“I’m going to take notes, which I’ll keep in a file as a consultation,” Scarpetta said.

“Yes, notes. I want a record of the truth in your hands. In case something happens.”

She slipped a pad of paper and pen out of a pocket of her lab coat.

“In case I die,” he said. “There’s probably no way out. They’ll probably get me. This will probably be my last New Year’s Day. Probably I don’t care.”

“What makes you say that?”

“Whatever I do, wherever I go, they know.”

“What about right now?”

“Maybe. But you know?” He looked at the door. “There’s a lot of steel to get through. I’m not sure they can get through it, but I’m going to be careful what I say and what I think. You need to listen carefully. You need to read my mind while you can. Eventually, they’ll completely control what’s left of my free will, my thoughts. Maybe what they’re doing is practice. They have to practice on someone. We know the CIA’s had covert behavior-modification neuro-electromagnetic programs for half a century, and who do you think they practice on? And what do you think happens if you go to the police? Mysteriously, no report is filed. Same thing that happened when I reported it to Ms. Berger. I was ignored. And now Terri’s dead. I’m not paranoid. I’m not suffering some schizoid, psychotic episode. I don’t have a personality disorder. I’m not delusional. I don’t believe the Air Loom Gang is after me with their infernal machine, although one has to wonder about the politicians and if that’s why we’re at war in the Middle East. Of course, I’m being facetious, although not much would surprise me anymore.”

“You seem very well versed in psychology and psychiatric history.”

“I have a Ph.D. I teach the history of psychiatry at Gotham College.”

She’d never heard of it and asked him where it was.

“It’s nowhere,” he said.

Kay Scarpetta 16 - Scarpetta

5

Her username was Shrew because her husband used to call her that. He didn’t always mean it as an insult. Sometimes it was a term of endearment.

“Don’t be such a goddamn shrew,” he would say, verbatim, after her complaints about his cigars or not picking up after himself. “Let’s have a drink, my darling little shrew” usually meant it was five p.m. and he was in a decent mood and wanted to watch the news.

She’d carry in their drinks and a bowl of cashews, and he’d pat the cushion next to him on the tawny corduroy couch. After a half-hour of the news, which, needless to say, was never good, he would get quiet and not call her a shrew or talk to her, and dinner would be the sounds of eating, after which he would retreat to the bedroom and read. One day he went out on an errand and never came back.

She had no illusions about what he’d have to say were he still here. He wouldn’t approve of her being the anonymous system administrator for the Gotham Gotcha website. He would call what she did disgusting detritus that was intended to ruthlessly exploit and inflict disease upon people, and would say it was insane for her to work a job where she’d never met any of those involved or for that matter didn’t know their names. He would say it was outrageously suspicious that Shrew did not know who the anonymous columnist was.