“It’s Kay.”
“Oh,” Berger’s voice. “It said restricted. I wasn’t sure.”
When Lucy called, it came up as restricted. Scarpetta had a feeling something was going on with them that wasn’t good. Lucy had been very subdued during the meeting. Scarpetta hadn’t tried to call her, was assuming she was still with Berger. Maybe not.
Berger said, “Morales called a few minutes ago, said he’s getting your voicemail.”
“I’ve been on my phone, with Y-Twelve. I’m not going to be able to head to the morgue right this minute.”
She gave Berger a quick summary.
“Then that’s a common denominator,” Berger decided. “The dermatologist. Terri went to her. And you said Oscar does. Or did.”
Scarpetta had revealed that detail during the meeting just a little while ago, because she no longer was bound by patient-physician confidentiality. It wasn’t right not to divulge the information, but she’d felt uncomfortable doing it. Just because the situation had changed legally didn’t mean it felt that way to her. When Oscar had talked to her and wept so bitterly, he really hadn’t anticipated the day when she’d betray him, no matter how many times she’d warned him and encouraged him to get a good lawyer.
She was so conflicted. She resented him, was incensed by him, because she felt she should be someone he could trust. And she resented him, was incensed by him, because she didn’t want his goddamn trust.
“I need to tell Marino what Y-Twelve has discovered,” Scarpetta said to Berger. “I don’t know how to reach him.”
Berger gave her two numbers and said, “Have you heard anything from Lucy?”
“I thought she might be with you,” Scarpetta said.
“Everybody left about a half-hour ago. She left right after you and Benton did, minutes after you did. I thought she might have caught up with you. She and Morales weren’t getting along.”
“He’s not somebody she would like.”
After a pause, Berger said, “That’s because she doesn’t understand a number of things.”
Scarpetta didn’t respond.
“We get older and there really aren’t absolutes,” Berger said. “There never were.”
Scarpetta wasn’t going to help her.
“You’re not going to talk about it, and that’s fine.” Berger’s voice, still calm, but something else was in it.
Scarpetta shut her eyes and pushed her fingers through her hair, realizing how helpless she felt. She couldn’t change what was happening, and it was foolish and wrong to try.
“Maybe you could save me a little time,” Scarpetta said. “Perhaps you could call Lucy and let her know about the Y-Twelve results. You do it instead of me, and I’ll try to find Marino. And while you have her on the phone, perhaps you might try a different tactic. Be very, very honest with her, even if you think she’ll get incredibly upset or might use it against you. Just give her the facts even if you think it might ruin your case, cause you to lose something. That’s hard for people like us, and that’s all I’m going to say. I’m wondering if Bacardi—God help me, I can’t get used to calling any real person that—would know if either Bethany or Rodrick was seeing a dermatologist in Baltimore or Greenwich in 2003. I noticed in the police report that he was taking Accutane for acne.”
“Implying a dermatologist,” Berger said.
“I would hope so. That’s not an insignificant medication.”
“I’ll pass all this on to Lucy. Thank you.”
“I know you will,” Scarpetta said. “I know you’ll tell her whatever she needs to hear.”
Benton was out of the shower and wrapped in a thick robe, stretched out on the bed. He was scrolling through something on his laptop, and Scarpetta moved it out of the way and sat next to him. She noticed the red thumb drive plugged into a port.
“I’m not clean yet,” she said. “I probably smell like death. Would you still respect me if I told a lie?”
“Depends on who it’s to.”
“To another doctor.”
“Well, then, that’s fine. For future reference, lawyers are preferable if you’re going to lie to someone.”
“I went to law school and don’t appreciate lawyer jokes,” she said, smiling.
She combed her fingers through his hair. It was still damp.
She added, “I’ll tell my lie in front of you, and it won’t seem as much a sin. I can’t wait to get in the shower and brush my teeth. And these . . .”
Realizing she still had her dirty shoes in one hand while she touched his hair with the other.
“I thought you were going to wait and take a shower with me,” she said. “And we’d wash our shoes.”
“I planned to take a second one,” he said. “I haven’t washed my shoes yet.”
Scarpetta got up from the bed and used the landline.
This time she didn’t call Dr. Stuart’s presidential suite directly or her cell phone, she tried the St. Regis front desk. She said she was from CNN and trying to reach Dr. Stuart, who she realized stayed there under the name of Dr. Oxford.
“Hold on, please.”
And then Dr. Stuart was on the line.
Scarpetta told her who she was, and Dr. Stuart said brusquely, “I don’t discuss my patients.”
“And I generally don’t discuss other doctors on television,” Scarpetta said. “But I might make an exception.”
“What is that supposed to mean?”
“It means what it means, Dr. Stuart. At least one of your patients has been murdered in the past twenty- four hours, and another one is being accused of that murder and another murder, and more charges could follow, and he’s vanished. As for Eva Peebles, who also was murdered last night? I don’t know if she’s one of your patients. But what I do know is that forensic evidence indicates you’d be wise to be helpful. For example? I’m wondering if a certain woman from Palm Beach who has a home in New York might also be your patient.”
Scarpetta gave her the name of the paraplegic whose DNA was found in Terri Bridges’s vagina.
“You absolutely know I can’t release information about my patients.”
Dr. Stuart said it in a way that confirmed the woman was her patient.
“I absolutely know how it works,” Scarpetta said, and to be sure, she added, “Just tell me no if she’s not your patient.”
“I’m not going to say no to anything.”
Scarpetta went through the same routine with Bethany and Rodrick, without telling Dr. Stuart why she wanted to know. If the dermatologist had been acquainted with them, she wouldn’t need Scarpetta to tell her the two had been murdered five years ago. She would know that.
“As you might imagine, I have plenty of patients from the Greenwich area, because I have an office in White Plains,” Dr. Stuart said as Scarpetta leaned against Benton and looked at what he was scrolling through.
It looked like sections of maps someone had been e-mailing to Oscar—allegedly.
“I’m not saying whether those two people have ever been seen by anyone in my practice,” Dr. Stuart said. “I will tell you that I remember the young man’s death. Everyone was shocked. Just as we are by what’s just happened in New York. I saw it on the news last night. But the reason I remember Greenwich is because the Aston Martin dealership—”
“Bugatti,” Scarpetta said.
“I use the Aston Martin dealership. It’s very close to Bugatti,” Dr. Stuart said. “That’s why the boy’s murder hit home. I’ve probably driven within a block of the spot where he was found or killed. When I’ve taken my Aston Martin in for service. That’s the reason I remember, if you understand what I’m saying. Actually, I don’t have that car anymore.”
She was hinting that neither Rodrick nor Bethany had been her patient and that she would have been aware of a sadistic sexual homicide because it had reminded her of a car that cost more than some people’s homes.
