Scarpetta 23 - Depraved Heart by Patricia Cornwell

Author:Patricia Cornwell [Cornwell, Patricia]
Language: eng
Format: azw3
ISBN: 9781460702918
Published: 2015-11-01T04:12:40+00:00

I DON’T SAY HELLO. I tell him I’m on Lucy’s property. I’ve been here for the past hour and a half, and will be heading back to Cambridge shortly.

“I know where you are, Kay.” Benton’s mild baritone voice is quiet and friendly but I know when he’s not alone. “I’m well aware of what you’ve been doing. Are you all right?”

“Where are you?”

“We landed at Hanscom. We were forced to with this weather moving in. Conditions have deteriorated extremely fast and you shouldn’t be out in it either.”

Benton was up in the helicopter, and Lucy suspected or knew it for some reason. It explains her cryptic comment to me about his ability to answer the phone right now when he might not have been able to a while ago. He’s with his FBI colleagues, the same agents who followed Marino and me from Chanel Gilbert’s house in Cambridge.

“Yes I’m aware of the chopper,” I say next, and I’m answered with silence. “Can you offer an explanation?” I ask and he says nothing.

When Benton is like this there’s no point in my probing because he’s not going to respond in a helpful way, not over the phone, not with other agents within earshot. What I generally resort to is making statements. Now and then he’ll address those, and my thought process picks up speed and I concentrate more intensely. I have to worry about what both of us say because people are listening.

“You’re not going to tell me what’s going on,” I try again.

“No.”

“You’re not alone.”

“I’m not.”

“Is there interest in my Cambridge case from this morning? Because unless I was looking at the wrong helicopter, you were in the area while we were there.” I go ahead and say that much and instantly I sense he won’t answer, and he doesn’t.

“I’m sorry. You’re breaking up,” Benton says instead.

I’m probably not. But next I pose the same information as a statement, summarizing, “You’re interested in my Cambridge case, the house on Brattle Street.” I avoid mentioning the suspected name of the dead woman or any other details.

“I agree it’s interesting.”

“I’m not aware that it’s a federal concern.”

“It makes sense that you’re not aware of it,” he says in a pleasant voice.

“I don’t have answers yet. A lot of questions but no answers yet,” I repeat.

“I see. For example?”

“Suffice it to say there are a number of things, and I’m concerned about confidentiality, Benton.” What I mean is I don’t have privacy.

He doesn’t ask me to elaborate.

I do anyway but I’m appropriately understated. “I haven’t autopsied her and I need to do a second walk-through of the scene as soon as I’m done here. I was interrupted earlier.”

“I understand.”

But he can’t really understand, and then it enters my mind again. Does he know about the Depraved Heart videos? I continue to wonder if Carrie Grethen has sent them to anyone else including the FBI.

“Will I see you tonight?” I ask.

“I’ll call you later,” he says and then he’s gone, and I study an angry sky that looks punishing.

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