Black Notice

19

The tiny moon-eyes from the dead man's skin glowed in my mind. They looked out from that deep, off-limits place where I stored my fears, which were many and of a kind not felt by anyone else I knew. Wind shook bare trees and clouds streamed like banners across the sky as a cold front rushed in.

I had heard on the news the temperature might dip into the twenties that night, which seemed impossible after weeks that felt like fall. It seemed everything was out of balance and abnormal in my life. Lucy wasn't Lucy so I couldn't call her and she wasn't speaking to me. Marino was working a homicide even though he wasn't a detective anymore, and Benton was gone, and everywhere I looked for him I found an empty frame. I still waited for his car to drive up, for the phone to ring, for the sound of his voice, because it was too soon for my heart to accept what my brain knew.

I turned off the Downtown Expressway onto Cary Street, and as I drove past a shopping center and the Venice Restaurant, I became aware of a car behind me. It was driving very slowly and too far away for me to tell anything about the person behind the wheel. Instinct told me to slow down, and when I did, so did the car. I turned right on Cary Street, and the car stayed with me. When I took a left into Windsor Farms, there it was, maintaining the same safe distance.

I didn't want to get any deeper into this neighborhood because the roads were winding and narrow and dark. There were many cul-de-sacs. I took a right on Dover and dialed Marino's number as the car turned right, too, and my fear grew.

"Marino," I said out loud to nobody there. "Be home, Marino."

I ended the call and tried again.

"Marino! Goddamn it, be home!" I said to the handsfree phone in the dashboard as Marino's clunky cordless phone inside his house rang and rang.

He probably had it parked by the TV, as usual. Half the time he couldn't find it because he didn't return it to its base. Maybe he wasn't home yet.

"What?" his loud voice surprised me.

"It's me. "

"Goddamn-mother-fucking-son-of-a-bitch. If I hit my knee on that goddamn table one more time…!"

"Marino, listen to me!"

"Once more and it's out in the yard and I'm gonna smash the shit out of it with a hammer! Right in the fucking kneecap! I can't see the fucking thing 'cause it's glass and guess who said it would look so nice there?"

"Calm down," I exclaimed, watching the car in my mirror.

"I've had three beers and I'm hungry and tired as hell. What?" he asked.

"There's someone following me."

I turned right on Windsor Way, heading back to Cary Street. I drove at a normal speed. I did nothing out of the ordinary except not head for my house.

"What do you mean, someone's following you?" Marino asked.

"What the hell do you think I mean?" I said as my anxiety heated up more.

"Then head this way right now," he said. "Get out of that dark neighborhood of yours." “I am.” "Can you see a plate number or anything?"

"No. He's too far behind me. It seems he's deliberately staying far enough behind me so I can't read the tag or see his face."

I got back on the expressway, heading to the Powhite Parkway, and the person tailin$ me apparently gave up and turned off somewhere. Lights of moving cars and trucks and the iridescent paint on signs were confusing, and my heart was beating hard. The half-moon slipped in and out of clouds like a button, and gusts of wind rushed the side of the car like linebackers.

I dialed my answering service at home. I had three hangups and a fourth message that was a slap in the face.

"Chief Bray here," it began. "So nice to run into you at Buckhead's. I have a few policy and procedural issues to discuss with you. Managing crime scenes and evidence, and so on. I've been meaning to discuss them with you, Kay„ The sound of my first name coming out of her mouth infuriated me.

"Maybe we can have lunch in the next few days," her recorded voice went on. "A nice private lunch at the Commonwealth Club?"

My home phone number was unlisted and I was very careful who I gave it to, but it was no riddle how she'd gotten it. My staff, including Ruffin, had to be able to reach me at home.

"In case you haven't heard," Bray's message went on, "Al Carson resigned today. You remember him, I'm sure? Deputy chief of investigations. A real shame. Major Inman will be acting deputy chief."

I slowed at a toll booth and tossed a token into the bin. I moved on and a beat-up Toyota full of teenaged boys stared boldly at me as they passed. One of them mouthed motherfiucker for no apparent reason.

I concentrated on the road as I thought about what Wagner had said. Someone was pressuring Representative Connors to push legislation that would transfer my office out of Health and Human Services and into Public Safety, where the police department would have more control over me.

Women could not join the prestigious Commonwealth Club, where half of the major business deals and politics affecting Virginia were made by male power brokers with old family names. Rumor had it that these men, many of whom I knew, congregated around the indoor swimming pool, most of them naked. They bartered and pontificated in the locker room, a forum where women weren't allowed.

Since Bray couldn't walk through the door of that ivydraped eighteenth-century club unless she was the guest of a member, my suspicions about her ultimate ambition we s virtually confirmed. Bray was lobbying members of the General Assembly and powerful businessmen. She wanted to be the Secretary of Public Safety and have my office transferred to that secretariat. Then she could fire me herself.

I reached Midlothian Turnpike and could see Marino's house long before I got near it. His gaudy, outrageous Christmas decorations, including some three hundred thousand lights, glowed above the horizon like an amusement park. All one had to do was follow the steady traffic heading that way, because Marino's house had risen to number one on Richmond's annual Christmas Tacky Tour. People couldn't resist coming to see what was truly an amazing sight.

Lights of every color were sprinkled in trees like,neon candy. Santas, snowmen, trains and toy soldiers glowed in the yard, and gingerbread cookies held hands. Candy canes brightly stood sentry along his sidewalk, and lights spelled out Season's Greetings and Think Snow on the roof. In a part of the yard where scarcely a flower grew and grass was patchy brown all year long, Marino had planted happy electric gardens. There was the North Pole, where Mr. and Mrs. Claus seemed to be discussing plans, and nearby choirboys sang while flamingos perched on the chimney and ice skaters twirled around a spruce.

A white limousine crept past, followed by a church van, as I hurried up his front steps, feeling irradiated and trapped in a spotlight.

"Every time I see this, it confirms you've lost your mind," I said when Marino came to the door and I quickly ducked away from curious eyes. "Last year was bad enough."

"I'm up to three fuse boxes," he proudly announced.

He was in jeans and socks and a red- flannel shirt with the tail hanging out.

"Least I can come home and something makes me happy," he said. "Pizza's on the way. I got bourbon if you want some."

"What pizza?"

"One I ordered. Everything on it. My treat. Papa John's, don't even need my address anymore. They just follow the lights."

"What about hot decaffeinated tea," I said, quite certain he would have no such thing.

"You got to be kidding," he replied.

I looked around as we walked through the living room into his small kitchen. Of course, he had decorated the inside of his house, too. The tree was up and flickering by the fireplace. Presents, almost all of them fake, were piled high, and every window was framed by strands of red chili pepper lights.

"Bray called me," I said, filling the teakettle with water. "Someone gave her my home number."

"Guess who." He yanked open the refrigerator door, his good mood retreating fast.

"And I think I might know why that happened."

I set the kettle on the stove and turned on the burner. Lights flickered.

"Deputy Chief Carson resigned today. Or supposedly resigned," I said.

Marino popped open a beer. If he was aware of this news, he didn't show it.

"Did you know he quit?" I asked.

"I don't know nothing anymore."

"Apparently Major Inman is the acting deputy chief…"

"Oh, of course, of course," Marino loudly said. "And you know why? Because there're two majors, one in uniform, the other in investigations, so of course Bray sends her boy from uniform in there to take over investigations."

He'd finished the beer in what seemed three gulps. He violently crushed the can and threw it into the trash. He missed, and the can clattered across the floor.

"You got any. idea what that means?" he said. "Well, let me tell you. It means Bray now's running uniform and investigations, meaning she's running the entire fucking department and probably controlling the entire budget, too. And the chief's her biggest fan because she makes him look good. Tell me how this woman comes in and not even three months later can do all that?"

"Clearly she's got connections. Probably did before she took this job. And I don't mean just to the chief."

"Well, to who then?"

"Marino, it could be anyone. It doesn't matter at this point. It's too late for it to matter. Now we have to contend with her, not the chief. Her, not the person who might have pulled strings."

He popped open another beer, angrily pacing the kitchen.

"Now I know why Carson showed up at the scene," he said. "He knew this was coming. He knows how bad this shit stinks and maybe he was trying to warn us in his own way, or just signing off. His career's over. The end. Last crime scene. Last everything."

"He's such a good man," I said. "Goddamn it, Marino. There's got to be something we can do."

His phone rang, startling me. The sound of cars on the street out front was a steady rumble of engines. Marino's continuous tinny Christmas music was playing "Jingle Bells" again.

"Bray wants to talk to me about so-called changes she's instigating," I told him.

"Oh, I'm sure she does," he said, his stocking feet padding across linoleum. "And I guess you're just supposed to drop everything when she suddenly wants to have you for lunch, which is what she's gonna do, have you between rye with lots уf mustard."

He grabbed the phone.

"What?" he yelled at the poor person on the other end.

"Uh huh, uh huh. Yeah;" Marino said, listening.

I rummaged in cabinets and found one smashed box of Lipton tea bags.

"I'm here. Why the hell don't you talk to me?" Marino indignantly said into the phone.

He listened, pacing about.

"Now that's a good one," he said. "Hold on a minute. Let me just ask her."

He put his hand over the receiver and asked in a hushed voice, "Are you sure you're Dr. Scarpetta?"

He got back to the person on the phone. "She says she was last time she checked," and he irritably shoved the receiver my way.

"Yes?" I asked.

"Dr. Scarpetta?" an unfamiliar voice said. Here.

"I'm Ted Francisco, ATF field office in Miami"

I froze as if someone were pointing a. gun at me.

"Lucy told me Captain Marino might know where you are if we couldn't reach you at home. Can you speak to her?"

"Of course," I said, alarmed.

"Aunt Kay?" Her voice came over the line.

"Lucy! What is it?" I said. "Are you all right?"

"I don't know if you heard what happened down here…"

"I haven't heard anything;" I quickly said as Marino stopped what he was doing and stared at me.

"Our takedown. It didn't go right, too much to go into, but it went really, really bad. I had to kill two of them. Jo got shot."

"Oh, dear God," I said. "Please tell me she's all right."

"I don't know," she said with a steadiness that was completely abnormal. "They have her in Jackson Memorial under some other name and I can't call her. They've got me in isolation because they're afraid the others will try to find us. Retribution. The cartel. All I know is she was bleeding from her head and leg, unconscious when the ambulance got her."

Lucy registered no emotion at all. She sounded like one of the robots or artificial intelligence computers she had programmed at earlier times in her career.

"I'll get…" I started to say when Agent.Francisco suddenly was back on the line.

"I know you're going to hear about this on the news, Dr. Scarpetta, and I wanted to make sure you knew. Especially that Lucy's not hurt."

"Maybe not physically;" I said.

"I want to tell you exactly what will happen next."

"What will happen next," I interrupted him, "is I'm flying down there immediately. I'll get a private, plane if I have to."

"I'd like to ask you not to do that," he said. "Let me explain. This is a very, very vicious group, and Lucy and Jo know far too much about them, about who some of them are and how they do business. Within hours of the shooting, we sent a Miami-Dade bomb squad to Lucy and Jo's respective undercover residences and our bomb dog detected pipe bombs wired under each of their cars."

I pulled a chair out from Marino's kitchen table and sat down. I felt weak all over. My vision was blurred.

"Are you there?" he said.

"Yes, yes."

"What's happening right now, Dr. Scacpetta, is MiamiDade is working the cases, just as you might expect, and normally, we'd have a shooting review team on its way in addition to peer support guys-agents who have been involved in critical incidents and are trained to work with other agents going through things like this. But because of the threat level, we're sending Lucy north, to D.C., to wherever she's safe."

"Thank you for taking such good care of her. God bless you," I said in a voice that didn't sound like me.

"Look, I know how you feel," Agent Francisco said. "I promise you I do. I was at Waco."

"Thank you," I said again. "What will DEA do with Jo?"

"Transfer her to another hospital a million miles away from here as soon as we can:" ."What about MCV?" I asked.

"I'm not familiar…"

"Her family lives in Richmond, as you may know, but more to the point, MCV is excellent and I'm on the faculty," I said. "If you get her here, I'll personally make sure she's well taken care of."

He hesitated, then said, "Thank you. I will take that under advisement and discuss it with her supervisor."

When he hung up, I stood staring at the phone.

"What?" Marino asked.

"The takedown went haywire. Lucy shot two people to death..;'.

"Was it a good shooting?" he cut me off.

"No shooting is good!"

"Goddamn it, Doc, you know what I mean. Was it justified? Don't tell me she fucking shot two agents by accident!"

"No, of course not. Jo was shot. I'm not sure of her condition."

"Fuck!" he exclaimed, pounding his fist so hard on the kitchen counter dishes rattled in the drain board. "Lucy just had to go slug it out with somebody, didn't she? They shouldn't have even had her in a takedown like this! I coulda told them that! She's just been waiting to shoot the shit out of someone, to go in like a damn cowboy with pistols blazing to pay back everyone she hates in life…!"

"Marino, stop it."

"You saw what she was like at your house the other night," he railed on. "She's been a damn psycho ever since Benson got killed. There's no payback that's enough, not even shooting that damn helicopter out of the air and chumming the water with Carrie Grethen's and Newton Joyce's pieces and parts." 'That's enough;' I said, exhausted. "Please, Marino. This isn't helping anything. Lucy's a professional, and you know that. ATF would never have given her an assignment like this if she weren't. They know her story very well and evaluated and counseled. her extensively after what happened to Benton and all the rest of it. In fact, low she handled that entire nightmare only gave them more respect for her as both an agent and a human being:"

He was silent as he opened a bottle of Jack Daniel's.

Then he said, "Well, you and I know she ain't handling it so well."

"Lucy has always been able to compartmentalize."

"Yeah, and how healthy is that?"

"I guess we should ask each other that."

"But I'm telling you right now, this time she ain't gonna handle it well, Doc," he said, splashing bourbon into a glass and dropping in several ice cubes. "She killed two people in the line of duty barely a year ago, and now she's just done. it again. Most guys go their entire careers and don't even take a shot at somebody. That's why I'm trying to make you understand it's gonna be viewed differently this time. The big guys in Washington are gonna consider that maybe they got a gunslinger on their hands, someone who's a problem."

He handed the drink to me.

"I've known cops, agents like that," he said.. "They always have justifiable reasons for judicial homicide, but if you look hard at it, you begin to get the drift that they subconsciously set things up to go bad. They thrive on it."

"Lucy's not like that."

"Yeah, she's only been pissed off since the day she was born. And by the way, you ain't going anywhere tonight. You're staying here with me and Father Christmas."

He poured himself a bourbon, too, and we went into his shabby, crowded living room with:its crooked lampshades, its dusty, bent Venetian blinds and the sharp-cornered glass coffee table he blamed on me. He dropped into his recliner chair, which was so old he had repaired splits in the brown Naugahyde with duct tape, I remembered the first time I walked into his house. After recovering from the dismay, I realized he was proud of how thoroughly he wore everything out, except for his truck, aboveground pool, and now his Christmas decorations.

He caught me staring dismally at his chair as -I curled up in a corner of the green corduroy couch I tended to choose. It might have been missing its wale wherever bodies came in touch with it, but it was cozy.

"One day I'll get a new one of these," he said, pushing down the lever on the side of the chair and sliding the footrest out.

He wiggled his stocking feet as if his toes were cramped, and flicked on the TV I was surprised when he changed the channel to twenty-one; the Arts amp; Entertainment network.

"I didn't know you watched Biography," I said.

"Oh yeah. And the real-life cops shows they usually got on. This may sound like I been sniffing glue, but does it strike you how everything in the world's gone to hell ever since Bray came to town?"

"I'm sure it would strike you that way, after what she's been doing to you."

"Huh. And she's not been doing the same thing to you?" he challenged, sipping his drink. "I'm not the only person in this room she's trying to ruin."

"I don't think she has the power to cause everything else going on in fife," I replied.

"Let me just run through the list for you, Doc, and make sure to remember we're talking about a three-month period, okay? She arrives in Richmond. I get thrown back in uniform. You suddenly have a thief in your office. You have a snitch who breaks into your e-mail and turns you into Dear Abby.

"Then this dead guy shows up in a container and Interpol's suddenly in the picture, and now Lucy kills two people, which is convenient for Bray, by the way. Don't forget, she's been all hot and bothered about getting Lucy to sign on with Richmond, and if ATF throws Lucy back like a fish, she's gonna need a job. And oh yeah, now someone's following you."

I watched a young, gorgeous Liberace playing the piano and singing while a voice-over of a friend talked about what a kind, generous man the musician had been.

"You're not listening to me;" Marino raised his voice again.

"I'm listening."

He heaved himself ъp again with an exasperated huff and padded into the kitchen.

"Have we heard anything from Interpol?" I called out as he made a lot of noise tearing open paper and rummaging through the silverware drawer.

"Nothing worth passing on."

The microwave hummed.

"It would be nice if you'd pass it on anyway," I said, annoyed.

Stage lights caught Liberace blowing kisses to his audience and his sequins flashed like an intense red and gold fireworks display. Marino walked back into the living room with a bowl of ruffled potato chips and a container of some sort of dip.

"The guy at State Police got a computer message back from them within an hour. They just requested more info, that's all:" 'That tells us a lot," I said, disappointed. "That probably means they didn't get a hit on anything significant. The old fracture of the jaw, the unusual accessory cusp of the Carabelli, not to mention fingerprints. None of it matched up with anybody wanted or missing."

"Yeah. It's a pisser," he said, his mouth full as he held out the bowl to me.

"No, thanks:' "It's really good. What you do is soften the cream cheese in the microwave first and put in jalapeiнos. It's a lot better for you than onion dip."

"I'm sure."

"You know, I always liked him:' He pointed a greasy finger at the TV "I don't care if he was queer. You gotta admit he had style. If people are gonna pay all that money for records and concert tickets, by God they ought to get people who don't look and act like some schmoe on the street.

"Let me tell you," Marino said with his mouth full, "shootings are a bitch. You get investigated as if you made an attempt on the damn president, and then there's all the counseling and everybody worrying about your mental health so much it makes you crazy."

He threw back bourbon and crunched more chips.

"She's gonna get some time on the bricks," he went on, using cop jargon for involuntary time off. "And Miami detectives are gonna work it like they always work homicides. Got to. And everything will have the hell reviewed out of it"

He looked over at me, wiping his hands.on his jeans.

"I know this won't make you feel good, but maybe you're the. last person she wants to see right now," he said.