“Huh. That’s a line all right. Probably the same line they use every time a reporter calls, a line that says nothing. What did you want to see me about?”
“Did you get my messages? Since Sunday night, I’ve left you four.”
“Yeah I got them.”
“It would have been nice if you’d returned them.”
“You didn’t say it was a nine-one-one.”
That has been their code over the years when they paged each other, back when cell phones weren’t so popular, then later because they were insecure. Now Lucy has scramblers and who-knows-what to protect privacy, and it’s fine to leave voicemail.
“I don’t leave a nine-one-one when it’s a phone message,” she says. “How does that work? After the beep I say ‘nine-one-one’?”
“My point being, you didn’t say it was an emergency. What did you want?”
“You stood me up. We were set to review the Swift case, remember?”
She fixed dinner for him, too, but she leaves out that part.
“I’ve been busy, on the road.”
“Would you like to tell me what you’ve been doing and where?”
“Riding my new bike.”
“For two solid days? You didn’t stop for gas, maybe go to the men’s room? Couldn’t find time for one phone call?”
She leans back in the big chair behind her big desk and feels small as she looks at him. “You’re being contraire. That’s what this is about.”
“Why should I tell you what I’m doing?”
“Because I’m the director of forensic science and medicine, if for no other reason.”
“And I’m the head of investigations, and that really falls under training and Special Ops. So Lucy’s really my supervisor, not really you.”
“Lucy isn’t your supervisor.”
“Guess you’d really better talk to her about that.”
“Investigations really falls under forensic science and medicine. You really aren’t a Special Ops agent, Marino. My department pays your salary. Really.” She is about to rip into him and knows she shouldn’t.
He looks at her with his big, tough face, his big, thick fingers drumming the armrest. He crosses his legs and starts jiggling a big Harley-booted foot.
“Your job is to assist me in casework,” she says. “You’re the person I depend on most.”
“Guess you better take that up with Lucy.”
He slowly drums the armrest and jiggles his foot, his flinty eyes looking past her.
“I’m supposed to tell you everything and you don’t tell me shit,” he says. “You do whatever the hell you want and don’t think you ever owe me an explanation. I’m sitting right here, listening to you lie like I’m so stupid I don’t see through it. You don’t ask or tell me nothing unless it suits you.”
“I don’t work for you, Marino.” She can’t stop herself from saying it. “I believe it’s the other way around.”
“Oh yeah?”
He leans closer to her big desk, his face turning crimson.
“Ask Lucy,” he says. “She owns this damn place. She pays everybody’s salary. Ask her.”
“Obviously, you weren’t present for most of our discussion about the Swift case,” she says, changing her tone, trying to abort what is about to turn into a battle.
“Why bother? I’m the one with the damn information.”
“We were hoping you might share it. We’re all in this together.”
“No kidding. Everybody’s into everything. Nothing of mine’s private anymore. It’s open season on my old cases, my hell scenes. You just give away whatever you want and don’t care how I feel.”
“That’s not true. I wish you’d calm down. I don’t want you having a stroke.”
“You hear about yesterday’s hell scene? Where do you think that came from? He’s getting into our files.”
“That’s not possible. The hard copies are locked up. Electronic copies are completely inaccessible. As for yesterday’s hell scene, I agree it’s very similar…”
“Similar my ass. It’s exactly the same.”
“Marino, it was also in the news. In fact, you can still pull it up on the Internet. I checked.”
His big flushed face stares at her, a face so unfriendly she scarcely recognizes it anymore.
“Can we talk about Johnny Swift for a minute, please?” she says.
“Ask me anything you want,” he says glumly.
“I’m confused about the possibility of robbery as a motive. Was there a robbery or not?”
“Nothing of value missing from the house except we can’t figure out the credit-card shit.”
“What credit-card shit?”
“The week after his death, someone withdrew a total of twenty-five hundred dollars cash. Each withdrawal was five hundred bucks from five different ATMs in theHollywoodarea.”
“Tracked?”
Marino shrugs and says, “Yeah. To machines in parking lots, different days, different times, everything different except the amount. Always the limit of five hundred bucks. By the time the credit-card company tried to notify Johnny Swift-who was dead by then-about an out-of-pattern behavior that might indicate someone was using his card, the withdrawals had stopped.”
“What about cameras? Any chance the person was caught on video?”
“Each ATM machine that was picked didn’t have one. Somebody knew what he was doing, has probably done it before.”
“DidLaurelhave the PIN number?”
“Johnny wasn’t able to drive yet because of the surgery. SoLaurelhad to do everything, including cash withdrawals.”
“Anybody else have the PIN number?”
“Not as far as we know.”
“It certainly doesn’t look good for him,” Scarpetta says.
“Well, I don’t think he whacked his twin brother for his ATM card.”
“People have killed for a lot less.”
“I think we’re talking someone else, maybe someone Johnny Swift had some kind of encounter with. Maybe the person had just killed him and heardLaureldrive up. So he ducked, explaining why the shotgun was still on the floor. Then whenLaurelran from the house, the guy grabbed it and bolted.”
“Why was the shotgun on the floor to begin with?”
“Maybe he was staging the scene to look like a suicide and got interrupted.”
“You’re telling me you have no doubt it’s a homicide.”
“You telling me you don’t think it is?”
“I’m just asking questions.”
Marino’s eyes wander around the office, over the top of her piled desk, across stacks of paperwork and case files. He looks at her with hard eyes that she might find frightening had she not seen insecurity and pain in them so often in the past. Maybe he seems different and distant only because he shaves his balding head and has taken to wearing a diamond stud earring. He works out in the gym obsessively and is the biggest she’s ever seen him.
“I’d appreciate it if you’d review my hell scenes,” he says. “Every one I’ve ever come up with is on that disk. I’d like you to look at them carefully. Since you’ll be sitting on a plane with nothing better to do.”
“I might have something better to do.” She tries to tease him a little, get him to lighten up.
It doesn’t work.
“Rose put all of them on a disk going back to the first of last year, and it’s in the file there. In a sealed envelope”-he indicates files on her desk. “Maybe you can pop it in your laptop and take a look. The bullet with the mesh pattern from the screen door’s in there. That lying piece of shit. I swear I came up with it first.”
“You do a search on the Internet of intermediary targets in shootings and I guarantee you’ll find cases and firearms tests that include bullets fired through screen doors,” she says. “I’m afraid there really isn’t much that’s new or private anymore.”
“He’s nothing but a laboratory rat who lived inside a microscope until a year ago. He couldn’t know the stuff he’s writing about. It’s impossible. It’s because of what happened at the Body Farm. At least you could have been honest about it.”
“You’re right,” she says. “I should have told you I stopped reviewing your hell scenes after that. All of us did. I should have sat you down and explained, but you were so angry and combative, none of us wanted to deal with you.”
“Maybe if you got set up the way I did, you’d be angry and combative, too.”
“Joe wasn’t at the Body Farm or even inKnoxvillewhen it happened,” she reminds him. “So please explain how he could have slipped a hypodermic needle into a dead man’s jacket pocket.”