from the towel, to have been transferred to him while he was sitting in there, holding her.”
She found several photographs of kitchen scissors on the floor next to the toilet. Nearby was the flex-cuff, or disposable restraint, that had bound her wrists. It was severed through the loop. Something about it bothered her. She realized what it was, and she handed the photograph to Benton.
“Notice anything unusual?” she asked.
“Back in my early days with the FBI, we used handcuffs, not flex-cuffs. And needless to say, we would never use flex-cuffs on patients.”
It was his way of admitting he wasn’t an expert.
“This one’s colorless, almost transparent,” she said. “Every flex-cuff I’ve ever seen is black, yellow, or white.”
“Just because you haven’t seen it . . .”
“Of course. Doesn’t necessarily mean anything.”
“Possibly there are new versions of them and new companies making them all the time, especially since we’ve got a war going on. Cops, the military, carry them in clip cases on their belts, have dozens in their vehicles. Great for rapid application to multiple prisoners. Like most things these days, easy to get on the Internet.”
“But extremely difficult to remove,” Scarpetta said. “That’s the point I’m about to make. You couldn’t cut through flex-cuffs with kitchen scissors. Requires special cutters with compound leverage, like a Scarab.”
“Why didn’t Morales say anything?”
“Maybe he’s never tried to cut through flex-cuffs with scissors,” Scarpetta said. “Good chance a lot of cops haven’t. First time I got in a body bound in flex-cuffs, it took a damn rib cutter to get them off. Now I keep a Scarab in the morgue. Homicides, deaths in custody, suicides with flex-cuffs around wrists, ankles, necks. Once you pull the strap through the locking block, there’s no going back. So either the kitchen scissors were staged to make it appear they were used to cut off the flex-cuff, when in fact something else was used, or this colorless strap on the bathroom floor isn’t a flex-cuff. Did the police find any other straps like this one in her house?”
Benton’s hazel eyes watched her closely.
“You know as much or as little as I do,” he said. “Whatever’s in the report and evidence inventory. But clearly, any other straps would have been collected and documented unless Morales is the worst cop on the planet. So I think the answer’s no. Which brings us back to premeditation. The killer brought flex-cuffs to the apartment. Maybe he used the same thing around her neck, maybe not.”
“We can say he all we want,” Scarpetta said. “But Terri Bridges was very small. It’s possible a woman could have subdued her easily. For that matter, a kid could have, male or female.”
“An unusual crime, if a female did it. But it could explain why Terri felt safe opening her door. Unless, once again, Oscar staged the scene to look like a sexual homicide, when in fact it’s something else.”
“The missing ligature,” Scarpetta said. “That doesn’t feel staged. It feels as if the killer took it for a reason.”
“Maybe a souvenir,” Benton said. “The ligature, an item of lingerie such as her panties. A mechanism for the actualization of violent fantasy after the fact. He winds back the tape, replays what he did, because it gives him sexual gratification. A type of behavior rarely associated with domestic homicides. Souvenirs usually indicate a sexual predator who objectifies his victim, a stranger or distant acquaintance. Not a boyfriend, a lover. Unless we’re talking about staging.” He made that point again. “Oscar’s extremely bright. He’s calculating and quick.”
Calculating and quick enough to return to his car and toss in his coat, making sure his story about being attacked as he was entering her house, and his torn T-shirt and injuries, was plausible to the police. But when did Oscar do that, assuming it was true? Scarpetta guessed it was after he raked his nails over his own flesh and struck himself with the flashlight, then realized it wasn’t possible to explain the injuries if they were inflicted while he was wearing a coat.
“Souvenirs,” Scarpetta said. “Maybe a killer who takes souvenirs and leaves one. If we consider the possibility that the ankle bracelet was put on the body by the killer, possibly after the murder. Like the silver rings in that case you had in California years ago. Four coeds, and in each homicide, the killer put a silver ring on the victim’s wedding finger. But the symbolism of a silver ring strikes me as completely different from an ankle bracelet.”
“One is possession—as in, with this ring, I make you mine,” Benton said. “The other is control—as in, I’m putting a shackle around your ankle. I own you.”
More photos: a table set for two. Candles, wineglasses, linen napkins in blue napkin rings, and dinner and bread plates and salad bowls. In the center of the table, a flower arrangement. Great attention to details, everything perfectly appointed, perfectly matched, and centered and straight but lacking in imagination and warmth.
“She was obsessive,” Scarpetta observed. “A perfectionist. But she went to trouble for him. I think Oscar mattered to her. Was there music playing when the police arrived?”
“Nothing in the report.”
“The television on? There’s one in the living room, but it’s off in the photograph. Any hint as to what she might have been doing when someone arrived at her door? Other than cooking at some point during the afternoon?”
“What you see in the photos, what’s in the reports, is pretty much all we know.” He paused. “Because you’re the only one Oscar would really talk to.”
She scanned the report out loud. “Oven set at two hundred, a whole chicken inside, suggesting it was cooked. She was just keeping it warm. Fresh spinach in a pot, hadn’t been cooked yet. Stove off.”
Another photo: a black plastic flashlight on the carpet near the front door.
Another photo: clothing neatly laid out on a bed. A low-cut sweater, red. Looked like cashmere. Red pants. Looked like silk. Shoes? No sign of them. No sign of her panties.
Another photo: no sign of makeup on Terri’s suffused face.
Scarpetta reconstructed: Terri was going to dress festively and provocatively in bright red that was soft to the touch. She had on a sexy bra, a not-so-sexy robe and slippers, perhaps waiting until shortly before Oscar arrived to put on makeup and finish getting dressed, alluringly, in red. Where were her shoes? Maybe she didn’t always wear them indoors, especially in her own apartment. Where were her panties? Some women don’t wear panties. Maybe she was one of them. But if so, Scarpetta found that inconsistent with what Oscar had told her about Terri’s obsession with cleanliness, with “germs.”
“Do we know if she had a habit of not wearing panties?” she asked Benton.
“Got no idea.”
“And shoes. Where are they? She’d gone to so much trouble to pick out what she was going to wear, but no shoes? Three possibilities. She hadn’t picked them out yet. The killer took them. Or she didn’t wear shoes in the house. And that’s curious and a little hard for me to accept. Someone obsessive-compulsive about neatness, cleanliness, isn’t likely to walk around barefoot. And when she was in her robe, she had on slippers. Wasn’t barefoot then. Someone obsessive-compulsive about dirt and bacteria is likely to wear panties.”
“I wasn’t aware she was obsessive-compulsive,” Benton said.
Scarpetta realized she’d revealed something she shouldn’t have.
“Oscar didn’t talk about her when I evaluated him, as you know.” Benton wasn’t going to let go of her indiscretion. “I didn’t pick up on anything that might indicate Terri was obsessive-compulsive, or overly vigilant about cleanliness, neatness. Beyond what you see in the photos. And yes, you can tell she’s very organized and tidy. That’s been suggested, but not to the degree of a compulsion. So if she wasn’t likely to walk around barefoot and without panties, we’re back to the possibility of a killer who took souvenirs. That points away from Oscar. For him to remove those from the scene, then hurry back to be there when the police arrived, strikes me as far- fetched.”
“I’m inclined to agree.”
“You don’t think Oscar did it, do you?” Benton said.
“I think the police had better not make the assumption that the killer is a, quote, deranged little person
