Depraved Heart

by Patricia Cornwell

  “That’s sure as hell out of the blue,” he replies. “Why do you want to know about my birthday in 1997?”

  “Just tell me if you remember.”

  “Yeah I do.” He looks over at me as I keep my eyes straight ahead. “I’m surprised you don’t.”

  “Help me out. I have no clue.”

  “You and me drove to Quantico. We picked up Lucy and Benton and went to the Globe and Laurel.”

  The legendary Marine Corps hangout is suddenly vivid in my mind. I see the beer steins around the polished wooden bar, the ceiling covered with law enforcement and military patches from all over the world. Good food, good booze, and a huge seal over the door, the eagle, globe and anchor emblazoned with semper fidelis. We were part of the always faithful, the always loyal, and what went on in there stayed in there. I haven’t been in years, and then I envision something else. Marino drunk. It was ugly. I see him wild eyed in the incomplete darkness of the parking lot yelling, swearing at Lucy, his arms rigidly by his sides, fists clenched as if he might hit her.

  “Something was wrong with Lucy that night.” I’m deliberately vague with him. “You two were having a bad time, got upset with each other. That much is coming back.”

  “Let me refresh your memory,” he says. “She couldn’t eat anything. She had belly pain. Me? I figured it was her period.”

  “Which you didn’t mind saying to her in front of everyone.”

  “I thought she was having cramps and PMS. That’s what I remember about my birthday in 1997. I was really looking forward to the Globe but she freakin’ ruined it.”

  “I believe she said she’d pulled an abdominal muscle on the obstacle course.” I know Lucy was in pain and I do recall that she wouldn’t let me check her.

  “She was weird as a shithouse rat, a real asshole. A worse one than usual,” Marino says.

  I remember the two of them shouting at each other by the car. She wouldn’t get in. She threatened to walk back to her dorm, was angry and in tears and now I might know why. She and Carrie had gone out to run the Yellow Brick Road earlier that day and not so serendipitously encountered the new agent in training, a former beauty queen named Erin. Lucy believed Carrie was cheating on her with Erin and it’s all there on film.

  More pieces of a puzzle from the past, and I keep going back to my question. How could Carrie have known at the time that one day she would give me a ringside seat to what was going on in my niece’s private life? And would Carrie also have anticipated that I would begin to interpret and in some ways embellish the video even as I watched? Each second of it brought back information I’ve buried and blocked. Other details are new and that’s equally troubling. What else don’t we know about Carrie Grethen?

  I think about her obsession with the harmful effects of pollution and the sun. I had no idea about her magical beliefs and pathological vanity. To my knowledge no one has ever mentioned she has a blood disorder, and all of it will hold Lucy in very poor standing with the authorities. She knew these details. Obviously she did because she’s talking about them in the recording I saw. But I’m not aware that she’s ever passed the information along to anyone, and then my mood dips deeper into the dark trough of guilt.

  I was the moving force behind Lucy’s internship at Quantico. Carrie was telling the truth when she said I was instrumental in lining it up and had implemented strict guidelines for how the FBI was to deal with my teenaged niece. So I suppose it’s fair to say that it’s my fault Lucy ever met her mentor, her supervisor Carrie. The nightmare that would unfold is because of me. And now it’s unfolding further. And I wasn’t expecting this. And I honestly don’t know what to do except to get to Lucy as fast as I can and make sure she’s safe.

  Marino pats his pockets for his cigarettes. This is the third time he’s lit up since we left Cambridge. If there’s a fourth time I might have to give in. I could use a cigarette right now. Badly. I try to shut out images from the video. I try to get past what I felt, which was like a spy, a traitor, a terrible aunt as I watched Lucy and Carrie together intimately and barely dressed, as I listened to Carrie’s disrespectful, disparaging comments about me. I wonder the same thing I always do. How much is deserved? How much is an accurate portrait of who and what I really am?

  I’m so tense I might explode to the touch, and my right leg throbs, the ache spreading down my thigh to my calf muscle. Even the slightest adjustment of the accelerator is at a price. When I press the brake as I just did, I pay for it all right, and Marino hunches his shoulder and sniffs his shirt to make sure he doesn’t smell bad.

  “It’s not me,” he decides. “Sorry about that, Doc. You stink like a decomp and might want to stay away from Lucy’s dog.”

  I DRIVE SLOWLY around blind curves where round convex mirrors are mounted on thick old trees. I look and listen for anything coming.

  The sun shines through heavy canopies, painting dapples of light and shadow that reshape themselves like clouds. The wind blusters, ruffling leaves, shaking them like pompoms, and creosote-stained utility poles with sagging black power lines make me lonely for music. The faces of old homes we pass are tired, and New England pines and hardwoods grow chaotically, the earth a thick compost of tangled vines, dead weeds and rotting leaves.

  Buildings are paint-peeled. They lean and sag. I’ll never understand why scarcely anyone seems to care about how run-down and unhappy everything looks. Few Concord residents bother with landscaping or grass, and nothing is gated or fenced-in except Lucy’s estate. Dogs and cats wander at will and I have to look out for them when I drive here. In general that’s once or twice a month for dinner, brunch, a hike, or if Benton is out of town I might spend the night in the guest suite Lucy designed and furnished for me.

  Up ahead a green snake as bright as an emerald is stretched out on a sunny patch of pavement, its head raised, feeling the vibrations of our approach. I slow down as it begins to undulate across the road, vanishing into the greenness of dense summer foliage. I speed up. Then I slow down for a squirrel, a plump gray one that stands on his hind legs, its whiskers twitching as if it’s scolding me before scampering off.

  Next I come to a complete stop to let a panel-sided station wagon pass. It stops too and for an instant we’re at a stalemate. But I’m not backing up. I can’t possibly. It inches past with difficulty. I feel the driver’s unhappy stare.

  “I think you’ve just ruined everybody’s day around here,” Marino says. “They’re wondering who got murdered.”

  “Let’s hope the answer to that is nobody.” I glance at my phone for another text from Lucy’s ICE line, but there isn’t one as I continue along the road, the road that leads to her, the road I know so well and have come to hate.

  Grass and weeds are chest-high up to the edge of the pavement, and heavy tree branches hang low, making visibility even worse. There are few streetlights, and more often than not when I show up I find some poor creature in harm’s way. I always stop. I’ll hurry along a turtle, picking it up if need be and setting it safely in the woods. I routinely watch for rabbits, foxes, deer, escaped ornamental chickens.

  I’m on notice for baby raccoons that waddle out of the woods and lounge in the middle of the sun-warmed road, as innocent and sweet as cartoons. The other day after a hard rain I encouraged an army of green frogs to abandon their post. They seemed to grumble as I prodded them. There wasn’t the slightest gesture of gratitude for saving their lives. But then my patients don’t thank me, either.

  I rumble over asphalt cracked and crumbling at the edges like a stale brownie, avoiding potholes deep enough to blow out tires and damage wheels, and I envision the low-slung supercars Lucy drives. I marvel just as I always do over how she manages Ferraris and Aston Martins in conditions like this. But she’s as nimble as a quarterback, streaking around anything that might hurt her or get in her way. Slaloming, fast cutting, my Artful Dodger stealthy niece.

  Except something got her this time. I can see that instantly as a tight curve brings us to
the entrance of her fifty-acre estate. The tall black iron gates are frozen open, and blocking her driveway is an unmarked white Ford SUV.

  “Shit,” Marino says. “Here we go.”

  I ease to a stop as an FBI agent in khaki pants and a dark polo shirt steps out of the SUV and approaches us. I don’t know him. He doesn’t look familiar. I reach inside my shoulder bag, my fingers brushing against the hard shape of my Rohrbaugh 9 mm in its pocket holster. I find the thin black leather wallet that holds my brass shield and credentials. I roll down my window and hear the loud thudding of the helicopter, a big one, probably the same twin engine I’ve been hearing only now it’s lower and slower. It’s much closer.

  The agent is late twenties, early thirties, muscle-bound and poker-faced with veins roping his forearms and hands. He’s possibly Hispanic and definitely not from around here. New England natives in general have a certain way about them that’s typically low-key but observant. When they figure out you’re not the enemy they try to be helpful. This man isn’t going to be nice or accommodating, and he knows damn well who I am even if I don’t know him.

  I have no doubt he’s aware that I’m married to Benton Wesley. My husband works out of the Boston Division. Probably this agent does too. The two of them probably are acquainted and may be friendly with each other. I’m supposed to think that none of it matters to the tough guy guarding my niece’s property. But the message he sends is exactly the opposite of what he intends. Disrespect is a symptom of weakness, of smallness, of an existential problem. By acting rude to me he’s showing me what he really thinks of himself.

  I don’t give him the chance to make the first move. I open my wallet and display what’s inside. Kay Scarpetta, M.D., J.D. I’m duly appointed to the positions of chief medical examiner of Massachusetts and director of the Cambridge Forensic Center. I’m charged with the duty of investigating the cause of death pursuant to Chapter 38 of the General Laws of Massachusetts and in accordance with the Department of Defense Instruction 5154.30.

  He doesn’t bother to read all that. He barely glances at my creds before returning my wallet as he stares past me at Marino. Then he stares at me, not directly in my eyes but between them. The trick isn’t original. I do the same thing in court when I’m faced with a hostile defense attorney. I’m quite skilled at looking at people without looking at them. This agent’s not so good at it.

  “Ma’am, you need to turn around,” he says in a voice as flat as the expression on his face.

  “I’m here to see my niece Lucy Farinelli,” I reply calmly, pleasantly.

  “This property is under the control of the FBI.”

  “The entire property?”

  “You need to leave, ma’am.”

  “The entire property?” I repeat. “That’s rather remarkable.”

  “Ma’am, you need to leave right now.”

  The more he says “ma’am” the more stubborn I get, and when he said “right now” he pushed me too far. There’s no going back. But I won’t show it and I avoid Marino’s eyes. I feel his aggression and refuse to look at him. If I do he’ll catapult out of the truck and get in the agent’s face.

  “Do you have a warrant to access this entire property and search it?” I ask. “If the answer’s no and you don’t have a warrant for the entire property, then you need to move your vehicle and let me through. If you refuse, I’m going to call the Attorney General and I don’t mean of Massachusetts.”

  “We have a search warrant,” he says with nothing in his tone, but his jaw muscles are flexing.

  “A search warrant for fifty acres including the driveway, the woods, the shoreline, the dock and the water around it?” I know the FBI doesn’t have any such thing.

  He says nothing, and I call Lucy’s ICE line again. I almost expect Carrie to answer but she doesn’t, thank God, and I can’t abide another possibility that is worse. What if Lucy sent the video to me? What on earth would that mean?

  “You’re here,” Lucy surprises me by answering, and I’m reminded my techno wizard niece has surveillance cameras all over the place.

  “Yes we’re at your gate,” I reply. “I’ve been trying you for the past hour. Are you all right?”

  “I’m fine,” Lucy says and it’s definitely her voice.

  She’s quiet and subdued. I don’t detect a note of fear. What I sense is combat calm. She’s in a mode to defend herself, her family against the enemy, which in this case is the federal government.

  “Yes we got here as quickly as we could. That’s what you wanted.” It’s as much of an allusion as I plan to make about the video link that landed on my phone. “I’m glad you let me know.”

  “Excuse me?” It’s as much as she’ll say but the implication is loud and clear.

  She doesn’t know about the text. She didn’t send it. She wasn’t expecting us to show up like this.

  “Marino’s with me,” I say plenty loud. “Does he have permission to be on your property, Lucy?”

  “Yes.”

  “Very good. Lucy, you’ve just given Cambridge Police Investigator Pete Marino permission. You’ve given me, your aunt, the chief medical examiner permission. Both of us have your permission to be on your property,” I reply. “Is the FBI inside your house?”

  “Yes.”

  “Where are Janet and Desi?” I’m worried about Lucy’s partner and their little boy. They’ve been through quite enough.

  “They’re here.”

  “The FBI probably isn’t going to let us inside your house right now,” I inform her of what I’m sure she already knows.

  “I’m sorry.”

  “Don’t be. They should be sorry. Not you.” I stare at the agent, fixing on a point between his eyes and I’m further emboldened by my protectiveness of someone I love more than I can describe. “Meet us outside, Lucy.”

  “They won’t like it.”

  “I don’t care if they don’t like it.” I stare hard between the agent’s eyes. “You’re not under arrest. They haven’t arrested you, correct?”

  “They’re looking for a reason. Obviously, they think they’re going to get me on something, anything. Littering. Jaywalking. Disturbing the peace. Treason.”

  “Have they read you your rights?”

  “We haven’t gotten that far.”

  “They haven’t gotten that far because there’s no probable cause, and they can’t detain you if you’re not under arrest. Head out now. Meet us on the driveway,” I tell her, and we end the call.

  Next the game of chicken starts. I hold my ground, sitting in my medical examiner’s monster white truck while the agent stands next to his dwarfed white Bureau SUV. He makes no move to get inside it. He intends to block the driveway, and I wait. I give him a minute, and I wait. Two minutes, three minutes and when nothing changes I shove the gear into drive.

  “What are you doing?” Marino looks at me as if I might be a little crazy.

  “Moving so traffic can get past.” It isn’t true. The truck is off the street by a good twenty feet.

  Nosing forward, I cut the wheel at a tight angle. I park at a slant, almost perpendicular to the SUV, not even three inches from the rear bumper. If the agent backs up he’s broadsiding me. If he pulls ahead and turns around he’s no better off.

  “Let’s go.” I cut the ignition.

  Marino and I climb out and I lock the doors. Click. I drop the keys into my shoulder bag.

  “Hey!” The agent is animated now, giving me direct eye contact, glaring like a vicious dog. “Hey! You’ve got me blocked in!”

  “See how that feels?” I smile at him as we move past through the open gate, Lucy’s house about a quarter of a mile from here.

  CHAPTER 11

  I CAN’T BELIEVE YOU DID THAT,” MARINO SAYS.

  “Why not?” The relentless churning of the helicopter is building on my nerves, and I’m struggling.

  Lucy’s house is on a rise high above the Sudbury River, and the driveway is steep in this direction. It’s not a
n easy walk. It’s not possible for me to keep up with Marino’s thoughtless long stride. He seems to forget what happened not that long ago. Maybe because he wasn’t there. Maybe because he’s in denial. It would be like him to suppose he could have saved me, and for his focus to be that instead of what I’m left with and how I feel.

  “Well one thing’s for sure. There’s not a single cop in Massachusetts who would tow a medical examiner’s truck,” he says next.

  “It weighs almost five tons and could have dead bodies inside. So not a good idea.” I’ve resorted to walking several yards behind him, forcing him to slow down and turn around to talk.

  “Yeah no kidding.” He looks back at me, then up at the helicopter. “What the hell? This is what we’ve been hearing since Cambridge? You think it’s the same chopper?”

  “Yes.”

  “It’s no news crew, that’s for sure. It’s the damn Feds and they followed us from that scene to here. Why? What’s their interest in Chanel Gilbert or us?” he asks.

  “You tell me.” Pain shoots through my thigh.

  “Obviously they knew we were headed here.”

  “I don’t know what they knew.”

  “It’s like they escorted us to Lucy’s property.”

  “I don’t believe that’s what they’re doing. I got the distinct impression a minute ago that we’re not welcome here. They may have followed us. But they’re certainly not escorting us.” I have to stop for a moment.

  I rest my weight on my left leg, and the full symphony of pain in my right thigh subsides to a low drumroll, to the slow sawing of a cello. The high pitches are gone, and it’s those that are intolerable. The rest I’ve learned to live with, the quieter, deeper rhythm of hurt.

  “Geez Doc.” Marino pauses. “You all right?”

  “I’m the same.”

  He stares straight up, and we resume walking. “Something fucking weird is going on,” he decides.