“I think we wear the same size or close enough,” he says.
“You knew he was coming home today?” I look at Benton busy e-mailing with his phone.
He’s preoccupied with conveying information that his colleagues may disagree with or ignore and he’s being extremely careful, more so than he’s ever had to be. Agents, most of them young, who started out regarding him as a legend and now want to take his place, want to show they’re more fit for the job he does, and that’s to be expected. But the other isn’t. Benton suspects conspiracy and sabotage and it very well may not be his imagination.
“Well, of course I had an inkling. I did have errands to run,” Bryce says mysteriously. “Tomorrow’s his birthday and I wasn’t sure if you’d remember, as sick as you’ve been. Not to mention decorating for Christmas, so he walks into a happy, festive house?”
“You found out when, and who did you tell?”
“Lucy and I had conversations. I mean, you don’t have a tree or a single light, not one candle in a window,” he lectures me. “That was painfully loud and clear every time I dropped things off, such a dark, unfriendly house, with no fire on the hearth not even a week before Christmas? Could it be more depressing? I imagined poor Benton coming home. He can’t hear me, can he? And, yes, the gate needs to be adjusted again. I’m watching it not shut, stammering like it’s having a seizure or trying to say something. I’ll try to do it from in here.”
“The problem is it wasn’t properly adjusted the last time it was supposedly serviced.” I tuck the fanny pack under my arm, feeling the weight and shape of what’s inside it.
“You’re telling me? This morning cars were backed up onto the street, it’s so damn slow, and I almost got smacked by a Honda Element and guess who would have paid the piper even though it wasn’t my fault? A tin lizzie like that hitting my big bad X-Six, can you imagine? Well, I should say Ethan’s. I can’t exactly afford a BMW on my salary. Speaking of — what the hell is Lucy driving and what is that you just took off? Are you wearing a gun? Since when?”
“I don’t want any information about the ID or anything else released yet,” I tell him as we walk past Marino’s empty spot where he won’t be parking his design-flawed pickup truck anymore. “Who else knows that Benton was coming home?”
“If I’m not mistaken, you’re packing a pistol. Sexy, but how come? And why such an ugly accessory, that big black bulky thing? Don’t they make them in leather or cheerful colors? I could tell Cambridge PD to release the information. Then it’s their discretion and not our problem.”
“That’s probably best as long as we’re absolutely positive —”
“It took Dr. Adams all of half an hour,” Bryce interrupts again. “Apparently in addition to everything else she had a recent extraction of number twenty —”
“Bryce, who did you tell that Benton was coming home and when? It’s important I know —”
“A healing socket with a titanium post for an implant yet to be installed. I know that’s not the right word for it.”
“Bryce…?”
“I realize crowns aren’t installed like crown molding, excuse the pun.” He drops his voice for emphasis. “Well, it’s not exactly a pun except the crown part of it.”
I lift the box cover of the jackshaft operator next to the bay and scan my thumb into the biometric lock.
“Not that I’m sure what a number twenty is,” Bryce continues talking nonstop. “But I think it’s a molar.”
“Did Lucy tell you Benton was flying in today?” I press a button and the torque motor starts. The massive metal shutter door lurches up loudly.
“Of course. I encouraged her to fly her big bird to D.C. and airlift him out. Did someone ruin your surprise? I promise it wasn’t me.”
If Bryce knew, there’s no telling who else did, not that I’m sure it explains anything. In fact, I don’t see how it does. Even if he were indiscreet, how would the killer have found out such a detail, assuming Benton’s suspicions are valid? Why would it matter when he was flying home? Maybe the killer can’t resist watching the spectacle he creates but that doesn’t mean the victim selection or the timing has anything to do with Benton. It’s more likely that Granby is capitalizing on Benton’s deepest fears, wearing him down and upsetting him, knowing full well what it would do to him if he thought anything he’s published might influence a violent predator. Benton very well may be paranoid by now, and based on what he’s just told me I wouldn’t blame him.
“Is Ernie in today?” I ask. “I’ve got trace evidence to drop off to him and we’ve got a fence post and bolt cutter coming in for tool marks. Plus DNA. So if you’ll alert Gloria, and while you’re at it also check on the tox lab, the additional screens I want in the suicide from last week, Sakura Yamagata, I want a rush on everything as quickly as humanly possible.”
“Tell me something new.”
“This is new. I’m very concerned about what we might be dealing with around here.”
“You’re not going to give me a clue?”
“I’m not,” I reply. “I also need you to find out when Dr. Venter, the chief in Baltimore, could have a word with me.”
“I’ll get right on it,” Bryce says. “And Ernie’s in the evidence bay, working on the totaled car from that drunk driver Anne’s this minute scanning. Plus we got a possible OD on the way, probably a suicide, a woman whose husband got killed in a motorcycle crash exactly one year ago to the day. One Happy Holidays deserves another, as they say. An average of ten suicides per week since Thanksgiving. Has it gotten worse?”
“More than twenty-five percent worse.”
“Well, now my day is totally ruined.”
Through the widening space beneath the door I see Lucy’s huge SUV inside where it really shouldn’t be. But she parks where she wants whether she’s driving one of her supercars or roaring up on a motorcycle, rules meaning nothing to her. I note the two gurneys haphazardly abandoned against a wall, a body pouch wadded up on top of one of them. A hose is sloppily coiled near a floor drain, the spray nozzle leaking.
“Why are we working up a car from a motor-vehicle fatality?” I ask Bryce.
“Because lawyers are calling.”
“Lawyers are always calling. That’s not a reason.”
“Not just any. Carin Hegel.”
“What exactly does she want?” I ask.
“She wouldn’t say.”
Benton and I duck under the door rolling up as he communicates with someone, typing with his thumbs. I press the Stop button just inside, then I press Close. I turn on lights. All of the storage cabinets are locked at least and the floor is clean. I don’t smell any bad odors.
“I think it’s something to do with the blood alcohol so maybe you should talk to Luke. Lawsuits and more lawsuits,” Bryce says as the heavy door rolls back down, clanking and humming. “Would it be okay with you if I have pizzas sent in from Armando’s? By early afternoon we’re going to have a full house and I don’t mean dead people. You need to eat, for once, and I have a change of clothing for you all laid out. The usual navy blue suit fresh from the dry cleaner and sensible low-heeled pumps plus brand-new stockings with no picks or runs.”
“Where am I going? I’m not even supposed to be in today.” I stop by the hose and turn off the water all the way.
“I’m interviewing Marino’s replacement, remember?” Bryce says. “Jennifer Garate, rhymes with karate. She’s worked in New York City as a death investigator for the past five years and was a physician’s assistant before that? We went over her application some weeks ago, but of course we went through a lot of them. She was very pleasant on the phone and Luke seems to like her photograph a little too much. I admit I thought it a bit odd that she had it taken on a beach wearing what I call bootyfits, hot yoga shorts or whatever to show off what she’s got, which is quite something I guess. You’re here, thank God, and can weigh in. Maybe Benton would since he’s in the neighborhood?”
“No,” I answer. “Ben
ton wouldn’t.” I turn off speakerphone because Benton isn’t listening.
I imagine he’s dealing with his field office or the BAU and politics are kicking into a higher gear. I wonder if the FBI will begin looking for Martin Lagos around here, looking for someone Benton is convinced is dead. Already I’m calculating what to do about any DNA results we may get from the panties on Gail Shipton’s body or from the mentholated ointment recovered from the grass. For the first time in my career I don’t trust what might happen to any profiles my DNA lab uploads into CODIS.
“Well, it’s only the most important position in terms of how it affects absolutely everything.” Bryce is back in my earpiece. “You end up with a shitty lead investigator and you know what they say? Garbage in, garbage out.”
We walk through the bay as big as a hangar. Parked off to one side is my niece’s two-ton black SUV built of ballistic hardened steel, according to her, with an explosives protection system, surveillance cameras, searchlights, a survival kit, a siren, and strobes. It has a black box like an aircraft and a PA system with loudspeakers, among other things. I’ve not had a chance to ask her what such an ominous-looking vehicle costs or why she suddenly feels the need for one.
“Who wants to spend the rest of our lives with a bully who crashes on an inflatable bed when he’s drunk, picks up women on Twitter, and lives in a house that’s become a stop on the tacky tour?” Bryce exclaims. “I won’t forgive Marino for using e-mail to walk off the job. Not even the decency to tell me to my face. Anyway, what’s your answer about Armando’s and can I rob petty cash?”
At the top of a ramp the door that leads into the lower level opens. Lucy is dressed in a black flight suit that accentuates her slender, strong build, her bright green eyes, and her rose-gold hair that she’s cut boyishly short.
“…Dr. Scarpetta? I think I’m losing you inside the bay. Hello, hello…?” Bryce says, and I end the call as I realize how intolerant I’ve become of chatter after days of being alone and quiet.
Lucy holds the door open, leans against it to avoid a hug, and I can feel her mood like a blast of hot air. I wrap my arms around her whether she likes it or not.
“Don’t tell me something I shouldn’t hear,” I say quietly.
“I don’t care what you hear. I’m sure Benton gave you the important points anyway.”
My open affection for my niece usually is reserved for outside the office and a shadow of annoyance crosses her pretty face as she pulls away. Then she looks tense, a glint of aggression showing.
“I’m sorry,” I tell her and her reaction is stoical and steely as if she has no feelings at all about what happened to Gail Shipton.
What I sense is a resolve that always goes the same way, in a direction that’s predictable and troubling. My niece is gifted at vengeful anger and bad with sad.
“I’m taking Bryce up on his offer and borrowing a pair of shoes.” Benton steadies himself with the doorframe, struggling with the boots one at a time, tugging them off.
He parks them at the top of the ramp, where they flop over like wilted traffic cones, and he walks past us in his stocking feet. Inside the building he turns left toward the elevator, busy on his phone again, his expression unreadable, the way it is when he’s met with resistance and ignorance and maybe something far worse than that.
“We need to talk.” I take Lucy by the arm. I steer her away from the door she holds.
24
Alone inside the bay, we head to the small round plastic table and two chairs that Rusty and Harold have christened La Morte Café. On temperate days they drink coffee and smoke cigars with the door rolled up, waiting for the dead to arrive and be taken away.
I set my fanny pack on the table and Lucy picks it up. She unzips it to check what’s inside. Then she zips it back up and returns it to the table.
“Why?” she asks.
“It probably was my fever and having too much time to think.”
“It probably wasn’t.”
“Something didn’t seem right. I assumed it had to do with my bout of bad health and taking Sock out.” I don’t want to get sidetracked right now by talking about the person who may have been spying on me because it will send Lucy on the warpath.
I don’t want her looking for Haley Swanson or someone else. She already has enough trouble with Marino.
“You should come over and go on the range with me at least.” She watches me carefully. “When’s the last time you practiced?”
“We will. I promise.”
I place a pod in the Keurig set up on a spraddle-legged surgical cart with rusted seams and bent wheels. Its decrepit condition has been draped with a French country vinyl cloth, red and yellow vent du sud and there’s an arrangement of plastic sunflowers and a Bruins ashtray on it.
“I’m sure you must feel slammed. Out of the office since Friday and returning to this.” Lucy stands behind a chair with her arms crossed. “You look pale and tired. You should have let me come over.”
“And catch the flu?” I open a pack of cheap paper towels, the type found in public restrooms.
“That could happen anywhere, and I’d never leave you alone because I’m afraid of what might happen to me. Janet and I would have brought you to the house and taken care of you. I should have come and gotten you.”
“I wouldn’t wish that on anyone.”
“It’s not a chore like with my mother.”
“Chore isn’t the word that comes to mind with Dorothy.”
“I’m just saying.” Her green eyes are intense on me.
“I know and I’m sorry if I didn’t seem grateful.”
She doesn’t make an insincere effort to reassure me. I’m not good at seeming a lot of things and both of us know it, and I’m reminded again of what I don’t like about myself.
“It’s not about being grateful,” Lucy then says. “You wouldn’t let me stay alone if the situations were reversed, if I’d just been through what you had and then got sick. Especially if I were scared enough to carry a gun everywhere.”
“You’re never scared and you do carry a gun everywhere.”
“You’d be camped out and showing up every other second with the thermometer.”
“I admit I have ways of doing things that aren’t easy for others.”
Brewing coffee spews into a brown paper cup with a fish icon, Navy surplus that Bryce orders by the pallet.
“Creamer, sugar? Or the usual black?” I ask.
“The usual. Nothing’s changed.” She looks at me with a face I love, angular and strong, more striking than beautiful.
I remember when she was a pudgy little know-it-all too smart for anyone’s damn good and missing the genetic piece responsible for boundaries and rules. As soon as she could walk she followed me from room to room, and when I sat she was in my lap. It would infuriate her mother, my selfish, miserable sister who writes children’s books and has no use for her own flesh and blood or for anyone, really, only characters she invents and can control and kill off. I haven’t talked to my family in Miami for a while and for a second I feel guilty about that, too.
“Bryce is ordering pizza. I might eat an entire pie by myself.” I set a coffee and a paper towel in front of Lucy.
“These cups suck.”
“They’re biodegradable.”
“Yes. They fall apart while you’re still drinking out of them.”
“They don’t damage marine life and are invisible to spy satellites.” I smile at her.
“You need to eat an entire pizza and then some.” Lucy scrutinizes me, arms crossed stubbornly. “Bryce is telling everyone you’ve turned into a skeleton.”
“The first time he’s seen me was five minutes ago on a security monitor. Please sit down, Lucy. We’re going to talk.”
I start a second cup, the aroma overpowering. My stomach feels inside out it’s so empty and Marino’s calling me at four a.m. seems a year ago. It doesn’t seem like it happened.
“The pizza’s not here yet
and she can wait.” Gail Shipton can. “What I’m most concerned about at the moment is you,” I say to Lucy, “and I do care what I hear even if you don’t. I don’t want either of us compromised. Or anyone else.”
She stares at me and I can tell she knows I’m referring to Benton.
“Compromised?” She pulls out a plastic chair.
“I don’t want to know anything illegal.” I’m that blunt.
“There’s nothing to know.”
“By whose definition?” I carry my coffee to the table and sit across from her. “I have some idea what you’ve been doing. Marino is aware that whatever was on Gail Shipton’s phone isn’t on it now. He’s told me that and maybe told other people.”
“It’s not her phone.” Lucy props an elbow on the table and rests her chin in her hand and the table rocks because the plastic legs aren’t even. “I should say it wasn’t. And what happened to her has nothing to do with what in fact is an extremely unique device and Marino has no right to it because it wasn’t hers,” she repeats.
“Then whose?”
“The technology’s mine but I’d gotten to the point I didn’t care anymore.” She wraps her hands around the coffee.
“You don’t sound like someone who doesn’t care.”
“I didn’t care about what the technology should be worth because I wanted to end the partnership and it was one of the things Gail and I talked about yesterday, not that it was the first time or all that friendly. She wins her lawsuit and buys me out.”
“There’s never a certainty anyone will win a lawsuit.” It surprises me Lucy would be that naïve. “Juries can be unpredictable. Mistrials happen. Anything can.”
“She felt sure it would settle at the last minute.”
“I can’t imagine Carin Hegel would assure her of such a thing.”
“She didn’t. She was ready for court and still is. But there won’t be a trial.”
“It would be difficult with the plaintiff dead.”
“There’s no case and there hasn’t been one for a while. That’s why there won’t be a trial.”
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