“What Bible and what missing people?”
She has to explain that to him, tell him about the anonymous call from someone who referred to himself as Hog. She has to tell him about the centuries-old Bible inside the house of the women and boys who have vanished, that it was open to the Wisdom of Solomon, that the verse is the same one this man called Hog recited to Marino over the phone.
Therefore unto them, as to children without the use of reason, thou dids’t send a judgment to mock them.
“Marked with X’s in pencil,” she says. “The Bible printed in 1756.”
“Unusual they would have one that old.”
“There were no other old books like that in the house. According to Detective Wagner. You don’t know her. People who worked with them at the church say they’ve never seen the Bible before.”
“Checked it for prints, for DNA?”
“No prints. No DNA.”
“Any theories about what might have happened to them?” he asks, as if the sole reason for her racing here on a private jet was to discuss their work.
“Nothing good,” and her resentment grows.
He knows almost nothing about what her life has been like of late.
“Evidence of foul play?”
“We’ve got a lot to do at the labs. They’re in overdrive,” she says. “I found earprints outside a slider in the master bedroom. Someone had his ear pressed up against the glass.”
“Maybe one of the boys.”
“It’s not,” she says, getting angrier. “We got their DNA, or presumably it’s their DNA, from clothing, their toothbrushes, a prescription bottle.”
“I don’t exactly consider earprints good forensic science. There have been a number of wrongful convictions because of earprints.”
“Like a polygraph, it’s a tool,” she almost snaps.
“I’m not arguing with you, Kay.”
“DNA from an earprint the same way we get DNA from fingerprints,” she says. “We’ve already run that and it’s unknown, doesn’t appear to be anybody who lived in the house. Nothing in CODIS. I’ve asked our friends at DNAPrint Genomics inSarasotato test for gender and ancestral inference or racial affiliation. Unfortunately, that will take days. I don’t really give a damn about matching someone’s ear to an earprint.”
Bentondoesn’t say a word.
“Do you have anything to eat in the house? And I need a drink. I don’t care if it’s the middle of the day. And I need us to talk about something besides work. I didn’t fly up here in a snowstorm to talk about work.”
“It’s not a snowstorm yet,”Bentonsays somberly. “But it will be.”
She stares out her window as he drives towardCambridge.
“I have plenty of food in the house. And whatever you want to drink,” he says quietly.
He says something else. She’s not sure she heard it correctly. What she thinks she heard can’t be right.
“I’m sorry. What did you just say?” she asks, startled.
“If you want out, I’d rather you tell me now.”
“If I want out?” She looks at him, incredulous. “Is that all it takes,Benton? We have a major disagreement and should discuss ending our relationship?”
“I’m just giving you the option.”
“I don’t need you to give me anything.”
“I didn’t mean you need my permission. I just don’t see how it can work if you don’t trust me anymore.”
“Maybe you’re right.” She fights back tears, turns her face away from him, looks out at the snow.
“So you’re saying you don’t trust me anymore.”
“What if I had done it to you?”
“I would be very upset,” he replies. “But I’d try to understand why. Lucy has a right to her privacy, a legal right. The only reason I know about the tumor is because she told me she was having a problem and wondered if I could arrange for her to be scanned atMcLean, if I could make sure nobody knew, could keep it absolutely quiet. She didn’t want to make an appointment at some hospital somewhere. You know how she is. Especially these days.”
“I used to know how she is.”
“Kay.” He glances over at her. “She didn’t want a record. Nothing’s private anymore, not since the Patriot Act.”
“Well, I can’t argue with that.”
“You have to assume your medical records, prescription drugs, bank accounts, shopping habits, everything private about your life might be looked at by the Feds, all in the name of stopping terrorists. Her controversial past career with the FBI and ATF is a realistic concern. She doesn’t trust that they won’t find out anything they can about her, and she ends up audited by the IRS, on a no-fly list, accused of insider trading, scandalized in the news, God knows what.”
“What about you and your not-so-pleasant past with the FBI?”
He shrugs, driving fast. A light snow swirls and seems to barely touch the glass.
“There’s not much else they can do to me,” he says. “Truth is, I’d probably be a waste of their time. I’m much more worried about who’s running around with a shotgun that’s supposed to be in the custody of theHollywoodpolice or destroyed.”
“What is Lucy doing about her prescription drugs? If she’s so anxious about leaving any sort of paper or electronic trail.”
“She should be anxious. She’s not delusional. They can get hold of pretty much anything they want-and are. Even if it requires a court order, what do you suppose happens in reality if the FBI wants a court order from a judge who just so happens to have been appointed by the current administration? A judge who worries about the consequences if he doesn’t cooperate? Do I need to paint about fifty possible scenarios for you?”
“Americaused to be a nice place to live.”
“We’ve handled everything we can in-house for Lucy,” he says.
He goes on and on about McLean, assures her that Lucy couldn’t have come to a better place, that if nothing else, McLean has access to the finest doctors and scientists in the country, in the world. Nothing he says makes her feel better.
They are inCambridgenow, passing the splendid antique mansions ofBrattle Street.
“She hasn’t had to go through the normal channels for anything, including her meds. There’s no record unless somebody makes a mistake or is indiscreet,”Bentonis saying.
“Nothing’s infallible. Lucy can’t spend the rest of her life paranoid that people are going to find out she has a brain tumor and is on some type of dopamine agonist to keep it under control. Or that she’s had surgery, if it comes to that.”
It is hard for her to say it. No matter the statistical fact that surgical extraction of pituitary tumors is almost always successful, there is a chance something can go wrong.
“It’s not cancer,”Bentonsays. “If it were, I probably would have told you no matter what she said.”
“She’s my niece. I raised her like a daughter. It’s not your right to decide what constitutes a serious threat to her health.”
“You know better than anyone that pituitary tumors aren’t uncommon. Studies show that approximately twenty percent of the population has incidental pituitary tumors.”
“Depending on who’s surveying. Ten percent. Twenty percent. I don’t give a damn about statistics.”
“I’m sure you’ve seen them in autopsies. People never even knew they had them-a pituitary tumor isn’t why they ended up in your morgue.”
“Lucy knows she has it. And the percentages are based on people who had micro-not macro-adenomas and were asymptomatic. Lucy’s tumor on her last scan was twelve millimeters, and she’s not asymptomatic. She has to take medication to lower her abnormally high levels of prolactin, and she may have to be on the medication the rest of her life unless she has the tumor removed. I know you’re well aware of the risks, the very least of which is the surgery won’t be successful and the tumor will still be there.”
Bentonturns into his driveway, points a remote and opens the door of the detached garage, a carriage house in an earlier century. Neither of them talks as he pulls the SUV in next to his other powerful Porsche and shuts the door. They walk to the side entrance of his antique house, a dark-red brick Victorian just offHarvard Square.
“Who is Lucy’s doctor?” she asks, stepping inside the kitchen.
“Nobody at the moment.”
She stares at him as he takes off his coat and neatly drapes it over a chair.