“He mention anything about Lucy?” Marino asks. “Whether she knew her?”
He wants to know the details of Lucy’s relationship with Gail Shipton and I can’t talk about it.
“Not really,” I answer as I watch Benton move around, not looking at me, but suddenly I have his attention, I can tell.
“Not really that she knew her or that you don’t know the details?” Marino says.
“I don’t.”
“Huh,” he replies. “But they knew each other somehow.”
“It would seem so.” I’m not going to lie. “I don’t know to what degree.”
“Something’s going on with Gail’s phone. When I first got into it early this morning there were text messages, which is how I knew Carin Hegel wanted her to call. There were e-mails. Now they’re gone.”
“Are you sure they were there in the first place?” I ask and Benton is listening.
He looks at me.
“Hell yes,” Marino says. “And every text message and e-mail’s gone, and before that all the photographs were gone. I don’t believe there weren’t any. Who doesn’t have a single photo on their phone? I think when I was picking it up off the pavement somebody had already started deleting shit.”
“You’re looking at her phone again right now?” I puzzle and I can tell by Benton’s reaction that this has his attention in a powerful way.
“Why the hell do you think?” Marino asks.
“It needs to go to the labs.”
“It’s not that simple. I was just showing the phone to Machado because we’re trying to figure out what to do with it,” Marino says. “Suddenly all that’s left on it are incoming and outgoing calls. No voice mails, no apps, no e-mails, fucking nothing.”
“You need to get it to the labs,” I repeat.
“How the hell am I supposed to do that? Considering who would be the one examining it? That’s what Machado and me were talking about. It’s a serious conflict.”
It would be Lucy who examines it. She’s the CFC’s forensic computer and technology expert, and she analyzes any evidence relating to cybercrime. I understand what Marino’s getting at and why he was having a conversation with Machado. I imagine her deleting certain information from the phone when she discovered it was on the pavement near the Psi Bar around midnight.
After that she was flying her helicopter, flying Benton home, while she remotely monitored what was going on with Gail’s phone. I suspect when Lucy realized Marino had found it in the parking lot behind the bar she quickly deleted more and by now may have deleted almost everything, and he’s onto her. He’s certain she’s scrubbed the device of any information she doesn’t want the police or anyone else to see.
“Then I suggest you submit it to the FBI,” I answer him and Benton holds my stare and begins to shake his head. “Let their labs handle it,” I add and Benton startles me by shaking his head No, absolutely not.
“I do that I lose any control,” Marino says.
“It sounds to me that you feel you have anyway.” I can tell by Benton’s face that he doesn’t want me to mention the FBI again and I won’t but I don’t understand it and I feel slightly shocked.
“I’ll never know what they find out either,” Marino says. “They don’t exactly work and play well with others.”
“You’ll lose control,” I reinforce his misgivings, trying to take back what I suggested that has created such resistance in Benton.
“And to be fair, I’ve got to talk to her first,” Marino decides.
Not before I do, I think and I move closer to Benton, both of us watching each other, and I can tell he’s angry and going to do something about it.
“Maybe there’s an explanation, right?” Marino says conspiratorially. “You’d tell me if you knew, right?”
“Be careful out here. There’s a lot of slippery mud and rusty metal. We’re just on the other side of the tunnel.”
“Okay, you can’t talk. But this is exactly what I don’t need right now. A problem with her, and you and me both know what the hell she’s like. Right now I fucking don’t need this,” Marino declares. “One month on the job, not even.”
“Don’t encourage Marino to turn over the phone to the FBI,” Benton says and he’s adamant about it, referencing the FBI as if it’s separate and apart from him.
“I already did and you heard me. It made sense to suggest it.”
“It doesn’t.”
“What on earth is going on?”
“Don’t suggest it again.”
“If you say so I won’t.”
“I mean it, Kay. Goddamn it, I don’t want Granby to know about the phone. I hope to hell Marino stops shooting his mouth off. He has no idea what he’s dealing with.”
Our eyes are locked as we wait near footprints in a section of muddy tracks, MIT’s nuclear reactor just up ahead, what looks like a big white fuel tank with a tall brick smokestack painted red. For weeks Benton has been talking about a problem with trust and now it’s coming out. He’s not just having personnel disputes, something is terribly wrong and his reaction is unnerving.
“Is Lucy going to be all right?” I ask. “What’s happening, Benton?”
“I don’t want some case made about obstruction of justice. She could go to prison and he would do that.”
“Marino would?” I can’t believe it.
“Not him, not intentionally. You don’t want my division involved. Cambridge PD can analyze the phone.” His rubber-soled feet crunch on gravel as he moves around, the wind in his hair. “One of their detectives is assigned to the Secret Service and they can do the forensic analysis at their field office in Boston.”
“How is that better than your office doing it? Your office, where people know us.”
“Knowing us is worse. And I don’t work for the Secret Service.” Benton steps on a railroad tie, testing how slippery it is. “That’s why it’s better.”
“What are you saying?”
“You can’t trust them, Kay. That’s what I’m saying. Do you have any idea how much fun Granby would have if he knew anything about the phone? Marino needs to keep his damn mouth shut.”
It alarms me to think that Benton’s boss would relish going after my niece. I’ve always found him boring and a lightweight, a typical example of what rises to the top, but it’s becoming quite clear that Benton is suggesting Ed Granby is more than an irritant and an obstruction, and not just to him but possibly to all of us.
“The phone has nothing to do with Gail Shipton’s murder anyway,” Benton says in a steely tone. “Lucy will tell you what she’s done and what she’s trying to prevent. It should come from her. I have to be careful what I say and I’ve already said too much.”
“I don’t think you’ve said nearly enough and now’s not the time to be careful,” I reply. “We’ve been down this road before when you’ve been so damn loyal to the Bureau and so damn careful and look what happens? All of us get torn apart.” I’m feeling upset and I don’t want to feel like this. “I’m sorry. I’m tired and I haven’t eaten and this is unnerving.”
He’s silent and I can see his conflict, which is like a war inside him, then he says, “I won’t let that happen ever again.”
“You’ve said you wouldn’t.”
“You know what the FBI expects. It not only comes first, it owns you, and then when it’s done with you it exiles you into oblivion or worse.”
“It doesn’t own either of us,” I reply. “It did once and it won’t again and your people won’t touch Lucy.”
“They’re not my people.” His anger flashes again.
“You own yourself, Benton.”
“I know that, Kay. I promise I do. I wouldn’t be here right now if I didn’t own myself.”