“Have you ever felt competitive with him?” Dr. Thomas’s voice was distant as Benton envisioned stigmatas he didn’t want to remember.
He heard himself say, “What’s bad, I guess, is I never felt much of anything about him.”
“He’s spent a lot more time with Kay than you have,” Dr. Thomas said. “That might make some people feel competitive. Feel threatened.”
“Kay’s never been attracted to him. If he were the last person on the planet, she wouldn’t be.”
“I guess we won’t know the answer to that unless there’s just the two of them left on the planet. In which case, you and I still won’t know.”
“I should have protected her better than I did,” Benton said. “That’s one thing I know how to do. Protect people. Those I love, and myself, or people I don’t know. Doesn’t matter. I’m an expert at it or I would have been dead a long time ago. A lot of people would be.”
“Yes, Mr. Bond, but you weren’t home that night. You were up here.”
Dr. Thomas may as well have thrown a punch. Benton silently took it, could barely breathe. He worked the paper clip back and forth, bending and unbending, until it broke.
“Do you blame yourself, Benton?”
“We’ve been through this. And I’ve had no sleep,” he answered.
“Yes, we’ve been through all sorts of facts and possibilities. Such as you’ve never allowed yourself a chance to feel the personal insult of what Marino did to Kay, who you quickly married afterwards. Maybe too quickly? Because you felt you had to hold everything together, especially since you didn’t protect her, didn’t prevent it? No different than what you do when you handle a criminal case, really. You take over the investigation, handle it, micromanage it, keep it a safe distance from your psyche. But the same rules don’t apply in our personal lives. You’re telling me you have homicidal feelings toward Marino, and in our last several conversations, we’ve delved into what you call your sexual acting out with Kay, although she isn’t necessarily aware of it, is that still correct? Nor is she aware that you’re aware of other women in a way that’s unsettling to you? Still true?”
“It’s normal for men to feel attractions they don’t do anything about.”
“Only men do that?” Dr. Thomas asked.
“You know what I mean.”
“What’s Kay aware of?”
“I’m trying to be a good husband,” Benton said. “I love her. I’m in love with her.”
“Are you worried you’ll have an affair? Cheat?”
“No. Absolutely not. I would never do that,” he said.
“No. Not. Never. You cheated on Connie. Left her for Kay. But that was a long time ago, wasn’t it.”
“I’ve never loved anybody as much as I love Kay,” Benton said. “I would never forgive myself.”
“My question is whether you completely trust yourself.”
“I don’t know.”
“Do you completely trust her? She’s very attractive, and now she must have a lot of fans because of CNN. A powerful, good-looking woman can have her pick. What about her trainer? You said you can’t stand the thought that he puts his hands on her.”
“I’m glad she’s taking care of herself, and a trainer’s a good thing. Prevents people from injuring themselves, especially if they’ve never worked with weights and aren’t twenty years old.”
“I believe his name is Kit.”
Benton didn’t like Kit. He always found excuses not to use the gym in their apartment building if Scarpetta was working out with Kit.
“Truth of the matter,” Dr. Thomas said. “Whether you trust Kay or not, it won’t change her behavior. That’s her power, not yours. I’m more interested in whether you trust yourself.”
“I don’t know why you continue to push me on this,” Benton said.
“Since you got married, your sexual patterns have changed. At least that’s what you told me the first time we talked. You find excuses not to have sex when the opportunity is there, and then want it when you, quote, shouldn’t. Again, what you told me. Still true?”
“Probably,” Benton said.
“That’s one way to pay her back.”
“I’m not paying her back for Marino. Jesus Christ. She didn’t do anything wrong.” Benton tried not to sound angry.
“No,” Dr. Thomas said. “I think it’s more likely you’re paying her back for being your wife. You don’t want a wife. You never have, and that’s not what you fell in love with. You fell in love with a powerful woman, not a wife. You’re sexually attracted to Kay Scarpetta, not to a wife.”
“She’s Kay Scarpetta and my wife. In fact, in many ways, she’s more powerful than she’s ever been in her life.”
“It’s not the rest of us who need convincing, Benton.”
Dr. Thomas always gave him special treatment, meaning she was more aggressive and confrontational than she was with her other patients. She and Benton shared a commonality that went beyond their therapeutic bond. Each understood how the other processed information, and Dr. Thomas could see right through linguistic camouflage. Denial, evasion, and passive communication simply weren’t options. Long sessions of silent staring as the shrink waited for an uptight patient to launch into what was bothering him weren’t going to happen. One minute into the void, and she was going to prompt Benton as she did last time: Did you come here for me to admire your Hermès tie? Or do you have something on your mind? Maybe we should pick up where we left off last time. How’s your libido?
Dr. Thomas said, “And Marino? Will you talk to him?”
“Probably not,” Benton said.
“Well, it seems you have a lot of people not to talk to, and I’ll leave you with my quirky little theory that at some level we intend everything we do. That’s why it’s extremely important to root out our intentions before they uproot us. Gerald’s waiting for me. Errands. We’re having a dinner party tonight, which we need like a hole in the head.”
It was her way of saying “Enough.” Benton needed to process.
He got up from his desk and stood before his office window, gazing out at the leaden winter afternoon. Nineteen floors below, the hospital’s small garden was barren, its concrete fountain dry.
Chapter 3
GOTHAM GOTCHA!
Happy New Year, everyone!
My resolution is all about you—what will really grab you, and as I was mulling it over . . . ? Well, you know how they roll back the year? Remind us of every awful thing that happened so we can get depressed all over again? Guess who filled my to-die-for fifty-eight-inch HD Samsung plasma TV?
The to-die-for queen herself: Dr. Kay Scarpetta.
Walking up courthouse steps to testify in another sensational murder trial. Her sidekick investigator Pete Marino in tow—meaning the trial was at least six, seven months ago, right? I think we all know the poor fat maggot’s not her sidekick anymore. Has anybody seen him? Is he in a cosmic jail somewhere? (Imagine working for a forensic diva like Scarpetta. Were it me, I might just commit suicide and hope she’s not the one who does the autopsy.)
Anyway, back to her walking up the courthouse steps. Cameras, the media, wannabes, spectators everywhere. Because she’s the expert, right? Gets called in from here to Italy because who better? So I poured another glass of Maker’s Mark, cranked up Coldplay, and watched her for a while, testifying in that pathological language of hers so few of us understand beyond getting the drift that some little girl was raped from stem to stern, even found seminal fluid in her ear (thought you could get that only from phone sex), and her head was bashed against the tile floor and blunt force trauma was what killed her. It dawned on me: