Five Scarpetta Novels (115 page)

“Why not,” I muttered. “I'm going to stop again pretty soon.”

He handed one to me and lit his. He gave me the lighter. He kept glancing over at me, knowing how I felt.

“I still think it was a good thing we done,” he said. “I bet she's in that restaurant belting down whiskeys because we got her good.”

“We didn't get her good,” I replied, squinting at the lights of cars passing by. “With her, I'm afraid the only silver bullet is prevention. We have to guard against further damage by not only anticipating but also following up on everything we do.”

I opened the window several inches, cold air touching my hair. I blew out smoke.

“No-show Chuck,” I commented.

“Oh, he showed up. You just didn't see him because he saw us first and hightailed it out of there.”

“You sure?”

“I saw his piece-of-shit Miata turning into the road leading to the shopping center, and then about halfway to the parking lot it suddenly did a U-turn and got the hell out of Dodge. And this was at the exact time Bray said something else on her portable after she saw us outside her car.”

“Chuck's a direct conduit from me to her,” I said. “She may as well have a key to my office.”

“Hell, maybe she does,” he said. “But, Doc, you just leave Chuckie-boy to me.”

“Now, that scares me,” I said. “Please don't go doing something reckless, Marino. He does work for me, after all. I don't need any other problems.”

“My point exactly. You don't need any more problems.”

He dropped me off at the office and waited until I got into my car. I followed him out of the parking lot, and he went his way and I went mine.

T
he tiny moon-eyes from the dead man's skin glowed in my mind. They looked out from that deep, off-limits place where I stored my fears, which were many and of a kind not felt by anyone else I knew. Wind shook bare trees and clouds streamed like banners across the sky as a cold front rushed in.

I had heard on the news the temperature might dip into the twenties that night, which seemed impossible after weeks that felt like fall. It seemed everything was out of balance and abnormal in my life. Lucy wasn't Lucy so I couldn't call her and she wasn't speaking to me. Marino was working a homicide even though he wasn't a detective anymore, and Benton was gone, and everywhere I looked for him I found an empty frame. I still waited for his car to drive up, for the phone to ring, for the sound of his voice, because it was too soon for my heart to accept what my brain knew.

I turned off the Downtown Expressway onto Cary Street, and as I drove past a shopping center and the Venice Restaurant, I became aware of a car behind me. It was driving very slowly and too far away for me to tell anything about the person behind the wheel. Instinct told me to slow down, and when I did, so did the car. I turned right on Cary
Street, and the car stayed with me. When I took a left into Windsor Farms, there it was, maintaining the same safe distance.

I didn't want to get any deeper into this neighborhood because the roads were winding and narrow and dark. There were many cul-de-sacs. I took a right on Dover and dialed Marino's number as the car turned right, too, and my fear grew.

“Marino,” I said out loud to nobody there. “Be home, Marino.”

I ended the call and tried again.

“Marino! Goddamn it, be home!” I said to the hands-free phone in the dashboard as Marino's clunky cordless phone inside his house rang and rang.

He probably had it parked by the TV, as usual. Half the time he couldn't find it because he didn't return it to its base. Maybe he wasn't home yet.

“What?” his loud voice surprised me.

“It's me.”

“Goddamn-mother-fucking-son-of-a-bitch. If I hit my knee on that goddamn table one more time . . . !”

“Marino, listen to me!”

“Once more and it's out in the yard and I'm gonna smash the shit out of it with a hammer! Right in the fucking kneecap! I can't see the fucking thing 'cause it's glass and guess who said it would look so nice there?”

“Calm down,” I exclaimed, watching the car in my mirror.

“I've had three beers and I'm hungry and tired as hell. What?” he asked.

“There's someone following me.”

I turned right on Windsor Way, heading back to Cary Street. I drove at a normal speed. I did nothing out of the ordinary except not head for my house.

“What do you mean, someone's following you?” Marino asked.

“What the hell do you think I mean?” I said as my anxiety heated up more.

“Then head this way right now,” he said. “Get out of that dark neighborhood of yours.”

“I am.”

“Can you see a plate number or anything?”

“No. He's too far behind me. It seems he's deliberately staying far enough behind me so I can't read the tag or see his face.”

I got back on the expressway, heading to the Powhite Parkway, and the person tailing me apparently gave up and turned off somewhere. Lights of moving cars and trucks and the iridescent paint on signs were confusing, and my heart was beating hard. The half-moon slipped in and out of clouds like a button, and gusts of wind rushed the side of the car like linebackers.

I dialed my answering service at home. I had three hang-ups and a fourth message that was a slap in the face.

“Chief Bray here,” it began. “So nice to run into you at Buckhead's. I have a few policy and procedural issues to discuss with you. Managing crime scenes and evidence, and so on. I've been meaning to discuss them with you, Kay.”

The sound of my first name coming out of her mouth infuriated me.

“Maybe we can have lunch in the next few days,” her recorded voice went on. “A nice private lunch at the Commonwealth Club?”

My home phone number was unlisted and I was very careful who I gave it to, but it was no riddle how she'd gotten it. My staff, including Ruffin, had to be able to reach me at home.

“In case you haven't heard,” Bray's message went on, “Al Carson resigned today. You remember him, I'm sure? Deputy chief of investigations. A real shame. Major Inman will be acting deputy chief.”

I slowed at a toll booth and tossed a token into the bin. I moved on and a beat-up Toyota full of teenaged boys stared boldly at me as they passed. One of them mouthed
mother-fucker
for no apparent reason.

I concentrated on the road as I thought about what Wagner had said. Someone was pressuring Representative Connors to push legislation that would transfer my office out of Health and Human Services and into Public Safety, where the police department would have more control over me.

Women could not join the prestigious Commonwealth Club, where half of the major business deals and politics affecting Virginia were made by male power brokers with old family names. Rumor had it that these men, many of whom I knew, congregated around the indoor swimming pool, most of them naked. They bartered and pontificated in the locker room, a forum where women weren't allowed.

Since Bray couldn't walk through the door of that ivy-draped eighteenth-century club unless she was the guest of a member, my suspicions about her ultimate ambition were virtually confirmed. Bray was lobbying members of the General Assembly and powerful businessmen. She wanted to be the Secretary of Public Safety and have my office transferred to that secretariat. Then she could fire me herself.

I reached Midlothian Turnpike and could see Marino's house long before I got near it. His gaudy, outrageous Christmas decorations, including some three hundred thousand lights, glowed above the horizon like an amusement park. All one had to do was follow the steady traffic heading that way, because Marino's house had risen to number one on Richmond's annual Christmas Tacky Tour. People couldn't resist coming to see what was truly an amazing sight.

Lights of every color were sprinkled in trees like neon candy. Santas, snowmen, trains and toy soldiers glowed in
the yard, and gingerbread cookies held hands. Candy canes brightly stood sentry along his sidewalk, and lights spelled out
Season's Greetings
and
Think Snow
on the roof. In a part of the yard where scarcely a flower grew and grass was patchy brown all year long, Marino had planted happy electric gardens. There was the North Pole, where Mr. and Mrs. Claus seemed to be discussing plans, and nearby choirboys sang while flamingos perched on the chimney and ice skaters twirled around a spruce.

A white limousine crept past, followed by a church van, as I hurried up his front steps, feeling irradiated and trapped in a spotlight.

“Every time I see this, it confirms you've lost your mind,” I said when Marino came to the door and I quickly ducked away from curious eyes. “Last year was bad enough.”

“I'm up to three fuse boxes,” he proudly announced.

He was in jeans and socks and a red flannel shirt with the tail hanging out.

“Least I can come home and something makes me happy,” he said. “Pizza's on the way. I got bourbon if you want some.”

“What pizza?”

“One I ordered. Everything on it. My treat. Papa John's don't even need my address anymore. They just follow the lights.”

“What about hot decaffeinated tea,” I said, quite certain he would have no such thing.

“You got to be kidding,” he replied.

I looked around as we walked through the living room into his small kitchen. Of course, he had decorated the inside of his house, too. The tree was up and flickering by the fireplace. Presents, almost all of them fake, were piled high, and every window was framed by strands of red chili pepper lights.

“Bray called me,” I said, filling the teakettle with water. “Someone gave her my home number.”

“Guess who.” He yanked open the refrigerator door, his good mood retreating fast.

“And I think I might know why that happened.”

I set the kettle on the stove and turned on the burner. Lights flickered.

“Deputy Chief Carson resigned today. Or supposedly resigned,” I said.

Marino popped open a beer. If he was aware of this news, he didn't show it.

“Did you know he quit?” I asked.

“I don't know nothing anymore.”

“Apparently Major Inman is the acting deputy chief . . .”

“Oh, of course, of course,” Marino loudly said. “And you know why? Because there're two majors, one in uniform, the other in investigations, so of course Bray sends her boy from uniform in there to take over investigations.”

He'd finished the beer in what seemed three gulps. He violently crushed the can and threw it into the trash. He missed, and the can clattered across the floor.

“You got any idea what that means?” he said. “Well, let me tell you. It means Bray now's running uniform
and
investigations, meaning she's running the entire fucking department and probably controlling the entire budget, too. And the chief's her biggest fan because she makes him look good. Tell me how this woman comes in and not even three months later can do all that?”

“Clearly she's got connections. Probably did before she took this job. And I don't mean just to the chief.”

“Well, to who then?”

“Marino, it could be anyone. It doesn't matter at this point. It's too late for it to matter. Now we have to contend with her, not the chief. Her, not the person who might have pulled strings.”

He popped open another beer, angrily pacing the kitchen.

“Now I know why Carson showed up at the scene,” he
said. “He knew this was coming. He knows how bad this shit stinks and maybe he was trying to warn us in his own way, or just signing off. His career's over. The end. Last crime scene. Last everything.”

“He's such a good man,” I said. “Goddamn it, Marino. There's got to be something we can do.”

His phone rang, startling me. The sound of cars on the street out front was a steady rumble of engines. Marino's continuous tinny Christmas music was playing “Jingle Bells” again.

“Bray wants to talk to me about so-called changes she's instigating,” I told him.

“Oh, I'm sure she does,” he said, his stocking feet padding across linoleum. “And I guess you're just supposed to drop everything when she suddenly wants to have you for lunch, which is what she's gonna do, have you between rye with lots of mustard.”

He grabbed the phone.

“What?” he yelled at the poor person on the other end.

“Uh huh, uh huh. Yeah,” Marino said, listening.

I rummaged in cabinets and found one smashed box of Lipton tea bags.

“I'm here. Why the hell don't you talk to me?” Marino indignantly said into the phone.

He listened, pacing about.

“Now that's a good one,” he said. “Hold on a minute. Let me just ask her.”

He put his hand over the receiver and asked in a hushed voice, “Are you
sure
you're Dr. Scarpetta?”

He got back to the person on the phone. “She says she was last time she checked,” and he irritably shoved the receiver my way.

“Yes?” I asked.

“Dr. Scarpetta?” an unfamiliar voice said.

“Here.”

“I'm Ted Francisco, ATF field office in Miami.”

I froze as if someone were pointing a gun at me.

“Lucy told me Captain Marino might know where you are if we couldn't reach you at home. Can you speak to her?”

“Of course,” I said, alarmed.

“Aunt Kay?” Her voice came over the line.

“Lucy! What is it?” I said. “Are you all right?”

“I don't know if you heard what happened down here . . .”

“I haven't heard anything,” I quickly said as Marino stopped what he was doing and stared at me.

“Our takedown. It didn't go right, too much to go into, but it went really, really bad. I had to kill two of them. Jo got shot.”

“Oh, dear God,” I said. “Please tell me she's all right.”

“I don't know,” she said with a steadiness that was completely abnormal. “They have her in Jackson Memorial under some other name and I can't call her. They've got me in isolation because they're afraid the others will try to find us. Retribution. The cartel. All I know is she was bleeding from her head and leg, unconscious when the ambulance got her.”

Lucy registered no emotion at all. She sounded like one of the robots or artificial intelligence computers she had programmed at earlier times in her career.