“What I’m saying is money can’t buy championship titles, and spoiled people usually don’t work as passionately as she did,” Scarpetta says.
Benton says, “Her father spoiled her but couldn’t be bothered with parenting. Same with her mother.”
“Yes, yes,” Captain Poma agrees. “What parents permit a sixteen-year-old to travel abroad with two eighteen-year-old friends? Especially if she’d been acting moody. Up and down.”
“When your child becomes more difficult, it gets easier to give in. Not resist,” Scarpetta says, thinking about her niece, Lucy. When Lucy was a child, God, their battles. “What about her coach? Do we know anything about that relationship?”
“Gianni Lupano. I spoke to him, and he said he was aware she was coming here and wasn’t happy about it because of major tournaments in the next few months, such as Wimbledon. He wasn’t helpful and seemed angry with her.”
“And the Italian Open here in Rome next month,” Scarpetta points out, finding it unusual the captain didn’t mention it.
“Of course. She should train, not run off with friends. I don’t watch tennis.”
“Where was he when she was murdered?” Scarpetta asks.
“New York. We’ve checked with the hotel where he said he stayed, and he was registered at that time. He also commented she had been moody. Down one day, up the next. Very stubborn and difficult and unpredictable. He wasn’t sure how much longer he could work with her. Said he had better things to do than put up with her behavior.”
“I’d like to know if mood disorders run in her family,” Benton says. “I don’t suppose you bothered to ask.”
“I didn’t. I’m sorry I wasn’t astute enough to think of it.”
“It would be extremely useful to know if she had a psychiatric history her family’s been secretive about.”
“It’s well known she’d struggled with an eating disorder,” Scarpetta says. “She’s talked openly about it.”
“No mention of a mood disorder? Nothing from her parents?” Benton continues his cool interrogation of the captain.
“Nothing more than her ups and downs. Typical teenager.”
“Do you have children?” Benton reaches for his wine.
“Not that I know of.”
“A trigger,” Scarpetta says. “Something was going on with Drew that no one’s telling us. Perhaps what’s in plain view? Her behavior’s in plain view. Her drinking’s in plain view. Why? Did something happen?”
“The tournament in Charleston,” Captain Poma says to Scarpetta. “Where you have your private practice. What is it they call it? The Lowcountry? What is Lowcountry, exactly?” He slowly swirls his wine, his eyes on her.
“Almost sea level, literally low country.”
“And your local police have no interest in this case? Since she played a tournament there just maybe two days before she was murdered?”
“Curious, I’m sure—” Scarpetta starts to say.
“Her murder has nothing to do with the Charleston police,” Benton interrupts. “They have no jurisdiction.”
Scarpetta gives him a look, and the captain watches both of them. He’s been watching their tense interaction all day.
“No jurisdiction hasn’t stopped anybody from showing up and flashing their badges,” Captain Poma says.
“If you’re alluding to the FBI again, you’ve made your point,” says Benton. “If you’re alluding to my being former FBI again, you’ve definitely made your point. If you’re alluding to Dr. Scarpetta and me — we were invited by you. We didn’t just show up, Otto. Since you’ve asked us to call you that.”
“Is it me or is this not perfect?” The captain holds up his glass of wine as if it is a flawed diamond.
Benton picked the wine. Scarpetta knows more about Italian wines than he does, but tonight he finds it necessary to assert his dominance, as if he has just plummeted fifty rungs on the evolutionary ladder. She feels Captain Poma’s interest in her as she looks at another photograph, grateful the waiter doesn’t seem inclined to come their way. He’s busy with the table of loud Americans.
“Close-up of her legs,” she says. “Bruising around her ankles.”
“Fresh bruises,” Captain Poma says. “He grabbed her, maybe.”
“Possibly. They aren’t from ligatures.”
She wishes Captain Poma wouldn’t sit so close to her, but there’s no where else for her to move unless she pushes her chair into the wall. She wishes he wouldn’t brush against her when he reaches for photographs.
“Her legs are recently shaven,” she goes on. “I would say shaven within twenty-four hours of her death. Barely any stubble. She cared about how she looked even when she was traveling with friends. That might be important. Was she hoping to meet someone?”
“Of course. Three young women looking for young men,” Captain Poma says.
Scarpetta watches Benton motion for the waiter to bring another bottle of wine.
She says, “Drew was a celebrity. From what I’ve been told, she was careful about strangers, didn’t like to be bothered.”
“Her drinking doesn’t make much sense,” Benton says.
“Chronic drinking doesn’t,” Scarpetta says. “You can look at these photographs and see she was extremely fit, lean, superb muscle development. If she’d become a heavy drinker, it would appear it hadn’t been going on long, and her recent success would indicate that as well. Again, we have to wonder if something recently had happened. Some emotional upheaval?”
“Depressed. Unstable. Abusing alcohol,” Benton says. “All making the person more vulnerable to a predator.”
“And that’s what I think happened,” Captain Poma says. “Randomness. An easy target. Alone at the Piazza di Spagna, where she encountered the gold-painted mime.”
The gold-painted mime performed as mimes do, and Drew dropped another coin into his cup, and he performed once more to her delight.
She refused to leave with her friends. The last thing she ever said to them was, “Beneath all that gold paint is a very handsome Italian.” The last thing her friends ever said to her was, “Don’t assume he’s Italian.” It was a valid comment, since mimes don’t speak.
She told her friends to go on, perhaps visit the shops of Via dei Condotti, and she promised to meet them at the Piazza Navona, at the fountain of rivers, where they waited and waited. They told Captain Poma they tasted free samples of crispy waffles made of eggs and farina and sugar, and giggled as Italian boys shot them with bubble guns, begging them to buy one. Instead, Drew’s friends got fake tattoos and encouraged street musicians to play American tunes on reed pipes. They admitted they had gotten somewhat drunk at lunch and were silly.
They described Drew as “a little drunk,” and said she was pretty but didn’t think she was. She assumed people stared because they recognized her, when often it was because of her good looks. “People who don’t watch tennis didn’t necessarily recognize her at all,” one of the friends told Captain Poma. “She just didn’t get how beautiful she was.”
Captain Poma talks on through their main course, and Benton, for the most part, drinks, and Scarpetta knows what he thinks — she should avoid the captain’s seductions, should somehow move out of range, which in truth would require nothing less than her leaving the table, if not the trattoria. Benton thinks the captain is full of shit, because it defies common sense that a medico legale would interview witnesses as if he is the lead detective in the case, and the captain never mentions the name of anyone else involved in the case. Benton forgets that Captain Poma is the Sherlock Holmes of Rome, or, more likely, Benton can’t stomach the thought, he is so jealous.