Autopsy (Kay Scarpetta, #25)(52)

“Likely this has been going on for years,” Benton replies. “But she wasn’t on our radar until her former live-in partner called us yesterday morning.”

Jinx Slater was voicing his concerns over what Gwen likely had gotten herself involved in. He’s certain it’s connected to her murder. Benton continues to offer new information. That, in combination with Jared Horton making an Internet call to her missing cell phone.

“This was just hours after his orbiting lab was disabled,” Benton says. “His call to her is how we were alerted that they know each other, likely in a significant way.”

“We’re to assume her identification has been confirmed by now?” Homeland Security directs this at me.

“Using her toothbrush and other personal items from her residence, my labs made the comparison earlier this morning,” I reply. “Rapid DNA testing verified her identity, and her next of kin have been notified.”

Screwing the cap back on my water bottle, I hope we take a break in the not-too-distant future.

“And you’re convinced that she was murdered on Friday, the day after Thanksgiving,” General Gunner says to me.

“That’s correct. Late afternoon, early evening based on her postmortem findings at the scene and other information.” I give them the details as they continue taking notes.

“The question is whether what happened to her is connected to her alleged spying,” says the president. “Most importantly, how involved is Jared Horton? We don’t know because he’s not talking to us. Maybe because he can’t. Or maybe he won’t.”

“I’m not much for coincidences, Mister President, Madame Vice President.” Benton directs this at them. “And I don’t think we’re dealing with one here. This disaster in space happened not even twenty-four hours after it hit the media that Gwen was the murder victim from several nights earlier.”

We should expect Horton to have a meltdown, to decompensate. A violent death is the worst of tattletales, and whatever Gwen had to hide was going to be discovered.

“He knew he was going to be busted,” Benton says. “And if the two of them are as dirty as it’s looking, her murder would have pushed him over the edge. Simply put, he knew he was going to get caught if he didn’t think fast.”

“The reason he tried to call her from space was to see if she answered, if she was really dead,” the FBI decides. “Certainly, he’d not risked contacting her like that before. It was the only time he’d tried her cell phone during the almost three months he’d been up there.”

“He had to know we’d ping on it,” Tron agrees. “But by then he didn’t care. He had a plan and was out of our reach.”

The vice president looks up from her notes, and I can see her quiet outrage.

“Did Jared Horton and Gwen Hainey talk prior to his being in space?” she asks. “Do we have a clue how long the spying has been going on?”

“We’ve found no evidence of communication between the two of them while he was in orbit, as we’ve mentioned,” the CIA says. “It’s possible that the rest of the time he may have used burner phones like most people engaged in activities they don’t want anyone to know about.”

Burner phones, cell phones of any description won’t work in space, Tron explains to the Situation Room. Not easily, and that wasn’t going to be an option up there if Horton wanted to speak to Gwen.

“Whatever the case,” Benton says, “the only record we have is that one call he made from his laptop computer at close to midnight.”

But that doesn’t mean he and Gwen weren’t connected prior to her going to work for Thor Laboratories. A scientist and commercial astronaut employed by them, Horton may have helped her get a job there, Benton suspects.

“I’m guessing she was his boots on the ground, and likely had been for a while,” Tron says. “She may have connections with others involved in espionage, as well. We don’t know yet. But what I expect to emerge is she’d been helping Horton spy for the Russians, to steal any resources she could access.”

“In exchange for money and other compensations that were largely untraceable,” Benton says. “Explaining why she paid for everything in cash and had five thousand dollars in her wallet at the time she was abducted from the townhome she was renting.”





CHAPTER 21


AS I LISTEN TO all this,” says the CIA, “I’m wondering if she’s a hit staged to look like something else. That could explain why her hands were cut off and are missing. It sounds like someone settling a score, sending a message.”

“It could be the Russians thought she was becoming a problem, that it was time to eliminate her,” DARPA contemplates.

“Or her murder may have nothing to do with any of this,” Benton replies skeptically, and I have no doubt he’s thinking about the flattened penny.

That one small detail seems to cry out, and what it has to say flies in the face of a murder for hire. I envision the run-over coin on the rail, an oblong coppery wafer beaded with rainwater, and it’s important somehow. I don’t feel it’s contrived or random.

“Once we have an idea what’s on her computers, hopefully we’ll know what we’re dealing with,” Benton says, precipitating another flurry of questions.