“Why would someone take the commuter train here instead of driving?” I point out. “Why would a PR person do that?”
“Haley Swanson,” Lucy says dubiously. “And I guess we’re to conclude that about an hour, an hour and a half later, he killed everyone and fled.”
“It’s not for you to conclude anything,” Marino says rudely.
“Earlier today we were told he was driving an Audi SUV,” I remind him.
“We’re looking for it. It’s not at his apartment in Somerville and not at his business in Boston,” Marino says. “The people who work at his PR firm haven’t seen him or his SUV today but he called them.”
“The call made from here,” Lucy says. “Someone made it.”
“Why wouldn’t Swanson drive himself?” I ask.
“When we find him he’s got a hell of a lot of explaining to do, but my answer is he didn’t want his car spotted at Double S because he was planning to commit murder,” Marino says. “That’s a good reason not to drive your own damn car.”
“I’m guessing that isn’t it at all,” Lucy disagrees. “These murders don’t appear to be planned.”
“Nobody’s asking you to guess,” Marino says just as rudely.
Lucy isn’t slowed down by Marino’s attitude. It doesn’t even seem to register.
“Has anybody checked with his uncle in the projects?” I ask.
“I got Machado doing that and haven’t heard back.”
Lucy unzips her white coveralls halfway and pulls her gloves off as if she’s hot and has her own idea about what needs to be done.
“I have to get the server out of here,” she says to him, “before it’s not possible.”
“I hear you.” Marino knows what she’s thinking and he’s conflicted, the way he is about Gail Shipton’s phone.
He wants Lucy’s help but he’s afraid of it. He knows if the FBI gets its hands on the server before we do that will be the last we hear of it. Granby will hold a press conference and talk decisively about joining forces with local agencies and a joint effort but the reality is when evidence goes to the national labs in Quantico and the prosecutor is the U.S. attorney there’s no such thing as a joint anything.
That’s under the best of circumstances. Marino doesn’t know about evidence tampering. He doesn’t know about Gabriela Lagos or her missing son Martin who supposedly left a stain on a pair of panties in the most recent Washington, D.C., case. Marino has no idea just how impossible it will be for us to work these murders here unless we’re proactive now, ruthlessly so. I decide to blame it on the media, something that Marino will accept as an inevitable obstacle to avoid.
“It depends on how big this gets. A huge case and it’s similar to what I just faced in Connecticut. TV trucks everywhere and those of us trying to do our jobs are stepped on.” I look at him and he understands.
“No shit,” he says.
“Have you talked to Benton?”
“Briefly.”
“Then you know what’s going to happen,” I pile it on. “He had to pass along certain information to Granby, who’s already releasing statements to the press.”
“Bogus ones,” Lucy says. “The Feebs already have taken over and they’re coming.”
“Yeah, Santa Claus is coming to town,” Marino says angrily. “I can hear him on his sleigh heading this way. He’s going to land on the roof any minute, dammit. This is fucking bullshit. Whatever happened to just taking care of things and protecting the public like we’re supposedly paid to do?”
“You used to say that twenty years ago,” I reply.
“People still suck.”
“We don’t have much time before we have no control over anything,” I bring up again.
“The DVR is where you’d go in the aftermath unless you’re not very bright.” Lucy is back to that. “You show up here and you’re on camera and you don’t care because at that time whatever your reason for showing up is normal. You didn’t drop by to commit a crime. Then something goes wrong and now you’ve got to fix it after the fact. So you find the closet because it’s too damn late to cut the cables to the cameras.”
“It could be how it went down.” Marino is getting prickly with her. “But you’d have to know what a DVR is to look for one,” he repeats.
“He must have pitched it. I doubt he ran through the park with a video recorder tucked under his arm. He wouldn’t have tossed it in the woods, not anywhere it would be found. You might want to get some divers to search the pond.”
“It wouldn’t still work if it’s been in the water.” Marino wants to at least appear he’s fighting with her but he’s not.
It’s just the three of us in this together, no different from how it’s always been.
“I’m not sure what you’d be able to recover,” she says. “It depends on the brand and model and how protected the recorded data is on the digital storage device. My bigger question is whether video and audio might have been transferred over a network for remote monitoring on a computer, maybe on some other area of the property. If other people were looking, they could have seen at least some of what was going on.”
“I haven’t had a chance to check everywhere.” Marino doesn’t look at Lucy now.
He hates what he feels about her and thinks he can hide it. He can’t, not about either of us.
“The barn and the outbuildings, the bedrooms,” Lucy says. “Wherever there might be workstations or even laptops and iPads, someone might have seen something they didn’t think to mention to you.” She’s diplomatic about it. “You mind if I check?”
“Don’t touch nothing,” Marino says.
“And I’ve got to take the server in.”
“Stay out of that closet in the other room and don’t touch nothing.”
“Then who’s going to make sure data’s not being deleted remotely, maybe from New York or Grand Cayman or anywhere even as we speak?” she says to him.
“You should know all about deleting things remotely.”
“Who’s going to get through the layers of security? I guess you could ask around for the system admin password. Maybe somebody will hand it over.”
“I didn’t ask for your help.”
“Well, Merry Christmas, Marino. The FBI will be here landing on the roof before you know it,” Lucy says. “I guess you can turn the server over to them. Maybe before you retire they’ll tell you what’s on it. But probably not.”
She walks back out the front door, her retreating footsteps light on the veranda and the steps, and then I can’t hear her anymore.
“You should get it out of here and you know it,” I tell him quietly. “I have a feeling even Benton would suggest that.” I’m careful what else I say with other people around but the way I look at Marino he understands there’s a problem that’s much bigger than he imagines.
“Jesus.” His face is deep red and he stares at the cop with the laser station on the other side of the room.
If he hears us, he makes no indication of it, but no cop with NEMLEC would snitch to the FBI anyway.
“She knows what she’s doing. And so do I. And you’re about to know a lot.” I hold Marino’s stare and he doesn’t know what I’m talking about but he gets that it’s a severe problem.
“What the fuck.” He enters a number on his phone. “Do it,” he says when Lucy answers. “Don’t disturb nothing or talk to anyone. Pack it up and get it to the CFC, get it the hell out of here and you’d better not screw anything up. I’m trusting you.”
He ends the call and turns his attention to me. “I’m going to walk you through it. Show you exactly what I think he did.”
“Not now.” I move deeper inside in my latex boots. “I’ll let his victims tell me what he did.”