He unlocks the bike’s front fork and ignition and swings his leg over the warrior seat, thinking how much he loves not living like the poor city cop he was most of his life. The Academy supplies him with an H2 Hummer, black with a turbo-diesel V8, 250-horsepower engine, four-speed overdrive transmission, a load-bearing exterior rack, winch and off-road adventure package. He bought the Deuce and tricked it out to his heart’s content, and he can afford a psychiatrist. Imagine that.
He shifts the bike into neutral and presses the starter button as he stares at the attractive white house where Dr. Self lives but shouldn’t live. He holds in the clutch and gives the bike some gas, the ThunderHead pipes making plenty of noise as lightning flashes in the distance and a dark army of retreating clouds wastes its artillery over the sea.
34
Basil smiles again.
“I can’t find anything about a murder,”Bentonis saying to him, “but two and a half years ago, a woman and her daughter disappeared from a business called The Christmas Shop.”
“Didn’t I tell you that?” Basil says, smiling.
“You didn’t say anything about people disappearing or a daughter.”
“They won’t give me my mail.”
“I’m checking on it, Basil.”
“You said you’d check on it a week ago. I want my mail. I want it today. They quit giving it to me right after I had the disagreement.”
“When you got angry at Geoff and called him Uncle Remus.”
“And for that I don’t get my mail. I think he spits in my food. I want all of it, all the old mail that’s been sitting around for a month. Then you can move me to a different cell.”
“That I can’t do, Basil. It’s for your own good.”
“I guess you don’t want to know,” Basil says.
“How about I promise you’ll have all your mail by the end of the day.”
“I better get it or that’s the end of our friendly conversation about The Christmas Shop. I’m getting rather bored with your little science project.”
“The only Christmas shop I could find was in Las Olas on the beach,”Bentonsays. “July fourteenth, Florrie Quincy and her seventeen-year-old daughter, Helen, disappeared. Does that mean anything to you, Basil?”
“I’m not good with names.”
“Describe for me what you remember about The Christmas Shop, Basil.”
“Trees with lights, little trains and ornaments everywhere,” he says, no longer smiling. “I already told you all that. I want to know what you found inside my brain. You see their pictures?” He points at his head. “You should see everything you want to know. Now you’re wasting my time. I want my damn mail!”
“I promised, didn’t I?”
“And there was a trunk in back, you know, a big footlocker. It was stupid as shit. I made her open it and she had these collector’s ornaments made inGermanyin painted wooden boxes. Stuff like Hansel and Gretel and Snoopy and Little Red Riding Hood. She kept them locked up because of how expensive they were, and I said, ‘What the fuck for? All someone has to do is steal the trunk. You really think locking them up in there is going to stop someone from stealing them?’ ”
He falls silent, staring off at the cinder-block wall.
“What else did you talk about with her before you killed her?”
“I told her, ‘You’re going down, bitch.’ ”
“At what point did you talk to her about the trunk in the back of the store?”
“I didn’t.”
“I thought you said…”
“I never said I talked to her about it,” Basil says impatiently. “I want to be put on something. Why can’t you give me something. I can’t sleep. I can’t sit still. I feel like fucking everything and then get depressed and can’t get out of bed. I want my mail.”
“How many times a day are you masturbating?”Bentonasks.
“Six or seven. Maybe ten.”
“More than usual.”
“Then you and me had our little talk last night and that’s all I’ve done all day. Didn’t get out of bed except to pee, barely ate, haven’t bothered with a shower. I know where she is,” he then says. “Get me my mail.”
“Mrs. Quincy?”
“See, I’m in here.” Basil leans back in the chair. “What do I have to lose? What incentive do I have to do the right thing? Favors, a little special treatment, maybe cooperation. I want my fucking mail.”
Bentongets up and opens the door. He tells Geoff to go to the mail room, find out about Basil’s mail.Bentoncan tell by the guard’s reaction that he knows all about Basil’s mail and isn’t happy about doing anything that might make his life more pleasant. So it’s probably true. He hasn’t been getting it.
“I need you to do it,”Bentontells Geoff, meeting his eyes. “It’s important.”
Geoff nods, walks off.Bentonshuts the door again and sits back down at the table.
Fifteen minutes later, Benton and Basil are finishing their conversation, a tangled mess of misinformation and convoluted games.Bentonis annoyed. He doesn’t show it and is relieved to see Geoff.
“Your mail will be waiting on your bed,” Geoff says from the doorway, his eyes flat and cold as they stare at Basil.
“You better not have stolen my magazines.”
“Nobody’s interested in your fucking fishing magazines. Excuse me, Dr. Wesley.” And to Basil, “There are four of them on your bed.”
Basil casts an imaginary fly rod. “The one that got away,” he says. “It’s always the biggest one. My father used to take me fishing when I was a little boy. When he wasn’t beating my mother.”
“I’m telling you,” Geoff says. “I’m telling you right in front of Dr. Wesley. You mess with me again, Jenrette, and your mail and fishing magazines won’t be your only problem.”
“See, this is what I mean,” Basil tellsBenton. “This is how I’m treated around here.”
35
In the storage area, Scarpetta opens a crime-scene case that she carried in from the Hummer. She removes vials of sodium perborate, sodium carbonate and luminol, mixes them with distilled water in a container, shakes it and transfers the solution into a black pump spray bottle.
“Not exactly how you thought you’d spend your week off,” Lucy says as she attaches a thirty-five-millimeter camera to a tripod.
“Nothing like a little quality time,” Scarpetta says. “At least we get to see each other.”
Both of them are shrouded in disposable white coveralls, shoe covers, safety glasses, face masks and caps, the door to the storage room shut. It is almosteight p.m., and Beach Bums is once again locked up before closing time.
“Give me just a minute to get the context,” Lucy says, screwing a cable release on the camera’s power switch. “Remember the days when you had to use a sock?”
It is important that the spray bottle stay out of the photograph, and that’s not possible unless the bottle and nozzle are black or covered with something black. If nothing else is available, a black sock works fine.
“Nice to have a bigger budget, isn’t it,” Lucy adds, the shutter opening as she presses the cable-release button. “We haven’t done something together like this in a while. Anyway, money problems are no fun.”
She captures an area of shelving and concrete flooring, the camera fixed in place.
“I don’t know,” Scarpetta says. “We always managed. In many ways, it was better, because defense attorneys didn’t have an endless list of no questions: Did you use a Mini-Crime scope? Did you use super sticks? Did you use laser trajectory? Did you use ampules of sterile water? What? You used bottled distilled water and you bought it where? A 7-Eleven? You bought evidence-collecting items at a convenience store?”
Lucy takes another photograph.
“Did you test the DNA of the trees, birds and squirrels in the yard?” Scarpetta goes on, pulling a black rubber glove over the cotton examination glove covering her left hand. “What about vacuuming the entire neighborhood for trace evidence?”