“There very well may be more to this case than meets the eye. It may not be what you think it is. You’ve taken a look at the scene photographs, I hope, and I’m about to give you a set of the ones taken during the autopsy. Typical asphyxia by ligature strangulation. Assuming this is a homicide.”
“Assuming?” Benton said.
“In an unusual case like this, you have to keep every option open. As small as she was, she was more vulnerable to things going awry that might not have with someone else. Four-foot-one. Eighty-nine pounds. If it’s an accident—rough sex, let’s say—she was more at risk for things going too far.”
Scarpetta said, “In several photographs, I noticed blood and contusions on her legs. How might that fit with your suggestion of rough sex?”
“Possibly spanking that got out of control. I’ve seen it before. Whippings, kicking, other types of punishment that go too far.”
They were on the administrative floor now. Old gray linoleum tiles and bright red doors.
“I found no defensive-type injuries,” Dr. Lester went on. “If she was murdered, then whoever did it managed to subdue her instantly. Maybe with a gun, a knife, and she did what she was told. But I can’t dismiss the possibility that she and her boyfriend or whoever she was with last night were engaging in some sort of sex game that didn’t turn out exactly as planned.”
“What evidence, specifically, are you referring to that makes you think we’re possibly dealing with a sex game, as you call it?” Benton asked.
“First of all, what was found at the scene. I understand she liked to play a role, shall we say. And more important, generally, in an attempted rape, the perpetrator makes the victim undress.” Dr. Lester talked without ever slowing her pace. “That’s part of his gratification, forcing her to undress and anticipating what he’s going to do to her. Then he might bind her. To bind her first and then go to all the trouble to cut off her robe and bra sounds more like sex play to me. Especially if the victim enjoyed sexual fantasy, and based on what I’m told, she liked sex.”
“Actually,” Benton said, “cutting her clothing off after she was bound would have been far more terrifying than making her disrobe first.”
“This is the quibble I have with forensic psychology, profiling, whatever you want to call it. It’s based on personal opinion. What you assume is terrifying might be exciting, depending on the individual.”
“I’ll let you know if something I say is based on my personal opinion,” Benton said.
Berger was aware of Lucy’s arm brushing against her, of near touch as she made notes on a legal pad. Bright white fragmented data streamed by, and when she looked, it hurt her eyes, and the real pain followed.
“Do you think we’ll get most of it back?” she asked.
“Yes,” Lucy replied.
“And we’re sure these drafts go back about a year?”
“At least. I’ll be able to tell you specifically when we’re done. We have to get to the very first file she saved. I’ll keep saying she, even though I realize we really don’t know who wrote this.”
Lucy’s eyes were very green, and when she and Berger looked at each other, it was lingering and intense.
“It doesn’t appear she saved files the same way I do,” Berger observed. “In other words, doesn’t appear she was very careful for someone who has all this security software, over-the-counter or not. Every time I work on a brief, for example, I make a copy and give it a new name.”
“That’s the right way to do it,” Lucy said. “But she didn’t bother. She continued to revise and save the same file, overlaying one on top of another. Stupid. But half the world does it. Fortunately, every time she made a change and saved that same file, it got a new date stamp. Even though you can’t see it when you look at her list of documents, it’s in here, scattered all the hell over the place. The computer will find the dates, and sort by them, and do a pattern analysis. For example, how many times in one day did she or someone revise and save the same file? In this instance, the master’s thesis file. What days of the week did this person work on it? What time of day or night?”
Berger made notes and said, “Might give us an idea of where she was and when. Her habits. Which might possibly lead to who she was with. If, for example, she spent most of the time in her apartment working, except on the Saturday nights she saw Oscar. Or did she go to other places to do her writing? Perhaps even another person’s residence. Did she have some other person in her life we don’t know about?”
“I can get you a timeline right up to the last keystroke she ever made,” Lucy said. “But not where she worked. E-mail can be traced to an IP address, saying, for example, she did e-mail off-site, such as in an Internet cafe. But there’s nothing to trace when we’re talking about her word-processing files. We can’t say for a fact that she always worked on her thesis at home. Maybe she used a library somewhere. Or Oscar might know if she always worked in her apartment. Assuming anything he says is true. For all we know, he’s the one writing this thesis. I’ll continue to remind you of that.”
“The cops didn’t find research materials in Terri’s apartment,” Berger said.
“A lot of people have electronic files these days. They don’t have paper. Some people never print anything out unless it’s absolutely necessary. I’m one of them. I’m not a fan of paper trails.”
“Kay will certainly know how much of what Terri or someone was collecting and writing is accurate,” Berger said. “Can we completely re-create every draft?”
“I wouldn’t put it quite like that. Better to say I can recover what’s here. Now the computer’s sorting by bibliography. Every time Terri made a new entry or revised or altered anything, a new version of the same file was created. That’s why you see so many copies of what appears to be the same document. Well, you’re not seeing it. I assumed you’re not looking. How are you feeling?”
Lucy looked over at her, looked right at her.
“I’m not entirely sure,” Berger said. “I probably should leave. We have to figure out what we’re going to do about this.”
“Instead of trying so hard to figure out everything, why don’t you wait and see what we’re dealing with. Because it’s too early to know. But you shouldn’t leave. Don’t.”
Their chairs were side by side, and Lucy moved her fingers on the keyboard and Berger made notes, and Jet Ranger’s big head appeared between their chairs. Berger began to pet him.
“More sorting,” Lucy said. “But now by different forensic science disciplines. Fingerprints, DNA, trace evidence. Copied and routed into a folder called Forensic Science.”
“Files that were replaced,” Berger said. “One file copied over another. I’ve always been told that when you copy one file on top of another, the old copy’s gone for good.”
The office phone rang.
Berger said, “It’s for me.”
She placed her hand on top of Lucy’s wrist to stop her from answering it.
Inside Dr. Lester’s office, everywhere she could fit them, were framed degrees, certificates, commendations, and photographs of herself wearing a hard hat and a white protective suit, excavating The Hole, as those who worked there referred to what was left of the World Trade Center.
She was proud to have been part of Nine-Eleven, and seemed to be personally unfazed by it. Scarpetta hadn’t fared quite as well after spending almost six months at the Water Street recovery site, hand-scanning thousands of buckets of dirt like an archaeologist, screening for personal effects, body parts, teeth, and bone. She had no framed photographs. She had no PowerPoint presentations. She didn’t like to talk about it, having felt physically poisoned by it in a way that was unlike anything she had ever felt before. It was as if the terror those victims had experienced at their moment of certain death had been suspended and fixed in a miasma that enveloped wherever they had been, and later, where remnants of them were recovered and bagged and numbered. She couldn’t quite explain it, but it was nothing to flaunt or brag about.
Dr. Lester retrieved a thick envelope from her desk and gave it to Benton.
“Autopsy photos, my preliminary report, the DNA analysis,” she said. “I don’t know how much of it Mike gave to you. Sometimes he gets distracted.”
She mentioned Mike Morales as if they were close friends.
