Patricia Cornwell - Predator

She writes forensic psychologist Benton Wesley an e-mail:

It is Sunday afternoon and Dr. Kay Scarpetta is in her office at theNationalForensicAcademyinHollywood,Florida, where clouds are building, promising another thunderstorm. Its not supposed to be this rainy and hot in February.

Gunfire pops, and voices yell things she cant make out. Simulated combat is popular on the weekends. Special Ops agents can run around in black fatigues, shooting up the place, and nobody hears them, only Scarpetta, and she barely notices. She continues reviewing an emergency certificate issued by a coroner inLouisiana, an examination of a patient, a woman who later went on to murder five people and claims to have no memory of it.

The case probably isnt a candidate for the Prefrontal Determinants of Aggressive-Type Overt Responsivity research study known as PREDATOR, Scarpetta decides, vaguely aware of a motorcycle getting louder on the Academy grounds.

A woman in the study would be interesting, but wouldnt the data be irrelevant? I thought you were restricting PREDATOR to males.

The motorcycle blasts up to the building and stops right below her window. Pete Marino harassing her again, she thinks irritably asBentonsends her an Instant Message:

Louisianaprobably wouldnt let us have her anyway. They like to execute people too much down there. Foods good, though.

She looks out the window as Marino kills the engine, gets off his bike, looks around in his macho way, always wondering whos watching. She is locking PREDATOR case files in her desk drawer when he walks into her office without knocking and helps himself to a chair.

You know anything about the Johnny Swift case? he asks, his huge, tattooed arms bulging from a sleeveless denim vest with the Harley logo on the back.

Marino is the Academys head of investigations and a part-time death investigator at the Broward County Medical Examiners Office. Of late, he looks like a parody of a biker thug. He sets his helmet on her desk, a scuffed black brain bucket with bullet-hole decals all over it.

Refresh my memory. And that things a hood ornament. She indicates the helmet. For show, and worthless if you have an accident on that donorcycle of yours.

He tosses a file onto her desk. ASan Franciscodoctor with an office here inMiami. Had a place inHollywoodon the beach, he and his brother. Not far from the Renaissance, you know, those twin high-rise condo buildings nearJohnLloydState Park? About three months ago at Thanksgiving while he was at his place down here, his brother found him on the couch, dead from a shotgun wound to the chest. By the way, hed just had wrist surgery and it didnt go well. At a glance, a straightforward suicide.

I wasnt at the MEs office yet, she reminds him.

She was already the Academys director of forensic science and medicine then. But she didnt accept the position of consulting forensic pathologist at the Broward County Medical Examiners Office until this past December when Dr. Bronson, the chief, started cutting back his hours, talking about retiring.

I remember hearing something about it, she says, uncomfortable in Marinos presence, rarely happy to see him anymore.

Dr. Bronson did the autopsy, he says, looking at whats on her desk, looking everywhere but at her.

Were you involved?

Nope. Wasnt in town. The case is still pending, because the Hollywood PD was worried at the time there might be more to it, suspicious ofLaurel.

Laurel?

Johnny Swifts brother, identical twins. There was nothing to prove anything, and it all went away. Then I got a phone call Friday morning aboutthree a.m., a weird-ass phone call at my house that weve traced to a pay phone inBoston.

Massachusetts?

As in the Tea Party.

I thought your numbers unlisted.

It is.

Marino slides a folded piece of torn brown paper from the back pocket of his jeans and opens it.

Im going to read you what the guy said, since I wrote it down word for word. He called himself Hog.

As in pig? That kind of hog? She studies him, halfway wondering if hes leading her on, setting her up for ridicule.

Hes been doing that a lot these days.

He just said, I am Hog. Thou didst send a judgment to mock them. Whatever the hell that means. Then he said, Theres a reason certain items were missing from the Johnny Swift scene, and if you have half a brain, youll take a good look at what happened to Christian Christian. Nothing is coincidence. Youd better ask Scarpetta, because the hand of God will crush all perverts, including her dyke bitch niece.

Scarpetta doesnt let what she feels register in her voice when she replies. Are you sure thats exactly what he said?

Do I look like a fiction writer?

Christian Christian?

Who the hell knows. The guy wasnt exactly interested in me asking questions like how to spell something. He talked in a soft voice, like someone who feels nothing, kind of flat, then hung up.

Did he actually mention Lucy by name or just-?

I told you exactly what he said, he cuts her off. Shes your only niece, right? So obviously he meant Lucy. And HOG could stand for Hand of God, in case you havent connected those dots. Long story short, I contacted theHollywoodpolice and theyve asked us to take a look at the Johnny Swift case ASAP. Apparently, theres some other shit about the evidence showing he was shot from a distance and from close range. Well, its one or the other, right?

If there was only one shot, yes. Something must be skewed with the interpretation. Do we have any idea who Christian Christian is? Are we even talking about a person?

So far nothing in our computer searches thats helpful.

Why are you just telling me now? Ive been around all weekend.

Been busy.

You get information about a case like this, you shouldnt wait two days to tell me, she says as calmly as she can.

Maybe youre not one to talk about withholding information.

What information? she asks, baffled.

You should be more careful. Thats all I got to say.

Its not helpful when youre cryptic, Marino.

I almost forgot.Hollywoods curious about whatBentons professional opinion might be, he adds as if it is an afterthought, as if he doesnt care.

He typically does a poor job hiding how he feels about Benton Wesley.

Certainly they can ask him to evaluate the case, she replies. I cant speak for him.

They want him to figure out if the call I got from this wacko Hog was a crank, and I said that would be kind of hard when its not recorded, when all hed get is my own version of shorthand scribbled on a paper bag.

He gets up from his chair, and his big presence seems even bigger, and he makes her feel even smaller than he used to make her feel. He picks up his useless helmet and puts on his sunglasses. He hasnt looked at her throughout their entire conversation, and now she cant see his eyes at all. She cant see whats in them.

Ill give it my complete attention. Immediately, she says as he walks to the door. If youd like to go over it later, we can.

Huh.

Why dont you come to the house?

Huh, he says again. What time?

Seven, she says.

Inside the MRI suite, Benton Wesley watches his patient through a partition of Plexiglas. The lights are low, multiple video screens illuminated along the wraparound counter, his wristwatch on top of his briefcase. He is cold. After several hours inside the cognitive neuro imaging laboratory, even his bones are cold, or at least thats how it feels.

Tonights patient goes by an identification number, but he has a name. Basil Jenrette. He is a mildly anxious and intelligent thirty-three-year-old compulsive murderer.Bentonavoids the term serial killer. It has been so overused, it means nothing helpful and never did except to loosely imply that a perpetrator has murdered three or more people over a certain period of time. The word serial suggests something that occurs in succession. It suggests nothing about a violent offenders motives or state of mind, and when Basil Jenrette was busy killing, he was compulsive. He couldnt stop.