Читать книгу Depraved Heart - Patricia Cornwell - Страница 11

Eight minutes into the video and all I see is Lucy’s empty dorm room. I again try to save the file or pause it. I can’t. It just keeps playing like life passing by with nothing to show for it.

Now nine minutes into the clip and the dorm room is exactly the same, empty and quiet, but in the background the firing ranges are busy. Gunshots pop and I can see glaring light seeping around the edges of the white blinds closed the wrong way. The sun is directly in the windows and I remember Lucy’s room faced west. It’s late afternoon.

Pop-Pop. Pop-Pop.

I detect the rumbling noise of traffic driving by four floors below on J. Edgar Hoover Road, the main drag that runs through the middle of the FBI Academy. Rush hour. Classes ending for the day. Cops, agents coming in from the ranges. For an instant I imagine I smell the sharp banana odor of isoamyl acetate, of Hoppe’s gun-cleaning solvent. I smell burnt gunpowder as if it’s all around me. I feel the sultry Virginia heat and hear the static of insects where cartridge cases shine silver and gold in the sun-warmed grass. It all comes back to me powerfully, and then at last something happens.

The video has a title sequence. It begins to roll by very slowly:

DEPRAVED HEART—SCENE 1

BY CARRIE GRETHEN

QUANTICO, VIRGINIA—JULY 11, 1997

The name is jolting. It’s infuriating to see it in bold red type going by ever so slowly, languidly, dripping down the screen pixel-by-pixel like a slow-motion bleed. Music has been added. Karen Carpenter is singing “We’ve Only Just Begun.” It’s obnoxious to score the video to that angelic voice, to those gentle Paul Williams lyrics.

Such a sweet loving song permuted into a threat, a mockery, a promise of more injury to come, of misery, harassment and possibly death. Carrie Grethen is flaunting and taunting. She’s giving me the finger. I haven’t listened to the Carpenters in years but in the old days I wore out their cassettes and CDs. I wonder if Carrie knew that. She probably did. So this is the next installment of what she must have put into the works a long time ago.

I feel the challenge and my response bubbling up like molten lava, and I’m keenly aware of my rage, of my lust to destroy the most reprehensible and treacherous female offender I’ve ever come across. For the past thirteen years I hadn’t given her a thought, not since I witnessed her die in a helicopter crash. Or I believed I did. But I was wrong. She was never in that flying machine, and when I found that out it was one of the worst things I’ve ever had to accept. It’s like being told your fatal disease is no longer in remission. Or that some horrific tragedy wasn’t just a bad dream.

So now Carrie continues what she’s started. Of course she would, and I remember my husband Benton’s recent warnings about bonding with her, about talking to her in my mind and settling into the easy belief that she doesn’t plan to finish what she started. She doesn’t want to kill me because she’s planned something worse. She doesn’t want to rid the earth of me or she would have this past June. Benton is a criminal intelligence analyst for the FBI, what people still call a profiler. He thinks I’ve identified with the aggressor. He suggests I’m suffering from Stockholm syndrome. He’s been suggesting it a lot of late. Every time he does we get into an argument.

“Doc? How we doing in here?” The approaching male voice is carried by the papery sounds of plasticized booties. “I’m ready to do the walk-through if you are.”

“Not yet,” I reply as Karen Carpenter continues to sing in my earpiece.

Workin’ together day to day, together, together …

He lumbers into the foyer. Peter Rocco Marino. Or Marino as most people refer to him, including me. Or Pete although I’ve never called him that and I’m not sure why except we didn’t start out as friends. Then there’s bastardo when he’s a jerk, and asshole when he’s one of those. About six-foot-three, at least 250 pounds with tree trunk thighs and hands as big as hubcaps, he has a massive presence that confuses my metaphors.

His face is broad and weathered with strong white teeth, an action hero jaw, a bullish neck and a chest as wide as a door. He has on a gray Harley-Davidson polo shirt, Herman Munster–size sneakers, tube socks, and khaki shorts that are baggy with bulging cargo pockets. Clipped to his belt are his badge and pistol but he doesn’t need credentials to do whatever he wants and get the respect he demands.

Marino is a cop without borders. His jurisdiction may be Cambridge but he finds ways to extend his legal reach far beyond the privileged boundaries of MIT and Harvard, beyond the luminaries who live here and the tourists who don’t. He shows up anywhere he’s invited and more often where he’s not. He has a problem with boundaries. He’s always had a problem with mine.

“Thought you’d want to know the marijuana is medical. I got no idea where she got it.” His bloodshot eyes move over the body, the bloody marble floor, and then land on my chest, his favorite place to park his attention.

It doesn’t matter if I have on scrubs, Tyvek, a surgical gown, a lab coat or am bundled up for a blizzard. Marino is going to help himself and openly stare.

“Bud, tinctures, what looks like foil-wrapped candies.” He hunches a big shoulder to wipe sweat dripping off his chin.

“So I heard.” I watch what’s playing out in my phone’s display, and I’m beginning to wonder if this is all there is, just Lucy’s empty dorm room with the light caught in the slats of the blinds and Mister Pickle looking misunderstood and isolated on the bed.

“It’s in a really old wooden box I found hidden under a bunch of shit in her bedroom closet,” Marino says.

“I’ll get there but not now. And why would she hide medical marijuana?”

“Because maybe she didn’t get it legally. Maybe so the housekeeper wouldn’t steal it. I don’t know. But it will be interesting to see what her tox is, how high her THC is. That could explain why she decided to climb up a ladder and monkey with lightbulbs in the middle of the night.”

“You’ve been talking to Hyde too much.”

“Maybe she fell and that’s really all that happened. It’s a logical thing to consider,” Marino says.

“Not in my opinion. And we don’t know if it was the middle of the night. I frankly doubt it. If she died at midnight or later that would put her death at eight hours or less by the time she was found. And I’m certain she’s been dead longer than that.”

“With it so hot in here it isn’t possible to know how long she’s been dead.”

“Almost true but not quite,” I reply. “I’ll figure it out as we get deeper into the investigation.”

“But we can’t this minute say exactly how long. And that’s a big problem because her mother’s going to demand answers. She’s not someone you guess with.”

“I don’t guess. I estimate. In this case I’m estimating more than twelve hours and less than forty-eight,” I reply. “That’s as good as it’s going to get right now.”

“A powerhouse like her? A huge producer like Amanda Gilbert’s not going to be happy with an answer like that.”

“I’m not worried about the mother.” I’m getting annoyed with Hollywood this, Hollywood that. “But I am worried about what really happened here because what I’m seeing doesn’t add up. The time of death is a free-for-all. The details are arguing with each other. I’m not sure I’ve ever seen anything quite so confusing, and maybe that’s the point.”

“Whose point?”

“I don’t know.”

“The high yesterday was ninety-three. The low last night was eighty-two.” I feel Marino’s eyes on me as he adds, “The housekeeper swears she last saw Chanel Gilbert yesterday around four P.M.”

“She swore that to Hyde before we got here. Then she left,” I remind him of that.

It’s not our habit to take another person’s word for anything if we can help it. Marino should have talked to the housekeeper himself. I’m sure he will before the day is out.

“She said she saw Chanel pass her on the driveway, heading to the house in the red Range Rover that’s out there now,” Marino repeats what he’s been told. “So assuming she died at some point after four o’clock yesterday afternoon and was already in bad shape this morning by quarter of eight? That works with what you estimate? Twelve hours or maybe longer.”

“It doesn’t work,” I say to him as I watch my phone. “And why do you continue to refer to her dying in the middle of the night?”

“The way she’s dressed,” Marino says. “Naked with nothing but a silk robe on. Like she was ready for bed.”

“With no gown or pajamas on?”

“A lot of women sleep naked.”

“They do?”

“Well maybe she did, and what the hell are you looking at on your phone?” He confronts me in his usual blunt way that more often than not is plain rude. “Since when are you glued to your phone at a scene? Is everything all right?”

“There may be a problem with Lucy.”

“What’s new?”

“I hope it’s nothing.”

“It usually is.”

“I need to check on her.”

“That’s nothing new either.”

“Please don’t trivialize this.” I look at my phone and not him.

“Thing is I don’t know what this is. What the hell is going on?”

“I don’t know yet. But something’s wrong.”

“Whatever you think.” He says it as if he doesn’t care about Lucy but that couldn’t be further from the truth.

Marino was the closest thing she had to a father. He taught her how to drive, how to shoot, not to mention how to deal with bigoted rednecks because that’s what Marino was when we first met in Virginia long ago. He was a chauvinistic homophobe who would try to steal Lucy’s girlfriends until he finally saw the error in his ways. Now despite his disparagements and insults, despite how he might pretend otherwise, he is Lucy’s biggest defender. In his own way he loves her.

“Do me a favor and tell Bryce I need Rusty and Harold here right away. Let’s get the body to my office now.” I tilt my phone so Marino can’t see the video playing on it, so he can’t see the empty FBI Academy dorm room with its small green stuffed bear that he’s sure to recognize.

“But you got the truck.” He has an accusing tone in his voice as if I’m keeping something from him, which I am.

“I want my transport team to handle this,” I reply and it’s not a request. “I’m not doing it or going to the office straight from here and neither are you. I need you to help me with Lucy.”

Marino crouches close to the body, keeping clear of the dark sticky blood, swatting at flies, the droning of them constant and maddening. “As long as you’re sure Lucy’s more important than this case? As long as you’re asking Luke to do the post?”

“Is this multiple choice?”

“I just don’t understand what you’re doing, Doc.”

I inform him that either my deputy chief Luke Zenner will do the autopsy or I will when I finally get to the office. But that may not be until this afternoon, possibly midafternoon or the end of the day.

“What the hell?” Marino is getting louder. “I don’t get it. Why aren’t you transporting the body to the office yourself so we can know what the hell happened to her before her Hollywood mother shows up?”

“I have to leave and come back.”

“I don’t see why you can’t take the body first.”

“As I’ve already said my first stop won’t be the CFC. We need to head to Concord and obviously I can’t be driving around with a body in the back of the truck. It needs to go into the cooler right away.” I make that point again. “And Harold and Rusty need to get here now.”

“I don’t get it,” he says yet again, this time with a scowl. “You’re rolling out of here in a freakin’ double-wide and not going straight to the CFC? You got a hair appointment? Getting your nails done? You and Lucy are hitting the spa?”

“You didn’t really just say that.”

“I’m kidding. Anybody can look at you and know I was just kidding. You haven’t bothered with shit for months.” Marino’s voice is flinty with anger, with judgment, and I feel it starting up again.

Blame the victim. Punish me for almost dying. Make it my fault.

“And what is that supposed to mean?” I ask him.

“It means you’ve sort of let yourself go. Not that I don’t understand it. I’m sure it’s not easy moving around, at least not as easy as it was. I’m sure it’s hard to dress, to fix yourself up.”

“Yes it’s been a little difficult to fix myself up,” I reply dryly, and it’s true that my hair could use styling and a trim.

My nails are short and unpolished. I didn’t bother putting on makeup when I left the house earlier this morning. I’m a bit thinner than I was before I got shot. But this isn’t the time or place to pick on me, and that has never stopped Marino, not in all the years I’ve known him. But he’s sunk to an all-time low criticizing my appearance at a death scene while I’m worried sick about my niece. He should simply take my word for it when I say it’s important we get to her right away. He doesn’t trust me the way he once did. And that’s the problem.

“Jesus. Where’s your sense of humor?” he says after one of my long silences.

“I didn’t bring it with me.” I’m so on edge it’s all I can do to control the level of my voice, and the marble floor seems to radiate through my boot, stiffening my right leg.

It aches and throbs like an abscessed tooth. I almost can’t bend my knee, and the longer I stand here the worse everything gets.

“I’m sorry. I wasn’t trying to piss you off but you’re not making sense, Doc,” Marino says. “I’m assuming you’re doing her autopsy like right away? Before her mother gets here with a million questions and demands? Isn’t that a little more important than dropping by Concord to check on Lucy? Unless she’s sick or hurt or something? I mean do you know what’s the matter?”

“I don’t. That’s why we need to check.”

“We sure as hell don’t want a problem with Amanda Gilbert and she’s exactly the sort to give us one. And of all times? You don’t need to be causing problems. I’ll just say it because you don’t need …”

“I’m well aware of what I don’t need.” I watch my phone and avoid looking at him.

Marino interrogates and lectures me like this because he can. At one time he was my chief investigator until he decided he didn’t want to work for me anymore. He knows my office routines and protocols. He knows exactly how I think. He knows the way I do things and why. Yet suddenly I’m an enigma. I’m from another planet and this has been going on since June.

“I want her transported now and it can’t be me doing it,” I say to him. “I’ve got to get to Concord. We need to leave as soon as possible.”

“Okay.” He gets up and looks down at the body for a long moment as I stare at the display on my phone.

The title sequence is long gone. The music has stopped. I continue to be confronted with Lucy’s empty dorm room from what seems half a life ago, and my tension and frustration build. I’m being teased, goaded, tortured, and it occurs to me that Carrie would be hugely amused if she could see me now, if she could spy on me the same way she did on Lucy.

“I admit she looks pretty damn bad for falling what? Not even six feet?” Marino says next. “Drugs and then she’s got a lot of occult shit all over the place. So no telling the company she keeps. I agree with you this case has some aspects that don’t add up in a good way.”

“Please make the call now.” I’m riveted to my phone.

I’m vaguely aware of the sound of him walking away, of him getting hold of my chief of staff Bryce Clark as I watch the seconds tick by. Ten minutes into Carrie Grethen’s cinematic gift and already I know I’m being harassed and manipulated, that she’s having sadistic fun at my expense. But I can’t resist.

I don’t know what else to do but watch, to give myself up to it as I linger inside the foyer feeling Chanel Gilbert’s morbid presence and the pain in my leg. I look down at my phone, watching a segment of my niece’s past go by in the palm of my ungloved hand. I smell decomposing flesh and blood breaking down. I’m sweating and chilled as I watch the video and think this can’t be real.

But it is. There can be no question as I recognize the dorm room’s blank walls, the two windows on either side of the bed, and of course Mister Pickle perched on the pillow. I can see the closed door that leads into the dormitory’s fourth-floor hallway, the light shining in from the right where there’s a bathroom. Only VIP guest quarters had private baths. Lucy was a VIP to me and that’s how I mandated she would be treated by the Feds.

She occupied this room from 1995 through 1998, not constantly. But on and off while she finished the University of Virginia, working for the FBI’s Engineering Research Facility (ERF) almost the entire time. Quantico was her home away from home. Carrie Grethen was her mentor. The FBI placed the niece I raised like a daughter into a psychopathic monster’s care, and that decision changed the course of our lives. It has changed absolutely everything.