She got interested in four e-mails on a split screen—e-mails between Terri and Oscar.
“I don’t think they were talking on the phone,” she then said. “Sent at eight-forty-seven, sent at nine-ten, sent at ten-fourteen, sent at eleven-nineteen. Why would he be writing her almost every hour if he’s talking to her on the phone? Notice that the ones from him are long, while hers are short. Consistently.”
“One of those instances when what isn’t said matters more than what is,” Berger observed. “No references to phone calls, to any responses from her, any contacts with her. He’s saying things like I’m thinking of you. Wish I were with you. What are you doing? You’re probably working. There doesn’t seem to be any back-and- forth between them.”
“Exactly. He’s writing to his lover several times a night. She’s not writing back.”
“He’s obviously the more openly romantic of the two,” Berger said. “Not saying she wasn’t in love with him, because I don’t know. We don’t know. We may never know. But her e-mails are less demonstrative, more reserved. He’s comfortable making sexual references that are almost pornographic.”
“Depends on your definition of pornographic.”
Berger went back to an e-mail Oscar had written to Terri not even a week ago.
“Why is that pornographic?” Lucy asked.
“I think what I meant was sexually explicit.”
“You work sex crimes?” Lucy said. “Or do I have you mixed up with a Sunday-school teacher? He’s writing about exploring her with his tongue. He’s writing about how writing about it arouses him.”
“I think he was trying to have cybersex with her. And she was rebuffing him by not responding. He’s getting angry with her.”
“He was trying to tell her how he felt,” Lucy pointed out. “And the less she responded, maybe the more he persisted out of insecurity.”
“Or anger,” Berger emphasized. “And his increased sexual references are manifestations of his anger and aggression. That’s not a good combination when the person these feelings are directed at is about to get murdered.”
“I could see how working sex crimes might take its toll. Maybe make it difficult to tell the difference between erotica and pornography, between lust and lewdness, between insecurity and rage, and accept that some instant replays are a celebration and not a degradation,” Lucy said. “Maybe you’re jaded because everything you see is disgusting and violent, and therefore all sex is always a crime.”
“What I don’t see is any allusion whatsoever to rough sex, bondage, S-and-M,” Berger said as they read. “And I’d appreciate it if you’d refrain from analyzing me. Amateurishly, I might add.”
“I could analyze you, and it wouldn’t be amateurishly. But you’d have to ask me first.”
Berger didn’t ask, and they kept reading.
Lucy said, “So far, no allusions to anything, quote, kinky, I agree. Nothing rough. Not a hint of handcuffs, dog collars, all that good stuff. Certainly no allusion to anything like the lubricant Aunt Kay told you about a little while ago. No body lotions, massage oils, nothing like that, and by the way, I text-messaged my pilots, and they’ll be waiting at La Guardia if there’s evidence to be flown to Oak Ridge. What I was saying, though, is lubricants aren’t compatible with oral sex unless they’re, bluntly put, edible. And what Aunt Kay described sounds more like a petroleum-based lubricant, which most people aren’t going to apply if they plan on having oral sex.”
“The other puzzling part? The condoms in Terri’s nightstand,” Berger said. “Lubricated ones. So why would Oscar use a petroleum-type lubricant, saying he did?”
“Do you know what type she had in her nightstand?”
Berger opened her briefcase and pulled out a file. She looked through paperwork until she found a list of evidence collected from the scene last night.
“Durex Love Condoms,” she said.
Lucy Googled it and reported, “Latex, twenty-five percent stronger and a larger size than standard condoms, easy to roll on with one hand, good to know. Extra headroom with a reservoir tip, also good to know. But not compatible with a petroleum-based lubricant, which can weaken latex and cause it to break. That and the fact that no petroleum-based lubricant was found in her apartment, and you can read my mind. You ask me, everything keeps pointing away from Oscar and toward someone else.”
More e-mails, getting closer to the day Terri was murdered. Oscar’s frustration and unrequited sexual love were becoming increasingly apparent, and he was beginning to sound more irrational.
“A lot of excuses,” Lucy said. “Poor guy. He sounds miserable.”
Berger read more and commented, “It’s almost annoying, makes me not like her very much and feel rather sorry for him, I must confess. She doesn’t want to rush into anything. He needs to be patient. She’s overwhelmed by work.”
“Sounds like someone who has a secret life,” Lucy said.
“Maybe.”
“People in love don’t see each other only one night a week,” Lucy said. “Especially since neither of them had physical work-places outside the home. That we know of. Something’s not right. If you’re in love, in lust, you don’t sleep. You can hardly eat. You can’t concentrate on your work, and you sure as hell can’t stay away from each other.”
“As we get closer to her murder, it gets worse,” Berger said. “He’s sounding paranoid. Really upset with how little time they spend together. Seems to be suspicious of her. Why will she see him only once a week? And only on Saturday nights, and why does she basically kick him out of bed before dawn? Why does she suddenly want to see his apartment when she’s never been interested in the past? What is it she thinks she’ll find in there? It’s not a good idea, he says. He would have told her yes in the beginning. But not now. He loves her so much. She’s the love of his life. He wishes she hadn’t asked to see his apartment because he can’t tell her why the answer’s no. One day in person he’ll tell her. God. This is weird. After three months of dating each other, sleeping with each other, she’s never set foot inside his apartment? And now suddenly she wants to go in there? Why? And why won’t he let her? Why won’t he explain it unless he does so in person?”
“Maybe the same reason he never tells her where he’s been or what he’s doing,” Lucy said. “He doesn’t tell her his plans—if he’s going to run errands on a given day, for example. He says he walked x number of miles but doesn’t give specifics as to where or when he plans to do it next. He writes the way one would if he’s worried that someone else might be reading his e-mails or watching him.”
“Jump back earlier to last fall, last summer or spring,” Berger said. “And let’s see if the pattern’s similar.”
They skimmed for a while. Those e-mails between Terri and Oscar weren’t at all like the recent ones. Not only were they less personal, but the tone and content of his were much more relaxed. He mentioned libraries and bookstores that were his favorites. He described where he liked to walk in Central Park, and a gym he’d tried a few times, but a lot of the machines weren’t the right fit. He included a number of details that revealed information he wouldn’t have been open about were he worried that someone else was reading his e-mails or, in other words, spying on him.
“He wasn’t scared back then,” Berger said. “What Benton’s concluded seems right. He says Oscar is afraid of something now—right now. A perceived threat—right now.”
Lucy typed Berger’s name into a search field and said, “I’m curious to see if there’s any mention anywhere of his phone call to your office last month. His fears of being under electronic surveillance, followed, his identity stolen, and so on.”
She got a hit on Jaime Berger’s name, but the e-mail in question had nothing to do with Oscar’s recent phone call to the DA’s office:
Date: Mon, 2 July 2007 10:47:31
From: “Terri Bridges”
To: “Jaime Berger”
CC: “Dr. Oscar Bane”
Subject: “Interview with Dr. Kay Scarpetta”
Dear Ms. Berger,
I’m a graduate student writing a master’s thesis on the evolution of forensic science and medicine from earlier centuries to modern times. It’s tentatively titled “Forensic Follies.”
In brief: We’ve come full circle, gone from the ridiculous to the sublime, from the quackery of phrenology,
