It was then I told them about my strange early-morning phone call from an Officer Young who did not seem to exist. I mentioned Captain Green and described his behavior.
"Why would he call, if he's the one who did?" Marino frowned.
"Clearly, he didn't want me at the scene," I said. "And maybe if I were given ample information by the police, I would just wait for the body to come in, as I usually do."
"Well, it sounds to me like you were being bullied," Lucy said.
"I believe that was the overall plan," I agreed.
"Have you tried the phone number this nonexistent Officer Young gave you?" she asked.
"No," I said.
"Where is it?"
I got it for her and she dialed it.
"It's the number for the local weather report," she said, hanging up.
Marino pulled out a chair from the checker cloth-covered breakfast table and straddled it, his arms folded on top of the back. Nobody spoke for a while as we sifted through data that were getting only stranger by the minute.
"Listen, Doc." Marino cracked his knuckles. "I really gotta smoke. You going to let me or do I have to go outside?"
"Outside," Lucy said, jabbing her thumb toward the door and looking meaner than I knew she felt.
"And what if I fall into a snowdrift, you little runt?" he said.
"It's four inches deep out there. The only drift you're going to fall into is the one in your mind."
"Tomorrow we'll go out on the beach and shoot cans," he said. "Now and then you need someone to give you a little humility, Special Agent Lucy."
"You most certainly will not be shooting anything on this beach," I said to both of them.
"I guess we could let Pete open the window and blow smoke out," Lucy said. "But it just shows you how addicted you are."
"As long as you smoke fast," I said to him. "This house is cold enough as it is."
The window was stubborn, but no more so than Marino, who managed to get it open after a violent struggle. Moving his chair nearby, he lit up and blew smoke out the screen.
Lucy and I placed silverware and napkins in the living room, deciding it would be cozier to eat in front of the fire than in Dr. Mant's kitchen or cramped, drafty dining room.
"You haven't even told me how you're doing," I said to my niece as she started working on the fire.
"I'm doing great."
Sparks swarmed up the chimney's sooty throat as she shoved more wood inside, and veins stood out in her hands, muscles flexing in her back. Her gifts were in computer science and, most recently, robotics, which she had studied at MIT. They were areas of expertise that had made her very attractive to the FBI's Hostage Rescue Team, but the expectation of her was cerebral, not physical. No woman had ever passed HRT's punishing requirements, and I worried that she was not going to accept her limits.
"How much are you working out?" I asked her.
She closed the screen and sat on the hearth, looking at me. "A lot."
"If your body fat gets much lower, you won't be healthy.
"I'm very healthy and actually have too much body fat."
"If you're getting anorexic, I'm not going to have my head in the sand about it, Lucy. I know that eating disorders kill. I've seen their victims."
"I don't have an eating disorder."
I came over and sat next to her, the fire warming our backs.
"I guess I'll have to take your word on that."
" Good."
"Listen"-I patted her leg-"you've been assigned to HRT as their technical consultant. It has never been anyone's assumption that you will fast-rope out of helicopters and run four-minute miles with the men."
She looked over at me with flashing eyes. "You're one to talk about limitations. I don't see that you've ever let your gender hold you back."
"I absolutely know my limitations," I disagreed. "And I work around them with my mind. That is how I have survived."
"Look," she said with feeling, "I'm tired of programming computers and robots, and then every time something big goes down-like the bombing in Oklahoma City-the guys head off to Andrews Air Force Base and I get left.
Or even if I go with them, they lock me in some little room somewhere like I'm nothing but a nerd. I'm not a goddamn nerd. I don't want to be a latchkey agent."
Her eyes were suddenly bright with tears and she averted them from me. "I can run any obstacle course they put me on. I can rappel, sniper-shoot and scuba-dive. More important, I can take it when they act like assholes. You know, not all of them are exactly happy to have me around."
I had no doubt of that. Lucy had always been an extremely polarizing human being, because she was brilliant and could be so difficult. She was also beautiful in a sharpfeatured, strong way, and I frankly wondered how she survived at all on a special forces team of fifty men, not one of whom she would ever date.
"How is Janet?" I asked.
"They transferred her out to the Washington Field Office to do white-collar crime. So at least she's not far away."
"This must have been recent." I was puzzled.
"Real recent." Lucy rested her forearms on her knees.
"And where is she tonight?"
"Her family's got a condo in Aspen."
My silence asked the question, and her voice was irritated as she answered it. "No, I wasn't invited. And not just because Janet and I aren't getting along. It just wasn't a good idea."
"I see." I hesitated before adding, "Then her parents still don't know."
"Hell, who does know? You think we don't hide it at work? So we go to things together and each of us gets to watch the other being hit on by men. That's a special pleasure," she bitterly said.
"I know what it's like at work," I said. "It's no different than I told you it would be. What I'm more interested in is Janet's family."
Lucy stared at her hands. "It's mostly her mom. To tell you the truth, I don't think her dad would care. He's not going to assume it's because of something he did wrong, like my mother assumes. Only she assumes it's because of something you did wrong since you pretty much raised me and are my mother, according to her."
There was little point in my defending myself against the ignorant notions of my only sister, Dorothy, who unfortunately happened to be Lucy's parent.
"And Mother has another theory now, too. She says you're the first woman I fell in love with, and somehow that explains everything," Lucy went on in an ironic tone.
"Never mind that this would be called incest or that you're straight. Remember, she writes these insightful children's books, so she's an expert in psychology and apparently is a sex therapist, too.
"I'm sorry you have to go through all this on top of everything else," I said with feeling. I never knew quite what to do when we had these conversations. They were still new to me, and in some ways scary.
"Look"-she got up as Marino walked into the living room-some things you just live with."
"Well, I got news for you," Marino announced, "the weather forecast is that this crap is going to melt. So come tomorrow morning, all of us should be able to get out of here."
"Tomorrow's New Year's Day," Lucy said. "For the sake of argument, why should we get out of here?"
"Because I need to take your aunt to Eddings' crib." He paused before adding, "And Benton needs to get his ass there, too."
I did not visibly react. Benton Wesley was the unit chief of the Bureau's Criminal Investigative Analysis program, and I had hoped I would not have to see him during the holidays.
"What are you telling me?" I quietly said.
He sat down on the sofa and regarded me thoughtfully for a pause. Then he answered my question with one of his own, "I'm curious about something, Doc. How would you poison someone underwater?"
"Maybe it didn't happen underwater," Lucy suggested.
"Maybe he swallowed cyanide before he went diving."
"No. That's not what happened," I said. "Cyanide is very corrosive, and had he taken it orally, I would have seen extensive damage to his stomach. Probably to his esophagus and mouth, as well."