Blow Fly (Kay Scarpetta #12)(25)

"I guess we'll just have to get Wolfman to explain," Marino rudely replies. "I got no f*cking idea."

"Yet you seem to know for a fact that the letters are from Jean-Baptiste." Benton measures each word. "Pete. You're better than this."

Marino wipes his forehead on his sleeve. "Look, so the fact is, we don't got scientific evidence to prove nothing. But it's not because we didn't take a shot at it. We did use the Luma-Lite, and we did try for DNA, and everything's whistle-clean as of this moment."

"Mitochondrial DNA? You trying for that?"

"Why bother? It would take months, and by then he'll be dead. And there's no way in hell we're going to get a goddamn thing anyway. For crying out loud, don't you think the * gets off on somehow using a National Academy of Justice envelope? How's that for a f*ck-you? Don't you think he gets off on making us do all these tests when he knows we'll come up with zip? All he had to do was cover his hands with toilet paper or whatever when he touched anything."

"Maybe," Benton says.

Marino is about to erupt. He is exasperated beyond his limit.

"Easy, Pete," Benton says. "You would think less of me if I didn't ask."

Marino stares off without blinking.

"My opinion?" Benton goes on. "He wrote the letters and was deliberate about not leaving evidence. I don't know how he managed to use a National Academy of Justice envelope, and yes, that is a huge f*ck-you. Frankly, I'm surprised you haven't heard from him before now. The letters sound authentic. They do not have the off-key ring of a crank. We know Jean-Baptiste has a breast fetish." He says this clinically. "We know it is very likely he has information that could destroy his criminal family and the cartel. It fits with his insatiable need to dominate and control that he presents the conditions he has."

"And what about him saying the Doc wants to see him?"

"You tell me."

"She never wrote him. I asked her point-blank. Why the hell would she write that piece of shit? I told her about the National Academy of Justice envelopes, that the letter to her and me came in one. I showed her a photocopy..."

"Of what?" Benton interrupts.

"A photocopy of the National Academy of Justice envelope." Marino is getting exasperated. "The one her and my letters from Wolfman came in. I told her if she gets one of these goddamn National Academy of Justice letters herself, not to open it, not to even touch it. Do you really believe he wants her to be his executioner?"

"If he intends to die..."

"Intends?" Marino interrupts him. "I don't believe ol' Wolf?e Boy's got much to say about that."

"A lot can happen between now and then, Pete. Remember who his connections are. I wouldn't be too sure of anything. And by the way, when Lucy got her letter, was it also sent in a postage-paid National Academy of Justice envelope?"

Yup.

"The fantasy of a woman doctor administering the lethal injection and watching him die would be erotic to him," Benton muses.

"Not just any doctor. We're talking about Scarpetta!"

"He victimizes to the end, dominates and controls another human being to the end, forces a person to commit an act that will scar forever." Benton pauses before he adds, "You kill someone, you never forget him, now do you? We have to take the letters seriously. I do believe they are from him-fingerprints, DNA or not."

"Yeah, well I believe they're from him, too, and that he means what he says, and that's why I'm here, if you ain't figured it out yet. If we can get Wolfman to sing, we move in on all his daddy's lieutenants and put the Chandonne cartel out of business. And you got nothing to worry about anymore."

"Who is we?"

"I wish you'd quit saying that!" Marino gets up to help himself to another beer. Anger and frustration flare again. "Don't you get it?" he calls out, rummaging inside the refrigerator. "After May seventh, after we got the goods and Wolfman's dead, there ain't no reason for you to be Tom what's-his-name anymore!"

"Who is we?"

Marino snorts like a bull as he pops open a bottle of Dos Equis this time. " We is me. We is Lucy."

"Does Lucy know you came to see me today?"

"No. I didn't tell no one and won't."

"Good." Benton doesn't move in his chair.

"Wolfman gives us pawns to knock off the board," Marino plans on without him. "Maybe he's already given us our first pawn by ratting out Rocco. I can only figure that somebody must have ratted him out if he's suddenly a fugitive."

"I see. How honorable of Chandonne, if your son is his first pawn. Will you visit Rocco in prison, Pete?"

Marino suddenly smashes the beer bottle in the sink. Glass shatters. He strides over to Benton and gets in his face.

"Shut up about him, you hear me? I hope he gets f*cking AIDS in prison and dies! All the suffering he's caused! Now it should be his goddamn turn!"

"Whose suffering?" Benton doesn't flinch at Marino's hot, beery breath. "Your suffering?"

"Start with his mother's suffering. And keep on going." Marino still has a hard time thinking about Doris, his ex-wife and Rocco's mother.