“This the officer who’s going to be on my jet?” she said.
“Yeah,” Marino said.
“You got the tail number and the pilots’ names, right?” she said to the officer. “It’s Signature at La Guardia, and when you go inside, Brent should be waiting for you. He’s the PIC, will be in a black suit, white shirt, blue striped tie, and has on pants.”
“What’s a PIC?” The officer slammed the back of the van shut. “What do you mean he has on pants?”
“Pilot in command, sits in the left seat, your trivia for the night. Make sure he knows you’ve got a gun, just in case he forgot his glasses. He’s blind as a bat without his glasses. Which is why he wears pants.”
“That’s supposed to be a joke, right?”
“There are two pilots. FAA regs—only one needs to see, but both must have on pants.”
The officer looked at her.
He looked at Marino and said, “Tell me she’s kidding.”
“Don’t ask me,” Marino said. “I don’t like to fly. Not anymore.”
Berger emerged from the building and came down the steps, in the cold, blustery wind, with no coat on. She pushed her hair out of her face and pulled her suit jacket together, folding her arms against the cold.
“We’d better get our coats,” Berger said to Marino.
She didn’t say anything to Lucy but touched her hand as the two of them walked with Marino to his dark blue Impala.
Lucy said to Marino, “I’m going to check out the wireless network Terri was using. If you’d make sure whoever’s securing her apartment doesn’t have a problem with my being in there so I don’t end up cuffed and on the floor—or maybe he doesn’t. I may not need to go inside her apartment if the entire building’s on the same network, but I’ve got a couple of interesting things to pass along.”
“Why don’t we get out of the cold and sit in the car,” Berger said.
She and Lucy got into the back, and Marino climbed into the front. He started the engine and turned on the heat as the van with Terri Bridges’s vanity chair pulled away from the curb. Lucy unzipped her satchel and pulled out her MacBook. She opened it.
“Two important things,” she said. “First is how Terri hooked up with whoever Scarpetta six-twelve is. The John Jay website. This past October ninth, about a month after Benton and Kay became visiting lecturers, Terri—or whoever was signed on as Lunasee—posted a notice on a John Jay website bulletin board asking if anybody knew how she might get in touch with Aunt Kay.”
Berger was putting on her coat, and Lucy caught the subtle scent of spices and bamboo, and the oil of bitter orange blossoms—Berger’s fragrance, from a perfume house in London. Lucy had asked about it earlier, hoping it wasn’t one more lovely thing about Berger that was left over from Greg.
“The posting is archived, obviously,” Lucy said.
“How’d you find it?” Marino turned around, his face almost indistinguishable in the dark.
“Looks like you’ve lost a lot of weight,” Lucy said to him.
“I quit eating,” he said. “Don’t know why other people haven’t thought of it. I could write a book, make a lot of money.”
“You should. A book with blank pages in it.”
“That’s what I’m thinking. No food and nothing in the book. It works.”
Lucy could feel his scrutiny of her, of Berger, of the two of them sitting close. Marino had sensors that told him where people were in relation to each other, and where they were in relation to him. It was all connected, in his way of thinking.
Lucy watched Berger read what was on the MacBook’s screen:
Hi Everyone,
My name’s Terri Bridges, and I’m a forensic psych grad student trying to get hold of Dr. Kay Scarpetta. If anybody has any connection with her, could you please pass on my e-mail address? I’ve been trying to track her down since last spring to interview her for my thesis. Thanks.
—TB
Lucy read it out loud to Marino.
She opened another file, and the photograph of Scarpetta from this morning’s column in Gotham Gotcha filled the display.
“This was on the same bulletin board?” Berger asked.
Lucy held up the laptop so Marino could see the off-putting photograph of Scarpetta in a morgue, pointing a scalpel at someone.
“The original image,” Lucy said. “So the background’s not been Photoshopped out. As you recall, in the photo on Gotham Gotcha, it’s just my aunt and you got no idea about the context, except you assume she’s in a morgue. But when we get the background back, we see a countertop with a monitor for security cameras, and beyond is a cinder-block wall with cabinets. But when I did some image enhancement of my own”—she touched the trackpad and opened another file—“I got this.”
She showed them an enlargement of the transparent plastic shield covering Scarpetta’s face. Reflected in it was the vague image of another person.
Lucy moved her finger over the trackpad and opened another file, and the image reflected in the face shield was more refined.
“Dr. Lester,” Berger said.
“That figures,” Marino said. “Someone like her would hate the Doc.”
Lucy said, “We can establish a few things that may or may not be related. The photograph on the Internet this morning was taken in the New York ME’s office during a case or cases when Dr. Lester was present, and that’s who my aunt was talking to. Obviously, Dr. Lester didn’t take the photograph, but my guess is she knows who did, unless she just didn’t notice when it was being done. . . .”
“She would know,” Berger said decisively. “She watches her fiefdom like a vulture.”
“And no,” Lucy said. “I didn’t find the image on the John Jay website, although it’s possible this photograph is floating around out there on the Internet and a fan sent it in to Gotham Gotcha. ”
“How do you know Dr. Lester didn’t send it to Gotham Gotcha ?” Marino asked.
“I’d have to get into her e-mail to figure that out,” Lucy said.
“And you won’t,” Berger said. “But it’s not Lenora’s style. Her MO at this stage in her unhappy life is to dismiss people, treat them as if they don’t matter. Not draw attention to them. The only person she’s desperate to draw attention to is herself.”
“I saw the two of them being real cozy with each other earlier tonight,” Marino said. “Her and Morales in the park at Bellevue, next to the DNA building. They met on a bench for a few minutes after Benton and the Doc left the morgue. I happened to see it because I was waiting to pick them up. My read on it is Dr. Lester wanted to update Morales on what the Doc did in the morgue, what she found out. But for what it’s worth, Dr. Lester was text-messaging somebody when she walked off in the dark.”
“I’m not sure that means anything,” Berger said. “Everybody text-messages these days.”
“That’s bizarre,” Lucy said. “She meets with him in a dark park? Are they . . . ?”
“I tried to imagine it,” Marino said. “I couldn’t.”
“He has a way of sidling up close to people,” Berger said. “They might be friendly. But not the other. No. I’d say she’s not his type.”
“Not unless he’s a necrophile,” Marino said, as if there were such a word.
“I’m not going to make fun of anyone,” Berger said, and she meant it.
“Point being,” Marino said, “I guess it sort of surprised me because I don’t think of her as having anything personal enough with anybody to merit her text-messaging them.”
“It’s more likely she was text-messaging the chief medical examiner,” Berger said. “Just speculation. But that would be like her to pass on information to him, especially if she could take credit for what somebody else did.”
“Covering her ass because she probably missed stuff,” Lucy said. “So she wanted to call the chief right away. I’d have to get into his e-mail to figure it out.”
“And you’re not going to do that,” Berger said.
