“Not an offshoot but a segue,” Lanier was saying to Berger, and the two tended to argue a lot and Benton really hadn’t been listening.

Another e-mail from Marino just landed:

On my way to the DNA bldg to meet lucy and the doc

“It will be more obvious when we get a visual. I agree with Benton. But Jerome’s nonviolent,” Lanier was saying. “He’s always been nonviolent. So nonviolent he went AWOL. Went into the military because he couldn’t get a job, and then bailed out because he happened upon an illegal opportunity.”

Benton e mailed Marino:

Why?

Lanier kept talking. “The Chandonnes’ tentacles are in Detroit. Just as they’re in Louisiana, Las Vegas, Miami, Paris, Monte Carlo. Port cities. Casino cities. Maybe even Hollywood. Anything that attracts organized crime.”

Benton reminded everyone at the table, “But not the father anymore. And not Jean-Baptiste’s brother. We carved up the rotten apple in 2003. We didn’t get the core, but he’s not the same breed.”

Marino’s e mailed reply:

Toni dariens watch

Benton continued, “You’re talking about a lust murderer, someone much too compulsive, much too impulse driven, to successfully run a cartel, to run anything as complex as his family business has been for the better part of a century. We can’t work this like an organized-crime case. We have to work it like a repetitive sexual murder case.”

“It was a viable bomb,” Berger said to Lanier, as if Benton hadn’t said anything. “It could have severely injured or even killed Kay. How can you possibly construe that as falling within the rubric of nonviolent?”

“You’re missing my point,” Lanier told her. “Depends on his intent, and if, in fact, Wild is just the messenger, then he may not have even known what was in the FedEx box.”

“That and the guy’s MO? In all these bank robberies? There’s been nothing violent. He’s a coward, stays in the car. Even the gun is fake.” Stockman spoke up as he worked on getting the decision tree-the decision forest, as he’d called it-on a flat screen. “I have to agree with Marty that he and Granny… this Dodie woman. Sorry. I’ve been calling her Granny for the past six months. Anyway, Jerome and Dodie, they’re minions.”

“Dodie Hodge isn’t anybody’s minion,” Benton said. “She goes along with something if she receives gratification from it. If she’s having fun. But she’s not a drone. She’s cooperative and supervis able only up to a point, which is why Jean-Baptiste made a mistake picking her, picking Jerome, picking anybody he’s likely picked. They’re all going to be flawed, because he is.”

“Then why steal the DVDs, for God’s sake?” Berger said to Lanier. “A few Hap Judd movies were worth getting arrested?”

“That wasn’t why,” Benton said. “She couldn’t help herself. And now the network has a problem. One of their bank robbers has just been arrested. They get a lawyer who’s in bed with them, and he in turn tries to get a forensic expert who’s in bed with them. Instead they ended up with me because of Dodie’s histrionics, her narcissism. She wanted to go to the same hospital where the rich and famous go. Again, she’s not a minion. She’s a bad recruit.”

“A bad move stealing those DVDs,” Stockman agreed with Berger. “They’d still be robbing banks if she hadn’t stuck those damn movies down her pants.”

“A bad move shooting off her mouth about Hap Judd,” Benton added. “Not that she could help herself, but she’s causing problems, creating exposures. We don’t know exactly what Hap Judd’s involvement in all this is, but he’s linked to Dodie, and he’s linked to Hannah Starr, and a photograph of him and Freddie Maestro is in High Roller Lanes, which could link Hap to Toni Darien as well. We need to get the tree on the wall, have a visual. I’m going to show you how all this is connected.”

“Let’s get back to the bomb,” Berger said to Lanier. “Just so I’m clear. You’re thinking someone else is behind the delivery of this package, Jean-Baptiste is, and that theory is based on?”

“I don’t mean to say common sense…” Lanier said.

“You mean to say it, and you just did,” Berger answered. “And condescension isn’t helpful.”

“Let me finish. I don’t mean to imply anything even remotely condescending toward you, Jaime. Or toward anyone at this table. From an analytical perspective”-and what Lanier really meant was, From the perspective of an FBI criminal investigative analyst, a profiler-“what was done to Dr. Scarpetta, or attempted, is personal.” Lanier looked at Benton. “I would say intimately personal.” Almost as if to imply that Benton might have been the one who left a bomb for his wife.

“I’m not getting the commonsense part.” Berger looked Lanier in the eye.

Berger didn’t like her. It probably wasn’t about jealousy or insecurity or any of the usual reasons powerful women went after each other. There was a practical problem to be faced. If the FBI took over the entire investigation, including whatever involvement Dodie Hodge or Hap Judd or anyone else being discussed in this room might have with Hannah Starr, it would be the U.S. attorney’s office that prosecuted the cases and not the New York County DA, not Berger. Get over it, Benton thought. This was fucking bigger than five boroughs. This was federal. It was international. It was dirty and extremely dangerous. If Berger thought about it for a minute, she shouldn’t even want to get within a mile of this case.

“The type of bomb, as it’s been described,” Lanier was saying to Berger. “An implicit threat. Intimidation. Mockery. And a prior knowledge of the victim and her habits and what was important to her. Dodie Hodge might have served as chief consort, but the bang for the buck, if you’ll forgive the pun, would have been Chandonne’s.”

“I’d like to get over there.” Stockman was looking at something on his computer. “Dodie Hodge’s place in Edgewater.” He started typing an e-mail. “She got a drinking problem? Wine bottles everywhere.”

“We need to get in.” O’Dell looked at what was on Stockman’s computer screen. “See if we find notes, other things linking her to the robberies and who knows what. I mean, it’s fine for these guys to look, but they don’t know what we know.”

“A more pressing concern is Jean-Baptiste,” Benton said, because police, the FBI were looking for Dodie, but no one was looking for Chandonne.

“No notes so far but a couple toy guns,” O’Dell said to Stockman as agents and cops from the Joint Bank Robbery Task Force searched Dodie’s house and sent electronic information in real time. “Bingo,” Stockman then said as he read. “Drugs. Looks like Granny does coke. Plus, she’s a smoker. Hey, Benton. To your knowledge, does Dodie smoke French cigarettes? Gauloises? I know I didn’t pronounce that right.”

“She may have had someone staying with her,” Stockman said, as he replied to his colleagues in the field.

Benton said, “I’m going to stop listening for a minute.”

It was a line that worked almost without exception. When people were arguing and distracted and their agendas were breaking the surface and blowing like whales, if Benton announced he was going to stop listening, everybody stopped talking.

“I’m going to say what I think, and you need to hear this because it will help you understand what you’re about to see when these links are made, are on the wall,” Benton said. “How are we doing with our tree diagram?” he pointedly asked.

“Anybody besides me need some coffee?” O’Dell said in frustration. “Too damn much going on at once, and I need to visit the little boys’ room.”