Four Scarpetta Novels (35 page)

“Or perhaps you're shrubs.”

“Cause we hate A-rabs and queers and don't believe in flushing little babies down the toilet or selling their pieces and parts to medical science. We love apple pie, buffalo wings, Budweiser, and Jesus. Oh, yeah—and fucking. Give me what I came here for and I'll shut up and go home.”

“As a psychiatrist, I've always said
know yourself.
But not so with you, my dear. I recommend you do your best not to know yourself at all.”

“One thing's for sure,” Shandy says snidely. “Marino sure got over you when he got all over me.”

“He did exactly what I predicted. He thought with the wrong head,” Dr. Self says.

“You may be as rich and famous as Oprah, but all the power and glory in the world can't turn on a man like I do. I'm young and sweet and know what they want, and I can keep going as long as they can and make them go a lot longer than they ever dreamed they could,” Shandy says.

“Are you talking about sex or the Kentucky Derby?”

“I'm talking about you being old,” Shandy says.

“Perhaps I should have you on my show. Such fascinating questions I could ask. What men see in you. What magical musk you must exude to keep them following you like your own rounded ass. We'll display you just as you are right now, in black leather pants as tight as the peel on a plum, and a denim jacket with nothing under it. Of course, your boots. And the pièce de résistance—a do-rag that looks as if it's on fire. Shopworn, to put it kindly, but it belongs to your poor friend who was just in a terrible accident. My audience would find it touching that you wear his do-rag around your neck and say you won't take it off until he gets better. I'm reluctant to tell you that when a head is cracked open like an egg and the brain is exposed to the environment, which includes pavement, it's fairly serious.”

Shandy drinks.

“I suspect by the end of an hour—and I don't see a series in this, just one small segment of one show—we'll conclude that you're alluring and pretty with a suppleness and come-hither-ness there's no denying,” Dr. Self says. “Likely, you can get away with your base predilections for now, but when you get as old as you think I am, gravity will make you honest. What do I say on my show? Gravity will get you. Life is inclined toward falling. Not standing or flying, indeed, barely sitting. But to fall just as hard as Marino did. When I encouraged you to seek him out after he was foolish enough to seek me out first, the potential plunge seemed rather minimal. Just whatever trouble you could cause, my dear. And just how far could Marino fall, after all, when he's never risen above much of anything to begin with?”

“Give me the money,” Shandy says. “Or maybe I should pay you so I don't have to listen to you anymore. No wonder your—”

“Don't say it,” Dr. Self snaps at her but with a smile. “We've agreed on who we don't discuss and what names we must never say. It's for your own good. You mustn't forget that part. You have much more to worry about than I do.”

“You should be glad,” Shandy says. “Truth is? I did you a favor, because now you won't have to deal with me anymore, and you probably like me about as much as you like Dr. Phil.”

“He's been on my show.”

“Well, get me his autograph.”

“I'm not glad,” Dr. Self says. “I wish you'd never called with your disgusting news, which you told me so I'd pay you off and help you stay out of jail. You're a smart girl. It's not to my advantage to have you in jail.”

“I wish I'd never called. I didn't know you'd stop the checks because…”

“Because what for? What would I be paying for? What I was paying for doesn't need my support anymore.”

“I shouldn't have told you. But you always said I had to be honest.”

“If I did, I've wasted my words,” Dr. Self says.

“And you wonder why…?”

“I wonder why you want to annoy me by breaking our rule. There are some subjects we don't bring up.”

“I can bring up Marino. And I sure have.” Shandy smirks. “Did I tell you? He still wants to fuck the Big Chief. That should bother you, since the two of you are about the same age.”

Shandy plows through hors d'oeuvres as if they are Kentucky Fried Chicken.

“Maybe he'd fuck you if you asked him real nice. But he'd fuck her before even me, given the choice. Can you imagine?” she says.

If bourbon were air, there would be nothing left to breathe in the room. Shandy grabbed so much in the Club Level drawing room, she had to ask the concierge for a tray while Dr. Self made a cup of hot chamomile tea and looked the other way.

“She sure must be something special,” Shandy says. “No wonder you hate her so much.”

It was metaphorical. Everything Shandy represents causes Dr. Self to look the other way, and she'd looked the other way so long, she didn't see the collision coming.

“Here's what we're going to do,” Dr. Self says. “You're to leave this very pretty little city and never come back. I know you'll miss your beach house, but since I'm only being polite to call it yours, I predict you'll get over it quickly. Before you pack up, you'll strip it to the bone. Do you remember the stories about Princess Diana's apartment? What happened to it after she died? Carpet and wallpaper torn out, even the light-bulbs removed, her car crushed into a cube.”

“No one's touching my BMW or my bike.”

“You're to start tonight. Scrub, paint, use bleach. Burn things—I don't care. But not a drop of blood or semen or spit, not an article of clothing, not a single hair or a fiber or a morsel of food. You should go back to Charlotte where you belong. Join the Church of the Sports Bar and worship the god of money. Your erstwhile father was wiser than I. He left you nothing, and certainly I have to leave you something. I have it in my pocket. And then I'm rid of you.”

“You're the one who said I should live here in Charleston so I could be…”

“And now I have the privilege of changing my mind.”

“You can't make me do a fucking thing. I don't give a shit who you are, and I'm tired of you telling me what to say. Or not to say.”

“I am who I am and can make you do whatever I please,” Dr. Self says. “Now's a good time to be pleasant to me. You asked my help, and here I am. I've just told you what to do so you can get away with your sins. You should say ‘Thank you' and ‘Whatever you wish is my command' and ‘I'll never do anything to upset or inconvenience you again.'”

“Then give it to me. I'm out of bourbon and out of my mind. You make me feel crazier than a shithouse rat.”

“Not so fast. We haven't finished our little fireside chat. What did you do with Marino?”

“He's gonzo.”

“Gonzo. Then you are well-read, after all. Fiction truly is the best fact, and gonzo journalism is truer than truth. The exception is the war, since fiction got us into it. And that led to what you did, that atrociously horrible thing you did. Amazing to contemplate,” Dr. Self says. “You're sitting here right this very minute and in that very chair because of George W. Bush. I'm sitting here because of him, too. Giving you an audience is beneath me, and this really will be the last time I rush to your rescue.”

“I'm going to need another house. I can't just move somewhere and not have a house,” Shandy says.

“I'm not sure I'll ever get over the irony. I ask you to have a little fun with Marino because I wanted a little fun with the Big Chief, as you call her. I didn't ask for the rest of it. I didn't know the rest of it. Well, now I do. Very few people best me, and no one I've met is worse than you. Before you pack up, clean up, and go wherever people like you go, one last question. Was there ever even a minute when it bothered you? We're not talking poor impulse control, my dear. Not when something so loathsome went on and on and on. How did you look at it day after day? I can't even look at a mistreated dog.”

“Just give me what I came here for, okay?” Shandy says. “Marino's gone.” She refrains from saying
gonzo
this time. “I did what you told me…”

“I didn't tell you to do the thing that's forced me to come to Charleston when I have infinitely better things to do. And I'm not leaving until I know you are.”

“You owe me.”

“Shall we add up what you've cost me over the years?”

“Yeah, you owe me because I didn't want to keep it and you made me. I'm tired of living your past. Doing shit because it makes you feel better about your own shit. Anytime you could have taken it off my hands, but you didn't want it, either. That's what I finally had to figure out. You didn't want it, either. So why should I suffer?”

“Do you realize this lovely hotel is on Meeting Street, and if my suite faced north instead of east, we could almost see the morgue?”

“She's the one who's a Nazi, and I'm pretty sure he fucked her, not just wanted to, but I mean did it for real. He lied to me so he could spend the night at her house. So how does that make you feel? She must be something, all right. He's got such a thing for her, he'd bark like a dog or use a litterbox if she told him to. You owe me for having to put up with all that. It wouldn't have happened if you hadn't pulled one of your tricks and said, ‘Shandy? There's this big, dumb cop, and how about doing me a favor?'”

“You did yourself a favor. You got information I didn't know you needed,” Dr. Self says. “So I made a suggestion, but you certainly didn't take me up on it for my sake. It was an opportunity. You've always been so skilled at taking advantage of opportunities. In fact, I'd call you brilliant at it. Now, this wondrous revelation. Maybe it's my reward for all you've cost me. She cheated? Dr. Kay Scarpetta cheated? I wonder if her fiancé knows.”

“And what about me? The asshole cheated on me. Nobody does that. All the guys I could have, and that fat fuck cheats on me?”

“Here's what you do about it.” Dr. Self slips an envelope out of a pocket of her red silk robe. “You're going to tell Benton Wesley.”

“You're a piece of work.”

“It's only fair he should know. Your cashier's check. Before I forget.” She holds up the envelope.

“So now you're going to play another little game with me.”

“Oh, it's not a game, my dear. And I just happen to have Benton's e-mail address,” Dr. Self says. “My laptop's on the desk.”

 

Scarpetta's conference room.

“Nothing unusual,” Lucy says. “Looked the same.”

“The same?” Benton asks. “The same as what?”

The four of them are gathered around a small table in what was a servants' quarters, quite possibly occupied by a young woman named Mary, a slave set free who wouldn't leave the family after the War. Scarpetta has gone to much trouble to know the history of her building. Right now she wishes she'd never bought it.

“I will ask again,” says Captain Poma. “Has there been a difficulty with him? Perhaps a problem with his job?”

Lucy says, “When doesn't he have difficulty with any job?”

No one's heard from Marino. Scarpetta has called him half a dozen times, maybe more, and he hasn't called her back. On her way here, Lucy stopped by his fishing shack. His motorcycle was parked underneath it, but his truck was gone. He didn't answer the door. He wasn't there. She says she looked through a window, but Scarpetta knows better. She knows Lucy.

“Yes, I'd say so,” Scarpetta says. “I'd say he's been unhappy. Misses Florida and is sorry he moved here, and probably doesn't like working for me. This isn't a good time to dwell on the trials and troubles of Marino.”

She feels Benton's eyes on her. She makes notes on a legal pad and checks other notes she's already made. She checks preliminary lab reports even though she knows exactly what they say.

“He hasn't moved,” Lucy says. “Or if he did, he left all his stuff behind.”

“And you saw all this through a window?” Captain Poma says, and he's very curious about Lucy.

He's been watching her since everyone assembled in this room. He seems slightly amused by her, and her response is to ignore him. The way he looks at Scarpetta is the way he looked at her in Rome.

“Seems like a lot to see through a window,” he says to Scarpetta, even though he's talking to Lucy.

“He hasn't gone into his e-mail, either,” Lucy says. “He might suspect I'm monitoring it. Nothing between him and Dr. Self.”

“In other words,” Scarpetta says, “he's off the radar screen. Completely.”

She gets up and pulls down window shades because it's dark. It's raining again, and has been since Lucy picked her up in Knoxville, when the mountains looked like they weren't there because it was so foggy. Lucy had to divert wherever she could, flying very slowly, following rivers and finding lower elevations. It was luck, or perhaps God's good grace, that they weren't stranded. Search efforts have been halted, except those conducted on the ground. Lydia Webster hasn't been found alive or dead. Her Cadillac hasn't been seen.

“Let's organize our thoughts,” Scarpetta says, because she doesn't want to talk about Marino. She's afraid Benton will sense how she feels.

Guilty and angry, and increasingly afraid. It appears Marino has pulled a disappearing stunt, got in his truck and drove away without a warning, without any effort to repair the damage he's done. He's never been facile with words, and he's never made much effort to understand his complicated emotions, and this time what he needs to fix exceeds his capacity to cope. She's tried to dismiss him, to not give a damn, but he's like the persistent fog. Thoughts of him obscure what's around her, and one lie becomes another. She told Benton her bruises are from the hatchback of her SUV accidentally shutting on her wrists. She hasn't undressed in front of him.