The Bone Bed ks-20

by Patricia Cornwell

“What possible motivation could he have, even if he were able to?” I ask.

  “I’m not the one who thinks he might.”

  “Others think he could have something to do with Emma Shubert.” I want him to spell it out.

  “Or have something to do with what was e-mailed to you. It’s all part of the same discussion,” he says, and it’s ridiculous, and I tell him that, but I’ve seen ridiculous things before, the wildest of goose chases.

  I know better than to dismiss any notion investigators might get into their heads.

  “I’m worried it’s someone who knows him, Kay.”

  “These days anybody can know anybody, Benton.”

  “A paleontologist has vanished and is presumed dead, and you’re sent a photo of a severed ear,” he says. “Mildred Lott has vanished, her husband on trial for her murder, and then his helicopter films you while you’re getting Peggy Stanton’s body out of the bay just hours before you’re supposed to testify. I’m worried whoever’s doing this—”

  “Whoever? As in one person?”

  “Connections. There are too many. I don’t believe it’s coincidental.”

  “You think it’s one person doing all of it?” I ask.

  “If you want to get away with something, do it by yourself. And I worry this person knows Marino, knows you. Maybe knows all of us.”

  “It doesn’t have to be someone who knows him or any of us,” I disagree. “If you search Peter Rocco Marino on Twitter you can find him. You can find so much about any of us on the Internet it’s rather terrifying.”

  “Why would this person look for him on Twitter to begin with? Unless there’s a personal reason to get him into serious trouble?”

  “Lucy set him up on Twitter in early July. When he moved into his new house,” I recall. “When did he and Pretty Please start tweeting each other?”

  “He claims she tweeted him first. He says this was late August, close to Labor Day, maybe the weekend before. That she said she was, quote, ‘a fan.’”

  “A fan of Jeff Bridges’ or of Marino’s?”

  “Exactly. Because he’s such an idiot,” Benton says. “Using the avatar of a character from some bowling movie, calling himself The Dude. From which Marino instantly concluded that she must be a bowling enthusiast, meaning they have something in common.”

  I slow to a stop in Peggy Lynn Stanton’s neighborhood, the headlights shining through rain, illuminating the dark street and the cars lining both sides of it.

  “I’ll go through all the tweets, his e-mails, his phone records, whatever it takes,” Benton says. “Because I’m the one who will get him out of this mess he’s made, isn’t that the irony?”

  Houses are old but not historic or expensive for Cambridge, single-family and occupied, charming and pristinely kept, and so close together it would be difficult for a person to walk between them.

  “He assumed she bowls, or she said she did?” I ask.

  Yards are small or nonexistent, parking coveted. Neighbors would be keenly aware of vehicles that don’t belong here.

  “I don’t know in detail what was tweeted back and forth between them, but he seems to have the impression she’s an avid bowler. Or was.”

  I try to imagine forcing a woman from her house, and I can’t see it. I can’t imagine someone screaming or causing any sort of disturbance that wouldn’t be witnessed. We sit in silence in the drumming rain, distant lightning like a flash going off as thunder rolls. I don’t believe Benton thinks Peggy Lynn Stanton was killed in her house or abducted from it, and I ask him that.

  “The fact is we don’t know,” he says. “Doug has her own opinion, but it’s not necessarily mine.”

  “Tell me yours.”

  “I’ll tell you who.”

  “Do you have a suspect in mind?”

  “I know who he is, in his late twenties at least but probably older.” Benton scans where we are on the dark rainy street. “Intelligent, accomplished, blends in but is isolated emotionally. Doesn’t get close. Those who think they know him don’t.”

  “‘Him’?”

  “Yes.” Benton looks at cars; he looks at houses. “Familiar with boating. Likely has a boat or access to one.”

  I think about Marino’s obsession with the CFC getting a boat, and I wonder who else he’s said this to.

  “Needs no help operating it, is skillful enough to pilot it alone.”

  Benton rolls down his window and stares out at the dark.

  “A smooth talker, glib, completely confident he can convince anyone of anything, including police, the Coast Guard.”

  He’s unmindful of the rain blowing in.

  “If his boat broke down or he got stopped while he had a dead body on board, he would be certain he could charm and convince and no one would know. Someone fearless. Someone with financial means.”

  Marino has a captain’s license issued by the Coast Guard.

  “A narcissistic sociopath,” Benton says, to the rain and the night. “A sexual sadist whose arousal comes from causing fear, from tormenting, from degrading, from controlling.”

  “So far I’ve found no evidence of sexual assault,” I let him know.

  “He doesn’t sexually assault them. He has a physical aversion to his victims because they’re beneath him. He makes sure they know how beneath him they are. Your description of a booby trap is correct, the more I think about it.”

  “A booby trap intended to pull her apart, to decapitate her, and maybe some or all of the body is lost. Why?” I ask. “Because he doesn’t want her identified?”

  “Because killing her wasn’t enough. He could kill her every day and it wouldn’t be enough to fill the void in him that was left by some terrible devastation he suffered earlier in life.”

  “A devastation you know about?”

  “I know because they’re all different and the same. A monster no one recognizes. Goes about his normal business while he keeps a dead body in a refrigerator or a freezer because he can’t let it go, can’t let go of the fantasy. He has to relive what he did to her constantly. And even when he finally decided to dispose of her, he had to destroy her one last time. He wanted her ripped apart and wanted it witnessed, and intended whoever witnessed it to be shocked and made a fool of. Someone who mocks.”

  Benton rolls his window up.

  “Did he know her?” I ask.

  He wipes rainwater off his face with his hands.

  “He knows who he was killing,” he answers. “Peggy Stanton was just the stand-in. All of his victims are stand-ins. He’s killed before, and he’ll kill again or possibly already has, and he’ll play his games with those involved because it gives him pleasure.”

  Wipers sweep water off the glass as I slowly move forward toward the unmarked cars parked just ahead.

  “The same victim each time. A woman.” Benton zips up his coat. “Most likely an older woman, older than himself. An established, accomplished mature woman. It could be his mother or some other woman who played an overwhelmingly powerful role in his life.”

  “What you’re describing certainly isn’t an impulse crime.” I notice curtains moving in the houses we pass.

  Neighbors are aware of our SUV stopping and then creeping slowly on their street.

  “You don’t abduct someone or get into a struggle or do much of anything around here without being seen,” I say. “You don’t carry a dead or unconscious body out of the house and load it into a car, doesn’t matter how dark it is. The risk would be enormous.”

  “What happened to her was calculated.”

  “Meticulously,” I agree.

  “There was an encounter, maybe more than one. But they didn’t know each other,” Benton says. “Or at least she didn’t know him.”

  twenty-three

  THE TWO-STORY WHITE COLONIAL IS TUCKED IN ON three sides by homes almost on top of it, the narrow yard in front overgrown with shrubs that obscure first-floor windows and crowd a brick driveway leading to the detached garage. Rain pe
lts our faces and soaks our hair as we follow a slate walk slick with dead leaves and overgrown with weeds.

  “The yard work certainly hasn’t been done in recent memory.” I raise my voice over the smacking rain. “I’m surprised if nobody complained, and it’s important to determine which lights have been on all this time and those that haven’t,” I add, because many of the windows are dark.

  We hurry up steps to a covered front porch illuminated by a pair of ceiling-mounted glass lanterns, and we take off our dripping coats as the door opens wide. Douglas Burke looks monastic in white hooded coveralls, as if she’s part of some higher order, and she lets us into a small but elegant entryway, a dining room and living room on either side, a staircase curving up to the second floor.

  An antique gold pendant chandelier that looks French is lighted over a Persian rug protected by heavy clear plastic, and on top are the suede lace-ups that Burke had on earlier and oxfords that I assume are Machado’s, and boxes and stacks of protective clothing. The air is stagnant and tastes like dust.

  “If someone grabbed her from this place or killed her here, they didn’t leave any sign of it that I can see.” Burke hands out towels. “But I’m not that kind of expert.”

  The way she says it catches my attention.

  “Did you turn the porch lights on?” Benton dries his face, his hair.

  “Everything on we turned on. When we got here the house was in a complete blackout. A lot of burned-out bulbs. What a night.” She closes the door. “Hope Noah’s building another ark.”

  Drying off my crime scene case, I set it down next to a box of boot covers with PVC soles that one can wear without shoes, and I towel off my dripping hair. I feel clammy and wilted and vaguely self-conscious, sensing something I can’t define that I don’t trust.

  “Nothing was on when you got here?” Benton is making sure.

  “The only thing on is me. On Sudafed, and it’s hardly putting a dent. Just the kind of place to make my allergies go wild.” Her eyes are watery, and she sounds congested.

  “And the neighbors didn’t notice and wonder why her house would be pitch dark?” Benton asks.

  “Lights burn out gradually and not at the same time? Maybe the neighbors mind their own business or weren’t into minding hers?” Burke supposes, and she’s talking fast, hyped up.

  “We got a lot of neighbors to interview, but I’m guessing the assumption was she’d left town like she often did. One of these people typical for around here, doesn’t have to work for a living, dabbles in volunteer work and intellectual pursuits. You know the type,” she says to Benton, as if he’s that type, and it’s hard to tell if she’s teasing or flirting or means nothing by it.

  “Most people leave at least a few lights on.” He continues assessing how much Peggy Stanton kept to herself or encouraged her neighbors to mind their own business, or if she might have been liked or resented or avoided.

  Predators pick their victims for a reason.

  “We’ve been through every room,” Burke lets us know. “Sil’s still roaming around in the basement, says he wants to point out something electrical to you.” She directs this to Benton. “Don’t ask me. I can barely plug in a toaster. Nothing interesting so far, except it’s obvious the place has been empty for several weeks at least.”

  Several weeks.

  I don’t like the impression I’m getting.

  “We’ve requested records from the alarm company, which probably will be the best indication of when she was here last,” Burke adds, and I don’t agree.

  “An indication of when someone was here last doesn’t mean that person was Peggy Stanton,” I remind her. “It could have been someone else who was here.”

  I take off my tactical boots, not the same ones I had on earlier today, having insisted on a shower and a change of clothing before I was going anywhere.

  “And I can tell you with reasonable certainty that she wasn’t here in recent weeks, because she was dead by then. What about a housekeeper?” I ask.

  “One hasn’t been here for weeks; that’s obvious.”

  Weeks, I think, and I don’t like where this is headed already. Burke is going to question any conclusion I make about facts she decides are debatable, and Benton isn’t going to intervene.

  “Do we know if she has a housekeeper?” I inquire. “Or if, perhaps, she might have cleaned her house herself?”

  “We don’t know yet. The yard man hasn’t been around, you probably noticed,” she says to me, and my regard for her hasn’t changed over the several years I’ve known her rather distantly.

  A former prosecutor, reasonably bright and aggressive, Special Agent Douglas Burke has always been appropriately attentive to the wife of the man she works with most closely and in secret. I like her and I don’t. I’ve never been sure what she honestly thinks of me or feels about my husband, her emotions and interests covert, and right now what I’m starting to sense is strong.

  “People tend to notice things like that in Cambridge.” Benton wipes down his coat, his shoes with the towel. “If the yard, the maintenance of the property are neglected long enough, inevitably someone calls the city and complains.”

  “We’re getting that information, too.” Burke hands us coveralls. “We have found out she stopped the newspaper delivery May third.”

  “Or somebody did.” Benton neatly places his coat and shoes on the plastic-covered safe area. “You can do it online. You abduct someone and don’t want it discovered anytime soon that the person is missing, go online and suspend the newspaper delivery. Make sure you place occasional calls on their cell phone to directory assistance, wherever you’ll get a recording. Or call people from the contact list at weird hours and hang up or don’t leave a message.”

  “It was her habit to suspend delivery every spring or early summer,” Burke informs us. “Specifically, The Boston Globe, whenever she was leaving Cambridge, and it doesn’t seem she spent summers here after her family was killed in the plane crash. I can’t imagine going through something like that. I can’t even think about it. Losing everybody at once.”

  “It would have reshaped her. She wouldn’t have been the same person after that, for better or worse.” Benton continues assessing who Peggy Stanton may have become.

  “If she was at her Lake Michigan cottage, she’d have the Chicago Tribune delivered, but that was never started up this summer.” Burke gives us gloves, and I notice her hands are shaking, probably from the Sudafed, or maybe she’s excited by the hunt.

  You want to hunt me, go ahead.

  “As I’ve indicated, all signs so far point to her never getting to Illinois.” She stares at me and I stare back.

  “The rug underneath?” I indicate what’s under the plastic as I walk across it in booties.

  “Nothing’s been done.” She knows what I’m asking.

  Any areas of flooring near entrances are important. If a perpetrator was in and out of the house, most likely this person used a door. I would hope Burke and Machado wouldn’t walk on the entrance rug, dripping rainwater and tracking dirt on it. I would hope they wouldn’t cover it with plastic without checking for evidence first. For hairs, fibers, soil, botanical debris, for anything.

  “You’ve done nothing at all?” I step onto the uncovered floor, noticing the iron umbrella stand in the corner to the right of the door.

  In raised letters on its bottom tray is A la Ménagerie du Jardin des Plantes, the name of the Paris zoo. Wedged underneath the stand, between the back of it and the wall, is a twisted dark blue plastic ring.

  “We’ve been here all of an hour. The plan is for us to do the walk-through with you before anything’s disturbed,” Burke explains, as if I’m the one who requested this tour, which really isn’t a tour.

  It’s a hunt.

  “Then Sil will collect evidence if there is any,” she says. “He’ll lift prints if we find them. But I don’t think anyone of interest was in here. I don’t think this is a crime scene. Hard to know at thi
s point who’s been in and out and how recently, and we’ll certainly get those answers, but it’s doubtful they’ll be relevant.”

  It’s obvious she’s convinced of that by now, and probably was convinced of it before she got here.

  “There’s no sign of a struggle, of violence, but you’re the expert,” she says to me the way a defense attorney might. “Nothing seems to be missing in terms of possible robbery. Some rather expensive jewelry in her bedroom, in a dresser drawer, nothing looks rifled through or disturbed. Her car’s locked up in the garage.”

  “We’ll want to look,” Benton says. “We’ll want to check gauges, check how much gas, check the GPS, if she’s got one.”

  “Sil’s called for a truck,” Burke says.

  “Good, because the car shouldn’t be examined here,” I answer. “It should go to the labs, to the evidence bay.”

  She asked me here as an expert, and I will be one. I could walk back out the door, but I won’t.

  “The battery’s probably dead,” Benton comments.

  “Shit.” Burke dabs her nose with a tissue. “I’m going to claw my eyes out with this goddamn dust.”

  “What about the car key?” he asks.

  “On that table there in the bowl, probably where she usually left it.”

  “A pocketbook, a wallet?” His sharply handsome face is framed in white polypropylene.

  “No sign of either,” Burke says. “It’s looking like she went somewhere and then whatever happened happened. Of course, we don’t know if she’s a homicide. We don’t know for a fact she met up with foul play, do we, Kay?”

  She isn’t asking. She’s testing.

  “How do you suppose she managed to vanish if she didn’t drive,” I ask pointedly. “She physically left this house at some point. Yet her car key is here? Her car is here?”

  “The thing is”—Burke watches me crouch near the umbrella stand, looking at the twisted plastic ring without touching it—“we don’t know for a fact that she vanished from Cambridge or even from Massachusetts.”

  “Except Massachusetts is where her body was found.” I get back up.

  “She could have been abducted in Florida, in Illinois, who knows where.” She poses it as a hypothetical, and I don’t buy that’s what she thinks.