"I can understand him destroying what he hates in himself, mutilating those areas of his victims' bodies, such as their faces." She will not be bullied by Marino. "But I don't know. The hands and feet. There's something more to that." Berger rebuffs him by her every gesture and inflection.
"Yeah, but his favorite part of the chicken's the white
meat," Marino pushes. He and Berger treat each other like lovers who have turned on each other. "That's his thing. Women with big tits. He's got some mother-thing going when he selects victims with certain body types. Don't take no FBI profiler to connect them dots, either."
I say nothing but give Marino a look that tells him plenty. He is acting like an insensitive ass, apparently so intent on battling this woman that he fails to realize what he is saying in front of me. He knows damn well that Benton had a genuine gift based on science and a significant database the Bureau has been building by studying and interviewing thousands of violent offenders. And I don't appreciate references to the victims' body types since mine was selected by Chandonne, too.
"You know, I don't like the word 'tit.' " Berger says this matter-of-factly, as if she is telling a waiter to hold the bear-naise sauce. She looks levelly at Marino. "Do you even know what a tit is, Captain?"
Marino, for once, is without words.
"A small bird, maybe," she goes on, shuffling through her paperwork, the energy of her hands betraying her anger. "A blow. Tit for tat, blow for blow. Etymology. And I don't mean the study of bugs. That would be with an N_Entomology. I'm talking about words. Which can offend. And can offend back. Balls, for example, can be something used in games_ tennis, soccer. Or refer to the very limited brains between the legs of males who talk about tits." She glances at him with a weighty pause. "Now that we've crossed our language barrier, shall we proceed?" She turns expectantly to me.
Marino's face is the color of a radish.
"You have copies of the autopsy reports already?" I know the answer, but ask her anyway.
"I've been through them numerous times," she responds.
I peel tape off the cases and push them in her direction while Marino pops his knuckles and avoids our eyes. Berger slides color photographs out of an envelope. "What can you tell me?" she asks us.
"Kim Luong," Marino begins in a workmanlike tone, reminding me of M. I. Galloway after he persisted in humiliating her. Marino is seething. "Thirty-year-old Asian, worked part-time in a West End convenience store called Quik Gary. It appears Chandonne waited until there was no one there but her. This was at night."
"Thursday, December ninth," Berger says as she looks at a scene photo of Luong's mutilated, seminude body.
"Yeah. The burglar alarm went off at nineteen-sixteen," he says as I puzzle. What did Marino and Berger talk about last night, if not this? I assumed she met with him to go over the investigative aspects of the cases, but it seems clear the two of them have not discussed the murders of Luong or Bray.
Berger frowns, looking at another photograph. "Sixteen past seven P.M.? That's when he came into the store or when he left after the fact?"
"When he left. Went out a back door that was always armed, on a separate alarm system. So he came into the store sometime earlier than that, through the front door, probably right after dark. He had a gun, walked in, shot her as she was sitting behind the counter. Then he put up the closed sign, locked the door, and dragged her back into the storeroom so he could do his thing with her." Marino is laconic and on good behavior, but beneath all this is a volatile concoction of chemistry that I am beginning to recognize. He wants to impress, belittle and bed Jaime Berger, and all of it is about his aching wounds of loneliness and insecurity, and his frustrations with me. As I watch him struggle to hide his embarrassment behind a wall of nonchalance, I am touched by sorrow. If only Marino wouldn't force misery upon himself. If only he wouldn't invite bad moments like these.
"Was she alive when he began beating and biting her?" Berger directs this at me as she slowly goes through more photographs.
"Yes," I reply.
"Based on?"
"There was sufficient tissue response to the injuries of her face to suggest she was alive when he began beating her. What
we can't know is whether she was conscious. Or better put,
how long she was conscious," I say.
"I got videotapes of the scenes," Marino offers in a voice meant to suggest he is bored.
"I want everything." Berger makes that patently clear.
"At least I filmed the Luong and Diane Bray scenes. Not brother Thomas. We didn't videotape him in the cargo container, which is probably a damn lucky thing." Marino stifles a yawn, his act becoming more ridiculous and annoying.
"You went to all the scenes?" Berger asks me.
"I did."
She looks at another photograph.
"No way I'd ever eat blue cheese again, not after spending quality time with ol' Thomas." Hostility bristles closer to the surface of Marino's skin.
"You know, I was going to put on coffee," I say to him. "Would you mind?"
"Mind what?" Stubbornness holds him in his chair.
"Mind putting on a pot." I look at him in a way that strongly suggests he leave me alone with Berger for a few minutes.
"I'm not sure I know how to work your machine here." He makes a stupid excuse.
"I have complete faith you'll figure it out," I reply.
"I can see you two have a nice rhythm going," I ironically observe when Marino is down the hall and can't hear us.
"We had plenty of opportunity to get acquainted this morning, very early this morning, I might add." Berger glances up at me. "At the hospital, before Chandonne was sent along his merry way."
"Might I suggest, Ms. Berger, that if you're going to spend some time around here, you might want to start by telling him to keep his mind on the mission. He seems to have some battle going with you that overshadows everything else, and it simply isn't helpful."
She continues studying photographs with no expression on her face. "God, it's like an animal tore into them. Just like Susan Pless, my case. These could just as easily be photos of her body. I'm halfway ready to believe in werewolves. Of course, there's the theory in folklore that the notion of werewolves might have been based on real people who suffered from hy-pertrichosis." I am not sure if she is trying to show me how much research she has done, or if she is deflecting what I just said about Marino. She meets my eyes. "I appreciate your words of advice about him. I know you've worked with him forever, so he can't be all bad."
"He's not. You won't find a better detective."
"And let me guess. He was obnoxious when you first met him."
"He's still obnoxious," I reply.
Berger smiles. "Marino and I have a few issues that we still haven't worked out. Clearly, he isn't used to prosecutors who tell him how a case is going to work. It's a little different in New York," she reminds me. "For example, cops can't arrest a defendant in a homicide case without the D.A.'s approval. We run the cases up there, and frankly"_she picks up lab reports_"it works a whole lot better, as a result. Marino feels it excruciatingly necessary to be in charge, and he's overly protective of you. And jealous of anyone who comes into your life," she sums it up, skimming the reports. "No alcohol on board, except Diane Bray. Point-zero-three. Isn't the thought that she'd had a beer or two and pizza before the killer showed up at her door?" She pushes photographs around on the table. "I don't think I've ever seen anybody beaten this badly. Rage, unbelievable rage. And lust. If you can call something like this lust. I don't think there's a word for whatever he was feeling."