“You just answered,” Marino reminds her but he’s kind about it. He’s not aggressive with her. “And you don’t know me, right?”
“I’m not sure why I did. I wasn’t thinking. There have been some odd messages in voice mail and maybe what you’re saying explains it. Now and then calls from people wanting trees pruned, sod put down. Earlier today it was someone who wanted his car fixed. If they get me directly I hang up on them.” She sounds upset. “I’m going to have to change my phone number and I don’t want to. I don’t want to change a number we’ve had for twenty years.”
“When did the calls start?” Marino asks.
“It’s been very recent. In the past several weeks.”
“What’s your name, ma’am?”
“Sarah Angiers.”
I check the calendar on my phone. April 28, a Monday, and I roll back my memory, pulling up the case in my thoughts. It’s one hard to forget. I found it particularly tragic and poignant, and I gave Sarah Angiers all the time she wanted when she came to my office to discuss her husband’s death. Tall and thin, she’d bothered to dress up as if she were going to church or the symphony, in a smart suit with her white hair neatly styled. I remember her as lucid and forthcoming and completely devastated.
She said she’d always been nervous about her husband going off on his own, hiking in Estabrook Woods, more than a thousand acres of undeveloped forest, hills and horse trails. She said he could be somewhat difficult when he had his mind made up and she described how much he loved to follow what she referred to as “the path” from their backyard in Carlisle all the way to Hutchins Pond in Concord.
When I examined his body in the heavily forested area where he died I was very close to Fox Castle Swamp and nowhere near Hutchins Pond. The phone signal was bad to nonexistent there, and the dozens of calls he’d made to his wife and 911 had failed. They were all right there on his outgoing log when his phone was recovered in addition to a text to his wife that wasn’t delivered. He said he was cold and exhausted so he’d found a place to sit. He was lost and it was getting dark. He would always love her. The police had nothing to go on except where he usually hiked, which was some two miles south of where he’d actually wandered.
I suspect that early into his hike he wasn’t feeling well and became disoriented, heading in the direction of Lowell Road instead of Monument Street. He realized he didn’t know where he was, and unable to reach anyone he sat on the fallen tree, getting increasingly anxious and agitated as night came. He may have panicked, suffering shortness of breath, dizziness, nausea and chest pains. Acute anxiety would have felt like a heart attack, and a heart attack would have felt like acute anxiety.
When the pain began spreading from his chest into his shoulders, neck and jaw, Johnny Angiers, a professor of medicine at Tufts, would have recognized that he was in serious trouble. He may have realized he was dying. He’d never been diagnosed with coronary artery disease but his was significant, and as I explain all this to Marino I continue to feel incredulous. I feel as if ground is moving under my feet, as if I can’t get my balance. I have no idea what is happening but it all seems too close to me like the pennies in my own backyard and the pickup truck on my street.
“One of my cases and not that long ago,” I explain. “And their phone number was on the side of a truck parked on my street this morning, not even two blocks down from my house? What the hell is going on?”
“Nothing good,” Marino says.
I Google Sonny’s Lawn Care. There’s no such company in Massachusetts. I try Hands On Mechanics and there’s no listing for that either.
“This is only getting more disturbing,” I say as the dispatcher gets back to Marino.
She tells him that the plate number belongs to a 1990 gray F-150 Ford pickup truck. It’s registered to an eighty-three-year-old white male named Clayton Phillip Schmidt with a Springfield address, some ninety miles west of here, almost across the border into Connecticut.
“Any record of the plate or vehicle being stolen?” Marino asks.
“Negative.”
He requests that all units in the area be on the alert for a 1990 gray Ford pickup truck with that plate number.
“Saw it maybe ten minutes ago on Memorial Drive, eastbound.” Marino holds the radio close to his mouth. “Took a right on the Harvard Bridge. Same vehicle was spotted around twelve hundred hours in the area of the incident on Farrar Street. Had Sonny’s Lawn Care on the door. Now has Hands On Mechanics. Possibly using different magnetic signs.”
“Thirteen to thirty-three,” another unit calls.
“Thirty-three,” Marino answers.
“Saw vehicle at approximately noon, corner of Kirkland and Irving,” unit thirteen, a female officer advises. “Had Sonny’s Lawn Care on it at that time.”
“Parked or moving?”
“Pulled off onto the shoulder.”
“You see anybody?”
“Negative.”
I open a text message Benton has just sent to me.
An unexpected development. Will tell you when I see you, I read.
I envision him in our backyard earlier today, and the pennies on our wall and the flick of light he saw. I think of Copperhead, of the odd poem tweeted to me from a hotel in Morristown. Now a mysterious truck has a phone number on it that is connected to a recent death I handled—one I really don’t want further scrutinized.
I didn’t misrepresent the medical facts in Johnny Angiers’s case but I was liberal in my interpretation and decision to sign him out as an accidental death due to hypothermia. When his insurance company questioned me, pointing out that my autopsy report indicated a finding of ruptured plaque due to coronary artery disease, I held my ground. Johnny Angiers wasn’t diabetic but his vitreous glucose was elevated and this is typical in hypothermia deaths. There were skin changes, gastric lesions and damage to his organs consistent with exposure to cold temperatures.
Hypothermia may have precipitated cardiac arrest or it could have been the other way around. It was impossible to say with certainty and if I were going to err it was on the side of compassion. The accidental life insurance policy didn’t cover death by heart attack even if it was a heart attack that caused a fatal accident such as a fall or a car crash or exposure to cold. It wasn’t fair. It wasn’t right. The company TBP Insurers is huge. It’s notorious for finding ways to avoid payment to people who have just been traumatized by the unexpected loss of a loved one.
Had I not filled out the autopsy report and death certificate the way I did, Johnny Angiers’s widow would have been forced to sell their house and stop any financial assistance they were giving to grandchildren in college and graduate school. I had ample justification to make sure that didn’t happen, and I have a deep-seated disdain for greedy unethical insurance companies. I constantly see the lives they rob and ruin, and unfortunately my run-ins with TBP aren’t new.
“I hope what’s happening doesn’t in any way compromise her,” I remark as Marino tries a number and gets voice mail. “We should head on to my office,” I add as we continue to sit in the parking lot.
“Compromise Mrs. Angiers? Why would what’s on a pickup truck compromise her? It’s not her fault.”
“The insurance company. Anything that draws attention to her or her husband’s case may not be helpful.” I’m grateful I didn’t use my phone to call a number that turns out to be hers.
TBP would make something of it.
“She’s eligible to collect the insurance money but obviously hasn’t gotten it yet,” I add.
“How do you know what she’s gotten?”
“One of their investigators called Bryce the other day wanting to set up an appointment with me about the case. In person this time. They wouldn’t do that if they weren’t still fighting it.”
“You going to sit down with them?”
“It’s not been scheduled yet since I’m supposed to be out of town. Bryce gave them dates and we haven’t heard back, which is their typica
l M.O. The longer they stall, the better for them. The only person in a hurry is the one who needs the money.”
“Fuckers.” Marino tries another number on his phone.
“So now it’s in your backyard, buddy,” a man answers right off. “Unbelievable.”
“THAT’S HOW IT’S LOOKING. Your two shootings linked with the one we got here, not to mention weird shit going on,” Marino says, and I realize he’s talking to Morris County investigator Jack Kuster. “You ever hear any reports of a gray pickup truck spotted in your area, maybe one that had a company logo on the doors?”
“Not a gray one funny you’d ask. But a white truck, you know like a Ryder or U-Haul bobtail rental truck but with no name on it. Not a huge truck, maybe a ten-footer. I thought I told you about it that night you got so shit-faced at Sona. Oh yeah. That’s why you don’t remember.” Jack Kuster has an easygoing baritone voice with a heavy New Jersey accent. “I think you must’ave been drinking Blithering Idiot.”
“Skull Splitter Ale I’m pretty sure,” Marino deadpans. “What about the white truck?”
“The day before Julie Eastman was shot while she was waiting for the Edgewater Ferry, the truck I’m talking about was spotted at a construction site that had been shut down. From there it went down the road a little ways into the ferry landing parking lot.”
“I guess there’s only one white truck in all of Jersey,” Marino says.
“The reason this particular vehicle came to anyone’s attention is it hit a car that was backing up and the truck hauled ass out of there. Two things about it caught my interest after the homicide. A recovered paint chip showed the truck had been repainted multiple times and the tag number came back to a plate belonging to someone dead. From Massachusetts as a matter of fact.”
“Jesus,” Marino says. “A commercial plate I assume.”
“No. A regular noncommercial one. Obviously stolen from a noncommercial vehicle, a thirty-something-year-old Pontiac that had been totaled back in November, thus explaining why the owner is deceased.”
“Anybody take a picture of the truck?”
“No one has come forward if they did.” Kuster’s voice is loud over speakerphone, and Marino pushes the SUV gearshift into reverse. “The person whose car was hit by it got the plate number, like I said, and described it as a white moving truck but didn’t get a look at the driver, just someone wearing a hat and glasses.”
“Doesn’t sound like the same thing here,” Marino says. “And it’s probably a wild-goose chase.”
“If it wasn’t for chasing gooses I’d have to get a job.”
“You around tomorrow if the Doc and me drop by?” As usual Marino doesn’t bother to clear it with me first. “We need to compare notes and see if we can figure out the distance this psycho is shooting from.”
“Funny you would mention that too. I got a theory and a way to test it. Especially now since you got a relatively undamaged solid bullet in your case.”
“News to me. But we haven’t been to her office yet. We haven’t had time to take a whiz for that matter.”
“Liz Wrighton sent me a photo,” Kuster says. “Right hand, one-ten twist, 5R rifling, one-ninety grain solid copper, ballistic tip. Five lands and grooves with a rolled leading edge. I’m thinking a .308 with a freaking accurate barrel like a Krieger Match. Not the sort of rifle you carry around when you’re hunting. Tough to shoot unsupported. You’d set up with a bipod or bag rests filled with sand, rice, popcorn, whatever.”
“Hunting meaning people.” Marino stops at the intersection of Audrey Street and Memorial Drive, waiting for a break in traffic.
“A typical tactical magnum rifle, only what I’m thinking about isn’t typical. I can set us up on the range, borrow what I need from SWAT. Last fall they got the latest greatest for the Super Bowl, had it all ready to go on the stadium roof just in case. Maybe you don’t remember that either, were too busy throwing back beers and tequila and telling war stories about Scarpetta and your high school days plus being pissed at Machado. Where’s he at during all this?”
“Getting in the way,” Marino says. “The Doc’s here in the car and we’re on speakerphone, headed to the morgue so maybe stop talking about her.”
“Nice to meet you, Doctor Scarpetta. What I’m referring to is a PGF. A Precision Guided Firearm that can turn a rookie shooter into a top gun sniper who can hit a target dead center at a thousand yards out or more. Unfortunately police and the military aren’t the only ones who can buy something like this. That’s what I have nightmares about. It’s just a matter of time.”
Marino ends the call and uneasily looks around us while we sit perfectly still, the traffic heavy on Memorial Drive. He’s glancing in his mirrors, out the windows, up at rooftops and suddenly accelerates across three lanes into eastbound traffic to a cacophony of blaring horns.
“How about you don’t get us killed by driving like a kamikaze pilot.” I start picking up what just spilled out of my shoulder bag.
“No point in being a damn sitting duck.” His eyes continue darting around, and his face is red. “We need to go see Kuster tomorrow. We can’t waste time on this.”
“It would be nice if you’d ask before making plans that include me.”
“He can help with shooting reconstructions.” Marino takes off his Ray-Bans. “No one better. You mind cleaning these for me?”
He drops his sunglasses in my lap.
I dig a tissue out of my jacket pocket. “What about brushes with law enforcement? Did the other victims have any reason to fear the police? What about drugs?”
“Not that I’ve heard.” He pulls down the visor and a stack of napkins flutter into his lap. “But it makes sense that Nari and his wife were scared shitless. Imagine being accused of having sex with some screwed-up juvenile? When Machado called she probably did think she was about to get arrested.”
“I’d say life couldn’t get much worse for her right now.” I continue to work on his Ray-Bans. “They need to be washed with soap and water. They’re also badly scratched. You’ve had these how long?”
“Gotta get new ones but hate to spend the dough.” He takes his glasses from me and puts them back on. “A hundred and fifty bucks a pop.”
I know what to get him for his birthday next month. He crams the napkins into the glove box and I catch a glimpse of the bagged pennies inside. I imagine a sharpshooter with a PGF and very specific ammunition that is difficult to trace because so far all that’s left is frag. I’m already puzzled by a detail I didn’t know, what Kuster said about an intact bullet. Luke Zenner must have recovered one from Nari’s body and that’s very surprising. It’s hard to believe.
Marino is chewing gum, his jaw muscles clenching. He’s chomping away because he really wants to smoke and he continues to feel for the pack of cigarettes in his jacket pocket. Pretty soon he’ll pull out a cigarette and not light it. As I’m thinking it he does it and then his cell phone rings through the speakerphone.
“Yeah,” he answers gruffly.
“This is Mary Sapp,” a woman says. “I’m returning your call from the house on Gallivan. There’s a truck parked in front and I’m not sure I should leave.”
CHAPTER 13
HE SIGNED THE LEASE this past Monday, agreeing to the asking price and three months’ rent in advance. Jamal Nari paid twelve thousand dollars so he and his wife could get in instantly.
Usually a renter has an attorney review a contract—especially a renter who has experience with litigation and has no reason to be trusting. But he was in too much of a hurry according to Realtor Mary Sapp, who has completely rerouted us. Across the Harvard Bridge, on Massachusetts Avenue now, and Marino is driving fast. He’s flying. Whenever a car doesn’t get out of his way, he flips on his emergency lights and whelps the siren.
It doesn’t matter that we’ve entered Boston and he’s left his jurisdiction without letting a Cambridge dispatcher know. He’s requested a backup from Boston PD and he hasn’t bothered telling Macha
do or anyone else what is going on. Nor is he concerned that I’m not headed to my office when I have cases to supervise, where I have a job and my own responsibilities and my own problems to worry about. He didn’t ask if my coming along for the ride is okay and I message Bryce Clark that I’ve been held up.
OMG! Do you mean robbed? he fires back, and I don’t know if he’s trying to be funny.
I’m with Marino. How is Luke doing?
Finished with post but assume you don’t want him released? I mean case from Farrar Street, not Luke.
Do not release, I reply as I overhear what Marino is asking Mary Sapp. I need to take a look at him.
Marino is reassuring the Realtor that she is safe as long as she stays inside the house. But she doesn’t sound as if she’s worried about being safe. She doesn’t sound afraid. In fact she sounds something else. Dramatic, overly charming and helpful. It occurs to me that she might be enjoying herself.
No funeral home picked out anyway. Another message from Bryce appears in a gray balloon.
Then don’t ask me if he should be released yet, I think but I’m not going to put that in writing.
I talked to the wife. She’s in a fugue state, doesn’t have a clue what to do no matter what I tell her, Bryce writes and he shouldn’t editorialize.
Will let you know when I’m headed in. I end our dialogue.
“… I probably wouldn’t have thought much about it except for what’s all over the news.” Mary Sapp’s voice fills the car, a voice that is too cheerful in light of the circumstances.
Already I don’t have a good opinion of her.
“I’m glad you’re thinking about it and are smart enough to stay put inside the house.” Marino encourages her to do as he says. “And you’re sure about the description.”
“Oh yes. Yesterday around two or three in the afternoon. I was doing another walk-through of the house, taking more photographs, making notes, making sure they didn’t damage anything when they dropped by,” she replies.