Depraved Heart

by Patricia Cornwell

  He has no idea how weird it is. “It’s serious. That’s for sure,” I reply.

  The chopper is a beefy twin-engine Bell 429. Completely blacked out, Apache-ominous, and I note the mounted gyro stabilized camera under the nose, the thermal imaging system or FLIR that looks like a radar dome on the belly. I recognize the special operations platforms known as cargo racks that are designed to move SWAT or members of the FBI’s elitist Hostage Rescue Team (HRT). There are going to be at least half a dozen agents on bench seats inside the cabin, ready to rappel down and swarm the property on command.

  “Maybe they’re spying on you,” Marino says, and his comment reminds me of other types of spying that I can’t stop thinking about.

  For an instant I see Carrie inside Lucy’s dorm room. I see her piercing eyes and startlingly short bleached hair. I feel her cold-blooded aggression. I sense her as if she’s within reach, and she might be.

  “Then they should think of something a little less obvious than a tactical helicopter.” I continue to say one thing while my mind is on another as we follow a circular driveway long enough to jog on.

  In the center are acres of meadowland splashed with wildflowers where huge granite sculptures of fantastic creatures seem to wander and make themselves at home. We’ve already walked past a dragon, an elephant, a buffalo, a rhinoceros, and just now a mother bear with her cubs, sculpted from native stone out west somewhere and set in place by a crane. Lucy doesn’t have to worry about anyone stealing her tons of art, and I watch for her as the monotonous noise continues overhead, rotor blades batting air. Thump-Thump-Thump-Thump.

  I’m hot and sticky and hurting as I walk, and the sound is maddening. THUMP-THUMP-THUMP-THUMP! I love helicopters except for this one. I feel hateful as if it lives and breathes and we’re personal enemies. Then I do a systems check of myself, concentrating on my hearing, my vision, my breathing, the pain jolting my leg with each step, with each shift of balance.

  Focusing keeps me centered and calm, and I feel the hot pavement through the soles of my ankle-high boots, and the sunlight soaking into the soft fabric of my cotton tactical shirt. Sweat is cool as it trickles down my chest, my belly, my inner thighs. I’m conscious of the pull of gravity as I push my way uphill, and my body seems to weigh twice what it does. Moving around on land is heavy and slow, and when I was underwater I weighed nothing at all. I floated.

  I floated and floated, drawn deeper into blackness, and it isn’t true what they say about moving toward the light. I didn’t see a light, not a bright one, not the smallest one. It’s the darkness that seeks to claim us, to seduce us like a drugged sleep. I wanted to give in. It was the moment I’ve always waited for, the moment I’ve lived for and that more than anything else is what I can’t get past.

  I met death on the bottom of the sea as silt billowed in a cloud and a dark thread fled up from me, dissipating in my bubbles. I realized I was bleeding and had the irrational desire to take the regulator out of my mouth. Benton says I did, that as soon as he’d place the regulator back in I’d pull it out again and again. He had to hold it in place. He had to fight off my grabbing hands and force me to breathe, force me to live.

  He’s since explained that removing the regulator is a typical response when one panics underwater. But I don’t remember panicking. I remember wanting to shed my buoyancy control device (BCD), my regulator and scuba tank, to free myself because I had a reason. I want to know what it was. It’s on my mind constantly. Not a day goes by that I don’t think about why dying seemed like the best idea I’ve ever had.

  LUCY APPEARS around a bend.

  She walks briskly toward us, and the thunderous noise seems suddenly louder. Of course it’s my imagination. But what she’s wearing isn’t. The shapeless old gray gym shorts and T-shirt have the FBI ACADEMY boldly emblazoned on them, and it’s as deliberate as waving a battle flag. It’s like showing up in uniform after you’ve been court-martialed or wearing an Olympic medal after you’ve been stripped of it. She’s flipping off the FBI, and maybe something else underlies her behavior.

  I stare at her as if she’s a ghost from the past. I was just watching her teenaged self inside her FBI Academy dorm room, and I almost wonder if my eyes are deceiving me. But the way she’s dressed stays the same, and she could pass for being that young again. It’s as if the Lucy in the videos is walking toward me in real time, a Lucy in her midthirties now. But she doesn’t look it. I doubt she’ll ever look her age.

  Her energy is fiercely childlike, her body really hasn’t changed, and her discipline about being fit and vital isn’t vanity. Lucy lives like an endangered creature that twitches at the slightest movement or sound and hardly sleeps. She may be volatile but she’s sensible. She’s steely logical and rational, and as I step up my pace to meet her, the searing pain reminds me that I’m not dead.

  “Your limping is worse.” Her rose gold hair flares in the sun, and she’s tan after a recent trip to Bermuda.

  “I’m fine.”

  “No you’re not.”

  The expression on her chiseled pretty face is difficult to read but I recognize tension in the firm set of her lips. I sense her dark mood. It sucks up the bright light around her. When I hug her, she’s clammy.

  “Are you all right? Are you really?” I hold on to her a second longer, relieved she’s not injured or in handcuffs.

  “What are you doing here, Aunt Kay?”

  I smell her hair, her skin and detect the swampy salty odor of stress. I sense her state of high alert in the pressure of her fingers and her constant scan, her eyes moving everywhere. She’s looking for Carrie. I know it. But we aren’t going to discuss it. I can’t ask if she’s aware of the video link sent to my phone or tell her that it appears she was the one who sent it. I can’t let on that I watched a film clip secretly recorded by Carrie. In other words, I’m now an accessory to Carrie Grethen’s spying and who knows what else.

  “Why is the FBI here?” I ask Lucy instead.

  “Why are you?” She’s going to push for an answer. “Did Benton drop a hint that this was going to happen? Nice of him. How the fuck does he look at himself in the mirror?”

  “He didn’t tell me anything at all. Not even by omission. And why all the swearing? Why must you and Marino swear so much?”

  “What?”

  “I’m just mindful of all the profanity. Every other word is fuck,” I reply as an emotional surge rolls over me.

  It’s as if the Lucy I’m facing is nineteen again, and I’m suddenly shaky inside, overwhelmed by the loss of time, by the betrayal of nature as it gives us life and instantly begins to take it back. Days become months. Years become a decade and longer, and here I am on my niece’s driveway remembering myself at her age. As much as I knew about death I really didn’t know that much about life.

  I just thought I did, and I’m aware of how I must look as I limp along on Lucy’s property as it’s being raided by the FBI two months after I was shot with a spear gun. I’m thinner and my hair needs cutting. I’m slow and at war with inertia and gravity. I can’t silence Carrie’s voice in my mind and I don’t want to hear it. I feel a stab of pain and suddenly I feel angry.

  “Hey. You okay?” Lucy is watching me carefully.

  “Yes. I’m sorry.” I look up at the helicopter and take a deep breath, calm again. “I’m just trying to sort through what’s going on.”

  “Why are you here? How did you know to be here?”

  “Because you sent an urgent message?” It’s Marino who answers. “How else would we know?”

  “I have no idea what you’re talking about.”

  “You know.” His vintage Ray-Bans bore into her. “You let us know you have some sort of emergency and we dropped what we’re doing. We literally left a damn dead body on the floor.”

  “Not exactly,” I reply.

  “What?” She seems genuinely amazed and baffled.

  “A text message landed on my phone,” I explain. “From your In Case of Emergenc
y line.”

  “I promise it wasn’t from me. Maybe from them.” She means the FBI.

  “How?”

  “I’m telling you it wasn’t from me. So you got a message? And that’s why you suddenly decided to show up here in a crime scene truck?” She doesn’t believe us. “Why the hell are you really here?”

  “Let’s focus on why they are.” I glance up at the helicopter.

  “Benton,” she again accuses. “You’re here because he tipped you off.”

  “No. I promise.” I pause on the driveway, resting for a second. “He indicated nothing to either of us. He has nothing to do with why I decided to rush here, Lucy.”

  “What did you do?” Marino has a way of acting as if everybody is guilty of something.

  “I’m not sure why they’re here,” Lucy replies. “I’m not sure of anything except I got suspicious early this morning that something was up.”

  “Based on?” Marino asks.

  “Someone was on the property.”

  “Who?”

  “I never saw whoever it was. There was nobody on the cameras. But motion sensors went off.”

  “Maybe a small animal.” I start walking again very slowly.

  “No. Nothing was there and yet something was. Plus someone’s in my computer. That’s been going on for about a week. Well I shouldn’t say someone. I think we can figure out who it is.”

  “Let me guess. Considering who’s dropped by for an unexpected visit.” Marino doesn’t disguise how much he hates the FBI.

  “Programs opening and closing on their own and taking too long to load,” she says. “The cursor moving when I’m not touching it. Plus my computer was running slow and the other day it crashed. No big deal. Everything is backed up. Everything vital is encrypted. It must be them. They’re not particularly subtle.”

  “Anything leaked or corrupted?” I ask. “Anything at all?”

  “There doesn’t appear to be. An unauthorized user account was created by someone pretty savvy but no genius, and I’m on top of all that, monitoring unusual log-ins, all e-mails sent, trying to figure out what the hacker or hackers want. It’s not a sophisticated attack or we wouldn’t know about it until it’s too late.”

  “But it’s the FBI for sure?” Marino asks. “I mean it would make sense since here they just showed up with a warrant.”

  “I can’t say with certainty who’s rooting me. But it’s probably them or related to them. The FBI often uses outside servers when they’re investigating cybercrime. And alleged cybercrime is their excuse for snooping. You know for example if they have reason to suspect I’m laundering money or surfing kiddy porn sites, shit like that. So if it’s them, they’ll say they were investigating me for something totally trumped-up just so they can spy.”

  “What about my office?” I ask about the most problematic scenario. “Is it safe? Is there any chance our computers have been breached?”

  Lucy is the systems manager and I.T. administrator for the CFC computer network. She does all the programming. She forensically examines all electronic and data storage devices turned in as evidence. While she may be the firewall that surrounds the most sensitive information associated with any death, she’s also the biggest vulnerability.

  Should the wrong person get past her, it would be catastrophic. Cases could be compromised before they ever reach court. Charges could be dropped. Verdicts could be overturned. Thousands of murderers, rapists, drug dealers and thieves could be released from prison in Massachusetts and elsewhere.

  “Why all of a sudden?” I ask her. “Why the interest right now, assuming it’s the FBI?”

  “It started when I got back from Bermuda,” she says.

  “What the fuck did you do?” Marino demands with his usual tact.

  “Nothing,” she says. “But they’re determined to fabricate a case that sticks.”

  “What case?”

  “Something,” she says. “Anything. I wouldn’t be surprised if they’ve already convened a grand jury, in fact you can count on it. In fact I’m convinced. The Feds have the nasty little habit of raiding a place after they’ve already got a grand jury ready to indict you. They don’t base a case on the evidence. They base the evidence on the case they’re determined to make even if it’s wrong. Even if it’s a lie. Do you know how rare it is for a grand jury not to indict someone? Less than one percent of the time. They aim to please the prosecutor. They hear only one side of the story.”

  “Where can we talk?” I don’t want to continue this conversation in her driveway.

  “They can’t hear us. I just knocked out the audio for that lamp and that one and the next one.” She points at copper lampposts. “But let’s go someplace we don’t have to worry about it. My own personal Bermuda Triangle. They’re watching and all of a sudden we vanish from their radar.”

  The agents searching her house are monitoring us on her security cameras, and I feel a rush of frustration. Lucy’s battle with the Feds is as old as wars in the Middle East. It’s a power struggle, a clash that’s gone on so long I’m not sure anyone remembers exactly what started it. She was probably one of the most brilliant agents the Bureau ever hired, and when they eventually ran her off, that should have been the end of it. But it wasn’t. It never will be.

  “Follow me,” she says.

  CHAPTER 12

  WE TRUDGE THROUGH BRIGHT GREEN GRASS SPATTERED with poppies as red as blood and brazen with gold sunflowers, white daisies, orange butterfly weed and purple aster.

  It’s as if I’m wading through a Monet painting, and beyond a shady fragrant stand of spruces we emerge into a low-lying area I’ve never seen before. It looks like a place of meditation or an outdoor church with stone slab benches and sculpted rock outcrops evocative of a pond filled by running water formed of river stones. I can’t see the house or the driveway from here, nothing but rolling grass and flowers and trees and the constant whomping of the helicopter.

  Lucy takes a seat on a boulder while I choose a stone bench in dapples of light shining through dogwoods. Hard unyielding surfaces aren’t my first choice these days, and I sit down very carefully, doing what I can to diminish my discomfort.

  “Has this always been here?” I ask, and the light moves on my face as branches move in the wind. “Because I’ve never seen it.”

  “It’s recent,” Lucy says and I don’t ask how recent.

  Since mid-June, I suspect. Since I almost died. I look around and don’t see any sign of cameras, and guarding her rock garden is another sculpted dragon, this one small and comical lounging on a huge chunk of rose quartz. Its red garnet eyes stare right at me as Marino tries the bench across from mine, shifting his position several times.

  “Shit,” he says. “What are we? Cave people? How about wooden benches or chairs with cushions? Ever thought of that?” He’s dripping sweat in the heat and humidity, and he flaps irritably at bugs and checks his socks for ticks. “Jesus! Did you forget to spray out here?” His dark glasses turn on Lucy. “There’s damn mosquitoes everywhere.”

  “I use a garlic spray, pet and people safe. Mosquitoes hate it.”

  “Really? These must be friggin’ Italian mosquitoes. Because they love it.” He slaps at something.

  “Steroids, cholesterol, large people who give off more carbon dioxide than the rest of us,” Lucy says to him. “Plus you sweat a lot. Hanging garlic around your neck probably wouldn’t help.”

  “What does the FBI want?” I look up at the helicopter hovering at no more than a thousand feet. “What exactly? We need to figure this out while we have a few minutes to talk privately.”

  “Their first stop was my gun vault,” she replies. “So far they’ve packed all of my rifles and shotguns.”

  Carrie is suddenly in my mind again. I see her inside the dorm room, the MP5K strapped around her neck.

  I ask Lucy, “Do they seem interested in any gun in particular?”

  “No.”

  “They must be looking for something in
particular.”

  “Everything I have is legal and has nothing to do with the Copperhead shootings,” Lucy says, “which they damn well know were committed with the Precision Guided Firearm recovered from Bob Rosado’s yacht. They confirmed it’s the weapon two months ago so why are they still looking? If they’re looking for anyone it should be his rotten little shit of a son, Troy. He’s at large. Carrie’s at large. He’s probably the latest Clyde to her Bonnie, and where’s the FBI? Here on my property. This is harassment. It’s about something else.”

  “I got a couple shotguns you can borrow,” Marino offers. “And a thumpin’ four-fifty Bushmaster.”

  “That’s all right. I’ve got more than they’re bargaining for,” she says. “They have no idea what they’re missing, what they’re walking right past.”

  “Please don’t poke a stick at them,” I warn her. “Don’t give them cause to hurt you.”

  “Hurt? I think hurt is the point and it’s already started.” Her bright green eyes look at me. “They want me hurt. They intend to leave me unprotected so I can’t take care of my family, my home. They’re hoping all of us will end up defeated, annihilated, at each other’s throats. Better yet, dead. They want all of us murdered.”

  “You need something all you gotta do is ask,” Marino says. “With the likes of Carrie on the loose you should have more firepower than just your handguns.”

  “They’ll take those next if they haven’t already,” she replies, and it really is outrageous that they listed handguns on the warrant. “Plus they’re bagging up all of my kitchen cutlery, the Shun Fuji santoku knives you gave to us,” she says to me, adding yet another outrage.

  As far as we know, Carrie Grethen’s recent deadly rampage includes a stabbing with a tactical knife. There’s no evidence, not even a hint that Lucy had anything to do with it, and her guns and the cutlery are completely inconsistent with the characteristics of the murder weapons. To clean out her gun vault, her kitchen is absurd.