Patricia Cornwell - Flesh and Blood

“I’ll take care of it.”

“You might want to book our flight for tomorrow,” I decide. “I don’t think we’re going anywhere today.”

I head upstairs. Sunlight streams through the French stained glass over the landings, illuminating wildlife scenes like jewels. The vivid reds and blues don’t inspire happiness at the moment. They remind me of emergency lights.

Inside our master suite on the second floor I take off my jacket and drop it on the bed, which I’ve not gotten around to making. I was hopeful we hadn’t finished with it yet.

Through windows facing the front of the house I can see Marino leaning against his unmarked dark blue Ford Explorer. His shaved head is shiny in the bright sunlight as if he polishes his big round dome, and he has on wire-rimmed Ray-Bans that are as old-fashioned as his worldview. He doesn’t seem particularly worried about an active shooter at large as he lingers in the middle of our driveway.

I can tell he was off duty when he got the call. His voluminous gray sweatpants and black leather high-tops are what he usually wears for heavy bag training at his boxing club, and I suspect there’s a vest under his zipped-up Harley-Davidson windbreaker. I don’t see Quincy, his rescued German Shepherd that Marino has deluded himself into believing is a service dog. He shows up at most crime scenes these days, snuffles around and typically pees on something disgusting or rolls in it.

Inside the bathroom I wash my face and brush my teeth. Stripping off my drawstring pants and pullover I’m confronted by myself in the full-length mirror on the back of the door. Handsome, attractive in a strong way according to journalists, and it’s my belief they’re actually thinking about my personality when they make such comments. I’m small, formidable, generously built, petite, medium height, too thin, sturdy, depending on who you ask. But the fact is that most journalists have no idea what I really look like and rarely get my age right or understand anything about me at all.

I examine the faintly etched laugh and smile lines, the hint of a furrow from frowning, which I try not to do because it makes nothing better. Mussing my short blond hair with gel and adding a touch of lipstick are an improvement. I brush a mineral sunblock over my face and the backs of my hands.

Then I pull on a T-shirt and over that a soft armor tactical vest, level IIIA, coyote tan, mesh lined. In a drawer I find cargo pants and a long-sleeved button-up shirt, navy blue with the CFC crest, my winter uniform when I respond to deaths or related scenes. I haven’t bothered swapping out for lightweight khaki yet. I was going to do it after Florida.

Back downstairs I retrieve my rugged black plastic scene case out of the closet near the front door. I sit on the rug to pull on ankle-high boots that I decontaminated with detergent after I wore them last. I think of when that was, the end of April, a Sunday. The nights were still dipping into the low forties when a Tufts Medical School professor walking a trail in Estabrook Woods got lost and wasn’t found until the next day. I remember his name, Dr. Johnny Angiers. His widow is owed life insurance benefits thanks to me. I can’t undo death but I can make it less unfair.

Grabbing my case, I head down the brick front steps. In and out of sunlight I pass beneath flowering dogwoods and serviceberry with white clusters on the tips of twigs. Beneath them are wild ginger and cinnamon fern, then the old dark red brick pavers of our narrow driveway which is completely blocked by Marino’s SUV.

“Where’s Quincy?” I look at the empty dog crate in the backseat.

“I was at the gym when I got the call,” Marino says. “Raced home on my motorcycle and grabbed my car but didn’t have time to change or deal with him.”

“I’m sure he wasn’t happy.” I think of my own unhappy dog.

Marino taps a cigarette out of the pack.

“Nothing like it after a workout,” I say pointedly at the spurt of the lighter, the toasty tobacco smell.

He takes a big drag, leaning against the SUV. “No nagging about smoking. Be nice to me today.”

“This minute I might just light one up.” I sit inside the SUV and talk to him through the open door.

“Be my guest.” He sucks on the cigarette and the tip glows brighter like a fanned hot coal.

He shakes another one loose, the brown filter popping up. Greeting me like a lost friend. Like the old days. I’m tempted. I fasten my shoulder harness and suddenly Benton is on the driveway striding toward us with purpose.

The bright copper coins shine through the freezer Baggie Benton carries. He sealed it with tape that he initialed and labeled.

“What the shit?” Marino’s words blow out in a cloud of smoke. “What are you giving this to me for?”

“Either take care of it or it ends up at the FBI labs in Quantico.” Benton hands him the Baggie and a Sharpie. “Which wouldn’t make any sense. No pun intended. I’ve emailed the photographs to you.”

“What? You auditioning to be a crime scene tech? Reading your crystal ball’s not enough anymore? Well I can check. But I’m pretty sure Cambridge isn’t hiring.”

“They’re not fake and they definitely were polished,” Benton says to me. “If you look at them under a lens, each has the same very subtle pitting. It may be that a tumbler was used. Gun enthusiasts who hand-load their own ammo often use tumblers to polish cartridge cases. The pennies need to go to the labs now.”

Marino holds up the Baggie. “I don’t get it.”

“They were left on top of our wall,” I explain. “It could have waited until we were sure nobody is around,” I say to Benton.

“Nobody is. That’s not how an offender like this works.”

“An offender like what ?” Marino asks. “I feel like I missed the first half of the movie.”

“I’ve got to go.” Benton holds my gaze. He looks around and back at me before returning to the house where I have no doubt he’s been making plans he’s not sharing.

Marino initials the Baggie, scribbles the time and date, screwing shut one eye behind his Ray-Bans as smoke drifts into his face. Another drag on the cigarette and he bends down to wipe it against a brick, scraping it out, and he tucks the butt in a pocket. It’s an old habit that comes from working crime scenes where it’s poor form to add detritus that could be confused with evidence. I know the drill. I used to do it too. It was never pretty when I’d forget to empty my pockets before my pants or jacket ended up in the washing machine.

Marino climbs into the SUV and impatiently shoves the Baggie into the glove box.

“The pennies go to fingerprints first, then DNA and trace,” I tell him as we shut our doors. “Be gentle with them. I don’t want any additional artifact introduced such as scratches to the metal from you banging them around.”

“So I’m taking them seriously, really treating them like evidence? In what crime? You mind explaining what the hell’s going on?”

I tell him what I remember about the anonymous email I received last month.

“Did Lucy figure out who it is?”

“No.”

“You’re kidding me, right?”

“It wasn’t possible.”

“She couldn’t hack her way into figuring it out?” Marino backs out of the driveway. “Lucy must be slipping.”

“It appears the person was clever enough to use a publicly accessed computer in a hotel business center,” I explain. “She can tell you which one. I recall she said it was in Morristown.”

“Morristown,” he repeats. “Holy shit. The same area where the two Jersey victims were shot.”

We back out onto the street and I’m struck by how peaceful it is, almost mid-June, close to noon, the sort of day when it’s difficult to imagine someone plotting evil. Most undergraduate students are gone for the summer, many people are at work and others are home tending to projects they put off during the regular academic year.