“They look polished,” I add. “Obviously they are unless they’re not real.”
“Neighborhood kids,” Benton says.
His amber eyes watch me over the top of the Boston Globe, a smile playing on his lips. He’s in jeans and loafers, a Red Sox windbreaker on, and he sets down his espresso and the paper, gets up from the bench and walks over to me. Wrapping his arms around my waist from behind, he kisses my ear, resting his chin on top of my head.
“If life were always this good,” he says, “maybe I’d retire, say the hell with playing cops and robbers anymore.”
“You wouldn’t. And if only that was what you really played. We should eat fairly soon and get ready to head to the airport.”
He glances at his phone and rapidly types what looks like a one- or two-word response to something.
“Is everything all right?” I hug his arms around me. “Who are you texting?”
“Everything’s fine. I’m starved. Tease me.”
“Grilled swordfish steaks Salmoriglio, seared, brushed with olive oil, lemon juice, oregano.” I lean into him and feel his warmth, and the coolness of the air and the heat of the sun. “Your favorite panzanella. Heirloom tomatoes, basil, sweet onions, cucumbers …” I hear leaves stirring and smell the delicate lemony fragrance of magnolia blossoms. “… And that aged red wine vinegar you like so much.”
“Full-bodied and delicious just like you. My mouth is watering.”
“Bloody Marys. Horseradish, fresh-squeezed key limes and habanero to get us in the mood for Miami.”
“Then we shower.” He kisses me on the lips this time, doesn’t care who sees it.
“We already did.”
“And we need to again. I feel extra dirty. Maybe I do have another present for you. If you’re up for it.”
“The question is are you?”
“We have a whole two hours before we need to leave for the airport.” He kisses me again, longer and deeper as I detect the distant rapid stuttering of a helicopter, a powerful one. “I love you, Kay Scarpetta. More every minute, every day, every year. What is this spell you have over me?”
“Food. I’m good in the kitchen.”
“What a happy day when you were born.”
“Not if you ask my mother.”
He suddenly pulls back from me almost imperceptibly as if he just saw something. Squinting in the sun, he stares in the direction of the Academy of Arts and Sciences a block north of us, separated from our property by a row of homes and a street.
“What?” I look where he’s looking as the helicopter gets louder.
From our backyard we can see the corrugated metal roof the green color of copper patina peeking above densely wooded grounds. The world’s top leaders in business, government, academia and science routinely speak and meet at the Academy’s headquarters, the House of the Mind as it’s called.
“What is it?” I follow Benton’s intense stare, and the roar of a helicopter flying low is coming closer.
“I don’t know,” he says. “I thought I saw something flash over there, like a camera flash but not as bright.”
I scan the canopies of old trees and the multiangled green metal roof. I don’t notice anything unusual. I don’t see anyone.
“Maybe sunlight reflecting off a car window,” I offer and Benton is typing on his phone again, something brief to someone.
“It came from the trees. I might have noticed the same thing earlier, caught it out of the corner of my eye. Something glinted. A flick of light maybe. I wasn’t sure …” He stares again and the helicopter is very loud now. “I hope it’s not some damn reporter with a telescopic lens.”
We both look up at the same time as the deep blue Agusta comes into view, sleek with a bright yellow stripe and a flat silver belly, its landing gear retracted. I can feel the vibration in my bones, and then Sock is cowering on the grass next to me, pressing against my legs.
“Lucy,” I say loudly and I watch transfixed. She’s done this before but never at such a low altitude. “Good God. What is she doing?”
The composite blades whump-whump loudly, their rotor wash agitating the tops of trees as my niece overflies our house at less than five hundred feet. She circles in a thunderous roar then pauses in a hover, nodding the nose. I can just make out her helmet and tinted visor before she flies away, dropping lower over the Academy of Arts and Sciences, circling the grounds slowly, then gone.
“I believe Lucy just wished you a happy birthday,” Benton says.
“She’d better hope the neighbors don’t report her to the FAA for violating noise abatement regulations.” All the same I can’t help but be thrilled and touched.
“There won’t be a problem.” He’s looking at his phone again. “She can blame it on the FBI. While she was in the area I had her do a recon. That’s why she was so low.”
“You knew she was going to buzz the house?” I ask and of course he did and at exactly what time, which is why he’s been stalling in the backyard, making sure we weren’t in the house when she showed up.
“No photographer or anybody else with a camera or a scope.” Benton stares in the direction of the wooded grounds, of the cantilevered green roof.
“You just this minute told her to look.”
“I did and in her words, no joy.” He shows me the two-word text on his iPhone that Lucy’s partner Janet sent, aviation lingo meaning they didn’t see anything.
The two of them are flying together, and I wonder if the only reason they’re up is to wish me a very loud and dramatic happy birthday. Then I think of something else. Lucy’s twin-engine Italian helicopter looks law enforcement, and the neighbors probably think it has to do with President Obama arriving in Cambridge late today. He’ll be staying in a hotel near the Kennedy School of Government, barely a mile from here.
“Nothing unusual,” Benton is saying. “So if someone was there up in a tree or wherever, he’s gone. Did I mention how hungry I am?”
“As soon as I can get our poor rattled dog to potty,” I reply as my attention wanders back to the pennies on the wall. “You may as well relax for a few more minutes. He was already stubborn this morning and now he’ll only be worse.”
I crouch down in the grass and stroke Sock, doing my best to soothe him.
“That noisy flying machine is gone and I’m right here,” I say sweetly to him. “It was just Lucy flying around and nothing to be scared about.”
CHAPTER 3
IT’S THURSDAY, JUNE 12, my birthday, and I refuse to preoccupy myself with my age or how time flees faster with each passing year. There is much to be in a good mood about and grateful for. Life is the best it’s ever been.
We’re off to Miami for a week of reading, eating and drinking whatever we want, maybe tennis and a few scuba dives, and long walks on the beach. I’d like to go to the movies and share a bucket of popcorn, and not get up in the morning until we feel like it. I intend for us to rest, play, to say the hell with everything. Benton’s present to me is a condo he rented on the ocean.
We’ve reached a point in life where we should enjoy a little time off. But he’s been saying that for as long as I can remember. We both have. As of this morning we’re officially on leave, at least in theory. In fact there really isn’t such a thing. Benton is an intelligence analyst, what people still call a profiler. He’s never off his FBI leash, and the cliché that death never takes a holiday is true. I’m never off my leash, either.
The pennies are lit up in the morning glare, fiery and too perfect and I don’t touch them. I don’t recall seeing them earlier lined up precisely straight on the wall, all oriented exactly the same way. But the backyard was mostly in shadows the first time I ventured out, and I was distracted by my pouty dog’s unwillingness to potty and by my landscaping checklist. The roses need fertilizing and spraying. The lawn needs weeding and should be mown before a storm ushers in a heat wave as predicted for tonight.
I have instructions written out for Bryce. He’s to make su
re that all is taken care of not only at the CFC but also on the home front. Lucy and Janet are dog nannies while we’re gone, and we have our usual trick that isn’t flawless but better than the alternative of leaving Sock alone in an empty house for even ten minutes.
My niece will arrive and I’ll walk him out the door as if I’m taking him with me. Then I’ll coax him into whatever she’s driving, hopefully not one of her monster machines with no backseat. I asked her pointedly to use her SUV, not that it’s a normal vehicle, either. Nothing my former law enforcement computer genius power-addicted niece owns is for the hoi polloi—not her matte black stealth bomber of an armored SUV, not her aggressive 599 GTO that sounds like the space shuttle. Sock hates supercars and doesn’t like Lucy’s helicopter. He startles easily. He gets scared.
“Come on,” I encourage my silent four-legged friend from his snooze in the grass with eyes wide, what I call playing possum. “You need to potty.” He doesn’t budge, his brown stare fixed on me. “Come on. I’m asking nicely. Please, Sock. Up!”
He’s been out of sorts all morning, sniffing around, acting skittish, then lying down, his tail curled under, tucking his long narrow nose beneath his front paws, looking completely dejected and anxious. Sock knows when we’re leaving him and gets depressed, and I always feel rotten about it as if I’m a terrible mother. I lean over and stroke his short brindle fur, feeling his ribs, then gentle with his ears, misshapen and scarred from former abuses at the racetrack. He gets up, pressing against my legs like a listing ship.
“Everything’s fine,” I reassure him. “You’re going to run around on acres of land and play with Jet Ranger. You know how much you love that.”
“He doesn’t.” Benton reseats himself on the bench and picks up the paper beneath spreading branches of dark green leaves loaded with waxy white blossoms the size of pie pans. “It’s fitting you have a pet that doesn’t listen and completely manipulates you.”
“Come on.” I lead him over to his favorite privacy area of shaded boxwoods and evergreens in thick beds of pine-scented mulch. He’s not interested. “Seriously? He’s acting odd.”
I look around, searching for anything else that might indicate something is off and my attention wanders back to the pennies. A chill touches the back of my neck. I don’t see anyone. I hear nothing but the breeze whispering through the trees and the distant sound of a gas-powered leaf blower. It slowly comes to me, what I didn’t recognize at first. I see it. The tweet with the link that I got some weeks ago. The attachment was an odd note to me and a poem, I recall.
The Twitter name was Copperhead and I remember only snippets of what the poem said. Something about the light coming and a hangman that struck me as the ramblings of a deranged individual. Delusional messages and voice mails aren’t uncommon. My Cambridge Forensic Center email address and phone number are public information. Lucy always traces unsolicited electronic communications and lets me know if there is anything I should worry about. I vaguely recall her telling me the tweet was sent from a hotel business center in Morristown, New Jersey.
I need to ask her about it. In fact I’ll do it now. Her cockpit is wireless, her flight helmet Bluetooth enabled. For that matter she’s probably already landed, and I slide my phone out of a pocket of my jacket. But before I get the chance someone is calling me first. The ringtone sounds like an old telephone. Detective Pete Marino, and I recognize his mobile number in the display, not his personal phone but the one he uses on the job.
If he were calling to say happy birthday or have a nice trip he wouldn’t be on his Cambridge police BlackBerry. He’s careful about using his departmental equipment, vehicles, email or any form of communication for anything remotely personal. It’s one of life’s many ironies and contradictions when it comes to him. He certainly wasn’t like that all the years he worked for me.
“Oh God,” I mutter. “This had better not be what I think it is.”
“Sorry to do this to you, Doc,” Marino’s big voice sounds in my earpiece. “I know you got a plane to catch. But you need to be aware of what’s going on. You’re my first call.”
“What is it?” I begin slowly pacing the yard.
“We got one on Farrar Street,” he says. “In broad daylight, plenty of people around and nobody heard or saw a thing. Just like the other ones. And the victim selection bothers the shit out of me, especially the timing with Obama coming here today.”
“What other ones?”
“Where are you right now?” he asks.
“Benton and I are in the backyard.”
I feel my husband’s eyes on me.
“Maybe you should go inside and not be out in the open. That’s the way it happens,” Marino says. “People out in the open going about their business …”
“What other ones? What people?” I look around as I pace.
Sock is sitting, his ears folded back. Benton gets up from the bench, watching me. It continues to be a beautiful peaceful morning but it’s a mirage. Everything has just turned ugly.
“New Jersey right after Christmas and then again in April. The same M.O.,” Marino says and I interrupt him again.
“Hold on. Back up. What’s happened, exactly? And let’s not compare the M.O. to other cases before we know the facts.”
“A homicide not even five minutes from you. We got the call about an hour ago …”
“And you’re just notifying my office now? Or more specifically, notifying me?”
He knows damn well that the more quickly the body can be examined in situ and transported to my office, the better. We should have been called instantly.
“Machado wanted to secure the scene.”
Sil Machado is a Cambridge PD investigator. He and Marino are also good friends.
“He wanted to make sure there’s not an active shooter still there waiting to pick off someone else. That’s what he said.” Marino’s tone is odd.
I detect hostility.
“The information we’ve got so far is the victim felt someone was after him. He’d been jumpy of late, and that’s true in the two Jersey cases,” Marino says. “The victims felt they were being watched and screwed with and then out of the blue they’re dead. It’s a lot to explain and right now we don’t have time. The shooter may still be in the area even as we speak. You should stay inside until I get there. I’m maybe ten minutes out.”
“Give me the exact address and I’ll get myself there.”
“No way. Not happening. And wear a vest.”
I watch Benton fold the paper and pick up his coffee, his happy demeanor eclipsed by what he senses. Life is about to change on us. I already know it. I look at him, my expression somber as I stop pacing and pour my espresso into the mulch. I did it without even thinking. A reflex. A relaxing cheerful day has ended as abruptly as a plane slamming into a mountain socked in by fog.
“You don’t think this is a case that Luke or one of the other docs can handle?” I ask Marino but I already know the answer.
He’s not interested in dealing with my deputy chief, Luke Zenner. Marino isn’t going to settle for any of my other medical examiners.
“Or we can send in one of our investigators if that would suffice. Jen Garate certainly could handle it and Luke can do the post immediately.” I try anyway. “He’s probably in the autopsy room. We have five cases this morning.”
“Well now you got six. Jamal Nari,” Marino says as if I should know who he’s talking about.
“SHOT IN HIS DRIVEWAY as he was getting groceries out of his car between nine-forty-five and ten,” Marino says. “A neighbor noticed him down on the pavement and called nine-one-one exactly one hour and eight minutes ago.”
“How do you know he was shot if you haven’t been to the scene yet?” I check my watch. It’s eight minutes past eleven.
“He’s got a nice hole in his neck and another one where his left eye used to be. Machado’s there and has already gotten the wife on the phone. She told him some weird shit’s been happening in the
past month and Nari was concerned enough to start changing his patterns, even his car. At least that’s what Machado’s passed on to me.” That tone again.
Hostility, and it makes no sense. The two of them go to baseball and hockey games together. They ride Harleys, and Machado is largely responsible for convincing Marino to resign as my chief forensic investigator and go back to policing. This was last year. I’m still adjusting to his empty office at the CFC and his new habit of telling me what to do. Or thinking he can. Like right now. He’s demanding my presence at a death scene as if I have no say about it.
“I’ve already got a few emailed pictures,” Marino explains. “Like I said it reminds me of the lady killed in New Jersey two months ago, the one whose mother I went to high school with. Shot while she was waiting for the Edgewater Ferry, people everywhere and no one heard or saw a damn thing. Once in the back of the neck, once in the mouth.”
I remember hearing about the case and the original suspicion that it was a murder for hire, possibly domestic related.
“In December it was the guy getting out of his car at his restaurant in Morristown,” Marino continues as my mind jumps to the peculiar poem again.
It was tweeted from a hotel in Morristown. Copperhead. My attention wanders back to the seven pennies on the wall.
“And I was there for that one, during the holidays, hanging out with some of my cop buddies, so I went to the scene. Shot once in the back of the neck, once in the gut. Solid copper bullets, high-speed velocities with so little frag we can’t do positive ballistics matching. But there’s a definite consistency in the two cases. We’re pretty sure the same rifle was used, an unusual one.”
We. At some point Marino inserted himself into an investigation that is outside of his jurisdiction. Serial murders, possibly sniper kills or at least that seems to be what he’s implying, and there’s nothing worse than an investigation launched by assumptions. If you already know the answer you torque everything to fit the theory.
“Let’s go slowly until we know exactly what we’re dealing with,” I say to him as I watch Benton watching me and checking his phone.