Chaos

CHAPTER 34

THE BELL 429 THUNDERS in low and slow, whirling and churning, lit up and strobing at an altitude of maybe four hundred feet and a speed of sixty knots. Rotor wash agitates the canopies of trees, shaking them violently, and it’s a good thing we’ve collected the evidence. I wouldn’t be happy if this thing had roared in before the tent was up.

“I hope it doesn’t decide to hover here,” I raise my voice to Benton as if he has something to do with the deafening spectacle, and maybe he does.

The twin-engine bird roars past in a fierce wind, and I recognize the gun platforms on the skids, the fifty-million-candlepower NightSun on the belly, the rescue hoist, the Forward-Looking Infrared (FLIR) camera.

The silhouette of the twin-engine warship brings to mind a monster tadpole, a carnivorous one, and I notice the doors haven’t been removed or opened. Typically they would be if this were a tactical operation or a search-and-rescue mission, and that hints the objective is surveillance. But as far as I’m concerned, mostly what I’m seeing is for show.

“One of yours?” I ask Benton, our necks craned, looking up. “Because it’s not Boston, the state police or Med Flight. It’s not the Army, Marines, Navy or Coast Guard. And it’s certainly not Lucy even though she changed into a flight suit a few hours ago. That’s definitely not her helicopter,” I add.

The searchlight is long and linear like a stick of neon-bright white chalk as the unmarked blacked-out bird banks sharply downriver, doing a one-eighty at the Harvard Bridge, near my headquarters.

“It wasn’t my idea,” Benton says as we stand outside the tent, looking up.

“And what idea are we talking about? Thundering up and down the river for what purpose?”

“Suffice it to say Carrie Grethen feeds off the attention but so do certain other people.”

By certain other people he means his own, his fellow agents, and we watch the helicopter scream past again.

“I was against it, saying she’ll only get off on it if she’s goaded into overdrive. She’ll just kick it up even higher, but I was outvoted,” and that’s all he’s going to say about it.

The rest I can probably guess with a high degree of accuracy. The FBI is searching this area of Cambridge, and I’m betting they have choppers up in Maryland and possibly other places. If this is for Carrie Grethen’s benefit it’s truly stupid, and Benton is right about that. In fact the idea of intimidating her in such a fashion would be laughable if anything were funny at the moment.

The Bureau’s big machines don’t impress her, and more likely they’ve been deployed for appearance sake, to make sure the taxpayers know that Federal agents have stormed in to save the day. That’s what Benton meant when he referenced that Carrie’s isn’t the only ego in the mix. There’s nothing like being splashy. There’s nothing like giving a false but dramatic impression, and this is why cops like Marino snipe about the Famous But Incompetent, another moniker tossed around about the FBI. It’s why they’re the FIBs.

It’s why Marino resents and distrusts them, and as I think of Elisa Vandersteel’s body being loaded on a stretcher right about now, I feel a rush of indignation. The FBI with its expensive equipment and slick agents hasn’t mobilized for her sake. She’s nothing more than a means to an end, and I ask myself the same thing I always do. What are the Feds really after?

The answer is almost always going to be mundane if not predictable. Add politics to power and season liberally with publicity. Then stir in the elevated terror alert for the Boston-Washington area that Benton mentioned earlier, and that’s probably what I’m dealing with. In summary, it’s why Marino has been marginalized and I’m about to be if I’m not clever.

“Remember this isn’t a race,” Benton says, and he’s setting a very slow pace as we trek back to where he’s parked near the entrance at John F. Kennedy Street. “If you start breathing hard or feeling unsteady, we’re pausing and taking a break.”

Overhead on the bridge, the traffic is much lighter between Cambridge and Boston’s Back Bay. There aren’t many cars or motorcycles, mostly trucks at this hour as the Charles River flows sluggishly like molten glass in the uneven glow of lamps along the shore. The helicopter is gone, at least for now, and our footsteps are quiet.

“What’s really going on?” I ask. “I know what I think but would rather hear your side of things.”

“Uh-oh. We’re already talking about sides.”

“Because you can’t be on mine and I won’t be on yours. Despite Marino’s claims to the contrary, I’m not married to the FBI.”

“I wanted to check on you for a lot of reasons, and it was important I tell you myself about Briggs. But that’s not the only reason I’m here.”

“Obviously not. You’ve been walking around and asking questions about a case that shouldn’t be any of your business. You don’t simply show up and insert yourself into a local investigation, and that tells me other things have gone on. Clearly they’ve gone on stunningly fast, in the blink of an eye.”

“Yes, they have because so much has happened at once,” and he tells me that before he got here he was on the phone with Gerry Everman, the commissioner of the Cambridge Police Department.

Benton doesn’t say who initiated this conversation, but I can guess. The FBI did, and when they take over an investigation this is what it’s like. It feels exactly the way it does right now as I walk with their senior profiler through the park toward densely shadowed trees beyond the clearing.

I listen to our shoes on the hard-packed path with its loose sandy surface that’s a poor medium for footwear or tire tracks. Distant traffic sounds like a gusting wind. I catch fragments of conversation in the impenetrable dark, and am vaguely aware of people I can’t quite make out talking in hushed voices.

I feel eyes on us as I catch the silhouettes in uniforms and field clothes of cargo pants and polo shirts. Cops, possibly the Feds, and I think about Harold implying it was getting a little crowded out here.

“ELECTRICAL? I GET THE impression that’s what you’re deciding.” Benton is almost too quiet to hear, and I walk very close to him. “It seems she was riding past a lamp and was electrocuted.”

“And then logic begins to fail us because what I’m seeing is confusing if not contradictory.” I take his hand and don’t care who sees it. “Was the problem the lamp? Or was the lamp blown up by the same electrical current that killed her? And where did this current come from? If it came from the lamp then how does that explain her injuries? She has a linear pattern of burns that don’t make sense. And I don’t understand the FBI’s interest this early on when there are more questions than answers.”

“It’s almost like she encountered exposed wires, from what I’ve gathered.”

“Yes, I’m sure you’ve gathered quite a lot,” I reply. “But there aren’t any wires that we could see, and they would have to be some distance off the ground if they were going to make contact with her neck and shoulders. It’s as if she was riding along and passed under something that’s no longer present or visible.”

“Or something passed over her,” Benton suggests.

“Obviously you’re assuming homicide when I don’t know that for a fact yet.”

“But why she would be targeted is a mystery,” he says. “Elisa Vandersteel has no connection to us that I can fathom, and no connection to Briggs. I also don’t see why she might be of interest to Carrie Grethen. The victimology perplexes me. Something’s not right.”

“Does it bother your colleagues? And yes, something’s not right. That’s quite an understatement.”

“Elisa Vandersteel was a soft target. Random, in the wrong place at the wrong time. Briggs was a hard target. That’s the theory.”

“Is it your theory?”

“I’m not sure I have a theory but I know Carrie Grethen kills for a reason,” Benton says. “She’s not into random slaughter but rather prides herself on what she perceives as her own moral code and decency. It’s not her MO to destroy people who don’t deserve it, in other words. So why would she target a twenty-three-year-old Canadian au pair whose dream was to be an actress?”

“It sounds as if you might have learned more about her.”

“Apparently the reason she was in Cambridge is she’d gotten an internship at the repertory theater, was helping in stage management in hopes of getting a chance to act. She’d started there about two months ago, at the beginning of August. Was bright, a hard worker, funny, but very private. This is according to several theater people Lucy’s already talked to.”

I think of the young man who handed Elisa Vandersteel a FedEx envelope in front of us, and I ask if anyone has tracked him down yet.

“There’s a lot to dig into but she was seeing someone who works in the events-planning office at the Faculty Club. Apparently he’s a vocalist who she met when he auditioned for Waitress but didn’t get the part.”

“Do they know his name?”

“They couldn’t remember it.”

“Do they have any idea why Lucy was asking about her?”

“I don’t think so. She wandered backstage as if she was looking for her and started chatting. I definitely have the impression that Elisa Vandersteel was living with this guy we saw on the sidewalk.”

“But we don’t know where.” I think of the key fob I found in her pocket.

“Not yet but it’s close enough for her to get around on a bicycle, it would seem.”

“Have you told Marino all this?” As I ask I remember that he has custody of Elisa Vandersteel’s phone, and Benton saw her talking on it the same way I did.

But he doesn’t bring it up.

“No, I’ve not told him,” he says, and it occurs to me that he’s not bringing up her phone for a reason.

Benton saw her talking on it the same as I did when we were on the sidewalk in front of the Faculty Club. He hasn’t asked about it. If I don’t mention it, he probably won’t. Maybe someone else will but Benton will feign ignorance. Why would he know that Elisa Vandersteel had a phone? And I feel sure he hasn’t told his compatriots that he encountered her not long before she died.

Already Benton is letting me know in his own subtle way that he’s not going to interfere with me even as he does.

“Do you intend to tell Marino what you’re telling me?” I ask. “And if not, when will he be informed that he’s been fired from his case?”

“No one’s been fired, Kay,” Benton says slowly, gently, in rhythm with his steps.

“Technically, maybe not.”

“I think we understand each other.”

“Yes, and what I ask is you remember the most important thing.”

“It doesn’t need to be said.”

“But I will say it anyway. She deserves the best we can give her.” I mean that Elisa Vandersteel does.

“And I have no doubt you’ll make sure she gets it, Kay. I can count on you to do what it takes.”

He’s letting me know that he personally won’t get in my way. But the Bureau is another story. Then he asks my opinion about the cause of death, and this is when we step up the tempo and the subtle moves in our dance.

I’m required to pass along information even as the parties involved interfere with me. I won’t withhold appropriate details from my FBI husband. I give him far more than I would most. But I don’t tell him everything.