Patricia Cornwell - Predator

Marino has no idea what Mrs. Simister is talking about or who she is or why she is calling theNationalForensicAcademy, and he can’t exorciseDorisfrom his head. He wishes he had done more than threaten the damn dentist or root canal specialist or whatever the hell he was. He should have destroyed the asshole’s face and maybe broken a few of his fingers.

“Explain to Investigator Marino what you mean by the police not caring,” Scarpetta says over speakerphone.

“The last I saw any sign of life over there was this past Thursday night, and when I realized everybody was gone without a trace, I called nine-one-one right away and they sent a police officer to the house and then he called a detective. She obviously doesn’t care.”

“You’re talking about theHollywoodpolice,” Scarpetta says, looking at Marino.

“Yes. A Detective Wagner.”

Marino rolls his eyes. This is unbelievable. With all his bad luck of late, he doesn’t need this.

He asks from the doorway, “You talking about Reba Wagner?”

“What?” the querulous voice asks.

He steps closer to the phone on the desk and repeats his question.

“All I know is the initials on her card are R. T. So I suppose it could be Reba.”

Marino rolls his eyes again and taps his head, indicating that Detective R. T. Wagner is as dumb as a rock.

“She looked around the yard and the house and said there was no sign of foul play. She felt they ran off on their own and said there’s nothing the police can do about it.”

“Do you know these people?” Marino asks.

“I live right across the water from them. And I go to their church. I just know something bad has happened.”

“All right,” Scarpetta says. “What is it you’re asking us to do, Mrs. Simister?”

“To at least look at the house. You see, the church rents it, and they’ve kept it locked up since they disappeared. But the lease is up in three months, and the landlord says he’ll let the church out of it without a penalty because he’s got someone else to rent it. Some of the ladies at the church plan to go over there first thing in the morning and start packing up. Then what happens to any clues?”

“All right,” Scarpetta says again. “I tell you what we’ll do. We’re going to call Detective Wagner. We can’t go in the house without permission from the police. We don’t have jurisdiction unless they ask for our help.”

“I understand. Thank you very much. Please do something.”

“All right, Mrs. Simister. We’ll get back to you. We need your phone number.”

“Huh,” Marino says when Scarpetta hangs up. “Probably some mental case.”

“How about you call Detective Wagner, since it seems you’re familiar with her,” Scarpetta says.

“She used to be a motorcycle cop. Dumb as dirt but handled her Road King pretty good. I can’t believe they made her a detective.”

He gets out his Treo and dreads hearing Reba’s voice and wishesDoriswould get out of his mind. He tellsHollywoodpolice dispatch to have Detective Wagner contact him immediately. He ends the call and looks around Scarpetta’s office, looks everywhere but at her as he thinks aboutDorisand the dentist, or whatever the hell he was, and the car salesman. He thinks about how satisfying it would have been to beat the dentist, or whatever the hell he was, senseless instead of getting drunk and barging into his office and demanding he step out of an examination room and in front of a lobby full of patients asking why he thought it was necessary to examine his wife’s tits and to please explain how tits might be relevant in a root canal case.

“Marino?”

Why that incident should still bother him all over again after all these years is a mystery. He doesn’t understand why a lot of things have started bothering him again. The last few weeks have been hell.

“Marino?”

He comes to and looks at Scarpetta at the same time he realizes his cell phone is buzzing.

“Yeah,” he answers.

“Detective Wagner here.”

“Investigator Pete Marino,” he says, as if he doesn’t know her.

“What do you need, Investigator Pete Marino.” She sounds as if she doesn’t know him, either.

“I understand you got a family that’s disappeared from theWestLakearea. Apparently last Thursday night.”

“How did you hear about that?”

“Apparently there’s some concern foul play might be involved. And the word is you aren’t being very helpful.”

“We’d be investigating the hell out of it if we thought there was anything to it. What’s the source of your information?”

“A lady from their church. You got the names of these people who supposedly have vanished?”

“Let me think. They’re kind of odd names, Eva Christian and Crystal or Christine Christian. Something like that. I can’t think of the boys’ names.”

“Could you mean Christian Christian?”

Scarpetta and Marino look at each other.

“Something a whole lot like that. I don’t have my notes in front of me. You want to look into it, be my guest. My department’s not going to devote a lot of resources to something when there’s absolutely no evidence…”

“I got that part,” Marino says rudely. “Supposedly the church is going to start packing up that house tomorrow and if we’re gonna take a look, now’s the time.”

“They’ve not even been gone for a week and the church is already packing up the house? Sounds to me they know they’ve skipped town and aren’t coming back. What’s it sound like to you?”

“Sounds like we ought to make sure,” Marino says.

The manbehind the counter is older and more distinguished than Lucy imagined. She expected someone who looks like a has-been surfer, someone leathery and covered in tattoos. That’s the sort of person who ought to be working in a shop called Beach Bums.

She sets down a camera case, and her fingers flutter through big, loud shirts printed with sharks, flowers, palm trees and other tropical designs. She peruses stacks of straw hats and bins of flip-flops and displays of sunglasses and lotions, not interested in buying any of it but wishing she were. For a moment she browses, waiting for two other customers to leave. She wonders how it would feel to be like everybody else, to care about souvenirs and gaudy things to wear and days in the sun, to feel good about the way she looks half-naked in a swimsuit.

“You got any of that stuff with zinc oxide in it?” one of the customers is asking Larry, who is seated behind the counter.

He has thick, white hair and a neatly trimmed beard, is sixty-two, was born inAlaska, drives a Jeep, has never owned a home, didn’t go to college and in 1957 was arrested for drunk and disorderly. Larry has managed Beach Bums for about two years.

“Nobody likes that anymore,” he is telling the customer.

“I do. It doesn’t break out my skin like all these other lotions. I think I’m allergic to aloe.”

“These sunblocks don’t have aloe.”

“You carry Maui Jim’s?”

“Too expensive, my dear. The only sunglasses we got are the ones you’re looking at.”

This goes on for a while, both customers making minor purchases, finally leaving. Lucy wanders up to the counter.

“Can I help you with something?” Larry asks, looking at the way she is dressed. “Where’d you just come from, a Mission Impossible movie?”

“I rode my motorcycle here.”

“Well, you’re one of the few with any sense. Look out the window. Every one of them in shorts and T-shirts, no helmet. Some of them in flip-flops.”

“You must be Larry.”

He looks surprised and says, “You been in here before? I don’t remember you, and I’m pretty good with faces.”

“I’d like to talk to you about Florrie and Helen Quincy,” she says. “But I need you to lock the door.”