Black Notice

27

Rose had grieved when her husband died, and I thought t she would fall apart when she'd had to put down one of her greyhounds. Yet somehow she'd always worn her dignity the sate way she dressed, properly and with discretion. But when she learned on the news that morning that Kim Luong had been murdered, Rose got hysterical.

"If only, if only…," she went on and on, crying in the wing chair near the fire in her small apartment.

"Rose, you got to quit saying that," Marino said.

She had known Kim Luong because Rose often shopped at the Quik Cary. Rose had gone there last night, probably at the same time the killer was still inside beating and biting and smearing blood. Thank God the store had been closed and locked.

I carried two mugs of ginseng tea into her living room while Marino drank coffee. Rose was shaking all over, face swollen from crying and gray hair hanging over the collar of her bathrobe. She looked like a neglected old woman in a nursing home.

"I didn't have the TV on. I was reading. So I didn't know about it until I heard it on the news this morning." She kept telling us the same story in different ways. "I had no idea, was sitting up in bed reading and worrying about all the problems in the office. Mainly Chuck. I think that boy's as twisted as they come and I've been working to show it."

I set down her tea.

"Rose," Marino said. "We can talk about Chuck another time. We need you to tell us exactly what happened last…"

"But you've got to listen to me first!" she exclaimed. "And Captain Marino, you've got to make Dr. Scarpetta listen! That boy hates her! He hates all three of us. I'm trying to tell you, you must do anything to get rid of him before it's too late."

"I'm going to take care of it as soon as…" I started to say.

But she was shaking her head.

"He's pure evil. I believe he's been following me, or at least someone involved with him," she claimed. "Maybe even that car you saw in my parking lot and the one following you. How do you know it wasn't him who rented it under a phony name so he didn't have to use his car and be recognized right away? How do you know it's not whoever he might be involved with?"

"Whoa, whoa, whoa," Marino interrupted her, holding up his hand. "Why would he follow anybody?"

"Drugs," she answered as if she knew it for a fact. "This past Monday we had an overdose case come in, and it just so happened I decided to come in an hour and a half early because I was going to take a long lunch break to get my hair done."

I didn't believe that Rose just happened to come in early. I had asked her to help me find out what Ruffin was up to, and of course, she had made that her mission.

"You were out that day," she said to me. "And you had misplaced your appointment book and we looked everywhere with no luck. So by Monday I was obsessed with finding it because I knew how much you need it. I thought I'd check the morgue again.

"And I went in there before I'd even taken my coat off," she went on, "and here's Chuck at six-forty-five in the morning sitting at a desk with the pill counter and dozens of bottles lined up. Well, he looked as if I'd just caught him with his pants down. I asked him why he was getting started so early, and he said it was going to be a busy day and he was trying to get a head start."

"Was his car in the parking lot?" Marino asked.

"He parks in the deck," I explained. "His car wouldn't be visible from our building."

"The drugs were from Dr. Fielding's case," Rose resumed, "and out of curiosity I looked at the report. Well, the woman had about every drug known to man. Tranquilizers, antidepressants, narcotics. A total of some thirteen hundred pills, if you can believe that."

"Unfortunately, I can," I said.

Overdoses and suicides typically came to us with months, even years, of prescription drugs. Codeine, Percocet, morphine, methadone, PDC, Valium and fentanyl patches to name a few. It was an unbearably tedious task to count them to see how many were supposed to have been in the bottle and how many were left.

"So he's stealing pills instead of washing them down the sink," Marino said.

"I can't prove it;" Rose replied. "But Monday wasn't god-awful busy like it usually is. The overdose was the only case. Chuck avoided me as much as he could after that, and every time drugs came in with cases, I wondered if they'd gone in his pocket instead of down the drain."

"We can hook up a VCR where he's not going to see it. You've already got cameras down there. If he's doing it, we'll get him," Marino promised.

"That on top of everything else," I said. "The press about that would be awful. It might even go out on the wire, especially if an investigative reporter started digging and found out about my alleged refusal to take calls from families, and the chat room, and even the subterfuge of running into Bray in a parking lot."

Paranoia pushed against my chest and I took a deep breath. Marino was watching me.

"You're not thinking Bray's got something to do with this," Marino said, skeptically.

"Only in the sense that she helped put Chuck on the road he's on. He himself told me the more bad things he did, the easier it got."

"Well, I think Chuckie-boy's on his own when it comes to stealing prescription drugs. It's too easy for slime like him to resist. Like the cops who can't resist pocketing wads of cash at drug busts and shit like that. Hell, drugs like Lortabs, Lorcet, not to mention Percocet, can go for two to five bucks a pop on the street. What I'm curious about is where he's unloading the stuff"

"Maybe you can find out from his wife if he's out a lot at night," Rose suggested.

"Honey," Marino replied, "bad people do stuff like this in broad daylight."

Rose looked dejected and somewhat embarrassed, as if afraid that her being so upset had sent her spinning threads of truth into a tapestry of conviction. Marino got up to pour more coffee.

"You're thinking he's following you because you're suspicious of his drug dealing?" he asked Rose.

"Oh, I guess it sounds so far-fetched when I hear myself say it."

"Might be someone involved with Chuck, if we want to keep going down this path. And I don't think we should dismiss anything right now," Marino added. "If Rose knows, then you do," he said to me. 'Chuck sure as hell knows that:' "If this is tied in with drugs, then what's the motive if Chuck's involved in our being followed? To hurt us? To intimidate us?" I asked.

"This much I can guarantee," Marino replied from the kitchen. "He's mixed up with people who are way out of his league: And we're not talking small amounts of money. Think how many pills come in with some of these bodies. Cops have to turn in every bottle they find. Think of all the leftover pain medication or who-knows-what in your average person's medicine cabinet"

He came back into the living room and sat down, blowing into the cup as if that really would cool his coffee in a hurry.

"Add that to the shitload of other stuff they're actively taking or supposed to be taking and what do you get?" he went on. "That the only reason Chuckie-boy needs his job in the morgue is to steal drugs. Hell, he doesn't need the pay, and that may have something to do with why he's been doing such a shitty job over the last few months."

"He could be taking in thousands of dollars a week," I said.

"Doc, you got any reason to think he might be hooked up with your other officers, getting somebody to do the same thing? They get him the pills, he gives them a small cut'

I have no idea."

"You got four district offices. You steal drugs from all of them, you're getting into really big bucks now," Marino said. "Hell, the little shit may even be involved in organized crime, just one more drone bringing stuff to the hive. Problem is, this ain't shopping at Wal-Mart. He thinks it's so easy making deals with some guy in a suit, some foxy woman. This person moves the merchandise along to the next person in the chain. Maybe it's eventually traded for guns that end up in New York."

Or Miami, I thought.

"Thank God you alerted us, Rose;" I said. "rhe last thing I want is anything flowing out of the office and ending up in the hands of people who will hurt others or even kill them."

"Not to mention, Chuck's days are probably going to be numbered, too," Marino said. "People like him usually don't live too long."

He got up and moved to the end of the couch, closer to Rose:

"Now, Rose?" he gently said. "What's making you think what you've just told us has anything to do with Kim Luong's murder?"

She took a deep breath and turned off the lamp next to her as if it was bothering her eyes. Her hands were shaking so badly that when she reached -for her mug, she spilled some of her tea. She dabbed the wet spot on her lap with a tissue.

"On my way home from the office last night, I decided to pick up shortbreads and a few other things," she began, her voice getting shaky again.

"Do you know exactly what time this was?" Marino asked.

"Not to the minute. Around ten of six as best I can say."

"Let me be sure I've got this straight," Marino said, taking notes. "You stopped at the Quik Cary at about six o'clock P.m. Was it closed?"

"Yes. Which irritated me' a little because it's not supposed to close until six. I thought ugly thoughts, and now I feel so bad about that, too. Here she is dead in there and I'm mad at her because I couldn't get cookies…!" she sobbed.

"Did you see any cars in the lot?" Marino asked. "Any person or persons?"

"Not a one," she barely said.

"Think hard, Rose. Was there anything that struck you at all?"

"Oh, yes;" she said. "And this is what I've been trying to get at. I could see from Libbie that the market was closed because the lights were out, so I pulled into the lot to turn around, and I saw the closed sign on the door. I got back on Libbie and hadn't gone any farther than the ABC store when this car was suddenly behind me with its high beams on."

"Were you headed home?" I asked.

"Yes. And I really didn't think anything until I turned on Grove and he did, too, staying on my bumper with those darn lights about to blind me. Cars going the other way were flicking their lights up and down to tell him his high beams were on, in case he didn't know. But he clearly intended for them to be on. By now I was getting frightened."

"Any idea what kind of car? Could you see anything?" Marino asked.

"I was practically blinded, and then I was so confused. Immediately I thought of the car in my parking lot on Tuesday night when you came by," she said to me. "And then your telling me you'd been followed. And I started thinking about Chuck and drugs and the sort of horrible people who get involved in that."

"So you're driving along Grove," Marino got her back on track.

"Of course, I drove right on past my Apartment building, trying to figure out where to go to get away with him. And I don't know how I thought of it, but I suddenly cut over to the left and did a U-turn. Then I drove to where Grove ends at Three Chopt and took a left, him still behind me. The next right was the Country Club of Virginia, and I turned in there and drove straight to the entrance where the valets were. Needless to say, whoever it was vanished."

"That was damn smart of you," Marino said. "Damn smart. But why didn't you call the police?"

"It wouldn't have done any good. They wouldn't have believed me and I couldn't have described a thing, anyway."

"Well, you should have called me, at least," Marino said.

"I know."

"After this where did you go?" I asked.

"Here."

"Rose, you're scaring me," I said. "What if he was waiting for you somewhere?"

"I couldn't stay out all night, and I went a different route home."

"Any idea what time it was when he vanished?" Marino asked.

"Somewhere between six and six-fifteen. Oh, dear Lord,. I just can't believe when I pulled up to that store she was in there. And what if he was? If only I'd known. I can't stop thinking there must have been something I should have noticed. Maybe even when I was in there Tuesday night."

"Rose, you couldn't have known a damn thing unless you're a gypsy with a crystal ball;" Marino told her.

She took a deep, shaky.breath and pulled her robe more tightly around her.

"I can't seem to get warm," she said. "Kim was such a nice girl."

She stopped again, her face contorted by grief. Tears filled her eyes and spilled.

"She was never rude to anyone and worked so hard. How could anybody do something like that! She wanted to be a nurse! She wanted to spend her life helping people! I remember worrying about her being.alone in there so late at night, oh, God help me. It even crossed my mind when I was there on Tuesday but I didn't say anything!"

Her voice tumbled as if it were falling down a steep flight of stairs. I came over and knelt beside her, pulling her close.

"It's like when Sassy wasn't feeling well… so lethargic and I just thought she had eaten something she shouldn't have…"

"It's okay, Rose. Everything's going to be okay," I said.

"And it turned out she'd somehow gotten hold of a piece of glass… My little baby was bleeding inside… And I didn't do anything."

"You didn't know. We can't know everything." I felt a spasm of grief, too.

"If only I'd taken her to the vet sooner… I'll never, ever forgive myself for that. Poor little girl a prisoner in a little cage and muzzle and some monster hit her with something and broke her nose… at that goddamn dog track! And then I let her suffer and die!"

She wept as if outraged over every loss and act of cruelty the world had ever suffered. I held her clenched fists in both of my hands.

"Rose, now you listen to me;" I said. "You saved Sassy from hell just as you've saved others. There's nothing you could have done for Sassy any more than there was anything you could have done when you stopped to get your shortbreads. Kim was dead. She had been dead for hours."

"What about him?" she cried. "What if he had still been inside that store and had come out just as I had pulled in? I'd be dead, too, wouldn't I? Shot and dumped somewhere like garbage. Or maybe he would have done awful things to me, too."

She closed her eyes, exhausted, tears sneaking down her face. She went limp all over as the violent storm passed. Marino leaned forward on the couch and touched her knee.

"You got to help us out," he said. "We need to know why you think your being followed and the murder might be connected."

"Why don't you come home with me?" I said.

Her eyes cleared as she began to regain her composure.

"That car pulling out after me right there where she was murdered? Why didn't he start following me long before that?" she said. "And an hour, an hour and a half, before the alarm went off. Don't you find that an amazing coincidence?"

"Sure I do," Marino said. "But there've been a lot of amazing coincidences in my career."

"I feel foolish," Rose said, looking down at her hands.

"All of us are tired," I said. "I've got plenty of room…" "We're gonna nail Chuckle-boy for drugs," Marino said to her. "Not-a damn thing foolish about that."

"I'm going to stay here and go on to bed," Rose said.

I continued to sort through what she'd told us as we went down the stairs and into the parking lot.

"Look," Marino said, unlocking his car. "You've been around Chuck a whole lot more than I have. You know him a lot better, which is too bad for you."

"And you're going to ask me if he's the one in the rental car following us," I said as he backed out and turned on Randy Travis. "The answer's no. He's a sneak. He's a liar and a thief, but he's a coward, Marino. It takes a lot of arrogance to boldly tailgate someone with your high beams on. Whoever's doing it is very sure of himself. He has no fear of being caught because he thinks he's too smart for that."

"Sort of the definition of a psychopath," he said. "And now I feel worse. Shit. I don't want to think that guy who just did Luong is the one following you and Rose."

Roads had frozen over again and Richmond drivers, lacking sense, were sliding and spinning all over the place. Marino had his portable police radio on and was monitoring accidents.

"When are you going to turn that thing in?" I asked.

"When they come and try to take it from me," he replied. "I ain't turning in shit."

"That's the spirit."

"The hard thing about every case we've ever worked," he said, "is there's never just one thing going on. Cops try to connect so much crap that by the time we solve the case, we could have written the victim's biography. Half the time we find a connection, it's not one that matters. Like the husband who gets mad at his wife. She goes out the door, pissed, and ends up abducted from a mall parking lot, raped and murdered. Her husband pissing her off didn't make it happen. Maybe she was going shopping anyway."

He turned into my driveway and put the truck in park. I gave him a long look.

"Marino, what are you going to do about money?"

"I'll be all right."

I knew it wasn't true.

"You could help me out as a field investigator for a while," I said "Until this suspension nonsense ends."

He was silent. As long as Bray was there, it would never end Suspending him without pay was her way of forcing Marino to resign. If he did that, he was out of the way like AI Carson.

"I can hire you two ways;" I went on. "A case-by-case basis and you'll get fifty dollars per..:'

He snorted. "Fifty dollars my ass!"

"Or I can hire you part-time and eventually I'll have to advertise the position and you'll have to apply for it like everybody else:' "Don't make me sick."

"How much are you earning now?"

"About sixty-two plus benefits," he replied.

"The best I could do is make you a P-fourteen at senior level. Thirty hours a week. No benefits. Thirty-five a year."

"Now that's a good one. One of the funniest things I've heard in a while."

"I can also take you on as an instructor and coordinator in death investigation at the Institute. That's another thirtyfive. So that's seventy. No benefits. Actually, you'll probably make out better."

He thought about it for a moment, sucking smoke.

"I don't need your help right now," he said rudely. "And hanging around medical examiners and dead bodies ain't part of my life's plan."

I climbed out of his truck.

"Good night;" I said.

He angrily roared away and I knew it wasn't me he was really so angry with. He was frustrated and furious. His self-respect and vulnerability were naked in front of me and he didn't want me to see it. All the same, what he'd said hurt.

I threw my coat over a chair in the foyer and pulled off leather gloves. I put Beethoven's "Eroica" symphony on the CD player and my discordant nerves began to restore their rhythm like the strings that played. I ate an omelet and settled in bed with a book I was too tired to read.

I fell asleep with the light on and was shocked awake by the hammering of my burglar alarm. I got my Glock out of a drawer and fought the impulse to disarm the system. I couldn't stand the awful clangor. But I.didn't know what had set it off. The phone rang several minutes later. `.`This is ADT..:' "Yes, yes," I said loudly. "I don't know why it's gone off.

"We're showing zone five," the man said. "The kitchen back door."

"I have no idea."

"Then you'd like us to dispatch the police."

"I guess you'd better," I said as the air raid in my house went on.