Читать книгу Flesh and Blood - Patricia Cornwell - Страница 21

He signed the lease this past Monday, agreeing to the asking price and three months’ rent in advance. Jamal Nari paid twelve thousand dollars so he and his wife could get in instantly.

Usually a renter has an attorney review a contract—especially a renter who has experience with litigation and has no reason to be trusting. But he was in too much of a hurry according to Realtor Mary Sapp, who has completely rerouted us. Across the Harvard Bridge, on Massachusetts Avenue now, and Marino is driving fast. He’s flying. Whenever a car doesn’t get out of his way, he flips on his emergency lights and whelps the siren.

It doesn’t matter that we’ve entered Boston and he’s left his jurisdiction without letting a Cambridge dispatcher know. He’s requested a backup from Boston PD and he hasn’t bothered telling Machado or anyone else what is going on. Nor is he concerned that I’m not headed to my office when I have cases to supervise, where I have a job and my own responsibilities and my own problems to worry about. He didn’t ask if my coming along for the ride is okay and I message Bryce Clark that I’ve been held up.

OMG! Do you mean robbed? he fires back, and I don’t know if he’s trying to be funny.

I’m with Marino. How is Luke doing?

Finished with post but assume you don’t want him released? I mean case from Farrar Street, not Luke.

Do not release, I reply as I overhear what Marino is asking Mary Sapp. I need to take a look at him.

Marino is reassuring the Realtor that she is safe as long as she stays inside the house. But she doesn’t sound as if she’s worried about being safe. She doesn’t sound afraid. In fact she sounds something else. Dramatic, overly charming and helpful. It occurs to me that she might be enjoying herself.

No funeral home picked out anyway. Another message from Bryce appears in a gray balloon.

Then don’t ask me if he should be released yet, I think but I’m not going to put that in writing.

I talked to the wife. She’s in a fugue state, doesn’t have a clue what to do no matter what I tell her, Bryce writes and he shouldn’t editorialize.

Will let you know when I’m headed in. I end our dialogue.

“… I probably wouldn’t have thought much about it except for what’s all over the news.” Mary Sapp’s voice fills the car, a voice that is too cheerful in light of the circumstances.

Already I don’t have a good opinion of her.

“I’m glad you’re thinking about it and are smart enough to stay put inside the house.” Marino encourages her to do as he says. “And you’re sure about the description.”

“Oh yes. Yesterday around two or three in the afternoon. I was doing another walk-through of the house, taking more photographs, making notes, making sure they didn’t damage anything when they dropped by,” she replies.

“Dropped by for what?”

“She’s been carrying in boxes of their belongings. Sometimes people scuff and bang up a place and then claim it already was like that before.”

“What you’re saying is it wasn’t the two of them. It was just Joanna dropping by.”

“That’s right. I only met him once, when I first showed them the house about a week ago. The rest of the time I’ve dealt with her.”

“And at around two or three yesterday afternoon you saw the truck.”

“When I happened to look out the window, I noticed it drive by. A big gray pickup truck with a sign of some sort on the door.”

“Any particular reason you noticed it?” Marino asks.

“It was going so slowly that I thought it was going to stop in front of the house. Some type of lawn care company and then there it was again this morning when I was meeting with Joanna.”