“In other words,” Marino says to me with his mouth full, “was his death like what you’re accused of.”
The table falls silent. None of us quite get his meaning, but then I do. “You’re saying, if there was a real motive for his murder but it was disguised to look like a serial killing?”
He shrugs. “Just like you being accused of murdering Bray and disguising it to look like Wolfman did it.”
“Maybe why Interpol got so hot and bothered,” Lucy considers.
Marino helps himself to excellent French wine he gulps down like Gatorade. “Yeah, Interpol. Maybe Benton got all tangled up with the cartel somehow and…”
“Because of Chandonne,” I interrupt as my focus sharpens and I think I am on the trail that might just lead to the truth.
Jaime Berger has been our uninvited Christmas guest. She has shaded my thoughts all afternoon. I can’t stop thinking about one of the first things she asked when we met in my conference room. She wanted to know if anyone had profiled Chandonne’s Richmond murders. She was so quick to bring that up and so clearly believes profiling is important. Certainly, she would have had someone profile Susan Pless’s murder and I am increasingly suspicious that Benton very well may have known about that case.
I get up from the table. “Please be home,” I say out loud to Berger, and I experience a growing sense of desperation as I dig in my satchel for her business card. On it is her home number and I call from Anna’s kitchen where no one can hear what I say. A part of me is embarrassed. I am also frightened and mad. If I am wrong, I will sound foolish. If I am right, then she should have been more open with me, damn it, damn her.
“Hello?” A woman answers.
“Ms. Berger?” I say.
“Hold on.” The person calls out, “Mom! For you!”
The minute Berger gets on the line I say, “What else don’t I know about you? Because it’s becoming patently clear that I don’t know much.”
“Oh, Jill.” She must mean the person who answered the phone. “Actually, they’re from Greg’s first marriage. Two teenagers. And today I’d sell them to the first bidder. Hell, I’d pay someone to take them.”
“No, you wouldn’t!” Jill says in the background and laughs.
“Let me get to a quieter spot.” Berger talks as she moves into some other area of wherever it is she lives with a husband and two children she has never mentioned to me, even after all the hours we spent together. My resentment simmers. “What’s up, Kay?”
“Did you know Benton?” I ask her straight up.
Nothing.
“Are you there?” I speak again.
“I’m here,” she says and her tone has gotten quiet and serious. “I’m thinking how best to answer you….”
“Why not start with the truth. For once.”
“I’ve always told you the truth,” she replies.
“That’s ridiculous. I’ve heard even the best of you lie when you’re trying to manipulate someone. Suggesting lie detectors, or the big needle truth serum to get people to ‘fess up, and there’s also such a thing as lying by omission. The whole truth. I demand it. For God’s sake, did Benton have something to do with the Susan Pless case?”
“Yes,” Berger replies. “Absolutely yes, Kay.”
“Talk to me, Ms. Berger. I’ve just spent the entire afternoon going through letters and other weird things he received before he was murdered. They were processed in the post office located in Susan’s neighborhood.”
A pause. “I’d met Benton numerous times and my office has certainly availed itself of the services the behavioral science unit has to offer. Back then, at least. We actually have a forensic psychiatrist we use now, someone here in New York. I’d worked with Benton on other cases over the years, that’s my point. And the minute I learned about Susan’s murder and went to the scene, I called him and got him up here. We went through her apartment, just as you and I went through the Richmond crime scenes.”
“Did he ever indicate to you that he was getting strange
mail and phone calls and other things? And that just possibly there was a connection between whoever was doing it and whoever murdered Susan Pless?”