Chaos

CHAPTER 15

HE’S SLEEK AND QUITE an eyeful in parachute pants, a polo shirt, and leather high-tops, everything black.

His pistol is holstered on his right hip, his detective’s badge displayed on his belt, and Investigator Barclay looks like the star of his own TV show with his lean muscular build, Ken-doll face and buzz-cut blond hair. I can smell his cologne from several feet away, and I know his type, what we used to call a hotshot.

Marino has cruder terms for vain young bucks like Clay, as he hails him. I can’t imagine the two of them are friendly with each other or would be under any circumstances imaginable. As this is going through my mind I have second thoughts about Barclay’s nickname. Or better put, something comes to me as a warning.

“Does everybody call you Clay?” I ask, but what I’m really wondering is if anybody does besides Marino.

“I don’t know why he suddenly started doing that unless it’s to tick me off as usual.” He watches Marino talking to the twins. “My first name’s Tom, my middle name’s David. People call me Tom. It’s just another one of his stupid jokes that he thinks are so brilliant. I guess his point is to encourage other corny bullshit. First it’s Clay. Then it’s Dirt. Or Play-Doh. Or if I do something wrong my name will be Mud. But it goes with the turf when you get promoted to working major cases.” He shrugs. “You get picked on.”

Barclay continues to nail Marino with a stare, and Marino continues talking to the twins as if he’s oblivious. But he’s not. The sophomoric jokes, the juvenile behavior are a special skill set of his, and he has the acumen of a hawk. He doesn’t miss Barclay’s slightest twitch, and it’s a good thing I didn’t call him Clay. Marino would have thought that was hilarious, and it may very well be that he’s the only one who’s ever called him that.

But chances are good that Marino won’t be the last. Unfortunately when he comes up with a nickname or new “handle” for someone, there’s no undoing it. I wouldn’t be surprised if soon enough everyone in the Cambridge Police Department was talking to and about Clay Barclay, as if the lame redundancy really is his name.

“How you doing, Doctor Scarpetta?” He’s boisterous and too friendly as if we’ve just run into each other at a reception or in a crowded bar.

“Thanks for doing a good job keeping things quiet out here…” I start to say.

“If this was in daylight can you imagine a more exposed spot?” He watches me dig in my bag for a notepad and a pen. “Not to mention working a scene when it’s over a hundred degrees. At least it’s a cool eighty-eight now.”

I’m methodical and not in a hurry as I pull out Marino’s package of coveralls and the box of gloves. I set them on top of his nearby scene case. Then I walk back to Barclay, my tactical light pointed down at the grass with each step.

“I’ll take the ambient temperature as soon as the truck is here,” I let him know, and the real point I’m making is he needs to be careful about throwing around information the way he’s been doing.

I’m mindful that he’s already gone out on a limb by deciding the victim is Elisa Vandersteel when identity hasn’t been confirmed by DNA, dental records or any other legitimate means. And an ID found on the fitness path in a public park isn’t a confirmation. Not even close.

He’s also said she’s an assault, a murder, and I can’t know any such thing when I’ve not so much as looked at her yet. Possibly most dangerous is what he’s also passed along to at least one person-Marino-that the body is as stiff as a mannequin. In other words, it’s in an advanced stage of rigor mortis. That directly impacts the estimated time of death, and I wish Barclay had kept his opinion to himself.

These are the sorts of seemingly benign mistakes that can haunt you in court, and time of death is especially tricky. It’s not an exact science but is crucial to any alibi. It’s a favorite bone for defense attorneys to chew on, and how quickly strangers can lose faith in what an expert witness like me testifies. I have no intention of causing jurors to doubt my credibility because an inexperienced detective thought he could do my job for me at a death scene.

While it was appropriate for Barclay to check that the victim was actually deceased, he shouldn’t have begun playing the role of a medical examiner by making determinations about rigor mortis and how advanced it is or isn’t. He needs to be careful about information he finds on the Internet. He shouldn’t accept as gospel what the temperature in Cambridge is based on a weather app.

What part of Cambridge? There could be quite a difference between a shady spot near the water and the hot bricks of Harvard Square, for example.

“I’m assuming you got the temperature from some sort of app on your phone,” I say to Barclay after a silence I can tell he’s eager to fill. “So the detail about it being eighty-eight degrees Fahrenheit or thirty-one degrees Celsius? We’ll keep that out of any reports since we don’t know what the temperature is in the exact location where the body was found.”

“If you got a thermometer I can put it over there next to her,” he says, and I realize how aggressive he is.

“No thanks. That’s not what I was suggesting. I don’t have my scene case yet, but when I do I’ll handle any temperatures that need to be taken of the body, the ambient air, and all the rest.” I speak slowly and in a measured tone, resorting to what I think of as my neutral voice. “It might be cooler here because of the river,” I suggest as if it’s no big deal.

But he knows it is. He feels disrespected and criticized, and I’m witness to his mood’s rapid shift. It’s something I suddenly remember observing about him on the few occasions I’ve been in his presence. He’s volatile. He goes from hot to cold with not much in between.

“If only there was a breeze.” He looks away from me, toward the river, and it’s obvious when his narcissism is winged. “It’s hard to breathe. Damn suffocating.”

He’s practically turned his back to me.

“WHAT TIME WAS THE body found?” I ask him that next, and he can keep his back to me the rest of the night if it makes him happy.

After a sulky silence Barclay says, “We got the call about forty-five minutes ago. But oh! Wait a minute!”

He turns around and feigns a eureka moment, flashing his white teeth in the dark.

“The time came from my phone.” He throws a snarky dart, and it won’t find its mark with me.

“Is that okay? Or should I trust my watch instead?” he asks, and I won’t engage.

“The time I have written down for when I got the call is nineteen-oh-six-hundred hours.” He says it as if I won’t know what that is.

I jot it down. “Twenty-three-twenty Zulu time. Twenty minutes past seven EDST.” Then I ask, “How was the call classified when it was broadcast? What was said exactly? Because it would seem the media isn’t aware of anything yet.”

“It came in as a ten-seventeen.” He waits for me to ask him what that is, but I know the police ten-codes probably as well as he does.

I’ve been hearing them my entire career, and a 10-17 is common. It literally means “meet complainant.”

“I’m assuming it was about the twin sisters,” I interpolate, and Barclay stares at me as I think, What a dick.

He says nothing went out over the air that might alert reporters monitoring Boston-area law enforcement radio frequencies. This continues to argue against Marino’s suspicious phone call being from anyone legitimately involved in the case. It would seem Barclay absolutely didn’t contact Interpol’s National Central Bureau in Washington, D.C. I have a feeling that Marino’s right. The inexperienced investigator probably wouldn’t think of it and might not even know what the NCB is. Not every cop does.

Marino certainly didn’t initiate the contact, and of course I didn’t. It couldn’t have been anyone at my office. We didn’t know about the death at the time the alleged NCB investigator called Marino’s cell phone. What’s becoming more apparent is that the person responsible is someone up to no good, to understate the problem.

“I happened to be on Memorial Drive and got here in maybe three minutes max,” Barclay then answers what I didn’t ask about why he was the first responder or paid attention to a low-priority call.

Meeting a complainant suggests someone wants to talk to a police officer, usually to report a concern or upset of one sort or another. A general request like that could be about anything. Much of the time it’s about nothing, and it surprises me that a detective would pay much attention to such a call unless it was specifically directed at him. But Barclay is new to the Major Case Squad. Maybe he’s overly eager. Maybe he was bored.

“And the two girls who found her?” I ask, and I’m watching Marino talk to them out of earshot. “Are they students? Because they look too young for college.”

From where I’m standing they’re barely pubescent, and I’d hazard a guess neither is old enough to have a driver’s permit.

“No, ma’am, they’re not in college,” Barclay says, and he flips through pages in his notebook. “They go to the school near Donnelly Field, in the eighth grade. Or that’s what they told me and I got no reason to think they’re making something up or hiding anything. Or that they knew the victim. They said they didn’t.”

These strike me as callous remarks to make about two girls who have been traumatized by a discovery that will stay with them the rest of their days. I wonder if he’s implying that he briefly considered them suspects-if it crossed his thoughts that the twins might think it was a fun idea to ambush someone on a bicycle. I suppose anything is possible, and I notice his small flashlight is turned off. It’s as if he’s forgotten he has it, and he checks through his notes. He finds the page he wants as if he can see in the dark like a cat.

The girls live near the Highland Laundromat off Mount Auburn Street, he tells me as he loudly flips through pages. It makes sense that their route would have taken them from Harvard Square, along John F. Kennedy Street toward the river. The plan was to walk along the water through the park, then cut up Ash Street, which would take them home. All told the outing was just under a mile round trip.

“Usually they would cut over to Mount Auburn, which is more direct,” Barclay explains what he gleaned from questioning the sisters. “But it’s so hot they’ve been detouring through the shaded park and sticking near the water as much as possible.”

“Why were they out at all?” I’m making notes.

“They said they were heading home from the Square, from Uno’s, and I’m thinking who can eat pizza in this weather? I heard on the news this morning that in another day the heat will break. Then it’s rain and we’ll go straight to winter. You grew up in Miami, right? So I guess this weather’s a piece of cake for you. Not me. This is way too hot for my thick blood.”

I don’t ask where he’s from but it’s probably not here, not originally. He has a trace of a midwestern accent.

“I’ve only been to Miami a couple times,” he says, and I don’t follow up on that either.