The tent flap opens again, and Harold walks in, weary but tranquil, smiling sympathetically at me. He asks if I need anything, and I would see it on his face if he’d heard the news about Briggs. The CFC exists because of General John Anderson Briggs. He helped shape the place and has spent considerable time with us over the years. Harold, Rusty and the rest of my staff will be crushed. But not as crushed as I’ll always be.
“… That figures. It’s nice of him to tell me himself seeing as how I’ve been standing here talking to him for the past fifteen friggin’ minutes.” Marino gestures on the phone, stealing resentful sidelong glances at Benton.
“It’s still hot as Hades out there.” Harold solemnly nods, looking at me as if I’m a prospective project for an undertaker.
I can imagine him contemplating different glues and shades of makeup and whether I’m going to need putty.
“If you don’t mind my saying so, Doctor Scarpetta …?”
“I do mind, Harold. I don’t need to hear that I look worse than some of my patients right about now.”
“Goddamn son of a bitch.” Marino has ended his call.
“You just look like you could use a break someplace cool, Chief.” Harold takes my empty sports-drink bottle from me, studies it with a frown before tossing it in the trash. “You did notice this was expired?”
“Well that makes two of us, Harold. Thanks and you know where I’ll be.” I look down at my damp dirty scrubs, at my loathsome pumps. “I’ll see you back at the ranch.”
“Well I don’t know about you walking anywhere. You still look pretty hot to me … Oh dear.” As he’s pulling on a pair of gloves. “I didn’t mean that kind of hot. Anyway I’m not sure you should exert yourself in the least.” His concerned face appraises me too carefully.
“Don’t even think about it.” I wag a finger at him.
“We do happen to have a stretcher handy and it’s as clean as brand-new—”
“No. Thank. You.” I emphasize each word like a gunshot.
“Fine. But we’ll be bringing up the rear if you start feeling faint. It’s a bit of a hike, and there seem to be a lot of people. Law enforcement of one sort or another,” he adds, signaling that there are cops or agents in the park who weren’t here earlier.
“What about the media?” I ask.
“Oh no. They can’t get in. The park is completely sealed. They have the entrances blocked and have even closed off Bennett and Eliot Streets and University Road. Cruisers are all over the place, most of them with their emergency lights off, and there are a lot of unmarked cars lurking about. And I’ve been hearing a helicopter. Actually, it could be more than one.”
Then he goes on to give me an update in the same earnest soothing tone. He says my troops are being mobilized, and that confirms what I suspect. He realizes it’s not happenstance that Benton is here. Harold recognizes the signs of a coup on the way, and he’s taken it upon himself to mount a defensive front while the new day is still young.
My radiologist Anne has agreed to come in to work right away, he confirms. So has Luke Zenner, and Bryce is already there. Rusty has driven the mobile command center back to the CFC and returned with a van to transport Elisa Vandersteel’s body. Harold has saved me hours and possibly a lot more than that. This is one of many reasons why I couldn’t possibly replace him, and I tell him thanks.
“I can use all the help I can get,” I add. “I think the long night might have just gotten longer.”
“I’m afraid you’re right, Chief.” His smile is somewhere between unctuous and pious.
Benton loops the strap of my briefcase over his shoulder, pretending he didn’t hear anything we just said. He follows me as I duck through the black fabric flap, passing from glaring brightness to the pitch dark. For an instant I can’t see. But the great hot outdoors is a pleasant relief, and I fill my lungs with air that’s not as stifling and doesn’t stink.
“How are you feeling? Are you okay to head out? Tell me the truth,” Benton says, and maybe it’s my muddled condition but I feel a vibration.
“As long as I don’t jog.” I detect the unmistakable thud-thud.
“Slow and easy please,” he looks at me as my attention is pulled toward the river.
The whomp-whomp-whomp reverberates in my bones, percussing in my organs. I scan around us as mechanical turbulence bounces off buildings and bridges, making it difficult to pinpoint the location of what sounds big and scary.
I’m fairly certain it’s the same helicopter we’ve been hearing or another one like it, and I notice a bright white light in the distant dark to the northeast, a searchlight probing, headed toward us. We stop walking to watch the blazing finger pick its way along the MIT and Harvard campuses.
It paints over the ruffled water, slashing through thick treetops and over the fitness path on this side of the river.
CHAPTER 34
THE BELL 429 THUNDERS in low and slow, whirling and churning, lit up and strobing at an altitude of maybe four hundred feet and a speed of sixty knots. Rotor wash agitates the canopies of trees, shaking them violently, and it’s a good thing we’ve collected the evidence. I wouldn’t be happy if this thing had roared in before the tent was up.
“I hope it doesn’t decide to hover here,” I raise my voice to Benton as if he has something to do with the deafening spectacle, and maybe he does.
The twin-engine bird roars past in a fierce wind, and I recognize the gun platforms on the skids, the fifty-million-candlepower NightSun on the belly, the rescue hoist, the Forward-Looking Infrared (FLIR) camera.
The silhouette of the twin-engine warship brings to mind a monster tadpole, a carnivorous one, and I notice the doors haven’t been removed or opened. Typically they would be if this were a tactical operation or a search-and-rescue mission, and that hints the objective is surveillance. But as far as I’m concerned, mostly what I’m seeing is for show.
“One of yours?” I ask Benton, our necks craned, looking up. “Because it’s not Boston, the state police or Med Flight. It’s not the Army, Marines, Navy or Coast Guard. And it’s certainly not Lucy even though she changed into a flight suit a few hours ago. That’s definitely not her helicopter,” I add.
The searchlight is long and linear like a stick of neon-bright white chalk as the unmarked blacked-out bird banks sharply downriver, doing a one-eighty at the Harvard Bridge, near my headquarters.
“It wasn’t my idea,” Benton says as we stand outside the tent, looking up.
“And what idea are we talking about? Thundering up and down the river for what purpose?”
“Suffice it to say Carrie Grethen feeds off the attention but so do certain other people.”
By certain other people he means his own, his fellow agents, and we watch the helicopter scream past again.
“I was against it, saying she’ll only get off on it if she’s goaded into overdrive. She’ll just kick it up even higher, but I was outvoted,” and that’s all he’s going to say about it.
The rest I can probably guess with a high degree of accuracy. The FBI is searching this area of Cambridge, and I’m betting they have choppers up in Maryland and possibly other places. If this is for Carrie Grethen’s benefit it’s truly stupid, and Benton is right about that. In fact the idea of intimidating her in such a fashion would be laughable if anything were funny at the moment.
The Bureau’s big machines don’t impress her, and more likely they’ve been deployed for appearance sake, to make sure the taxpayers know that Federal agents have stormed in to save the day. That’s what Benton meant when he referenced that Carrie’s isn’t the only ego in the mix. There’s nothing like being splashy. There’s nothing like giving a false but dramatic impression, and this is why cops like Marino snipe about the Famous But Incompetent, another moniker tossed around about the FBI. It’s why they’re the FIBs.
It’s why Marino resents and distrusts them, and as I think of Elisa Vandersteel’s body being loaded on a stretcher right about now, I feel a ru
sh of indignation. The FBI with its expensive equipment and slick agents hasn’t mobilized for her sake. She’s nothing more than a means to an end, and I ask myself the same thing I always do. What are the Feds really after?
The answer is almost always going to be mundane if not predictable. Add politics to power and season liberally with publicity. Then stir in the elevated terror alert for the Boston-Washington area that Benton mentioned earlier, and that’s probably what I’m dealing with. In summary, it’s why Marino has been marginalized and I’m about to be if I’m not clever.
“Remember this isn’t a race,” Benton says, and he’s setting a very slow pace as we trek back to where he’s parked near the entrance at John F. Kennedy Street. “If you start breathing hard or feeling unsteady, we’re pausing and taking a break.”
Overhead on the bridge, the traffic is much lighter between Cambridge and Boston’s Back Bay. There aren’t many cars or motorcycles, mostly trucks at this hour as the Charles River flows sluggishly like molten glass in the uneven glow of lamps along the shore. The helicopter is gone, at least for now, and our footsteps are quiet.
“What’s really going on?” I ask. “I know what I think but would rather hear your side of things.”
“Uh-oh. We’re already talking about sides.”
“Because you can’t be on mine and I won’t be on yours. Despite Marino’s claims to the contrary, I’m not married to the FBI.”
“I wanted to check on you for a lot of reasons, and it was important I tell you myself about Briggs. But that’s not the only reason I’m here.”
“Obviously not. You’ve been walking around and asking questions about a case that shouldn’t be any of your business. You don’t simply show up and insert yourself into a local investigation, and that tells me other things have gone on. Clearly they’ve gone on stunningly fast, in the blink of an eye.”
“Yes, they have because so much has happened at once,” and he tells me that before he got here he was on the phone with Gerry Everman, the commissioner of the Cambridge Police Department.
Benton doesn’t say who initiated this conversation, but I can guess. The FBI did, and when they take over an investigation this is what it’s like. It feels exactly the way it does right now as I walk with their senior profiler through the park toward densely shadowed trees beyond the clearing.
I listen to our shoes on the hard-packed path with its loose sandy surface that’s a poor medium for footwear or tire tracks. Distant traffic sounds like a gusting wind. I catch fragments of conversation in the impenetrable dark, and am vaguely aware of people I can’t quite make out talking in hushed voices.
I feel eyes on us as I catch the silhouettes in uniforms and field clothes of cargo pants and polo shirts. Cops, possibly the Feds, and I think about Harold implying it was getting a little crowded out here.
“ELECTRICAL? I GET THE impression that’s what you’re deciding.” Benton is almost too quiet to hear, and I walk very close to him. “It seems she was riding past a lamp and was electrocuted.”
“And then logic begins to fail us because what I’m seeing is confusing if not contradictory.” I take his hand and don’t care who sees it. “Was the problem the lamp? Or was the lamp blown up by the same electrical current that killed her? And where did this current come from? If it came from the lamp then how does that explain her injuries? She has a linear pattern of burns that don’t make sense. And I don’t understand the FBI’s interest this early on when there are more questions than answers.”
“It’s almost like she encountered exposed wires, from what I’ve gathered.”
“Yes, I’m sure you’ve gathered quite a lot,” I reply. “But there aren’t any wires that we could see, and they would have to be some distance off the ground if they were going to make contact with her neck and shoulders. It’s as if she was riding along and passed under something that’s no longer present or visible.”
“Or something passed over her,” Benton suggests.
“Obviously you’re assuming homicide when I don’t know that for a fact yet.”
“But why she would be targeted is a mystery,” he says. “Elisa Vandersteel has no connection to us that I can fathom, and no connection to Briggs. I also don’t see why she might be of interest to Carrie Grethen. The victimology perplexes me. Something’s not right.”
“Does it bother your colleagues? And yes, something’s not right. That’s quite an understatement.”
“Elisa Vandersteel was a soft target. Random, in the wrong place at the wrong time. Briggs was a hard target. That’s the theory.”
“Is it your theory?”
“I’m not sure I have a theory but I know Carrie Grethen kills for a reason,” Benton says. “She’s not into random slaughter but rather prides herself on what she perceives as her own moral code and decency. It’s not her MO to destroy people who don’t deserve it, in other words. So why would she target a twenty-three-year-old Canadian au pair whose dream was to be an actress?”
“It sounds as if you might have learned more about her.”
“Apparently the reason she was in Cambridge is she’d gotten an internship at the repertory theater, was helping in stage management in hopes of getting a chance to act. She’d started there about two months ago, at the beginning of August. Was bright, a hard worker, funny, but very private. This is according to several theater people Lucy’s already talked to.”
I think of the young man who handed Elisa Vandersteel a FedEx envelope in front of us, and I ask if anyone has tracked him down yet.
“There’s a lot to dig into but she was seeing someone who works in the events-planning office at the Faculty Club. Apparently he’s a vocalist who she met when he auditioned for Waitress but didn’t get the part.”
“Do they know his name?”
“They couldn’t remember it.”
“Do they have any idea why Lucy was asking about her?”
“I don’t think so. She wandered backstage as if she was looking for her and started chatting. I definitely have the impression that Elisa Vandersteel was living with this guy we saw on the sidewalk.”
“But we don’t know where.” I think of the key fob I found in her pocket.
“Not yet but it’s close enough for her to get around on a bicycle, it would seem.”
“Have you told Marino all this?” As I ask I remember that he has custody of Elisa Vandersteel’s phone, and Benton saw her talking on it the same way I did.
But he doesn’t bring it up.
“No, I’ve not told him,” he says, and it occurs to me that he’s not bringing up her phone for a reason.
Benton saw her talking on it the same as I did when we were on the sidewalk in front of the Faculty Club. He hasn’t asked about it. If I don’t mention it, he probably won’t. Maybe someone else will but Benton will feign ignorance. Why would he know that Elisa Vandersteel had a phone? And I feel sure he hasn’t told his compatriots that he encountered her not long before she died.
Already Benton is letting me know in his own subtle way that he’s not going to interfere with me even as he does.
“Do you intend to tell Marino what you’re telling me?” I ask. “And if not, when will he be informed that he’s been fired from his case?”
“No one’s been fired, Kay,” Benton says slowly, gently, in rhythm with his steps.
“Technically, maybe not.”
“I think we understand each other.”
“Yes, and what I ask is you remember the most important thing.”
“It doesn’t need to be said.”
“But I will say it anyway. She deserves the best we can give her.” I mean that Elisa Vandersteel does.
“And I have no doubt you’ll make sure she gets it, Kay. I can count on you to do what it takes.”
He’s letting me know that he personally won’t get in my way. But the Bureau is another story. Then he asks my opinion about the cause of death, and this is when we step up the tempo and the subtle moves in our
dance.
I’m required to pass along information even as the parties involved interfere with me. I won’t withhold appropriate details from my FBI husband. I give him far more than I would most. But I don’t tell him everything.
CHAPTER 35
I EXPLAIN WHAT I CAN say with reasonable certainty, handing off to Benton what I would to other officials who have a right to know. But I’m nicer about it and we’re holding hands as we walk through trees, rooftops peeking over them to our left, the glinting dark river to our right.
“An electrical charge passed through the pendant she had on, magnetizing it,” I’m saying. “She was thrown off her bicycle, lacerating her scalp. Some of her belongings were scattered, and based on glass in her hair,” I conclude, “I believe this happened at the same time the lamp exploded. But I can’t tell you much more than that when she’s not been examined at the office yet.”
“It’s sounds like you’re talking about lightning.”
“Similar, yes. But not quite, which is baffling. Lightning could account for the burn caused by the pendant but not the peculiar threadlike linear burns she has. I honestly have never seen anything like this before.”
“Which brings me to the question we wouldn’t want anyone to know we’re asking,” Benton says. “Is it possible we’re dealing with some sort of DEW, a directed-energy weapon?”
“As opposed to what? Heatstroke? A heart attack?” I’m aware that the leather insoles of my ruined shoes make quiet squishy sounds as I walk.
“As opposed to sabotage,” Benton says. “Such as doing something to booby-trap the lamp or an Endless Pool so that they malfunction catastrophically.”
He turns to look behind us as if he can see the shattered lamp with its swath of exploded glass. But all of that is under the tent. It’s like looking back at a black hole at the far end of the dark park with its smudges of illumination, and I detect people moving about almost invisibly. They keep their distance from us, watching in the velvety blackness, their tactical lights probing and flaring.