'Jack,' I called out to Fielding. 'Could you come over here for a minute?' He stopped what he was doing and walked to my corner of the room.
'What's up?' he asked.
I handed him one of the bones. 'Can you tell which end was cut with the Stryker saw?' He turned it over and over, looking back and forth, at one end and then the other, frowning. 'Did you mark it?'
'For right and left I did,' I said. 'Beyond that, no. I should have. But usually it's so obvious which end is which, it's not necessary.'
'I'm not expert, but if I didn't know better, I'd say all these cuts were made with the same saw.' He handed the bone back to me and I began sealing it in an evidence bag.
'You got to take them to Canter anyway, right.'
'He's not going to be happy with me.' I said.
Chapter Six
My house was built of stone on the edge of Windsor Farms, an old Richmond neighborhood with English street names, and stately Georgian and Tudor homes that some would call mansions. Lights were on in windows I passed, and beyond glass I could see fine furniture and chandeliers, and people moving or watching TV. No one seemed to close their curtains in this city, except me. Leaves had begun to fall. It was cool and overcast, and when I pulled into my driveway, smoke was drifting from the chimney, my niece's ancient green Suburban parked in front.
'Lucy?' I called out as I shut the door and turned off the alarm.
'I'm in here,' she replied from the end of the house where she always stayed.
As I headed for my office to deposit my briefcase and the pile I had brought home to work on tonight, she emerged from her bedroom, pulling a bright orange UVA sweatshirt over her head.
'Hi.' Smiling, she gave me a hug, and there was very little that was soft about her. Holding her at arm's length, I took a good look at her, just like I always did.
'Uh oh,' she playfully said. 'Inspection time.' She held out her arms and turned around, as if about to be searched.
'Smarty,' I said.
In truth, I would have preferred it had she weighed a little more, but she was keenly pretty and healthy, with auburn hair that was short but softly styled. After all this time, I still could not look at her without envisioning a precocious, obnoxious ten-year-old who had no one, really, but me.
'You pass,' I said.
'Sorry I'm so late.'
'Tell me again what it was you were doing?' I asked, for she had called earlier in the day to say she could not get here until dinner.
'An assistant attorney general decided to drop in with an entourage. As usual, they wanted HRT to put on a show.'
We headed to the kitchen.
'I trotted out Toto and Tin Man,' she added. They were robots.
'Used fiber optics, virtual reality. The usual things, except it's pretty cool. We parachuted them out of a Huey, and I maneuvered them to burn through a metal door with lasers.'
'No stunts with the helicopters, I hope,' I said.
'The guys did that. I did my shit from the ground.' She wasn't happy about it.
The problem was, Lucy wanted to do stunts with helicopters. There were fifty agents on the HRT. She was the only woman and had a tendency to overreact when they wouldn't let her do dangerous things that, in my opinion, she had no business doing anyway. Of course, I wasn't the most objective judge.
'It suits me fine if you stick with robots,' I said, and we were in the kitchen now.
'Something smells good. What did you fix your tired, old aunt to eat?'
'Fresh spinach sauteed in a little garlic and olive oil, and filets that I'm going to throw on the grill. This is my one day a week to eat beef, so tough luck if it's not yours. I even sprung for a bottle of really nice wine, something Janet and I discovered.'
'Since when can FBI agents afford nice wine?'
'Hey,' she said, 'I don't do too bad. Besides, I'm too damn busy to spend money.' Certainly, she didn't spend it on clothes. Whenever I saw her, she was either in khaki fatigues or sweats. Now and then she wore jeans and a funky jacket or blazer, and
made fun of my offers of hand-me-downs. She would not wear my lawyerly suits and blouses with high collars, and frankly, my figure was fuller than her firm, athletic one. Probably nothing in my closet would fit.
The moon was huge and low in a cloudy, dark sky. We put on jackets and sat out on the deck drinking wine while Lucy cooked. She had started baked potatoes first, and they were taking a while, so we talked. Over recent years, our relationship had become less mother-daughter as we evolved into colleagues and friends. The transition was not an easy one, for often she taught me and even worked on some of my cases. I felt oddly lost, no longer certain of my role and power in her life.
'Wesley wants me to track this AOL thing,' she was saying. 'Sussex definitely wants
CASKU's help.'
'Do you know Percy Ring?' I asked as I thought of what he had said in my office, infuriated again.
'He was in one of my classes and was obnoxious, wouldn't shut up.' She reached for the bottle of wine. 'What a peacock.'
She began filling our glasses. Raising the hood of the grill, she poked potatoes with a fork.
'I believe we're ready,' she said, pleased.
Moments later, she was emerging from the house, carrying the filets. They sizzled as she placed them on the grill. 'Somehow he figured out you're my aunt.' She was talking about Ring again. 'Not that it's a secret, and he asked me about it after class once. You know, if you tutored me, helped me out with my cases, like I couldn't possibly do what I'm doing on my own, that sort of thing. I just think he picks on me because I'm a new agent and a woman.'
'That may be the biggest miscalculation he's ever made in his life,' I said.
'And he wanted to know if I was married.' Her eyes were shadowed as porch lights shone on one side of her face.
'I worry about what his interest really is,' I commented.
She glanced at me as she cooked. 'The usual.' She shrugged it off, for she was surrounded by men and paid no attention to their comments or their stares.
'Lucy, he made a reference to you in my office today,' I said. 'A veiled reference.'
'To what?'
'Your status. Your roommate.'
No matter how often or delicately we talked about this, she always got frustrated and impatient.
'Whether it's true or not,' she said, and the sizzling of the grill seemed to match her tone, 'there would still be rumors because I'm an agent. It's ridiculous. I know women married with kids, and the guys think all of them are gay, too, just because they're cops, agents, troopers, secret service. Some people even think it about you. For the same reason. Because of your position, your power.'
'This is not about accusations,' I reminded her, gently. 'This is about whether someone could hurt you. Ring is very smooth. He comes across as credible. I expect he resents that you're FBI, HRT and he's not.'
'I think he's already demonstrated that.' Her voice was hard.
'I just hope the jerk doesn't keep asking you out.'
'Oh, he already is. At least half a dozen times.' She sat down. 'He's even asked Janet out, if you can believe that.' She laughed. 'Talk about not getting it.'
'The problem is I think he does get it,' I said, ominously. 'It's like he's building a case against you, gathering evidence.'
'Well, gather away.' She abruptly ended our discussion. 'So tell me what else went on today.'
I told her what I had learned at the labs, and we talked about fibers embedded in bone and Koss's analysis of them as we carried steaks and wine inside. We sat at the kitchen table with a candle lit, digesting information few people would serve with food.
'A cheap motel curtain could have a backing like that,' Lucy said.
'That or something like a drop cloth, because of the paint-like substance,' I replied.
'The spinach is wonderful. Where did you get it?'