Patricia Cornwell – Scarpetta11 – The Last Precinct

Then I think of something else. When Benton was mur­dered in Philadelphia, he was checked into a hotel. Several bags of his personal effects were returned to me, including his briefcase, which I opened. I went through it just as the police had. I know I didn’t see anything like this Tlip file, but if it is true Benton was suspicious that Carrie Grethen might have had something to do with the crank calls and notes he was get­ting, might he not have carried the Tlip file with him when he was working new cases possibly connected to her? Wouldn’t he have brought the file to Philadelphia?

I go to the phone and call Marino. “Merry Christmas,” I say. “It’s me.”

“What?” he blurts out, half asleep.”Oh shit. What time is it?”

“A few minutes past seven.”

“Seven!” Groan. “Hell, Santa ain’t even come yet. What you calling me so early for?”

“Marino, this is important. When the police went through Benton’s personal effects in the hotel room in Philadelphia, did you go through them?”

A big yawn and he blows out loudly. “Damn, I gotta quit staying up so late. My lungs are killing me, got to quit smok­ing. Me and some of the guys and Wild Turkey hung out last night.” Another yawn. “Hold on. I’m coming to. Let me switch channels. One minute it’s Christmas, next you’re ask­ing about Philadelphia?”

“That’s right. The stuff you guys found in Benton’s hotel room.”

“Yeah. Hell, yeah I went through it.”

“Did you take anything? Anything, for example, that might have been in his briefcase? A file, for example, that might have had letters in it?”

“He had a couple files in there. Why do you want to know?”

I am getting excited. My synapses are firing, clearing my head and pumping energy into my cells. “Where are these files now?” I ask him.

“Yeah, I remember some letters. Weirdo shit that I thought I should pay some attention to. Then Lucy blew Carrie and Joyce out of the air and turned them into fish chum, and that exceptionally cleared the case, I guess you could say. Shit. I still can’t believe she had a fucking AR-fifteen in the damn helicopter and…”

“Where are the files?” I ask him again and I can’t keep the urgency out of my voice. My heart is pounding. “I need to see a file that had the weird letters. Benton called it his Tlip file. T-L-P. As in The Last Precinct. Maybe where Lucy got the idea for the name.”

“The Last Precinct. You mean where Lucy’s going to workMcGovern’s place in New York? What the hell’s that got to do with some file in Benton’s briefcase?”

“Good question,” I tell him.

“Okay. It’s somewhere. I gotta find it, and I’ll be over.”

Anna has gone back to her bedroom, and I occupy myself with thinking about our holiday meal as I wait for Lucy and McGovern to get here. I start pulling food out of the refrigera­tor as I replay what Lucy told me about McGovern’s new company in New York. Lucy said the name The Last Precinct started out as a joke. Where you go when there is nowhere left. And in Anna’s letter, she said Benton told her The Last Precinct is where he would end up. Cryptic. Riddles. Benton believed his future was somehow connected to what he was putting in that file. The Last Precinct was death, I then con­sider. Where was Benton going to end up? He was going to end up dead. Is this what he meant? Where else might he have ended up?

Days ago, I promised Anna I would cook Christmas dinner if she did not mind an Italian in her kitchen who does not go near a turkey or what people stuff in turkeys during the holi­days. Anna has made a valiant effort at shopping. She even has cold-pressed olive oil and fresh buffalo mozzarella. I fill a large pot with water and go back to Anna’s bedroom to tell her She can’t go to Hilton Head or anywhere else until she has eaten a little cucina Scarpetta and sampled a little wine. This is a family day, I tell her as she brushes her teeth. I don’t care about special grand juries or prosecutors or anything else un- til after dinner. Why doesn’t she make something Austrian? At this she almost spits out toothpaste. Never, she says. If both of us were in the kitchen at the same time, we would kill each other.

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