"Then you're saying that the trace evidence in this case is pith?" I asked. Special Agent George Kilby nodded.
"That's right. The commercial name is pith wood even though technically there really is no such thing."
"What is pith wood used for?" Wesley asked. It was Cartwright who answered, "It's often used to hold small mechanical parts or pieces of jewelry. For example, a jeweler might stick a small earring or watch gear into a pith button so it doesn't roll off the table or get brushed off by his sleeve. These days, most people just use Styrofoam."
"Was there much of this pith wood trace on her, body?" I asked.
"There was a fair amount of it, mostly in the bloody areas, which was where most of her trace was."
"If someone wanted pith wood Wesley said," where would he get it? "
"The Everglades, if you wanted to cut down the shrub yourself," Kilby replied.
"Otherwise you'd order it."
"From where?"
"I know there's a company in Silver Spring, Maryland." Wesley looked at me.
"Guess we need to find out who repairs jewelry in Black Mountain." I said to him, "I'd be surprised if they even have a jeweler in Black Mountain." Cartwright spoke again.
"In addition to the trace evidence already mentioned, we found microscopic pieces of insects. Beetles, crickets, and roaches nothing peculiar, really. And there were flecks of white and black paint, neither of them automotive. Plus, she had sawdust in her hair."
"From what kind of wood?" I asked.
"Mostly walnut, but we did also identify mahogany." Cartwright looked at Wesley, who was looking out the window.
"The skin you found in the freezer didn't have any of this same material on it, but her wounds did."
"Meaning those injuries were inflicted before her body came in contact with wherever it was that it picked up this trace?" Wesley said.
"You could assume that," I said.
"But whoever excised the skin and saved it may have rinsed it off. It would have been bloody."
"What about the inside of a vehicle?" Wesley went on.
"Such as a trunk?"
"It's a possibility," Kilby said.
I knew the direction Wesley's thoughts were heading. Gault had murdered thirteen-year-old Eddie Heath inside a beat-up used van that had been rife with a baffling variety of trace evidence. Succinctly put, Mr. Gault, the psychopathic son of a wealthy pecan plantation owner in Georgia, derived intense pleasure from leaving evidence that seemed to make no sense.
"About the blaze orange duct tape," Cartwright said, finally getting around to that subject.
"Am I correct in saying a roll of it has yet to show up?"
"We haven't found anything like that," Wesley replied. Special Agent Richards looked through pages of notes as Cartwright said to him, "Well, let's get on with that, because I personally think it's going to be the most important thing we've got in this case." Richards began talking in earnest, for like every devout forensic scientist I had met, he had a passion for his specialty. The FBI's reference library of duct tapes contained more than a hundred types for the purpose of identification when duct tape was involved in the commission of a crime. In fact, malevolent use of the silvery stuff was so common that I honestly could not pass by a roll of it in hardware or grocery stores without household thoughts turning into remembered horrors.
I had collected body parts of people blown up by bombs made with duct tape.
I had removed it from the bound victims of sadistic killers and from bodies weighted with cinder blocks and dumped into rivers and lakes. I could not count the times I had peeled it from the mouths of people who were not allowed to scream until they were wheeled into my morgue. For it was only there the body could speak freely. It was only there someone cared about every awful thing that had been done.
"I've never seen duct tape like this before," Richards was saying.
"And due to its high yarn count I can also say with confidence that whoever bought the tape did not get it from a store."
"How can you be so sure of that?" Wesley asked, "This is industrial grade, with a yarn count of sixty-two warp and a fifty-six woof, versus your typical economy grade of twenty ten that you might pick up at Walmart or Safeway for a couple of bucks. The industrial grade can cost as much as ten bucks a roll."
"Do you know where the tape was manufactured?" I asked.
"Shuford Mills of Hickory, North Carolina. They're one of the biggest duct tape manufacturers in the country. Their best-known brand is Shurtape."
"Hickory is only sixty miles or so east of Black Mountain," I said.
"Have you talked to anyone at Shuford Mills?" Wesley asked Richards.
"Yes. They're still trying to track down information for me. But this much we already know. The blaze orange tape was a specialty item that Shuford Mills manufactured solely for a private label customer in the late eighties."
"What is a private label customer?" I asked.
"Someone who wants a special tape and orders maybe a minimum of five hundred cases of it. So there could be hundreds of tapes out there we're never going to see, unless it turns up like this blaze orange tape did."
"Can you give me an example of what sort of person might design his own duct tape?" I inquired further.
"I know some stock car racers do," Richards replied.
"For example, the duct tape Richard Petty has made for his pit crew is red and blue, while Daryl Waltrip's is yellow. Shuford Mills also had a contractor some years back who was sick of his workers walking off the job with his expensive tape. So he had his own bright purple tape made. You know, you got purple tape repairing your ductwork at home or fixing the leak in your kid's wading pool, and it's pretty obvious you stole it."
"Could that be the purpose of the blaze orange tape? To prevent workers from stealing it?" I asked.
"Possibly," said Richards.
"And by the way, it's also flame retardant."
"Is that unusual?" Wesley asked.
"Very much so," Richards replied.
"I associate flame- retardant duct tapes with aircraft and submarines, neither of which would have any need of a tape that's blaze orange, or at least I wouldn't think so."
"Why would anyone need a tape that is blaze orange?" I asked.
"The million-dollar question," Cartright said.
"When I think of blaze orange, I think of hunting and traffic cones."
"Let's get back to the killer taping up Mrs. Steiner and her daughter," Wesley suggested.
"What else can you tell us about the mechanics of that?"
"We found traces of what appears to be furniture varnish on some of the tape ends," Richards said.
"Also, the sequence the tape was torn from the roll is inconsistent with the sequence it was applied to the mother's wrists and ankles. All this means is that the assailant tore off as many segments of tape as he thought he would need, and probably stuck them to the edge of a piece of furniture. When he began binding Mrs. Steiner, the tape was ready and waiting for him to use, one piece at a time."
"Only he got them out of order," Wesley said.
"Yes," said Richards.
"I have them numbered according to the sequence they were used to bind the mother and her daughter. Would you like to look?" We said that we would. Wesley and I spent the rest of the afternoon in the Materials Analysis Unit, with its gas chromatographs, mass spectrometers, differential scanning calorimeters, and other intimidating instruments for determining materials and melting points. I parked myself near a portable explosive detector while Richards went on about the weird duct tape used to bind Emily and her mother. He explained that when he had used hot blowing air to open the tape receipted to him by the Black Mountain police, he counted seventeen pieces ranging from eight to nineteen inches in length. Mounting them on sheets of thick transparent vinyl, he had numbered the segments two different ways-to show the sequence the tape had been torn from the roll and the sequence the assailant had used when he taped his victims.
"The sequence of the tape used on the mother is completely out of whack," he was saying.
"This piece here should have been first. Instead, it was last. And since this one was torn from the roll second, it should have been used second instead of fifth.
"The little girl, on the other hand, was taped in sequence. Seven pieces were used, and they went around her wrists in the order they were torn from the roll."
"She would have been easier to control," Wesley remarked.
"One would think so," I said, and then I asked Richards, "Did you find any of the varnish-type residue on the tape recovered from her body?"
"No," he replied.
"That's interesting," I said, and the detail bothered me. We saved the dirty streaks on the tape for last. They had been identified as hydrocarbons, which is just a highbrow name for grease. So this didn't guide us a bit one way or another because unfortunately grease is grease. The grease on the tape could have come from a car. It could have come from a Mack truck in Arizona.
12
Wesley and I went on to the Red Sage at half past four, which was early for drinks. But neither of us felt very good. It was hard for me to meet his eyes now that we were alone again, and I wanted him to bring up what had happened between us the other night.
I did not want to believe I was the only one who thought it mattered.
"They have microbrewery beer on tap," Wesley said as I studied the menu.
"It's quite good, if you're a beer drinker."
"Not unless I've worked out for two hours in the middle of summer and am very thirsty and craving pizza," I said, a little stung that he didn't seem to know this detail about me.
"In fact, I really don't like beer and never have. I only drink it when there's absolutely nothing else, and even then I can't say it tastes good."
"Well, there's no point in getting angry about it."
"I'm certainly not angry."
"You sound angry. And you won't look at me."
"I'm fine."
"I study people for a living and I'm telling you that you're not fine."
"You study psychopaths for a living," I said.
"You don't study female chief medical examiners who reside on the right side of the law and simply want to relax after an intense, long day of thinking about murdered children."
"It's very hard to get into this restaurant."
"I can see why. Thank you for going to a lot of trouble."
"I had to use my influence."
"I'm sure you did."
"We'll have wine with dinner. I'm surprised they have Opus One. Maybe that will make you feel better."
"It's overpriced and styled after a Bordeaux, which is a little heavy for sipping, and I wasn't aware we were dining here. I've got a plane to catch in less than two hours. I think I'll just have a glass of Cabemet."
"Whatever you'd like."
I did not know what I liked or wanted at the moment.
"I'm heading back to Asheville tomorrow," Wesley went on.
"If you want to stay over tonight, we could go together."
"Why are you going back there?"
"Our assistance was requested before Ferguson ended up dead and Mote had a heart attack. Trust me, the Black Mountain police are sincere in their appreciation and panic. I've made it clear to them that we will do what we can to help. If it turns out that I need to bring in other agents, I will." Wesley had a habit of always getting the waiter's name and addressing him by it throughout the meal. Our waiter's name was Stan, and it was Stan this and Stan that as Wesley and he discussed wines and specials. It was really the only dopey thing Wesley did, his sole quirky mannerism, and as I witnessed it this evening it irritated the hell out of me.
"You know, it doesn't make the waiter feel he has a relationship with you, Benton. In fact, it seems just a little patronizing, like the sort of thing a radio personality would do."
"What does?" He was without a clue.
"Calling him by name. Repeatedly doing it, I mean." He stared at me.
"Well, I'm not trying to be critical," I went on, making matters worse.
"I'm just mentioning it as a friend because no -one else would, and you should know. A friend would be that honest, I'm saying. A true one would."
"Are you quite finished?" he asked.
"Quite." I forced a little smile.
"Now, then, do you want to tell me what's really bothering you, or should I just bravely hazard a guess?"
"There is absolutely nothing bothering me," I said as I began to cry.
"My God, Kay." He offered me his napkin.
"I have my own." I wiped my eyes.
"This is about the other night, isn't it?"
"Maybe you should tell me which other night you mean. Maybe you have other nights on a regular basis." Wesley tried to suppress his laughter, but he could not. For several minutes neither of us could talk because he was laughing and I was caught between crying and laughing. Stan the waiter returned with drinks, and I took several swallows of mine before speaking again.
"Listen," I finally said.
"I'm sorry. But I'm tired, this case is horrible to deal with, Marino and I aren't getting along, and Lucy's in trouble."
"That's enough to push anyone to tears," Wesley said, and I could tell it bothered him that I hadn't added him to my list of things wrong. It perversely pleased me that it bothered him.
"And yes, I'm concerned about what happened in North Carolina," I added.
"Do you regret it?"
"What good does it do to say that I do or I don't?"
"It would do me good for you to say that you don't."
"I can't say that," I said.
"Then you do regret it."
"No, I don't."
"Then you don't regret it."
"Dammit, Benton, leave it be."
"I'm not going to," he said.
"I was there, too."
"Excuse me?" I puzzled.
"The night it happened? Remember? Actually it was very early in the morning. What we did took two. I was there. You weren't the only person there who had to think about it for days. Why don't you ask me whether I regret it?"
"No," I said.
"You're the one who's married."
"If I committed adultery, so did you. It takes two," he said again.
"My plane leaves in an hour. I've got to go."
"You should have thought about that before starting this conversation. You can't just walk out in the middle of something like this."
"Certainly I can."
"Kay?" He looked into my eyes and lowered his voice. He reached across the table and took my hand.
I got a room in the Willard that night. Wesley and I talked a very long time and resolved matters sufficiently for us to rationalize our repeating the same sin. When we got off the elevator in the lobby early the next morning, we were very low key and polite with one another, as if we had only just met but had a lot in common. We shared a taxi to National Airport and got a flight to Charlotte, where I spent an hour with Lucy on the phone.
"Yes," I said.
"I am finding someone and have in fact already started on that," I told her in the US Air Club.
"I need to do something now," she said again.
"Please try to be patient."
"No. I know who's doing this to me and I'm going to do something about it."
"Who?" I asked, alarmed.
"When it's time, it will be known."
"Lucy, who did what to you? Please tell me what you're talking about."
"I can't right now. There's something I must do first. When are you coming home?"
"I don't know. I'll call you from Asheville as soon as I get a feel for what's going on."
"So it's okay for me to use your car?"
"Of course."
"You won't be using it for at least a couple days, right?"
"I don't think so. But what is it you're contemplating?" I was getting increasingly unsettled.
"I might need to go up to Quantico, and if I do and spend the night I wanted to make sure you wouldn't mind."
"No, I don't mind," I said.
"As long as you're careful, Lucy, that's what matters to me." Wesley and I boarded a prop plane that made too much noise for us to talk in the air. So he slept while I sat quietly with my eyes shut as sunlight filled the window and turned the inside of my eyelids red. I let my thoughts wander wherever they would, and many images came to me from corners I had forgotten. I saw my father and the white gold ring he wore on his left hand where a wedding band would have been, but he had lost his at the beach and could not afford another one. My father had never been to college, and I remembered his high school ring was set with a red stone that I wished were a ruby because we were so poor.
I thought we could sell it and have a better life, and I remembered my disappointment when my father finally told me that his ring wasn't worth the gasoline it would take to drive to South Miami. There was something about the way he said this that made me know he had never really lost his wedding ring. He had sold it when he did not know what else to do, but to tell Mother was to destroy her. It had been many years since I had thought about this, and I supposed my mother still had his ring somewhere, unless she had buried it with him, and maybe she had. I could not recall, since I was only twelve when he had died. As I drifted in and out of places, I saw silent scenes of people who simply appeared without invitation. It was very odd. I did not know why it mattered, for example, that Sister Martha, my third-grade teacher, was suddenly writing with chalk on the board or a girl named Jennifer was walking out a door as hail bounced on the churchyard like a million small white marbles. These people from my past slipped in and vanished as I almost slept, and a sorrow welled up that made me aware of Wesley's arm. We were touching slightly. When I focused on the exact point of contact between us, I could smell the wool of his jacket warming in the sun and imagine long fingers of elegant hands that brought to mind pianos and fountain pens and brandy snifters by the fire.
I think it was precisely then I knew I was in love with Benton Wesley. Because I had lost every man I had loved before him, I did not open my eyes until the flight attendant asked us to put our seats in the upright position because we were about to land.
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