“The joys of contemporary journalism,” she said. “We’re never sure what’s true.”
She would accuse Benton of lying to her by omission. But technically he hadn’t, because technically Pete Marino had committed no crime. What Dr. Thomas had said was correct. Benton wasn’t in Scarpetta’s house when it happened and would never know the nuances of what Marino had done to her that warm, humid Charleston night last May. Marino’s drunken, grossly inappropriate behavior had gone unreported and largely undiscussed. For Benton to have made even the slightest allusion to it would have been a betrayal of Scarpetta—and of Marino, for that matter—and in fact would constitute hearsay that Berger would never tolerate under other circumstances.
“Unfortunately,” Benton said, “the same sort of thing is being passed around on the ward. The other patients are calling Oscar names.”
“Vaudeville, carnivals, the Wizard of Oz,” Berger said.
She reached for her coffee, and every time she moved her hands, Benton noticed the absence of her large-carat diamond ring and matching wedding band. He had almost asked her about it last summer, after not seeing her for a number of years, but refrained when it became apparent that she never mentioned her multimillionaire husband or her stepchildren. She never made any reference to any aspect of her private life. Not even the cops were talking.
Maybe there was nothing to talk about. Maybe her marriage was intact. Maybe she’d developed an allergy to metals or worried about being robbed. But if it were the latter, she should think twice about the Blancpain she had on. Benton estimated it was a numbered timepiece that cost in the neighborhood of a hundred thousand dollars.
“Negative portrayals in the media, in the entertainment industry,” Berger went on. “Fools, dimwits. The movie Don’t Look Now. Folktale dwarfs, imperial court dwarfs. And rather apropos, the omnipresent dwarf who witnesses everything, from the triumph of Julius Caesar to the discovery of Moses in the bulrushes. Oscar Bane was witness to something, and at the same time accuses others of being witness to everything. His claims of being stalked, spied on, subjected to some sort of electronic harassment, and that the CIA might be involved and is torturing him with electronic and antipersonnel weapons as some sort of experiment or persecution.”
“He didn’t go into that kind of detail with me,” Benton replied.
“It’s what he reported when he called my office a month ago, and I’ll get back to that momentarily. What’s your assessment of his mental state?”
“His evaluation is perplexing in its contradictions. MMPI-TWO indicates traits of social introversion. During the Rorschach, he had perceptions of buildings, flowers, lakes, mountains, but no people. Similar pattern with the TAT. A forest with eyes and faces in the leaves, indicative of someone disconnected from people, someone profoundly anxious, paranoid. Aloneness, frustration, fear. Projective figure drawings were mature, but no human figures, just faces with empty eyes. Again, paranoia. A feeling of being watched. Yet nothing indicative that his paranoia is long-standing. That’s the contradiction. That’s what’s disconcerting. He’s paranoid, but I don’t believe his paranoia is long-standing,” he repeated.
“He’s afraid of something right now that to him is real.”
“In my opinion, yes. He’s afraid and depressed.”
“His paranoia,” Berger said. “Based on your experience and the time you spent with him, you don’t believe it’s his inherent disposition? It doesn’t go back to his childhood? As in, he’s always been paranoid because he’s a little person? Perhaps was made fun of, mistreated, discriminated against?”
“For the most part, it doesn’t appear he had those early experiences. Except with the police. He repeatedly told me he hates the police. And he hates you.”
“Yet he’s cooperated with the police. Excessively. Let me guess. His excessive cooperation won’t prove helpful.” As if she hadn’t heard the part about Oscar hating her.
“I hope you’ll get your chance with him,” Benton said.
The saying was, if a broken window were the victim, Berger could get a confession from the rock.
“I’m fascinated by his cooperation with a group of people he certainly doesn’t trust,” she said. “Yet he’s rather much given us free rein. Biological samples and his statement, as long as Kay’s the one he gives them to. His clothing, his car, apartment, as long as Kay is right there. Why?”
“Based on his fears?” Benton said. “I would venture to say that he wants to prove there’s no evidence linking him to Terri Bridges’s murder. Most of all, prove this to Kay.”
“He should be more worried about proving it to me.”
“He doesn’t trust you. He does trust Kay. Trusts her irrationally, and that worries me a lot. But back to his mind-set. He wants to prove to her he’s a good guy. He didn’t do anything wrong. As long as she believes in him, he’s safe. Physically, and in how he views himself. At this point, he needs her validation. Without her, he almost doesn’t know who he is anymore.”
“Guess what. We do know who he is and what he probably did.”
Benton said, “You need to understand this fear of mind control is very real to thousands of people who believe they are victims of mind weapons. That the government is spying on them, reprogramming them, controlling their thoughts, their entire lives, through movies, computer games, chemicals, microwaves, implants. And the fears have gotten exponentially worse in the past eight years. I was walking through Central Park not so long ago, and here’s this guy talking to the squirrels. I watched him for a while, and he turns around and tells me he’s a victim of the very thing we’re discussing. One of the ways he copes is to visit the squirrels, and if he can get them to eat peanuts out of his hands, then he knows he’s still grounded. He’s not letting the bastards get him.”
“That’s New York, all right. And the pigeons wear homing devices.”
“And Tesla gravity radar waves are being used to brainwash the woodpeckers,” Benton said.
Berger frowned. “Do we have woodpeckers here?”
“Ask Lucy about advances in technology, about experiments that sound like a schizophrenic’s bad dreams,” he said. “Only this stuff is real. I don’t doubt Oscar thinks it’s real.”
“I don’t think anybody doubts that. They just think he’s crazy. And they worry his craziness led him to murder his girlfriend. I alluded to his rather unusual protection devices. A plastic shield glued to the back of his cell phone. Another plastic shield in the back pocket of his jeans. A magnet-mounted external antenna on his SUV that seems to have no purpose. Investigator Morales—you haven’t met him yet—says this is anti-radiation stuff. That—and let me see if I can remember this right. A TriField meter?”
“To detect frequency-weighted electric fields in the ELF and VLF range. A detector, in other words. An electromagnetic measurement tool,” Benton said. “You hold it up in the middle of a room to see if you get readings that might indicate you’re being electronically monitored.”
“Does it work?”
“It’s popular in ghost hunting,” Benton said.
Chapter 6
For the third time, Investigator P. R. Marino refused tea, coffee, soda, or a glass of water. She tried harder.