“Maybe they’re transcripts of interviews on CNN or newspaper interviews,” she suggested. “And you’re right. Next time I’ll ask. That just made me dizzy. I don’t know what’s wrong with me. I should leave.”

“Can’t be transcripts,” Lucy replied. “Not all of them or even most. Chronologically, that can’t be right. Scarpetta, November tenth, and Scarpetta, November eleventh, then the twelfth and thirteenth. No way. She didn’t talk to her. Nobody talked to her. This is bullshit.”

It was indescribably strange, looking at her looking at the monitors and bickering with her computer creation as if it were her best friend.

Berger realized Jet Ranger was under the desk, snoring.

“References to four different interviews that took place back-to- back, four days in a row,” Lucy said. “And again here. Three days in a row. See, that’s exactly what I mean. She doesn’t come to the city and go on TV every day of the week, and she rarely does newspaper interviews. And this one right here? No fucking way.”

Berger considered getting out of her chair and saying good-night. But the thought of riding in the back of a taxi right now was unbearable. She would be sick.

“Thanksgiving Day? Impossible.” Lucy seemed to be arguing with the data. “We were together in Massachusetts Thanksgiving Day. She wasn’t on CNN, and she sure as hell wasn’t giving an interview to a newspaper or some graduate student.”

17

Kay Scarpetta 16 - Scarpetta

17

The cold wind was biting, and the half-moon was high and small, illuminating nothing as Scarpetta and Benton walked to the morgue.

The sidewalk was almost deserted, the few people they passed seeming aimless with very little in life. A young man was rolling a joint. Another young man leaned against a wall, trying to stay warm. Scarpetta felt eyes on their backs, and she felt vaguely unsettled. She felt exposed and uneasy for reasons that were too layered for her to readily identify. Yellow taxis sped by, most of their lighted rooftop signs advertising banks and finance and loan companies, typical after Christmas, when people face the consequences of their holiday cheer. A bus boasted a banner ad for Gotham Gotcha, and anger touched Scarpetta like the tip of a spear.

Then she felt fear, and Benton seemed to sense it and he found her hand, and he held it as they walked.

“It’s what I get,” she said, thinking about the gossip column. “I did a pretty good job avoiding the limelight for twenty-something years. Now CNN and now this.”

“It’s not what you get,” he said. “It’s just the way things are. And it’s not fair. But nothing is. That’s why we’re headed where we are. We’re the experts in unfair.”