Scarpetta 18 - Port Mortuary

by Patricia Cornwell

  When was it that she scared me so badly, not that it’s been only once, but the time I thought she might end up in prison? Seven or eight years ago, I decide, when she came back from Poland, where she was involved in a mission that had to do with Interpol, with special ops that to this day I’m unclear about. I’ll never know just how much she would tell me if I pushed hard enough, but I won’t. I’ve chosen to remain foggy about what she did over there. What I know is enough. It’s more than enough. I would never say that about Lucy’s feelings, health, or general well-being, because I care intensely about every molecule of her, but I can say it about some complex and clandestine aspects of the way she has lived. For her own good and mine, there are details I will not ask about. There are stories I don’t want to be told.

  During the last hour of our flight here to Hanscom Field, she got increasingly preoccupied, impatient, and impossibly vigilant, and it is her vigilance that has a special caliber. That’s what I recognize. Vigilance is the weapon she draws when she feels threatened and goes into a certain mode I used to dread. In Oxford, Connecticut, where we stopped for fuel, she wouldn’t leave the helicopter unattended, not for a second. She supervised the fuel truck and made me stand guard in the cold while she trotted inside the FBO to pay because she didn’t trust Marino with guard duty, as she put it. She told me that when they had refueled in Wilmington, Delaware, earlier today en route to Dover, he was too busy on the phone to care about security or notice what was going on around them.

  She said she watched him through the window as he paced on the tarmac, talking and gesturing, no doubt swept up in telling Briggs about the man who allegedly was still alive when he was locked inside my cooler. Not once did Marino look at the helicopter, Lucy reported to me. He was oblivious when another pilot strolled over to check it out, squatting so he could inspect the FLIR, the Nightsun, and peering through Plexiglas into the cabin. It didn’t enter Marino’s mind that the doors were unlocked, as was the fuel cap, and of course there is no such thing as securing the cowling. One can get to the transmission, the engine, the gear boxes, the vital organs of a helicopter, by the simple release of latches.

  All it takes is water in the fuel tank for a flameout in flight, and the engine quits. Or sprinkle a small amount of contaminant into the hydraulic fluid, maybe dirt, oil, or water into the reservoir, and the controls will fail like power steering in a car, but a little more serious when you’re two thousand feet in the air. If you really want to create havoc, contaminate both the fuel and the hydraulic fluid so you have a flameout and a hydraulic failure simultaneously, Lucy described in gory detail as we flew with the intercom on “crew only” so Marino couldn’t hear. That would be especially unfortunate after dark, she said, when emergency landings, which are difficult enough, are far worse, because you can’t see what’s under you and had better hope it isn’t trees, power lines, or some other obstruction.

  Of course, the sabotage she fears most is an explosive device, and she’s obsessed in general with explosives and what they’re really used for and who is using them against us, including the U.S. government using them against us if it suits certain agendas. So I had to listen to that for a while before she went on to depress me further by explaining how simple it would be to plant such a thing, preferably under luggage or a floor mat in back so that when it detonates it takes out the main fuel tank beneath the rear seats. Then the helicopter turns into a crematorium, she told me, and this made me think of the soldier in the Humvee again and his devastated mother lashing out at me over the phone. I was making unfortunate associations most of the time we were flying, because for better or worse, any disaster described evokes vivid examples from my own cases. I know how people die. I know exactly what will happen to me if I do.

  Lucy cuts the throttle and pulls the rotor brake down, and the instant the blades stop turning, the driver’s door of Benton’s SUV opens. The interior light doesn’t go on. It won’t in any one of the three SUVs on the ramp, because cops and federal agents, including former ones, have their quirks. They don’t sit with their backs to the door. They hate to fasten their seat belts, and they don’t like interior lights in their vehicles. They are imprinted to avoid ambushes and restraints that might impede their escape. They resist turning themselves into illuminated targets. They are vigilant but not as vigilant as Lucy has been these past few hours.

  Benton walks toward the helicopter and waits near the dolly with his hands in the pockets of an old black shearling coat I gave him many Christmases ago, his silver hair mussed by the wind. He is tall and lean against the snowy night, and his features are keen in the uneven shadow and light. Whenever I see him after a long separation, it is with the eyes of a stranger, and I’m drawn to him all over again, just like the first time long ago in Virginia when I was the new chief, the first woman in America to run such a large medical examiner system, and he was a legend in the FBI, the star profiler and head of what was then the Behavioral Science Unit at Quantico. He walked into my conference room, and I was suddenly unnerved and unsure of myself, and it had nothing to do with the serial murders we were there to discuss.

  “You know this guy?” he says into my ear as we hug. He kisses me lightly on the lips, and I smell the woodsy fragrance of his aftershave and feel the soft leather of his coat against my cheek.

  I look past him to a man climbing out of the sedan, what I now can see is a dark-blue or black Bentley that has the throaty purr of a V12 engine. He is big and overweight, with a jowly face and a fringe of thinning hair that flails in the wind. Dressed in a long overcoat, the collar up around his ears, and with gloves on, he stands a polite distance away with the detached demeanor of a limo driver. But I sense his awareness of us. He seems most interested in Benton.

  “He must be waiting for someone else,” I decide as the man looks at the helicopter, then looks at Benton again. “Or he’s mixed up.”

  “Can I help you?” Benton steps closer to him.

  “I’m looking for Dr. Scarpetta?”

  “And why might you be looking for Dr. Scarpetta?” Benton is friendly but firm, and he gives nothing away.

  “I was sent here with a delivery, and the instructions I got is the party would be on Dr. Scarpetta’s helicopter or meeting it. What branch of service you with, or maybe you’re Homeland Security? I see it’s got a FLIR, a searchlight, a lot of special equipment. Pretty high-tech; how fast does it go?”

  “What can I do for you?”

  “I’m supposed to give something directly to Dr. Scarpetta. Is that you? I was told to ask for identification.” The driver watches Lucy and Marino carry my belongings out of the passenger and baggage compartments. The driver isn’t interested in me, not so much as a glance. I’m the wife of the tall, handsome man with silver hair. The driver thinks Benton is Dr. Scarpetta and that the helicopter is his.

  “Let’s get you out of here before this turns into a blizzard,” Benton says, walking toward the Bentley in a way that gives the driver no choice but to follow. “I hear we’re getting six to eight inches, but I think we’re in for more, like we need it, right? What a winter. Where are you from? Not here. The south somewhere. I’m guessing Tennessee.”

  “You can tell after twenty-seven years? Guess I need to work on talking Yankee. Nashville. Was stationed here with the Sixty-sixth Air Base Wing and never got around to leaving. I’m not a pilot, but I drive pretty good.” He opens the passenger door and leans inside. “You fly that thing yourself? I’ve never been in one. I knew right away your chopper wasn’t air force. I guess if you’re CIA, you’re not going to tell me. ...”

  Their voices drift back to me as I wait on the ramp where Benton left me. I know better than to follow him to the Bentley but am unwilling to sit inside our car when I have no idea who the man is or what delivery he’s talking about or how he knew someone named Scarpetta would be at Hanscom, either on a helicopter or meeting it, and what time it would land. The first person who comes to mind is Jack Fielding. It’s likely he knows my i
tinerary, and I check my iPhone. Anne and Ollie have answered my text messages and are already at the CFC, waiting for us. But nothing from Fielding. What is going on with him? Something is, something serious. This can’t be nothing more than his usual irresponsibility or indifference or erratic behavior. I hope he’s all right, that he’s not sick or injured or fighting with his wife, and I watch Benton tuck something into a coat pocket. He heads straight to the SUV, and that’s his message to me. Get in and don’t ask questions on the ramp. Something just transpired that he doesn’t like, despite his relaxed, friendly act with the driver.

  “What is it?” I ask him as we shut our doors at the same time Marino opens the back and starts shoving in my boxes and bags.

  Benton turns up the heat and doesn’t answer as more of my belongings are loaded, and then Marino comes around to my door. He raps a knuckle on the glass.

  “Who the hell was that?” He stares off in the direction of the Bentley, and snow is falling thick and hard, frosting the bill of his baseball cap and melting on his glasses.

  “Did many people know you and Lucy were heading out to Dover today?” Benton leans his shoulder against me as he talks to him.

  “The general. And Captain What’s-her-name, Avallone, when I called trying to get a message to the Doc. And certain people at our office knew. Why?”

  “Nobody else? Maybe a mention in passing to the EMTs, to Cambridge police?”

  Marino pauses, thinking, and a look passes over his face. He’s not sure whom he told. He’s trying to remember, and he’s calculating. If he did something foolish, he won’t want to admit it, has heard quite enough about how indiscreet he is. He doesn’t intend to be chastised yet again, although, to be fair, he wouldn’t have had a reason to behave as if it was classified information that he and Lucy were flying to Delaware to pick me up. It’s not a state secret where I’ve been, only why I’ve been there, and I was supposed to come home tomorrow, anyway.

  “No big deal if you did.” Benton seems to be thinking the same thing I am. “I’m just trying to figure out how a messenger knew to meet the helicopter here, that’s all.”

  “What kind of messenger drives a Bentley?” Marino says to him.

  “Apparently, the kind who’s been told your itinerary, including the helicopter’s tail number,” Benton replies.

  “Goddamn Fielding. What the hell’s he doing? He’s fucking lost it, that’s what.” Marino takes off his glasses and then has nothing to wipe them with, and his face looks naked and strange without his old wire-rims. “I mentioned to a few people that you were probably coming back today instead of tomorrow. I mean, obviously certain people knew because of the problem we have with the dead guy bleeding and everything else.” He directs this at me. “But Fielding’s the one who knew exactly what you were doing, and he sure as hell knows Lucy’s helicopter, since he’s been in it before. Shit, you don’t know the half of it,” he adds darkly.

  “We’ll talk at the office.” Benton wants him to shut up.

  “What the hell do we really know about him? What the fuck’s he up to? It’s damn time to quit protecting him. He’s sure as hell not protecting you,” he says to me.

  “Let’s talk about this later,” Benton replies with a warning in his tone.

  “Setting you up somehow,” Marino says to me.

  “Now’s not the time to get into it.” Benton’s voice flattens out.

  “He wants your job. Or maybe he just doesn’t want you to have it.” Marino looks at me as he digs his hands into the pockets of his leather jacket and steps away from my window. “Welcome home, Doc.” Flakes of snow blowing into the car are cold and wet on my face and neck. “Good to be reminded who you can really trust, right?” He stares at me as I roll up the glass.

  Anticollision beacons flash red and white on the wingtips of parked jets as we drive slowly across the ramp toward the security gate, which has just swung open.

  The Bentley drives through, and we are right behind it, and I notice its Massachusetts plate doesn’t have livery stamped on it, suggesting the car isn’t owned by a limousine company. I’m not surprised. Bentleys are unusual, especially around here, where people are understated and conservation-minded, even those who fly private. I seldom see Bentleys or Rolls-Royces, mostly Toyotas or Saabs. We pass the FBO for Signature, one of several flight services on the civilian side of the airfield, and I place my hand on the soft suede of Benton’s coat pocket without touching the creamy white envelope barely protruding from it.

  “Would you like to tell me what just happened?” It appears he was given a letter.

  “Nobody should know you just flew here or that you might be here, shouldn’t know anything about you personally or your whereabouts, period,” Benton says, and his face and voice are hard. “Obviously, she called the CFC and Jack told her. She’s certainly called there before, and who else but Jack?”

  He says it as if it’s really not a question, and I have no idea what he is referring to.

  “I can’t understand why he or anyone would talk to her, for Christ’s sake,” Benton goes on, but I don’t believe he doesn’t understand whatever it is he’s talking about. His tone says something else entirely. I don’t sense that he’s even surprised.

  “Who?” Because I have no idea. “Who’s called the CFC?”

  “Johnny Donahue’s mother. Apparently, that’s her driver.” Indicating the car up ahead.

  The windshield wipers make a loud rubbery sound as they drag across the glass, pushing away snow that is turning to slush as it hits. I look at the taillights of the Bentley in front of us and try to make sense of what Benton is telling me.

  “We should look at whatever it is.” I mean the envelope in his pocket.

  “It’s evidence. It should be looked at in the labs,” he says.

  “I should know what it is.”

  “I finished evaluating Johnny this morning,” Benton then reminds me. “I know his mother has called the CFC several times.”

  “How do you know?”

  “Johnny told me.”

  “A psychiatric patient told you. And that’s reliable information.”

  “I’ve spent a total of almost seven hours with him since he was admitted. I don’t believe he killed anyone. There are a lot of things I don’t believe. But I do believe his mother would call the CFC, based on what I know,” Benton says.

  “She can’t really think we would discuss the Mark Bishop case with her.”

  “These days people think everything is public information, that they’re entitled,” he says, and it’s not like him to make assumptions and to indulge in generalities. His statement strikes me as glib and evasive. “And Mrs. Donahue has a problem with Jack,” Benton adds, and that comment strikes me as genuine.

  “Johnny’s told you his mother has a problem with Jack. And why would she have an opinion about him?”

  “Some of this I can’t get into.” He stares straight ahead as he drives on the snowy road, and the snow is falling faster and slashes through the headlights and clicks against glass.

  I know when Benton is keeping things from me. Usually, I’m fine with it. Right now I’m not. I’m tempted to slide the envelope out of his pocket and look at what someone, presumably Mrs. Donahue, wants me to see.

  “Have you met her, talked to her?” I ask him.

  “I’ve managed to avoid that so far, although she’s called the hospital, trying to track me down, called several times since he was admitted. But it’s not appropriate for me to talk to her. It’s not appropriate for me to talk about a lot of things, and I know you understand.”

  “If Jack or anyone has divulged details about Mark Bishop to her, that’s about as serious as it gets,” I reply. “And I do understand your reticence, or I think I do, but I have a right to know if he’s done that.”

  “I don’t know what you know. If Jack’s said anything to you,” he says.

  “About what specifically?”

  I don’t want to admit to Benton a
nd most of all to myself that I can’t remember precisely when I talked to Fielding last. Our conversations, when we’ve had them, have been perfunctory and brief, and I didn’t see him at all when I was home for several days over the holidays. He had gone somewhere, presumably taken his family somewhere, but I’m not sure. Long months ago, Fielding quit sharing the details of his personal life with me.

  “Specifically, this case, the Mark Bishop case,” Benton says. “When it happened, for example, did Jack discuss it with you?”

  Saturday, January 30, six-year-old Mark Bishop was playing in his backyard, about an hour from here in Salem, when someone hammered nails into his head.

  “No,” I answer. “Jack hasn’t talked about it with me.”

  I was in Dover when the boy was murdered, and Fielding took the case, which was extraordinarily out of character, and I thought so then. He’s never been able to deal with children but for some reason decided to deal with this one, and it shocked me. In the past, if the body of a child was en route to the morgue, Fielding absented himself. It made no sense at all that Fielding would take the Mark Bishop case, and I’m sorry I didn’t return home, because that was my first impulse. I should have acted on it, but I didn’t want to do to my second in command what Briggs just did to me. I didn’t want to show a lack of faith.

  “I’ve reviewed it thoroughly, but Jack and I haven’t discussed it, although I certainly indicated I would make myself available if there was a need.” I feel myself getting defensive and hate it when I get that way. “Technically, it’s his case. Technically, I wasn’t here.” I can’t stop myself, and I know it sounds weak, like I’m making excuses, and I feel annoyed with myself.

  “In other words, Jack hasn’t tried to share the details. I should say he’s not shared his details,” Benton says.

  “Consider where I’ve been and what I’ve been doing,” I remind him.

  “I’m not saying it’s your fault, Kay.”