“She’s kidding,” Lex says to Reba, picking up the black crime-scene case she parked by the front door. “Before we do anything else”-she directs this to Reba-“I want to verify the house has been sealed since you guys cleared the scene.”
“Absolutely. I saw to it personally. All the windows and doors.”
“An alarm system?”
“You’d be amazed how many people down here don’t have them.”
Lucy notices stickers on windows that say H amp;W Alarm Company and comments, “She was worried, anyway. Probably couldn’t afford the real thing but still wanted to scare away bad people.”
“Problem is, the bad guys know that trick,” Reba replies. “Stickers and signs in the flower beds. Your typical burglar would take one look at this house and figure it probably doesn’t have an alarm system. That the person inside probably can’t afford it or is too old to bother.”
“A lot of elderly people don’t bother, it’s true,” Lucy says. “For one thing, they forget their codes. I’m serious.”
Reba opens the door and musty air greets them as if the life inside fled long ago. She reaches in and flips on lights.
“What’s anybody done about it so far?” Lex says, looking at the terrazzo floor.
“Nothing except in the bedroom.”
“Okay, let’s just stand out here a minute and think about this,” Lucy says. “We know two things. Her killer somehow got inside the house without breaking down a door. And after he shot her, he somehow left. Also through a door?” she asks Reba.
“I’d say so. She’s got all these jalousie windows. No way to climb through them unless you’re Gumby.”
“Then what we should do is start spraying at this door and work our way back to the bedroom where she was killed,” Lucy says. “Then we’ll do the same thing at all the other doors. Triangulating.”
“That would be this door, the kitchen door and the sliders leading from the dining room to the sunporch and on the sunporch itself,” Reba tells them. “Both sets of the sliders were unlocked when Pete got here, so he says.”
She steps inside the foyer, and Lucy and Lex follow. They shut the door.
“We ever find out any other details about the citrus inspector you and Dr. Scarpetta happened to notice around the time this lady was shot?” Lucy asks, and on the job, she never refers to Scarpetta as her aunt.
“I found out a couple things. First, they work in pairs. The person we saw was alone.”
“How do you know his partner wasn’t out of sight? Maybe in the front yard?” Lucy asks.
“We don’t. But all we saw was this one person. And there’s no record any inspectors were even supposed to be in this neighborhood. Another thing, he was using one of those pickers, you know, the long pole with a claw or whatever so you can pull down fruit from high up in the tree? From what I’ve been told, inspectors don’t use anything like that.”
“What would be the point?” Lucy asks.
“He took it apart, put it in a big black bag.”
“I wonder what else was in the bag,” Lex says.
“Like a shotgun,” Reba says.
“We’ll keep an open mind,” Lucy says.
“I’d say it’s a big fuck-you,” Reba adds. “I’m in plain view on the other side of the water. A cop. I’m with Dr. Scarpetta and obviously we’re looking around, investigating, and he’s right there looking at us, pretending to examine trees.”
“Possibly, but we can’t be sure,” Lucy replies. “Let’s keep an open mind,” she reminds them again.
Lex crouches on the cool terrazzo floor and opens the crime-scene case. They close all the blinds in the house and put on their protective disposable clothing, then Lucy sets up the tripod, attaches the camera and the cable release, while Lex mixes up the luminol and transfers it to a black pump spray bottle. They photograph the area just inside the front door, then lights out, and they get lucky on their first try.
“Holy smoke,” Reba’s voice sounds in the dark.
The distinct shape of footprints glow bluish-green as Lex mists the floor and Lucy captures it on film.
“He must have had a hell of a lot of blood on his shoes to leave this much after walking all the way across the house,” Reba says.
“Except for one thing,” Lucy replies in the dark. “They’re heading in the wrong direction. They’re coming in instead of leaving.”
46
He looks grim but fantastic in a long, black suede coat, his silver hair peeking out of a Red Sox baseball cap. Whenever Scarpetta hasn’t seenBentonfor a while, she is struck by his refined handsomeness, by his long, lean elegance. She doesn’t want to be angry with him. She can’t stand it. She feels sick.
“As always, we enjoyed flying with you. Just call when you know exactly when you’re leaving,” Bruce the pilot says to her, warmly shaking her hand. “Get in touch if you need anything. You’ve got all my numbers, right?”
“Thanks, Bruce,” Scarpetta says.
“Sorry you had to wait,” he says toBenton. “A headwind that got more wicked.”
Bentonisn’t the least bit friendly. He doesn’t answer him. He watches him walk off.
“Let me guess,”Bentonsays to Scarpetta. “Another triathlete who decided to play cops and robbers. The one thing I hate about flying on her jet. Her musclehead pilots.”
“I feel very safe with them.”
“Well, I don’t.”
She buttons her wool coat as they walk out of the FBO.
“I hope he didn’t try to chat with you too much, bother you. He strikes me as the type,” he says.
“It’s nice to see you, too, Benton,” she says, walking one step ahead of him.
“I happen to know you don’t think it’s nice at all.”
He picks up his pace, holds the glass front door for her, and the wind rushing in is cold and carries small flakes of snow. The day is dark gray, so dusky that lights in the parking lot have come on.
“She gets these guys, all of them good-looking and addicted to the gym, and they think they’re action heroes,” he says.
“You made your point. Are you trying to pick a fight before I have a chance?”
“It’s important you notice certain things, don’t assume someone’s just being friendly. I worry you don’t pick up important signals.”
“That’s ridiculous,” she replies, anger sounding in her voice. “If anything, I pick up too many signals. Although I obviously missed some pretty important ones this past year. You want a fight, now you’ve got it.”
They are walking through the snowy parking lot, and the lamps along the tarmac are blurred by the snow and sound is muted. Usually, they hold hands. She wonders how he could have done what he did. Her eyes water. Maybe it is the wind.
“I’m worried who’s out there,” he says oddly, unlocking his Porsche, this one a four-wheel-drive SUV.
Bentonlikes his cars. He and Lucy are into power. The difference is,Bentonknows he’s powerful. Lucy doesn’t feel she is.
“Worried in general?” Scarpetta asks, assuming he’s still talking about all the signals she supposedly misses.
“I’m talking about whoever just murdered this lady up here. NIBIN got a hit on a shotgun shell that appears to have been fired by the same shotgun used in a homicide inHollywoodtwo years ago. A convenience-store robbery. The guy was wearing a mask, killed a kid in the store and then the manager killed him. Sound familiar?”
He looks over at her as they talk, as they drive away from the airport.
“I’ve heard about it,” she replies. “Seventeen years old, armed with nothing but a mop. Anybody have a clue as to why that shotgun’s back in circulation?” she asks as her resentment grows.
“Not yet.”
“A lot of shotgun deaths recently,” she says, coolly professional.
If he wants to be this way, she can too.
“I wonder what that’s about,” she adds in a detached sort of way. “The one used in the Johnny Swift case disappears-now one is used in the Daggie Simister case.”
She has to explain to him the Daggie Simister case. He doesn’t know about it yet.
“A shotgun that is supposed to be in custody or destroyed is just used again up here,” she goes on. “Then we have the Bible in the house of these missing people.”