Dust

38

We load my gear and the red bag of soiled protective clothing into the trunk of Benton’s powerful turbo sports car as if we’re leaving.

He shuts the lid and locks it with a chirp. On foot we divert away from the parking lot, pushing through a barrier of pines with low-hanging branches, veering away from the driveway toward more trees, a meadow and acres of yard in a precise direction that he determined earlier. I notice him check tall lamps glowing dull yellow, their security cameras pointed like periscopes to pick up any movement along the blacktop we avoid as we make our way carefully through the foggy dark toward the house where Lombardi lived alone.

His grounds are deliberately planned, with the office building about a mile into the winding paved drive. Then a glass-enclosed walkway connects that building to a larger one, what Benton tells me is a spa, gym, and indoor pool, that in turn is connected by another enclosed walkway to a generous guest quarters. From there an additional walkway leads to the house painted dark green with dark brown shutters and a dark green metal roof, tucked in pines and not easily spotted from the air. Benton describes the dead billionaire’s lair as architecturally camouflaged.

Doors leading into Lombardi’s personal spaces are secured with anti-drill dead bolt lever locks, each with a key that can’t be duplicated, and every area of the compound, with the exception of barns, maintenance sheds, and the sunporch, is connected by these glass and stone walkways that remind me of covered bridges, unusually long ones. As we skirt the soggy perimeter in the inky dark and Benton explains the layout and security to me, I can’t help but think of an octopus reaching out its tentacles across the property, beyond a dark horizon obscured by black clouds and into other cities, states, countries, and continents.

“You’ll judge it for yourself,” Benton says. “You’d never imagine this is going on around here but it shouldn’t be the priority. It can wait, goddamn it. He’s going to kill someone else. And nobody’s looking for him.”

“We are. But he’ll never be caught if we don’t catch Granby first. I believe he knows damn well who this guy is.”

“You have to wonder why he’d help protect him if he has no idea,” Benton replies. “It’s not just about clearing cases in D.C. that are bad for politics and tourism. Granby wants them blamed on someone else for a reason, possibly because Lombardi wanted it. Hang three murders around the neck of a missing man who’s probably dead and no harm done unless the Capital Murderer kills again somewhere else where the DNA can’t be tampered with. And he did and here we are and Granby must be secretly panicking.”

He doesn’t say it as if he’s happy about it. Benton isn’t heavy-handed or vindictive and maybe I can be both. He steers me around low-hanging branches I can barely see and when my shoulder grazes them cold rainwater showers me. I put my coat on and button it up.

“If we walked on the driveway, who’s going to see us and what would happen?” I comb my fingers through my damp hair.

“The cameras would pick us up and we’d show up on monitors. They’d be here in two seconds and Granby would have us escorted off the property immediately.”

“You really think so?”

“It wouldn’t be pretty,” he says.

“That’s assuming they aren’t too busy to notice.”

“They probably are at the moment. When more backup arrives we’ll be out of luck and out of time. I’m surprised they aren’t here already.”

“What happens when we get to the house?” I ask.

“The door near the garage has an alarm but the system’s off. The chef disarmed it earlier and didn’t reset it. There’s no camera at that entrance probably because Lombardi wanted to come and go with various acquaintances, colleagues, mobsters, or his women and not be seen or recorded.”

“Colleagues such as friends in high places,” I suggest.

“I think that’s the picture we’re getting.”

“And his women like Gail Shipton.”

“To control her. To overpower. To bend her to his will.”

“It wasn’t just about sex.”

“Power,” Benton says. “He made her do it because she didn’t want it. And to put her in her place. Carin Hegel thought she was a match for these people at first because she had no idea. She thought it was just a lawsuit. And Lombardi was putting her in her place, too.”

“She doesn’t think it’s just a lawsuit now as she hides out at Lucy’s house. And I wonder how many other former clients Lombardi did this to. Took everything they had in a way that couldn’t be proven, then settled with insurance money that he got a cut of — the biggest cut, I’m sure. Or maybe he simply got them to bend to his will because they felt they had no choice or might be killed.”

“What he did with Gail would have been a small transaction for him,” Benton says.

“A hundred million is small?”

“Whatever the settlement would have been, a payout from insurance companies, pocket change to him but an amusement because a big trial lawyer like Hegel dared to sue him. Gail was weak and got desperate and then he owned her and any technology she might help him with.” Every other minute he’s looking at his phone, getting information from Lucy. “If she wasn’t dead, she’d be charged with fraud. She’d be out of MIT and life would be over for her.”

“Does Granby know about that part of it? That she was in collusion?”

“I don’t know what he knows on his own but you heard what I told him.” Benton’s voice is as hard as iron. “I laid out what was important and I’m not telling him another damn thing. I’m home for the holidays, remember? And we’re not here unless they’ve noticed my car.”

“Some investigators they are if they haven’t.”

“They’re not noticing anything except what’s in the documents they’re rooting through,” Benton replies. “They’ve probably gotten the safe open by now and no telling what’s in it — I’m guessing millions in cash, gold, foreign currency, and account numbers for offshore banks — and he’s on the phone with headquarters every other minute, plotting, planning, cracking another big case. He’s predictable and he’s got it all figured out and the person we should worry about isn’t on their radar. No one’s looking for a reason. Granby’s diverted them.”

“He cheated the DNA. He solved a case that isn’t solved and now what’s he going to do about it?” We walk through bunchgrass that would be bright with wildflowers in warmer months. “He’ll clear the D.C. cases, blame the murders on Martin Lagos, and make what’s happened here a separate investigation into organized crime and professional hits,” I suppose.

“Which is totally illogical and someone will point that out eventually. Not everybody in the FBI is incompetent and corrupt,” Benton says. But what he’s really saying is he doesn’t want to believe anybody is.

“We don’t have the luxury for what will happen eventually.”

“A contract killer brings his own weapon to a job,” Benton says. “He doesn’t leave clothing at the scene, take a blood-soaked hooded sweatshirt from one of his victims so he can disguise himself as he runs like hell through a crowd of schoolchildren on his way back to wherever he left his car. He doesn’t grab an envelope full of cash and then accidentally drop it in a public park, an envelope with blood and a return address on it.”

Benton watches where he steps, his borrowed sneakers drenched. The wind is more frigid than I thought and everything we brush against is waterlogged.

“This is someone out of control who didn’t kill the people of Double S for money,” he says. “Maybe he wanted a reward and the ego gratification of being thanked for getting rid of Gail Shipton but the others were personal. They had it coming. Maybe not in Swanson’s case. He may have been in the way and that’s it.”

“The killer is someone they knew and underestimated or ignored.” The legs of my pants are soaked and my hands are cold. “People like this don’t unlock a door or turn their back on someone they have even the slightest hesitation about.”

“Rage,” Benton says. “Lombardi hit this person where it hurts. He insulted and humiliated him and I have a feeling Lombardi had done it before. We’re going to find there’s a history. He knew him and I maintain no one at Double S asked him to murder Gail and wouldn’t have because of the scam she was involved in, and that’s not why he killed her anyway.”

“He may believe that’s why. He may believe that’s why he’s killed all of them.”

“He believes what drives him is rational but it’s all about what arouses him,” Benton says. “And maybe he’s gotten crazy because what he just did was dangerously foolish and it surprises me that someone as ruthless as Lombardi missed every cue until his blood was gushing all over his desk.”

“Arrogance. A bully above the law who thought he was untouchable. Or maybe there’s another reason he took this person for granted.”

“Granby’s looking for a Russian gangster to arrest and I’m sure he’ll find one somewhere,” Benton says bleakly.

I envision Ed Granby trim and dapper, with glittery small eyes and a long nose as pointed as a pencil, his hair combed straight back and gray only at the temples. His hair is so perfect I’m sure he dyes it like that and I feel my indignation swell and rise and I walk close to Benton, feeling him against me, and I feel calmer as the house looms nearer but still about a quarter of a mile off, a light on at ground level, the rest of it dark.

I check messages, my phone display glaringly bright in a darkness moiling with fog. Lamps in the distance illuminate little as they barely push through as if we’re out on a ship approaching a socked-in shore. I have another reminder from Ernie Koppel that he’s home if I want to talk and I try his number as we walk.

“I’m outside and it’s windy,” I apologize when he answers.

“I imagine you’re still in Concord and we’re eating dinner glued to the TV. It’s on every news channel.”

“What have you got for me?”

“An early Christmas present, a lot of things.”

“That makes me happy.”

“A tool-mark match, yes, and you’re not surprised because you suspected it. And you’re right about the Maryland case,” he says. “The same mineral fingerprint as this one here at MIT and also from the residue you just collected at the Concord scene.”

“From the stubs Lucy dropped off.”

“Yes,” he says. “The same mineral fingerprint on the dead person’s fleece. Halite is basically rock salt and under SEM it’s obvious it was artificially grown by saturating salt water and allowing it to evaporate, which makes me suspect the residue that’s turning up is from something manufactured for a specific commercial use.”

“Do you have any idea what?”

“Calcite and aragonite are common in construction, found in cement and sand, for example. And I know that halite’s used in glassmaking and ceramics and also to melt ice on the roads. But the three of these minerals together with the same elemental fingerprint as in the Maryland case and now this one and basically every sample I tested? It could be some sort of art supply for pottery or sculpture, maybe some type of mineral pigments in tempera paint or special effects. Under black light it sure as hell would be iridescent.”

“Anything about the fibers?”

“From Gail Shipton, Lycra from the blue fibers you collected and also what she was wrapped in. The white cloth is also Lycra. And that’s also consistent with the fibers found in the Washington, D.C., cases, maybe the same fabrics in all of the cases but different runs of it. One thing that surprised me is the vapor rub. I can’t pinpoint the brand but the spectral fragmentation pattern made for a relatively easy identification that’s the surprise in the Cracker Jacks. Apparently someone was looking to do more than clear his sinuses. MDPV,” he says.

“You’re kidding.”

“I’m definitely not kidding. DNA handed off a sample to me late afternoon and I gave it a whirl with FTIR and that’s what I got but I’m not a toxicologist. If you’re not opposed to using up some of the sample, I suggest liquid chromatography — tandem mass spec just to confirm. And by the way the tox lab tells me it’s the same methcathinone analog as that suicide from last week, the lady who jumped off her building. A really dangerous designer drug someone’s selling on our streets, the same one that’s been wreaking havoc this past year I’m afraid.”

“Thank you, Ernie.”

“I know it’s not for me to offer but I’m going to anyway. I think it’s the same guy. He’s doing something weird to them, maybe wrapping them in stretchy fabric and then using some sort of artistic medium, maybe painting portraits of them after they’re dead, who the hell knows. You be careful, Kay.”

“Racehorses and bath salts,” I say to Benton when I get off the phone. “I guess if you want to focus keenly and experience superhuman energy and euphoria and wreak havoc on your neurotransmitters, mix a little monkey dust in your vapor rub and keep swiping it up your nose.”

“That helps explain what he just did. It might explain a lot of things. Increasing paranoia, agitation, aggression, and violence.”

“His system’s going to be roaring, hot and sweating, his blood pressure through the roof.” I think of the bareheaded young man with no coat on in the rainy cold. “He may be getting psychotic.”

I imagine him watching me in the dark behind my house and I wonder who and what he thought I was, and who is Benton? Who are any of us or his victims to him?

“The horror of this drug is that you can’t escape from it and you never know what dose you’re getting in a package,” I explain. “So the reaction can go from mild to insanity and brain damage. Eventually it will kill him.”

“Not soon enough,” Benton says.

Through fragrant evergreens that smell like cedar we near the lighted windows on the first floor, careful about cameras, making sure no one is around as I continue looking back like a fugitive.

I see no headlights or flashlights, just the darkness of the wet foggy night and our foggy breath, and I hear the wet sounds of Benton’s borrowed shoes. I estimate that from the entrance of the property to where the driveway curves past the outbuildings and the office and around to Lombardi’s house the distance is almost two miles. We trudge through a vegetable garden that’s dormant and dead and then spreading out before us are a tennis court with no net, a barbecue pit, and a lap pool that’s covered for the winter.

There’s another tarmac, this one round and made of pavers that I suspect are heated, and beyond it are four bay doors that are heavy metal like hurricane shutters. Inside are cars, Benton says, rare Ferraris, Maseratis, Lamborghinis, McLarens, a Bugatti, all with Miami plates, the baubles of the super-rich and super-thieves, and like yachts, business jets, and penthouses, they’re a way to launder illegal money. The cars probably were destined for the Port of Boston and headed to places like Southeast Asia and the Middle East, Benton suspects.

A solid-wood door opens onto the long, glass-enclosed stone walkway that up close I can see has a golf cart inside and is stacked with split firewood. This leads from the outbuilding that’s a spa to the house that includes the private kitchen and living area, the master suite on the top floor and the garage on the lower level. Benton opens another door that he left unlocked when he was here earlier with Marino and we enter Lombardi’s private kitchen, an open space with a deep fireplace near a breakfast table and zinc counters and big windows overlooking the grounds.

A wine cellar is visible beneath plate glass in the hardwood floor and when I walk across it I have the fleeting sensation of vertigo, a fear of falling, that flutters in my stomach. I step to one side of it and don’t look down at the hundreds of bottles in circular wooden racks and decorative wooden casks and a table for tasting.

Copper cookware as bright as rose gold hangs from a wrought-iron rack above a butcher block with a maple top where plastic bags of groceries are spilled open, hastily set down by the chef when he returned from shopping late today. Milk and fine cheeses and cuts of meat have been left out and I can see evidence of his panic after he discovered police cars in the driveway.

He would have driven right past my big white truck with MA Office of Chief Medical Examiner and our crest painted in blue on the sides and there are few sights less welcome than my staff and machinery showing up. It’s heart-stopping. It causes instant visceral terror and I tend to forget the god-awful effect I have especially when I’m unexpected, which is almost always. I resist the impulse to tuck perishables into the refrigerator. It seems such a waste. I photograph them instead.

I pause by the commercial French cooktop to look at fine carving sets with green beechwood handles. Paring, boning, tomato, bread, and chef’s knives, wide and narrow and up to twelve inches long, and also sharpening steels, are all in the proper slots of two cutlery blocks. I take more pictures, documenting every place I look and whatever I touch, as Benton continues to check messages landing from Lucy in a rapid succession of alert tones that he’s set to sound like an irritating bicycle bell so he doesn’t miss a single one.