chewed up by it.”
Snow clicks and bounces against glass as we pass stretches of open fields and dense woods, and a creek runs hard against the guardrail to our right as we pass over a bridge. The air must be colder here, the snow small and icy as we drive in and out of pockets of changing weather that I find unsettling.
“Mrs. Donahue knows that the chief medical examiner and director of the CFC, someone named Dr. Scarpetta, is Jack’s boss,” Benton then says. “She had to know that if she went to the trouble to have something delivered to you. But maybe that’s all she knows,” he summarizes, offering an explanation for what just happened at the airport.
“Let’s look at whatever it is.” I want the envelope.
“It should go to the labs.”
“She knows I’m Jack’s boss but doesn’t know I’m a woman.” It seems preposterous, but it’s possible. “Even though all she had to do was Google me.”
“Not everybody Googles.”
I’m reminded of how easy it is for me to forget that there are still technically unsophisticated people in the world, including someone who might have a chauffeur and a Bentley. Its taillights are far ahead of us now on the narrow two-lane road, getting smaller and more distant as the car drives too fast for the conditions.
“Did you show the driver your identification?” I ask.
“What do you think?”
Of course Benton wouldn’t. “So he didn’t realize you’re not me.”
“Not from anything I did or said.”
“I guess Mrs. Donahue will continue to think Jack works for a man. Strange that Jack would tell her how to find me and not indicate how her driver might recognize me, at least indicate I’m not a man. Not even use pronouns that might indicate it. Strange. I don’t know.” I’m not convinced of what we’re conjecturing. It doesn’t feel right.
“I wasn’t aware you were having so many doubts about Jack. Not that they aren’t warranted.” Benton is trying to draw me out. The FBI agent in him. I’ve not seen it in a while.
“Just don’t say I’m twice bitten or thrice bitten or whatever. Please,” I say with feeling. “I’ve heard it enough today.”
“I’m saying I wasn’t aware.”
“And all I’ve been aware of is my usual misgivings and denials about him,” I reply. “I’ve not had sufficient information to be more concerned than usual.” My way of asking Benton to give me sufficient information if he has it, to not act like a cop or a mental-health practitioner.
But he does hold back. He doesn’t say a word. His attention is fixed straight ahead, his profile sharp in the low illumination of the dashboard lights. This is the way it’s always been with us. We step around confidential and privileged information. We dance around secrets. At times we lie. In the beginning, we cheated, because Benton was married to someone else. Both of us know how to deceive. It isn’t something I’m proud of, and I wish it didn’t continue to be necessary professionally. Especially right this minute. Benton is dancing around secrets, and I want the truth. I need it.
“Look, we both know what he’s like, and yes, I’ve been invisible since the CFC opened,” I continue. “I’ve been in a vacuum, doing the best I can to handle things long distance while working eighteen-hour days, not even time to talk to my staff by phone. Everything’s been electronic, mostly e-mails and PDFs. I’ve hardly seen anyone. I should never have placed Jack in charge under the circumstances. When I hired him yet again and rode out of town, I set everyone up for exactly what’s happened. And you did tell me so, and you aren’t the only one.”
“You’ve never wanted to believe you’ve got a serious problem with him,” Benton says in a way that unsteadies me further. “Even if you’ve had plenty of them. Sometimes there’s simply no sufficient evidence that will make us accept a truth we can’t bear to believe. You can’t be objective when it comes to him, Kay. I’m not sure I’ve ever understood the reason.”
“You’re right, and I hate it.” I clear my throat and calm my voice. “And I’m sorry.”
“I just don’t know if I’ll ever figure it out.” He glances over at me, both hands on the wheel, and we’re alone on a snow-blown road that is poorly lit, driving through a snowy darkness. The Bentley is no longer visible up ahead. “I’m not judging you.”
“He wrecks his life and needs me again.”
“It’s not your fault he wrecks his life unless you haven’t told me something. Actually, no matter what, it wouldn’t be your fault. People wreck their own lives. They don’t need others to do it.”
“That’s not entirely true. He didn’t choose what happened to him as a child.”
“And that’s not your fault, either,” Benton says, as if he knows more about Fielding’s past than I’ve ever told him, what few details I have. I’ve always been careful not to probe my staff, especially not to probe Fielding. I know enough about his early tragedies to be mindful of what he might not want to talk about.
“Of course it sounds stupid,” I add.
“Not stupid. Just a drama that will always end the same way. I’ve never completely understood why you feel the need to act it out with him. I feel like something happened. Something you’ve not told me.”
“I tell you everything.”
“We both know that’s not true about either of us.”
“Maybe I should just stick with dead people.” I hear the bitterness in my tone, the resentment seeping through barriers I’ve carefully constructed most of my life. Maybe I don’t know how to live without them anymore. “I know how to handle dead people just fine.”
“Don’t talk like that,” Benton says quietly.
“It’s such a goddamn stereotype,” Benton then says.
“Funny thing about stereotypes. They’re usually based on something.”
“Don’t say things like that.”
“There won’t be any more problems with Jack. The drama will end, I promise. Assuming he hasn’t already ended it, hasn’t walked off the job. He’s certainly done that before. He has to be fired.”
“He’s not you, never was or could be, and he’s not your damn child.” Benton thinks it is as simple as that, but it isn’t.
“He has to be let go,” I answer.
“He’s a forty-six-year-old forensic pathologist who’s never earned the trust you show him or anything the hell you do for him.”
“I’m done with him.”
“You are done with him. I’m afraid that’s true and you’re going to have to let him go,” Benton says, as if a decision was made already, as if it isn’t up to me. “What is it you feel so guilty about?” There’s something in his tone, something about his demeanor. I can’t put my finger on what it is. “Way back in your Richmond days when you were just getting started with him. Why the guilt?”
“I’m sorry I’ve caused so many problems.” I evade his question. “I feel I’m the one who’s let everybody down. I’m sorry I’ve not been here. I can’t begin to express how sorry I am. I take responsibility for Jack, but I won’t allow it anymore.”
“Some things you can’t take responsibility for. Some things aren’t your fault, and I’m going to keep reminding you of that, and you’ll probably keep believing it’s your fault, anyway,” my husband the psychologist says.
I’m not going to discuss what is my fault and what isn’t, because I can’t talk about why I’ve always been irrationally loyal to Jack Fielding. I came back from South Africa, and my penance was Fielding. He was my public service, what I sentenced myself to as punishment. I was desperate to do right by him because I was convinced I’d wronged everyone else.
“I’m taking a look.” I mean at what is in Benton’s coat pocket. “I know how to look at a letter without compromising it, and I need to see what Mrs. Donahue wrote to me.”
I slide the envelope out, holding it lightly by its edges, and discover the flap is sealed with gray duct tape that
