The Scarpetta Factor

5

Marino’s was an unfortunate address: room number 666 at One Hogan Place. It bothered him more than usual as he and L.A. Bo

“Uh, okay,” Bo

He unlocked his beige door, dingy around the knob, the paint chipped at the edges, the aroma of Chinese food overwhelming. He was starved, couldn’t wait to dig into his crispy duck spring rolls and BBQ baby ribs, and pleased that Bo

She was close to six feet tall, big-boned, big hands, big feet, big-breasted, the kind of woman who could keep a man fully occupied in bed or kick his ass, like Xena the Warrior Princess in a business suit, only Bo

Bo

He wasn’t sure if this was about the 666 over the door or the fact that his work space was a landfill, and said, “Berger will be calling on the line in here. It’s better we stay put. Plus, I need my computer and don’t want anyone overhearing the conversation.” He set down his crime scene case, a slate-gray four-drawer tackle box perfect for his needs, and shut the door. “I figured you’d notice.” He meant his room number. “Don’t go thinking it means something personal about me.”

“Why would I think it’s about you personally? Did you decide what number this office is?” She moved paperwork, a flak jacket, and the tackle box off a chair and sat.

“Imagine my reaction when I was showed this office the first time.” Marino settled behind mountain ranges of clutter on his metal desk. “You want to wait and eat until after the call?”

“A good idea.” She looked around as if there was no place to eat, which wasn’t true. Marino could always find a spot to set a burger or a bowl or a foam box.

“We’ll do the call in here and eat in the conference room,” he said.

“Even better.”

“I got to admit I almost quit. I really thought about it.” He picked up where he’d left off in his story. “The first time I was showed this office, I was like, you got to be shitting me.”

He’d honestly thought Jaime Berger was joking, that the number over the door was the usual sick humor of people in criminal justice. It had even occurred to him that maybe she was rubbing his nose in the truth about why he’d ended up with her to begin with-that she’d hired him as a favor, was giving him a second chance after the bad thing he’d done. What a reminder every time he walked into his office. All those years he and Scarpetta had been together and then he hurt her like that. He was glad he didn’t remember much, had been fucked up, shitface drunk, had never meant to put his hands on her, to do what he did.

“I don’t consider myself superstitious,” he was telling Bo

“The time of day?” Bo

“Six minutes past six on the sixth day of the month, for example.”

“Why won’t she move you? Isn’t there some other place you can work?” Bo

“This everything?” Marino plugged it into his computer. “Apartment, crime scene, and WAV files?”

“Except the pictures you took when you were there today.”

“I got to download them from my camera. Nothing all that important. Probably nothing you didn’t get when you were there with the CSU guys. Berger says I’m on the sixth floor and my office is the sixty-sixth one in sequence. I told her yeah, well, it’s also in the book of Revelation.”

“Berger’s Jewish,” Bo

“That’s like saying if she doesn’t read the paper nothing happened yesterday.”

“It’s not like that. Revelation isn’t about something that happened.”

“It’s about something that’s going to happen.”

“Something that’s going to happen is a prediction or wishful thinking or a phobia,” Bo

His desk phone rang.

He snapped it up and said, “Marino.”

“It’s Jaime. I think we have everybody.” Jaime Berger’s voice.

Marino said, “We were just talking about you.” He was watching Bo

“Kay? Benton? Everybody still on?” Berger said.

“We’re here.” Benton sounded far away.

“I’m putting you on speakerphone,” Marino said. “I’ve got Detective Bo

“At the hangar, getting the helicopter prepped. Hopefully we’ll be flying out in a few hours,” Berger said. “The snow’s finally stopped. If all of you go into your e-mail, you should find two files she sent before she headed out to the airport. Following Marino’s advice, we’ve gotten analysts at the Real Time Crime Center to log in to the server that operates the surveillance camera outside Toni Darien’s apartment building. I’m sure all of you know that NYPD has an agreement with several of the major CCTV security camera providers so it can access surveillance recordings without tracking down system administrators for passwords. Toni’s building happens to be covered by one of these providers, so RTCC was able to access the network video server and has gone through some of the recordings in question, focusing as a matter of priority on this past week and comparing images with recent photos of Toni, including her driver’s license photo, and photos of her on Facebook, MySpace. Amazing what’s out there. The file called Recording One, we’ll start with that. I’ve already looked at it, and also the second file, and what I’ve seen corroborates information received several hours ago that we’ll discuss in more detail in a few minutes. You should be able to download the video and open it. So let’s do that now.”

“We’ve got it.” Benton ’s voice, and he didn’t sound friendly. Never did these days.

Marino found the e-mail Berger was talking about and opened the video clip as Bo