Dust

37

It’s after six p.m. and as dark as a moonless night when I begin packing up.

I’ve done what can be done, which is very little in the final scheme of things when I examine ruined biology, when I smell its foulness and touch what feels unnatural after life has given up. I know what killed the people at Double S and am faced with a much bigger problem that can’t be resolved by CT scans or autopsies. The victims have said what they need to say and now I’m after their killer and the FBI official protecting him.

I take off my coveralls, booties, and gloves and stuff them into a bright red biohazard trash bag on the floor inside the entranceway where Benton waits with a stony resolve about what we intend to do. It’s important I look for the type of weapon that was used and I don’t believe the killer found it in the office kitchen or inside this building and I seriously doubt he brought it with him when he showed up at Double S and murdered three people this morning.

The bodies and any evidence relating to them are my jurisdiction and that certainly includes any weapon used. This is my argument but it’s far from the whole truth about why I refuse to leave the scene even as I’m about to give the appearance that I have. While I’m exerting my authority as a chief medical examiner, what I’m feeling like is an intruder or a spy as I plot, plan, and sneak around. Granby and his agents would never allow me inside Dominic Lombardi’s house, not in a million years no matter what I argue, but that’s where I’m headed.

Benton is going to take me and in the process blatantly counter a direct order because he’s not motivated by politics or personal advancement or dishonesty. It’s never about anything like that with him and he’s incensed by the situation he finds himself in, which isn’t entirely new but so much worse it’s shocking. Respecting me professionally and doing what I’ve asked would get him fired if he still had a job he could be fired from. Granby stripped him of his power and dignity and he did it in front of everyone. No crystal balls are needed here, Granby had the nerve to say. Have a drink or two or three and he told us to have a very merry Christmas and a happy New Year. By the time that happens Granby will be ruined. I will make sure of it.

I will see whatever there is to see before it has been tampered with. I’ll take photographs to preserve the truth before Granby can continue to distort and manipulate it in whatever fashion suits his pathological ambition and need to cover up lies he’s told and whatever crimes he’s committed. He’s not going to get away with it. We won’t let him and it’s all in the execution. We can’t do anything we would have to misrepresent later, Benton and I strategized as we stood outside a little while ago, our voices quiet beneath the diesel rumble of my boxy white office truck parked in front, the tailgate open and a hydraulic ramp lowered.

We agreed that if we get caught in even one deception or are accused of fabricating anything at all it would discredit everything else. So we’ll document our every move and protect what we can in a way we can prove, and Benton won’t need to verbalize a single detail he shouldn’t share with his lover, his wife. I was here because I had a right to be. I’ll be asked in court about the weapon and I’m expected to have an answer. And as for the confidential information that Lucy is sending wirelessly to Benton, it’s too damn bad if I happen to see it for myself as text messages land on his phone.

He doesn’t need to tell me classified details about the Russian or Israeli mafia or money laundering or other massive crimes that possibly include murder for hire. I can’t help what I overhear or see with my own eyes that might explain why Granby continues to shield a spectacle murderer who has rapidly spun out of control. And I can almost conjure him up, his pale skin and dark hair, compactly built and wearing size-eight running gloves that look like rubber bare feet. By now there can be no doubt it was the killer behind my wall this morning and I envision him in the rainy dark in a kelly green button-up fleece and bareheaded, oblivious to the wet and cold.

I imagine his wide eyes and dilated pupils, his limbic system roaring like an inferno as he witnessed my bedroom light blink on at a few minutes past four a.m. Then the light in my bathroom was next, and after that the stained glass was illuminated over the landings on the stairs as he witnessed my response to the evil thing he’d done.

I can imagine the intensity of his excitement as he watched me emerge from the back door and heard me talking to my skittish old dog, the lady doctor getting ready to respond to a murder scene choreographed by a profoundly disturbed human being who fancies himself more powerful and professional than any of us. I see him as a crazed cruel monster and maybe it’s true that he went into overdrive after the massacre in Connecticut. Maybe he got curious about me. And then I wonder how he felt when I opened my door and yelled at him like a nagging next-door neighbor.

I doubt he was frightened. He might have been amused or more excited and aroused, and I imagine him running nimbly back to the MIT campus along the railroad tracks to watch me show up with Marino, to watch Lucy land her helicopter and Benton climb out. What fanfare and reward for a sadistic narcissist and I feel certain he’d been watching me for days as he premeditated Gail Shipton’s murder, gathering intelligence about her, stalking, fantasizing what a superhero he would be when he created more terror and drama and in the process eliminated what he wrongly rationalized was a problem for Double S, assuming he rationalizes or reasons or has any logic at all.

The killer didn’t need to be asked to murder Gail Shipton nor would he have been, Benton has said repeatedly over recent hours. On his own this deluded, violent individual took care of someone who in his mind was a thorn in Lombardi’s side. When this rogue killer showed up or was summoned to Double S this morning, it’s possible he expected to get praised and rewarded as he devoured cupcakes on the soundproof sunporch. But that’s not how it worked out for him or for any of them, Benton theorized not long before Granby wrapped his arm around him and told him condescendingly to go home and enjoy the rest of his life.

The killer is rapidly decompensating. He may have become psychotic, Benton explained as the bodies were pouched and carried like black cocoons out to my truck. Lombardi was the intended target but his murder wasn’t planned. His assistant Caminska was personal but not as much. And the third victim, who we believe is Haley Swanson, was in the wrong place at the wrong time.

Swanson took the commuter train to Concord to meet with Lombardi because suddenly there was, to say the least, an unexpected PR dilemma, Benton did his best to impress upon his FBI colleagues. The killer is someone Lombardi knew but murdering Gail Shipton wasn’t in Double S’s plans or best interest. It wasn’t necessary and would only bring unwanted attention and public scrutiny, which is the last thing organized criminals want or need. In fact, Lombardi may have been enraged when he found out the news.

Crisis management is what Benton called what may have gone on early this morning. It’s likely the killer was castigated and berated for the reckless thing he’d done, and Benton could well imagine this person driving off stung and belittled and then returning on foot to slaughter Lombardi and whoever else was inside this building. But Granby hasn’t listened and not because he doesn’t care. He cares, all right, because he can’t possibly solve the cases honestly.

He damn well knows what he assumes we don’t, the falsified DNA, the tampering in CODIS. He has to be frantically aware that DNA recovered in the cases here in Massachusetts or some place else won’t come back to Martin Lagos who isn’t leaving biological evidence anywhere. He’s nothing but a string of numbers in a database, a stain that couldn’t have been left by him on a pair of Sally Carson’s cotton panties.

“The blood card from her autopsy in Virginia will have to be reanalyzed but we can’t mention this to anyone right now. It will have to wait until it’s safe to address,” I say to Benton as I go through my scene case, doing a last-minute inventory.

I pick up envelopes and containers I’ve labeled and sealed, evidence from three people savagely killed, each of their tracheas cut all the way through like a vacuum cleaner hose.

“That’s how we undo the tampering and show Sally Carson’s profile was changed to Martin Lagos’s,” I explain. “We can straighten this out but the timing is imperative and right now we really don’t know who to trust but absolutely not the head of your labs in Quantico. I worry she’s in thick with Granby.”

“Someone is,” Benton says.

“Maybe that’s how she got the job, a big step up to go from the director of the Virginia labs to the director of the national ones. She took over last summer about the same time Granby took over the Boston division and some months and two murders later a DNA profile is corrupted in CODIS. It had to be someone who has access and knows how to alter data.”

“The Bureau will blame it on lab contamination or a computer entry error.” Benton stands near the front door, his eyes on me, the two of us alone and ignored inside the front office. “But it won’t even get that far publicly. It will go away silently.”

“We’ll see about that.” I continue checking evidence, making sure what I collected is accounted for as we head out into the night. “I suspect your boss knew back in April who murdered Klara Hembree, that her killer is someone in thick with Double S and that’s why Granby ended up here so he could be in Lombardi’s backyard.”

“Klara Hembree is key to figuring it out. In her case there may have been a motive,” Benton says. “But obviously doing something as drastic as tampering with CODIS didn’t become necessary until Sally Carson and Julianne Goulet were murdered.”

“Because they weren’t supposed to be,” I say angrily. “Because the person doing it is worse than a loose cannon. He’s a contagion on its way to causing a plague. I’m surprised someone didn’t take him out by now.”

“It may have been too late for that. I suspect what we’re dealing with has very deep roots.”

“As deep as deep gets.” I can’t disguise the outrage I feel.

“You might want to put this on.”

Benton holds out my coat and I see the love he has for me. I see it in his eyes, and I see the shadow of disgust and indignation that feel like sickness. Granby may as well have kicked him in the gut, and I saw it happen and it bothers Benton that I did. It bothers him terribly as if I will think less of him and that only makes me hell-bent and angrier.

“The fresh air is what I need.” I want to breathe clean air, pleasant-smelling, bracing air, and I need to think clearly. “The cold will feel good right about now.” I don’t put my coat on yet.

Adrenaline has banished fatigue and I’ve gone from being hungry to not feeling it anymore, and I send a text message to Bryce. I tell him Dr. Adams needs to return to the CFC immediately to confirm identifications.

“Already on his way,” he answers before I’ve finished typing that I’m going to be tied up for a while.

“Gavin’s only called about ten million times,” my chief of staff fires back about the Boston Globe reporter who’s a close friend of his and therefore gets preferential treatment that I’ve given up quibbling about.

Gavin Connors is a fine journalist who goes to concerts and sporting events with Bryce and Ethan, they cook together, and when needed he takes care of their Scottish Fold cat named Shaw. I will have quite the story for Gavin Connors but it needs to wait until I’m sure what it is and am ready to hand it off in a way that won’t be traceable, and I have no doubt Barbara Fairbanks will blast it everywhere next. The news will be too sensational for the government to bury, and I let Bryce know that when I’m back we’ll deal with the media, and I’ll want to hear all about the interview with Marino’s possible replacement.

“I rescheduled. Are U surprised?”

“Good thinking. Don’t want visitors at CFC right now. Nobody comes in without my permission, including FBI.” I type with my thumbs, standing near the kitchen where blood has dried from bright red to a dark unpolished ruby like lights dimming before they burn out.

I sense Benton’s tension and preoccupation as he waits for me, checking his phone, rolling through messages and going back and forth with Lucy who is rocketing through the cyberspace and databases of Double S’s tower server.

She has very little time and I give it but a few hours before she’s backed up every byte of information. When the FBI arrives at the CFC and demands the computer there will be no sign we so much as plugged it in. My labs are jammed with a huge backlog of cases, I’ll suggest if necessary. We didn’t get around to it yet will be the implication. This is what the likes of Granby has reduced us to. Working against the FBI, working against our own people because we don’t know who our people are anymore.

Bryce’s next text lands with a chime and I let him know that all cases need to be done tonight.

“Do U want us to save U one?” he writes back as if an autopsy is a slice of cake or a sandwich.

“No. But make sure Luke is the one doing post of victim tentatively ID’d as Haley Swanson.”

“10-4 & btw. Ernie has results. Gonzo for the day but U can call him at home. He’s always up late.” As usual, Bryce is in a mood to chat.

“Thanks.” I turn around at the sound of footsteps.

An FBI agent in a polo shirt and khaki cargo pants passes through in tactical boots, wearing a Glock on his belt and carrying an M4 carbine, the short barrel pointed down, the black nylon strap hanging to his hip.

He pauses to look at us with a smile that flashes brightly without a trace of warmth, and he opens the steel door and shuts it behind him, returning to the rooms where the others have been busy for hours digging through documents.

“We should head out.” Benton stares toward the back offices, fully aware of what’s going on without him.

While I was examining Caminska’s body, slumped over her bloody desk, I overheard a mention of the Bureau’s Eurasian Organized Crime Squad. It primarily targets criminals with ties to the Soviet Union and Central Europe and I’m aware the entire compound is now a crime scene that’s been taken over by the FBI.

The entrance to the driveway is barricaded and guarded and soon it won’t be possible to walk anywhere without running into agents armed with assault rifles and sub-submachine guns. Benton and I will be noticed by someone before we’re done. But I have my reason, an unusual murder weapon and my right to look for it or something like it.

“What about keys?” I ask.

I saw Marino hand over the big set of them to the agent who just walked through. This was after Marino and Benton returned from searching the grounds without permission or telling anyone. The agent took the keys from Marino with an inquisitive look, wondering how he got them or where they were from. I remembered seeing them in blood on Lombardi’s desk, partially under his nearly decapitated body, and later the keys weren’t there anymore. Benton offered no explanation to his young FBI colleague while Marino disappeared into the night with his dog, loudly mentioning something about teaching Quincy to be friends with horses without being kicked or stepped on.

He emphasized the words kicked and stepped on and that’s when I knew he understood what was going on and being done. In the blink of an eye Marino has gone from trying to push Benton around to being his biggest ally.

“We don’t need keys,” Benton says to me.

I don’t ask him how he expects to get back into the locked-up private places he and Marino explored, Lombardi’s secret rooms, his massive garage. I will see what’s there for myself in this very brief window of time. Benton and I need to be done in an hour, not much more than that, without risking an interference that we can’t afford.

“Everything will be fine.” I retrieve gloves and a small camera from my field case and tuck them into a pocket. “There are steps that can be taken and we’re taking them.”

Benton doesn’t answer. He continues to stare in the direction of the offices where the FBI has busied itself after instructing NEMLEC officers to clear the scene and telling him to go home and not return to work until he’s called, which will be never, he says. Only one Concord detective remains with them. I can’t imagine he’s saying much, hanging around and ignored like a cigar store wooden Indian, there for appearances, the FBI cooperating in a joint operation, as joint as it gets with an unscrupulous bastard like Ed Granby in charge.

“We’re okay. We’re way ahead, Benton.”

He looks at me with no expression. “We shouldn’t have to be,” he says.

“It doesn’t matter whether we should or shouldn’t. We’re ahead of them and will stay ahead of them.” I glance back toward the offices where Granby and his team are investigating the mother of cases, as Marino put it after he and Benton had gone building to building, room to room. “They’re so busy with whatever’s locked in filing cabinets and drawers and all the bankers boxes in that back storage area I saw that they aren’t focused on the computer yet,” I add.

“I don’t think they know it’s gone,” Benton says. “They’re still wondering what happened to the DVR or if there was one.”

“They’ll get nothing from us. Not one glimmer of enlightenment.” I snap shut the oversized clasps of my field case, grateful Lucy left with the server before Granby and his agents showed up.

I’ve said nothing about any evidence that’s at my labs or en route to them and the FBI can’t just roll in and take everything. There’s such a thing as chain of custody and they’ll have to work it out with the Concord and Cambridge police. And if trace or DNA evidence is in my possession already, then they’ll have to work it out with me. I can make the process as slow and weighed down by bureaucracy as they’ve ever seen. There’s no right reason for evidence from my cases in Massachusetts to go to the national labs in Quantico, only the wrong reason that has to do with what Ed Granby decides to alter, destroy, or simply hide. I won’t give him anything until I don’t need it anymore.

Meanwhile, every minute that passes Lucy is at her keyboards surrounded by flat screens, mining for truths, and she’s already causing Granby the most trouble he’s ever had in his life. It couldn’t be more deserved. He can go to hell and he will before I’m done.

“Ready,” I say to Benton.

I carry my gear through the front door and onto the veranda and I’m delighted Granby isn’t the sort to take me seriously. He never has even when he’s acted like it. As many times as he’s been in my presence at his office and mine, out to dinner and over to the house, he doesn’t know me, only what he projects from his self-image and filters through his self-absorption. He doesn’t know Benton any better.

I don’t yet have an idea how far Granby has stepped over the line but anyone who would tamper with evidence is capable of anything and what I can’t get out of my mind is his career trajectory. I saw the press release when he was named the special agent in charge of Boston. I’ve heard him talk ad nauseam about all of the important things he’s done.

When I was the chief medical examiner of Virginia he was the assistant special agent in charge, the ASAC, of the Washington, D.C., field office, where he worked public corruption and violent crime, among other lofty responsibilities that included the White House. For a long time after that he was a Hoover Building bureaucrat at headquarters, overseeing field office inspections and national security investigations, and then last summer he came to Boston.

I remember Benton telling me it was a lateral move Granby requested because he’s originally from here but now I’m convinced there’s another reason, a filthy one. His transfer occurred last summer, not long after Klara Hembree left Cambridge in the midst of an acrimonious divorce. She moved to Washington, D.C., to be near her family because she didn’t feel safe and already Lucy has discovered that her estranged husband has an extensive business relationship with Double S.

She’s found purchase and sale contracts for pricey real estate and evidence of all sorts of payments and monies moved in and out of different bank and investment accounts. She’s texting bullet summaries to Benton almost in real time and I happen to hear them land and see them glowing bright green on his phone as I did a few minutes ago.

“I feel sure about this. It’s going to be fine,” I say to him in an upbeat way that blankets my slow-burning indignation and fury.