Chaos

CHAPTER 3

STAY.” HE SAYS IT as if he’s addressing his German shepherd Quincy, who’s currently not in the cage in back. As it turns out, in addition to being a failed cadaver dog, he’s also a fair-weather man’s best friend.

Named after the legendary medical examiner on TV, this Quincy doesn’t venture out to any crime scene when the conditions are inclement. I suspect Marino’s furry sidekick is safely at home right now on his Tempur-Pedic bed in the den with the air-conditioning and DOGTV on.

“I’m going to drop you off the last damn fifty feet. Sit and enjoy the cool,” Marino says.

I move my arm because I don’t like being grabbed even gently.

“You need to hear me out.” He shoves the gearshifter in drive. “Like I said, I didn’t want to go into it over the phone. We sure as hell can’t know who’s spying anymore, right? And if Bryce is compromising the CFC’s security or yours I want us to find out before it’s too late.”

I remind Marino that we use personal proprietary smartphones and have the benefit of encryption, firewalls and all sorts of special and highly secure apps. It’s unlikely that our conversations or e-mails can be hacked. My computer-genius-niece Lucy, the CFC cyber-crimes expert, makes very sure of that.

“Are you talking with her at all about any of this?” I ask. “If you’re so worried we’re being spied on don’t you think you could take it up with her? Since that’s her job?”

Just as I’m saying this my phone rings and it’s Lucy requesting her own version of FaceTime, meaning she’d like us to see each other as we talk.

“What timing,” I say right off as her keenly pretty face fills the display on my phone. “We were just talking about you.”

“I’ve only got a minute.” Her eyes are green lasers. “Three things. First, my mom just called and her plane is going to be delayed a little bit. Well, I shouldn’t say a little bit even if that’s how she described it. We don’t know for how long at this point. And I’m not a hundred percent sure what’s going on with air traffic control. But there’s a hold on all outbound traffic at the moment.”

“What’s she being told?” I ask as my heart sinks.

“They’re changing gates or something. Mom and I didn’t talk long but she said it may be closer to ten thirty or eleven by the time she gets here.”

It’s nice of my sister to let me know, it flashes in my mind. As busy as Benton and I are, and she wouldn’t think twice about making us wait at the airport half the night.

“Second, the latest just landed from Tailend Charlie.” Lucy’s eyes are moving as she talks, and I try to figure out where she is. “I haven’t listened to it yet. As soon as I’m freed up from the nine-one-one bullshit call I will.”

“I assume what was sent was another audio clip in Italian,” I point out because Lucy isn’t fluent and wouldn’t be able to translate all or possibly any of it.

She says yes, that at a glance the latest communication from Tailend Charlie is like the other eight I’ve received since the first day of September. The anonymous threat was sent at the same time of day, is the same type of file and the recording is the same length. But she hasn’t listened, and I tell her we’ll deal with it later.

Then she asks, “Where are you? In whose car?” She’s vivid against a backdrop of complete darkness, as if she’s in a cave.

Yet her rose-gold hair is shiny in ambient light that wavers like a movie is playing in the background. Shadows flicker on her face, and it occurs to me she might be inside the Personal Immersion Theater, what at the CFC we call the PIT.

I tell her I’m with Marino, and that brings her to the third and most important point; she says, “Have you seen what’s on Twitter?”

“If you’re asking then I’m sure it’s not good,” I reply.

“I’m sending it to you now. Gotta go.” And then Lucy is gone from the small rectangular screen just like that.

“What?” Marino is scowling. “What’s on Twitter?”

“Hold on.” I open the e-mail Lucy just sent, and click on the tweet she cut-and-pasted. “Well as you suspected, there appears to be a video of you talking to some of the usual suspects in Harvard Square.”

I show it to him and can feel his wounded pride as he watches the distant figure of himself lumbering about, barking questions at homeless people loitering in front of various businesses. Marino herds one man in and out of the shade as this person tries to duck questions in a most animated fashion. The indistinguishable noise of Marino raising his voice while the man shuffles from pillar to post is embarrassing. And the caption is worse. OccupyScarpetta with a hashtag.

“What the hell?” Marino says.

“I guess the gist is that you’re territorial about me and were asking a lot of questions because of it. I presume that’s how my name ended up in the tweet.” His lack of a response answers my question. “But I doubt it will do any real damage except to your ego,” I add. “It’s silly, that’s all. Just ignore it.”

HE ISN’T LISTENING, AND I really do need to go.

“I’d like a minute to clean up.” It’s my way of telling Marino I’ve had enough of being held hostage in his truck full of gloom and doom. “So if you’ll unlock the doors and release me please? Maybe we can talk tomorrow or some other time.”

Marino pulls away from his illegal double-parking spot. He eases to the curb in front of the Faculty Club, set back on acres of grassy lawn behind a split-rail paling.

“You’re not taking this seriously enough.” He looks at me.

“Which part?”

“We’re under surveillance, and the question is who and why. For sure someone’s got Bryce tagged. How else can you explain the marijuana tattoo?”

“There’s nothing to explain. He doesn’t have a tattoo of any description.”

“He does. Specifically, a marijuana leaf, as it was referred to in the call,” Marino says.

“No way. He’s so afraid of needles he won’t even get a flu shot.”

“Obviously you don’t know the story. The tattoo is right here.” Marino leans over and jabs a thick finger at his outer left ankle, which I can’t see very well from where I’m sitting even if I knew to look. “It’s fake,” he says. “I guess you didn’t know that part.”

“It would seem I don’t know much.”

“The marijuana leaf is a temporary tattoo. It’s a joke from last night when he and Ethan were with friends. And typical of Bryce? He figured he could wash it off before he went to bed, but a lot of these temporary tattoos can last for the better part of a week.”

“Obviously you’ve talked to him.” I look at Marino’s flushed shiny face. “Did he reach out to you?”

“I got hold of him when I heard about the nine-one-one call. When I asked him about the tattoo he sent me a selfie of it.”

I turn away to look in the sideview mirror at cars moving past. It occurs to me that I don’t know what Benton is driving tonight. It could be his Porsche Cayenne Turbo S or his Audi RS 7. It could be a bureau car. I was busy with the dogs, with Sock and Tesla, when my husband left this morning at dawn, and I didn’t see or hear him drive away.

“The tattoo’s a problem, Doc,” Marino says. “It gives credibility to the phone call. It pretty much proves that whoever complained about you and Bryce disturbing the peace saw you-unless there’s some other reason this person knows about the tattoo and what the two of you were wearing.”

I recognize the sound of a turbocharged engine changing pitch, and I listen as it gets closer, louder.

“You’re still picking her up tonight?” Marino asks.

“Who?” I watch Benton’s blacked-out RS 7 coupe glide past slowly, downshifting, sliding into the space in front of us.

“Dorothy.”

“That’s the plan.”

“Well if you need any help I’m happy to get her,” Marino says. “I’ve been meaning to tell you that anything I can do, just say the word. Especially now since it’s sounding like she’s going to be so late.”

I don’t recall telling him that my sister was coming-much less who was picking her up at the airport. He also didn’t just hear this for the first time when Lucy called a moment ago. It’s obvious he already knew.

“That’s nice of you,” I say to him, and his dark glasses are riveted to the back of the Audi as Benton maneuvers it so close against the curb that a knife blade barely would fit between it and the titanium rims.

The matte-black sedan rumbles in a growly purr like a panther about to lunge. Through the tinted back windshield I can make out the shape of my husband’s beautiful head, and his thick hair that’s been white for as long as I’ve known him. He sits straight and wide-shouldered, as still as a jungle cat, his gray-tinted glasses watching us in the rearview mirror. I open my door, and the heat slams me like a wall when I step back out into it, and I thank Marino for the ride even though I didn’t want it.

I watch Benton climb out of his car. He unfolds his long lank self, and my husband always looks newly minted. His pearl-gray suit is as fresh as when he put it on this morning, his blue-and-gray silk tie perfectly knotted, his engraved antique white-gold cuff links glinting in the early evening light.

He could grace the pages of Vanity Fair with his strong fine features, his platinum hair and horn-rim glasses. He’s slender and ropy strong, and his quiet calm belies the iron in his bones and the fire in his belly. You’d never know what Benton Wesley is truly like to look at him right now in his perfectly tailored suit, hand-stitched because he comes from old New England money.

“Hi,” he says, taking the shopping bag from me but I hold on to my briefcase.

He watches Marino’s dark blue SUV pull back out into traffic, and the heat rising off the pavement makes the air look thick and dirty.

“I hope your afternoon’s been better than mine.” I’m conscious of how wilted I am compared to my perfectly put-together husband. “I’m sorry I’m such a train wreck.”

“What possessed you to walk?”

“Not you too. Did Bryce send out a be on the lookout for a deranged woman with a run in her stockings prowling the Harvard campus?”

“But you really shouldn’t have, Kay. For lots of reasons.”

“You must know about the nine-one-one call. It would seem to be the headline of the day.”

He doesn’t answer but he doesn’t need to. He knows. Bryce probably called him because I doubt Marino would.