The Scarpetta Factor

“We need to go,” she said to Lucy. “The DNA Building. Now.”

Security camera images of a woman and a man filled multiple flat screens inside the SAC conference room. Since last June, at least nineteen different banks had been robbed by the same pair of brazen bandits the FBI had dubbed Gra

“You getting all this?” Jaime Berger tilted her MacBook so Benton could see what she was looking at, another e-mail just sent.

He nodded. He knew. He was opening messages as they landed on his BlackBerry, the same messages Lucy and Marino were sending Berger, the four of them communicating almost in real time. The package bomb had been viable and the bare voice module recovered from it was the same type used in Dodie Hodge’s singing card, only Benton no longer believed the card was from Dodie. She had recorded it and may have pe

Dodie thrived on drama, but this wasn’t her drama, wasn’t her show, wasn’t even her modus operandi. Benton knew whose it was, he was sure he did, and he should have figured it out before, but he hadn’t been looking. He had quit looking because he’d wanted to believe he didn’t need to look. Unbelievable to simply say he forgot, but he had. He’d forgotten to keep his scan going, and now the monster was back, had taken on a different shape, a different form, but his personal stamp was as recognizable as a stench. Sadism. Inevitably there had to be sadism, and once it started it wasn’t going to stop. Toy with the mouse and torture it within an inch of its life before mauling it to death. Dodie wasn’t creative enough, wasn’t experienced enough, wasn’t deranged or brilliant enough to come up with such a massive and intricate plot on her own. But she was histrionic and borderline, and she’d been willing and able to audition.

At some point, Dodie Hodge had climbed into bed with organized crime. So had Warner Agee, who appeared to be responsible for unethical research projects that were co

Three days after the Miami hit, there was another one, the last of the known nineteen, this time in Detroit. It just so happened to have occurred on the same day Dodie was arrested in that city for shoplifting and disturbing the peace, for making a scene after stuffing three Hap Judd DVDs down the front of her pants. She was out of control. With someone like her, it was only a matter of time and she would have an episode, would lose it, act out, and she did in Betty’s Bookstore Café. It was bad timing, a bad accident, and certain people had to figure out what to do with her before she created more of an exposure for those who couldn’t afford it. Someone got her a lawyer in Detroit, Sebastian Lafourche, originally from Baton Rouge, Louisiana, where the Chando

Lafourche had suggested that Dodie should be evaluated by Warner Agee. It wasn’t Agee’s newfound celebrity status that was appealing, it was his involvement with organized crime, with the Chando

Benton looked across the table at Marty Lanier and said, “This new computer system of yours? Is it able to link data the way RTCC can? Give us something like a decision tree, so we see conditional probabilities? So we can visualize what we’re talking about? Because I’m thinking it would help clarify. The roots are deep and the branches are dense and have quite a reach, and it’s important to figure out as best we can what’s relevant and what isn’t. For example? The bank robbery this past August first in the Bronx. That Friday morning at ten-twenty, when American Union was hit.” He was looking at his notes. “Not even an hour later, Dodie Hodge was issued a TAB summons on a transit bus at Southern Boulevard and East One-forty-ninth. In other words, she was in the area, a few blocks from the bank that was robbed. Was agitated, hyped up, got into an argument.”

“I don’t know anything about a TAB summons,” said NYPD Detective Jim O’Dell, early forties, thi

He sat next to his Joint Bank Robbery Task Force partner, FBI Special Agent Andy Stockman, late thirties, black hair, plenty of it, and no paunch.

“Came up during data mining when we were looking for anything that had to do with FedEx,” Benton said to O’Dell. “When Dodie was confronted by the officer because she was creating a disturbance on the bus, she told him he could FedEx his ass straight to hell, priority overnight. A link RTCC made.”

“A weird thing to say. Haven’t heard that one before,” Stockton said.

“She likes to FedEx things. She’s always in a hurry and wants the results of her dramas instantly. I don’t know,” Benton said impatiently, because Dodie’s clichés and hyperbole weren’t important and the thought of her irritated the hell out of him. “What matters is a pattern you’re going to see repeatedly as we get deeper into this discussion. Impulsiveness. A leader, a Mob boss, who is compulsive and impulsive and is driven by i

“Birds of a feather,” Lanier said.

“Jean-Baptiste and his birds,” Benton said. “Yes.”

“We need a data wall like they got,” O’Dell said to Berger, as if she could do something about it.

“Good luck.” Stockton reached for his coffee. “We’re paying for our own bottled water up here.”

“Seeing the links, the co

“You don’t know what’s there until you do,” Benton said. “Especially in something this complex. Because these crimes didn’t just start this past June. They go back before Nine-Eleven, more than a decade, at least my involvement in them does. Not specifically the bank robberies, but the Chando

“What do you mean ‘used to be’?” O’Dell said. “Seems they’re alive and kicking, if everything I’m hearing is true.”

“They’re not what they were. You can’t begin to understand. Suffice it to say it’s different,” Benton said. “It’s the bad seed taking over the family store and ru