Blow Fly

70

INSIDE LUCY'S OFFICE, a light begins to flash on a computer. The news has hit the wire service. The infamous trial lawyer Rocco Caggiano appears to have committed suicide in a hotel in Poland, his body discovered by a maintenance worker who noticed a foul odor coming from one of the rooms.

"How in the hell…?" Lucy strikes a key to deactivate the flashing light. She clicks the mouse on Print.

Search engines are her specialty, and a posse of them have been dedicated to finding any information that might be related to Rocco Caggiano. There is plenty. Rocco loved to read about himself, was a news hog, and every time Lucy has scanned some article about him or a client he represented, she has felt an uneasiness she has never experienced before. She can't muster enough self-control to stop imagining Rudy helping Rocco shoot himself in the head.

Pointed up.

The barrel should be pointed up.

A tip she learned from her Aunt Kay, whose reaction Lucy can't imagine were she to find out what her precious niece and Rudy have done.

"Not even forty-eight hours?" Rudy leans over her shoulder, his breath on her neck smelling like the cinnamon gum he has a habit of smacking away on when he's not in public.

"Sounds like our luck has continued to turn bad in Szczecin. Thanks to a maintenance worker and a stuck drain." Lucy continues reading an AP report.

Rudy sits next to her and leans an elbow on the desk, his chin in his hand. He reminds her of a boy who has just lost his first Little League baseball game.

"After all that planning. Fuck. Now what? You pulled up the medical examiner's report? Christ, don't tell me it's in Polish."

"Hold on. Let me jump out of this…" She clicks the mouse. "Into something else… I love Interpol…"

The Last Precinct is a very select client, one of those entities considered part of Interpol's massive international web. For the privilege, Lucy must pass security clearance, of course, and pay the same yearly subscription fee as a small country. She executes a search, and Rocco Caggiano's death records are on the screen in seconds. Police and autopsy reports have been translated from Polish into French.

"Oh, no," Lucy says with a sigh as she swivels around in the chair and looks up at Rudy. "How's your French?"

"You know how my French is. Limited to my tongue."

"You're so vulgar. Just a single-tasking computer. You boys. One thing on the mind."

"I don't always think about only one thing."

"You're right. I apologize. You think about the one thing, except you do it two, three, a million times a day."

"And you, Mam-ouzelle Farinelli?"

"Oh, God, your French is bad."

She glances at her watch, this one a formidable titanium Breitling that includes an Emergency Locator Transmitter, or ELT.

"I thought you weren't supposed to wear that thing unless you're flying." Rudy taps her watch.

"Don't touch it. You'll set it off," she teases him.

He holds on to her arm, studying the watch, frowning at the bright blue face, tilting his head this way and that, pretending he's stupid. Lucy starts laughing.

"One of these days I'm gonna unscrew this big knob right here"-he taps her watch again, still holding on to her arm-"and pull the antenna all the way out. And then run like hell…"

Lucy's cell phone vibrates, and she slips it out of the case on her belt.

"And laugh my ass off when the Coast Guard, the F-15s come roaring in…"

"Yes," she bluntly answers the phone.

"You have such a sweet manner with people," Rudy whispers in her ear. "If I die, will you marry me?"

Static on the other end is bad. "Who is this?" she asks, loudly. "I can't hear you." The static gets worse. Lucy shrugs and ends the call. "Don't recognize the number, do you?"

She holds up her phone, showing Rudy the number that someone just used to call her.

"Nope. Nine-three-six…? What area code is that?"

"Easy enough to find out."

It doesn't require special search engines or Interpol to type in a telephone number and find out whose it is. Lucy logs on to Google. The name that comes up on the computer screen is the Texas Department of Criminal Justice, Polunsky Unit. Included is a map.

"You didn't answer my question," Rudy says, still flirting but completely cognizant of the importance of a call from Polunsky.

"Why would I marry you if you're dead?" she mutters, scarcely listening to him.

"Because you can't live without me."

"I can't believe this." She stares at the screen. "What the hell is going on? Get Zach to call my aunt, make sure she is safe. Have him tell her it's possible Chandonne might be out. Goddamn it! He's rucking with us!"

"Why don't you call her yourself?" Rudy puzzles. "That piece of shit is fucking with us!" Her eyes blaze. "Why don't you call Scarpetta?" Rudy asks again. Lucy instantly becomes somber.

"I can't talk to her right now. I just can't." She looks at him. "How are you doing?"

"Awful," he says.