Four Scarpetta Novels (18 page)

“You have quite the bedside manner. Perhaps you should go back to the FBI and use rubber hoses and whatnot. Perhaps break into my e-mail and my homes and my bank accounts.”

“It's important you remember what you were like when you first got here. I'm trying to help you do that,” he says.

“I remember him coming into my room here at the Pavilion.”

“That was later on—in the evening—when you suddenly became hysterical and incoherent.”

“Brought on by drugs. I'm very sensitive to drugs of any sort. I never take them or believe in them.”

“When Dr. Maroni came into your room, a female neuropsychologist and a female nurse were already there with you. You continued to say that something wasn't your fault.”

“Were you there?”

“I wasn't.”

“I see. Because you act as if you were.”

“I've read your chart.”

“My chart. I suppose you fantasize about selling it to the highest bidder.”

“Dr. Maroni asked you questions while the nurse checked your vitals, and it became necessary to sedate you by intramuscular injection.”

“Five milligrams Haldol, two milligrams Ativan, one milligram Cogentin. The infamous five-two-one chemical restraint used on violent inmates in forensic units. Imagine. My being treated like a violent prisoner. I remember nothing after that.”

“Can you tell me what wasn't your fault, Dr. Self? Did it have to do with the e-mail?”

“What Dr. Maroni did wasn't my fault.”

“So your distress had nothing to do with the e-mail that you said was your reason for coming to McLean?”

“This is a conspiracy. All of you are in on it. That's why your comrade Pete Marino contacted me, isn't it? Or maybe he wants out. He wants me to rescue him. Just like I did in Florida. What are you people doing to him?”

“There's no conspiracy.”

“Do I see the investigator peeking out?”

“You've been here for ten days. And told no one the nature of this e-mail.”

“Because it's really about the person who has sent me a number of e-mails. To say
‘an e-mail'
is misleading. It's about a person.”

“Who?”

“A person Dr. Maroni could have helped. A very disturbed individual. No matter what he's done or hasn't done, he needs help. And if something happens to me, or to someone else, it's Dr. Maroni's fault. Not mine.”

“What might be your fault?”

“I just said nothing would be.”

“And there's no e-mail you can show me that might help us understand who this person is and perhaps protect you from him?” he says.

“It's interesting, but I'd forgotten you work here. I was reminded when I saw the ad for your research study posted in admissions. Then, of course, Marino said something when he e-mailed me. And that's not
the
e-mail. So don't get excited. He's so bored and sexually frustrated working for Kay.”

“I'd like to talk to you about any e-mails you've received. Or sent.”

“Envy. That's how it starts.” She looks at him. “Kay envies me because her own existence is so small. So desperately envious she had to lie about me in court.”

“And you're referring to…?”

“Mainly her.” Hatred coils. “I'm perfectly objective about what happened in that gross example of litigious exploitation and never took it personally that you and Kay—mainly Kay—were witnesses, making the two of you—mainly her—champions of that gross example of litigious exploitation.” Hatred coils coldly. “I wonder how she'd feel if she knew you're in my room with the door shut.”

“When you said you needed to talk to me alone in the privacy of your room, we made an agreement. I would record our sessions in addition to taking notes.”

“Record me. Take your notes. You'll find them useful someday. There's much you can learn from me. Let's discuss your experiment.”

“Research study. The one you volunteered for, got special permission for, and I advise against. We don't use the word
experiment
.”

“I'm curious why would you wish to exclude me from your experiment unless you have something to hide.”

“Frankly, Dr. Self, I'm not convinced you meet the criteria.”

“Frankly, Benton, it's the last thing you want, now, isn't it? But you have no choice because your hospital is far too shrewd to discriminate against me.”

“Have you ever been diagnosed as bipolar?”

“I've never been diagnosed as anything but gifted.”

“Has anybody in your family ever been diagnosed as bipolar?”

“What all this will prove in the end, well, that's your business. That during various mood states the dorsolateral prefrontal cortex of the brain is going to
light up,
given appropriate external stimuli. So what. PET and fMRI have clearly demonstrated there is an abnormal blood flow in the prefrontal regions and decreased activity in the DLPFC in people who are depressed. So now you throw violence into the mix, and what will you prove, and why does it matter? I know your little experiment wasn't approved by the Harvard University Committee on Use of Human Subjects.”

“We don't conduct studies that aren't approved.”

“These healthy control subjects. Are they still healthy when you're done? What happens to the not-so-healthy subject? The poor wretch with a history of depression, schizophrenia, bipolar or other disorder, who also has a history of hurting themselves or others or trying to, or obsessively fantasizing about it.”

“I take it Jackie briefed you,” he says.

“Not quite. She wouldn't know the dorsolateral prefrontal cortex from a small cod. Studies of how the brain responds to maternal criticism and praise have been done before. So now you throw violence into the mix, and what will you prove, and why does it matter? You show what's different about the brains of violent versus nonviolent individuals and what does it prove, and what does it matter? Would it have stopped the Sandman?”

“The Sandman?”

“If you looked at his brain, you'd see Iraq. And then what? Would you magically extract Iraq and he'd be fine?”

“Is the e-mail from him?”

“I don't know who he is.”

“Might he be the disturbed person you referred to Dr. Maroni?”

“I don't understand what you see in Kay,” she says. “Does she smell like the morgue when she comes home? But then, you're not there when she comes home.”

“Based on what you've said, you got the e-mail several days after Drew's body was found. A coincidence? If you have information about her murder, you need to tell me,” Benton says. “I'm asking you to tell me. This is very serious.”

She stretches her legs and with her bare foot touches the table between them. “If I kicked this recorder off the table and it broke, what then?”

“Whoever killed Drew will kill again,” he says.

“If I kicked this recorder”—she touches it with her bare toe and moves it a little—“what might we say and what might we do?”

Benton gets up from his chair. “Do you want someone else murdered, Dr. Self?” He picks up the recorder but doesn't turn it off. “Haven't you been through this before?”

“And there it is,” she says from the bed. “That's the conspiracy. Kay will lie about me again. Just like before.”

Benton opens the door. “No,” he says. “It will be much worse this time.”

E
ight p.m. in Venice. Maroni refills his wineglass and smells the unpleasant canal smell below his open window as daylight wanes. Clouds are piled halfway up the sky in a thick, frothy layer, and along the horizon is the first touch of gold.

“Manic as hell.” Benton Wesley's voice is clear, as if he is here instead of in Massachusetts. “I can't be clinical or appropriate. I can't sit there and listen to her manipulations and lies. Get someone else. I'm done with her. I'm handling it badly, Paulo. Like a cop, not a clinician.”

Dr. Maroni sits before his apartment window, drinking a very nice Barolo that is being spoiled by this conversation. He can't get away from Marilyn Self. She has invaded his hospital. She has invaded Rome. Now she has followed him to Venice.

“What I'm asking is if I can remove her from the research study. I don't want to scan her,” Benton says.

“Certainly I won't tell you what to do,” Dr. Maroni replies. “It's your study. But if you want my recommendation? Don't piss her off. Go ahead and scan her. Make it a pleasant experience and just assume the data is no good. Then she's gone.”

“What do you mean ‘gone'?”

“I see you haven't been informed. She's been discharged and is leaving after the scan,” Dr. Maroni says, and through his open shutters, the canal is the color of green olives and as smooth as glass. “Have you talked with Otto?”

“Otto?” Benton says.

“Captain Poma.”

“I know who he is. Why would I talk to him about this?”

“I had dinner with him last night in Rome. I'm surprised he hasn't contacted you. He's on his way to the U.S. In the air as we speak.”

“Jesus Christ.”

“He wants to talk to Dr. Self about Drew Martin. You see, he feels sure she has information and isn't coming forward with it.”

“Please tell me you didn't.”

“I didn't. He knows anyway.”

“I don't see how that's possible,” Benton says. “Do you realize what she'll do if she thinks we told anybody she's a patient here?”

A water taxi slowly rumbles past, and water laps against Dr. Maroni's apartment.

“I assumed he got the information from you,” he says. “Or Kay. Since both of you are members of the IIR and are investigating Drew Martin's murder.”

“He certainly didn't.”

“What about Lucy?”

“Neither Kay nor Lucy knows Dr. Self is here,” Benton says.

“Lucy is good friends with Josh.”

“Jesus Christ. She sees him when she's scanned. They talk about computers. Why would he tell her?”

Across the canal, a seagull on a rooftop cries like a cat, and a tourist tosses bread to it, and the bird cries more.

“What I'm saying is hypothetical, of course,” Dr. Maroni says. “I suppose it entered my mind because he calls her often when the computer's down or there's some other problem he can't fix. You see, it's too much for Josh to be an MRI tech and the IT.”

“What?”

“The question is where she'll go and what further trouble she'll cause.”

“New York, I assume,” Benton says.

“You'll tell me when you know.” Dr. Maroni drinks. “This is all hypothetical. I mean about Lucy.”

“Even if Josh told her, are you making the leap that she then told Captain Poma, who she doesn't even know?”

“We need to monitor Dr. Self when she leaves,” Dr. Maroni says. “She's going to cause trouble.”

“What is all this cryptic talk? I don't understand,” Benton says.

“I can see that. It's a shame. Well, no great matter. She'll be gone. You'll tell me where she goes.”

“No great matter? If she finds out someone told Captain Poma she's a patient at McLean or was a patient here, it's a HIPAA violation. She'll cause trouble, all right, which is exactly what she wants.”

“I have no control over what he tells her or when. The Carabinieri's in charge of the investigation.”

“I don't understand what's going on here, Paulo. When I did the SCID, she told me about the patient she referred to you,” Benton says, frustration in his voice. “I don't understand why you didn't tell me.”

Along the canal, apartment facades are muted pastel shades, and brick is exposed where the plaster is worn away. A polished teak boat passes beneath an arched brick bridge, and the captain stands, and the bridge is very low, and his head almost touches it. He works the throttle with his thumb.

“Yes, she did refer a patient to me. Otto has asked me about it,” Dr. Maroni says. “Last night I told him what I know. At least, what I'm at liberty to say.”

“It would have been nice if you'd told me.”

“Now I'm telling you. If you hadn't brought it up, I still would be telling you. I saw him several times in the space of several weeks. Last November,” Dr. Maroni says.

“He calls himself the Sandman. According to Dr. Self. Does that sound familiar?”

“I know nothing about the name Sandman.”

“She says that's how he signs his e-mails,” Benton says.

“When she called my office last October and asked me to see this man in Rome, she didn't supply me with any e-mails. She never said anything about him calling himself the Sandman. He never mentioned the name when he saw me in my office. Twice, I believe. In Rome, as I've said. I have no information that would lead me to conclude he's killed anyone, and I told Otto the same thing. So I can't give you access to his file or my evaluation of him, and I know you understand this, Benton.”

Dr. Maroni reaches for the decanter and refills his glass as the sun settles into the canal. Air blowing through the open shutters is cooler, and the canal smell isn't as strong.

“Can you give me any information about him at all?” Benton asks. “Any personal history? A physical description? I know he was in Iraq. That's all I know.”

“I couldn't if I wanted to, Benton. I don't have my notes.”

“Meaning there could be important information in them.”

“Hypothetically,” Dr. Maroni says.

“Don't you think you should check?”

“I don't have them,” Dr. Maroni says.

“You don't have them?”

“Not in Rome, is what I mean,” he says from his sinking city.

 

Hours later, the Kick 'N Horse Saloon, twenty miles north of Charleston.

Marino sits across the table from Shandy Snook, both of them eating chicken-fried steak with biscuits, gravy, and grits. His cell phone rings. He looks at the number on the display.

“Who is it?” she says, sipping a bloody Mary through a straw.

“Why can't people leave me alone?”

“Better not be what I think it is,” she says. “It's seven-damn-o'clock, and we're eating dinner.”

“I ain't here.” Marino pushes a button to silence the phone, acts like it doesn't bother him.

“Yeah.” She loudly slurps up the last of her drink, reminding him of Drano unclogging a sink. “Nobody home.”

Inside the saloon's Feed Troff, Lynyrd Skynyrd's booming through the speakers, the Budweiser neon signs are lit up, ceiling fans slowly turn. Saddles and autographs fill the walls, and models of motorcycles and rodeo horses and ceramic snakes decorate windowsills. The wooden tables are packed with bikers. More bikers are outside on the porch, everybody eating and drinking and getting ready for the Hed Shop Boys concert.

“Son of a bitch,” Marino mumbles, staring at the cell phone on the table, at the wireless Bluetooth earpiece next to it. Ignoring the call is impossible. It's her. Even though the display says
Restricted,
he knows it's her. By now she's bound to have seen what's on the desktop of his computer. He's surprised and irritated it's taken this long. At the same time, he feels the thrill of vindication. He imagines Dr. Self wanting him like Shandy does. Wearing him out like Shandy does. For a solid week, he's gotten no sleep.

“Like I always say, the person's not going to get any deader, right?” Shandy reminds him. “Let the Big Chief take care of it for once.”

It's her. Shandy doesn't know it. Assumes it's some funeral home. Marino reaches for his bourbon and ginger, keeps glancing at his cell phone.

“Let her take care of it for once,” Shandy rants on. “Fuck her.”

Marino doesn't answer, his tension growing as he swirls what's left of his drink. Not answering Scarpetta's calls or returning them makes his chest tight with anxiety. He thinks about what Dr. Self said and feels deceived and abused. His face heats up. For the better part of twenty years, Scarpetta has made him feel he's not good enough, when maybe the problem is her.
That's right. It's probably her.
She doesn't like men.
Hell, no.
And all these years she's made him feel the problem is him.

“Let the Big Chief take care of whoever the latest stiff is. She's got nothing better to do,” Shandy says.

“You don't know a thing about her or what she's doing, either.”

“You'd be surprised what I know about her. Better watch it.” Shandy motions for another drink.

“Better watch what?”

“You sticking up for her. Because it sure is getting on my nerves. Like maybe you keep forgetting who I am in your life.”

“After a whole week.”

“Just remember, baby. It's not
on call
. But
at her beck and call
,” she says. “Why should you? Why should you always jump when she says it? Jump! Jump!” She snaps her fingers and laughs.

“Shut the fuck up.”

“Jump! Jump!” She leans forward so he can see what's inside her silk vest.

Marino reaches for his phone, reaches for his earpiece.

“Truth is?” She's not wearing a bra. “She treats you like you're nothing more than an answering service, a flunky, a nobody. I'm not the first person who's said it.”

“I don't let anybody treat me like that,” he says. “We'll see who the nobody is.” He thinks of Dr. Self and imagines himself on international TV.

Shandy reaches under the table, and he can see down her vest, see as much as he wants. She rubs him.

“Don't,” he says, waiting and getting anxious and angry.

Pretty soon, other bikers will find excuses to walk past so they can take in the sight of her leaning against the table just right. He watches her do it, and her breasts swell and her cleavage deepens. She knows how to lean into a conversation so anybody interested can imagine a mouthful of her. A big guy with a big gut and a chain attached to his wallet slowly gets up from the bar. He takes his time walking to the men's room, taking in the view, and Marino feels violent.

“You don't like it?” Shandy rubs him. “'Cause it sure feels to me like you do. Remember last night, baby? Like a damn teenager.”

“Don't,” he says.

“Why? Am I giving you a hard time?” says Shandy, who prides herself on her way with words.

He moves her hand. “Not now.”

He returns Scarpetta's call. “Marino here,” he says curtly, as if he's talking to a stranger, so Shandy won't know who it is.

“I need to see you,” Scarpetta says to him.

“Yeah. What time?” Marino acts like he doesn't know her, and he's aroused and jealous as bikers wander past the table, looking at his dark, exotic girlfriend exposing herself.

“As soon as you can get here. To my house,” Scarpetta's voice says in his earpiece, and her tone is one he's not accustomed to, and he senses her fury like an approaching storm. She's seen the e-mails, he's sure of it.

Shandy gives him a
who are you talking to?
look.

“Yeah, I guess so.” Marino feigns irritation, glancing at his watch. “Be there in a half-hour.” He hangs up, says to Shandy, “A body coming in.”

She looks at him as if trying to read the truth in his eyes, as if for some reason she knows he's lying. “Which funeral home?” She leans back in her chair.

“Meddicks'. Again. What a squirrel. Must do nothing but drive that damn hearse morning, noon, and night. What we call an ambulance chaser.”

“Oh,” she says. “That sucks.” Her attention wanders to a man in a flame-pattern do-rag, his boots low in the heel. He pays no attention to them as he walks past their table to the ATM.

Marino noticed him when they got here earlier, has never seen him before. He watches him get a pitiful five bucks out of the ATM while his mutt of a dog sleeps curled up in a chair at the bar. The man hasn't petted him once or even asked the bartender for a treat for him—not so much as a bowl of water.

“I don't know why it's got to be you,” Shandy starts in again, but her voice is different. Quieter, colder, the way she gets with the first frost of spite. “When you think of all you know and all you've done. The big-shot homicide detective. You ought to be the boss, not her. Not her dyke niece, either.” She drags the last of a biscuit through white gravy smeared on her paper plate. “The Big Chief's kind of turned you into the Invisible Man.”

“I told you. Don't talk about Lucy like that. You don't know shit.”

“Truth is truth. I don't need you to tell me. Everyone in this bar knows what kind of saddle she rides.”

“You can shut up about her.” Marino angrily finishes his drink. “You keep your mouth shut about Lucy. Me and her go back to when she was a kid. I taught her how to drive, taught her how to shoot, and I don't want to hear another word. You got it?” He wants another drink, knows he shouldn't, has already had three bourbons, strong ones. He lights two cigarettes, one for Shandy, one for him. “We'll see who's invisible.”

“Truth is truth. You had a real career before the Big Chief started dragging you around everywhere. And why'd you tag along as usual? I know why.” She gives him one of her accusatory looks, blows out a stream of smoke. “You thought she might want you.”