Lucy and I placed silverware and napkins in the living room, deciding it would be cozier to eat in front of the fire than in Dr. Mant's kitchen or cramped, drafty dining room.
"You haven't even told me how you're doing," I said to my niece as she started working on the fire.
"I'm doing great."
Sparks swarmed up the chimney's sooty throat as she shoved more wood inside, and veins stood out in her hands, muscles flexing in her back. Her gifts were in computer science and, most recently, robotics, which she had studied at MIT. They were areas of expertise that had made her very attractive to the FBI's Hostage Rescue Team, but the expectation of her was cerebral, not physical. No woman had ever passed HRT's punishing requirements, and I worried that she was not going to accept her limits.
"How much are you working out?" I asked her.
She closed the screen and sat on the hearth, looking at me. "A lot."
"If your body fat gets much lower, you won't be healthy.
"I'm very healthy and actually have too much body fat."
"If you're getting anorexic, I'm not going to have my head in the sand about it, Lucy. I know that eating disorders kill. I've seen their victims."
"I don't have an eating disorder."
I came over and sat next to her, the fire warming our backs.
"I guess I'll have to take your word on that."
" Good."
"Listen"-I patted her leg-"you've been assigned to HRT as their technical consultant. It has never been anyone's assumption that you will fast-rope out of helicopters and run four-minute miles with the men."
She looked over at me with flashing eyes. "You're one to talk about limitations. I don't see that you've ever let your gender hold you back."
"I absolutely know my limitations," I disagreed. "And I work around them with my mind. That is how I have survived."
"Look," she said with feeling, "I'm tired of programming computers and robots, and then every time something big goes down-like the bombing in Oklahoma City-the guys head off to Andrews Air Force Base and I get left.
Or even if I go with them, they lock me in some little room somewhere like I'm nothing but a nerd. I'm not a goddamn nerd. I don't want to be a latchkey agent."
Her eyes were suddenly bright with tears and she averted them from me. "I can run any obstacle course they put me on. I can rappel, sniper-shoot and scuba-dive. More important, I can take it when they act like assholes. You know, not all of them are exactly happy to have me around."
I had no doubt of that. Lucy had always been an extremely polarizing human being, because she was brilliant and could be so difficult. She was also beautiful in a sharpfeatured, strong way, and I frankly wondered how she survived at all on a special forces team of fifty men, not one of whom she would ever date.
"How is Janet?" I asked.
"They transferred her out to the Washington Field Office to do white-collar crime. So at least she's not far away."
"This must have been recent." I was puzzled.
"Real recent." Lucy rested her forearms on her knees.
"And where is she tonight?"
"Her family's got a condo in Aspen."
My silence asked the question, and her voice was irritated as she answered it. "No, I wasn't invited. And not just because Janet and I aren't getting along. It just wasn't a good idea."
"I see." I hesitated before adding, "Then her parents still don't know."
"Hell, who does know? You think we don't hide it at work? So we go to things together and each of us gets to watch the other being hit on by men. That's a special pleasure," she bitterly said.
"I know what it's like at work," I said. "It's no different than I told you it would be. What I'm more interested in is Janet's family."
Lucy stared at her hands. "It's mostly her mom. To tell you the truth, I don't think her dad would care. He's not going to assume it's because of something he did wrong, like my mother assumes. Only she assumes it's because of something you did wrong since you pretty much raised me and are my mother, according to her."
There was little point in my defending myself against the ignorant notions of my only sister, Dorothy, who unfortunately happened to be Lucy's parent.
"And Mother has another theory now, too. She says you're the first woman I fell in love with, and somehow that explains everything," Lucy went on in an ironic tone.
"Never mind that this would be called incest or that you're straight. Remember, she writes these insightful children's books, so she's an expert in psychology and apparently is a sex therapist, too.
"I'm sorry you have to go through all this on top of everything else," I said with feeling. I never knew quite what to do when we had these conversations. They were still new to me, and in some ways scary.
"Look"-she got up as Marino walked into the living room-some things you just live with."
"Well, I got news for you," Marino announced, "the weather forecast is that this crap is going to melt. So come tomorrow morning, all of us should be able to get out of here."
"Tomorrow's New Year's Day," Lucy said. "For the sake of argument, why should we get out of here?"
"Because I need to take your aunt to Eddings' crib." He paused before adding, "And Benton needs to get his ass there, too."
I did not visibly react. Benton Wesley was the unit chief of the Bureau's Criminal Investigative Analysis program, and I had hoped I would not have to see him during the holidays.
"What are you telling me?" I quietly said.
He sat down on the sofa and regarded me thoughtfully for a pause. Then he answered my question with one of his own, "I'm curious about something, Doc. How would you poison someone underwater?"
"Maybe it didn't happen underwater," Lucy suggested.
"Maybe he swallowed cyanide before he went diving."
"No. That's not what happened," I said. "Cyanide is very corrosive, and had he taken it orally, I would have seen extensive damage to his stomach. Probably to his esophagus and mouth, as well."
"So what could have happened?" Marino asked.
"I think he inhaled cyanide gas."
He looked baffled. "How? Through the compressor?"
"it draws air through an intake valve that's covered with a filter," I reminded him. "What someone could have done was simply mix a little hydrochloric acid with a cyanide tablet and hold the vial close enough to the intake valve for the gas to be drawn in."
"If Eddings inhaled cyanide gas while he was down there," Lucy said, "what would have happened?"
"A seizure, then death. In seconds."
I thought of the snagged air hose and wondered if Eddings had been close to the Exploiter's screw when he suddenly inhaled cyanide gas through his regulator. That might explain the position he was in when I found him.
"Can you test the hookah for cyanide?" Lucy asked.
"Well, we can try," I said, "but I don't expect to find anything unless the cyanide tablet was placed directly on the valve's filter. Even so, things may have been tampered with by the time I got there. We might have better luck with the section of hose that was closest to the body. I'll start tox testing tomorrow, if I can get anybody to come into the lab on a holiday."
My niece walked over to a window to look out. "It's still coming down hard. It's amazing how it lights up the night. I can see the ocean. It's this black wall," she said in a pensive tone.
"What you're seeing is a wall," Marino said. "The brick wall at the back of the yard."
She did not speak for a while, and I thought of how much I missed her. Although I had seen little of her during her undergraduate years at UVA, now we saw each other less, for even when a case brought me to Quantico there was never a guarantee we would find time to visit. It saddened me that her childhood was gone, and a part of me wished she had chosen a life and a career less harsh than what hers must be.
Then she mused as she still gazed out the glass, "So we've got a reporter who's into survivalist weaponry.
Somehow he's po
isoned with cyanide gas while diving around decommissioned ships in a restricted area at night."
"That's just a possibility," I reminded her. "His case is pending. We should be careful not to forget that."
She turned around. "Where would you get cyanide if you wanted to poison someone'? Would that be hard?"
"You could get it from a variety of industrial settings," I said.
"Such as?"
"Well, for example, it's used to extract gold from ore.
It's also used in metal plating, and as a fumigant, and to manufacture phosphoric acid from bones," I said. "In other words, anyone from a jeweler to a worker in an industrial plant to an exterminator could have access to cyanide. Plus.
you're going to find it and hydrochloric acid in any chemical lab."
"Well," it was Marino who spoke, "if someone poisoned Eddings, then they had to know he was going to be out in his boat. They had to know where and when."
"Someone had to know many things," I agreed. "For example, one would have had to know what type of breathing apparatus Eddings planned to use because had he gone down with scuba gear instead of a hookah, the MO would have had to be entirely different."
"I just wish we knew what the hell he was doing down there." Marino opened the screen to tend to the fire.
"Whatever it was," I said, "it seems to have involved photography. And based on the camera equipment it appears he had with him, he was serious."
"But no underwater camera was found," Lucy said.
"No," I said. "The current could have carried it anywhere, or it might be buried in silt. Unfortunately, the kind of equipment he apparently had doesn't float."
"I sure would like to get hold of the film." She was still looking out at the snowy night, and I wondered if she was thinking of Aspen.
"One thing's for damn sure, he wasn't taking pictures of fish." Marino jabbed a fat log that was a little too green.
"So that pretty much leaves ships. And I think he was doing a story somebody didn't want him to do."
"He may have been doing a story," I agreed, "but that doesn't mean it's related to his death. Someone could have used his being out diving as an opportunity to kill him for another reason."
"Where do you keep the kindling?" He gave up on the fire.
"Outside under a tarp," I answered. "Dr. Mant won't allow it in the house. He's afraid of termites."
"Well, he ought to be more afraid of the fires and wind shear in this dump."
"In back, just off the porch," I said. "Thanks, Marino."
He put on gloves but no coat and went outside as the fire smoked stubbornly and the wind made eerie moaning sounds in the leaning brick chimney. I watched my niece, who was still at the window.
"We should work on dinner, don't you think?" I said to her.
"What's he doing?" she said with her back to me.
"Marino?"
"Yes. The big idiot's gotten lost. Look, he's all the way up by the wall. Wait a minute. I can't see him now. He turned his flashlight off. That's kind of weird."
Her words lifted the hair on my neck and instantly I was on my feet. I dashed into the bedroom and grabbed my pistol off the nightstand. Lucy was on my heels.
"What is it?" she exclaimed.
"He doesn't have a flashlight," I said as I ran.
Chapter 4
IN THE KITCHEN, I FLUNG OPEN THE DOOR LEADING TO the porch and ran into Marino. We almost knocked each other down.
"What the shit…?" he yelled behind a load of wood.
"There's a prowler," I spoke with quiet urgency.
Kindling thudded loudly to the floor and he ran back out into the yard, his pistol drawn. By now, Lucy had fetched her gun and was outside, too, and we were ready to handle a riot.
"Check the perimeter of the house," Marino ordered.
"I'm going over here."
I went back in for flashlights, and for a while Lucy and I circled the cottage, straining eyes and ears, but the only sight and sound was our shoes crunching as we left impressions in the snow. I heard Marino decock his pistol as we reconvened in deep shadows near the porch.
"There are footprints by the wall," he said, and his breath was white. "It's real strange. They lead down to the beach and then just disappear near the water." He looked around. "You got any neighbors who might have been out for a stroll?"
"I don't know Dr. Mant's neighbors," I replied. "But they should not have been in his yard. And who in his right mind would walk on the beach in weather like this?"
"Where on this property do the footprints go?" Lucy asked.
"Looks like he came over the wall and went about six feet inside the yard before backtracking," Marino answered.
I thought of Lucy standing before the window, backlit by the fire and lamps. Maybe the prowler had spotted her and had been scared off.
Then I thought of something else. "How do we know this person was a he?"
"If it ain't, I feel sorry for a woman with boats that big," Marino said. "The shoes are about the same size as mine."
"Shoes or boots?" I asked, heading toward the wall.
"I don't know. They got some sort of cross-hatch tread pattern." He followed me.
The footprints I saw gave me cause for more alarm. They were not from typical boots or athletic shoes.
"My God," I said. "I think this person was wearing dive boots or something with a moccasin shape like dive boots.
Look."
I pointed out the pattern to Lucy and Marino. They had gotten down next to me, footprints obliquely illuminated by my flashlight.
"No arch," Lucy noted. "They sure look like dive boots or aqua shoes to me. Now that's bizarre."
I got up and stared out over the wall at dark, heaving water. It seemed inconceivable that someone could have come up from the sea.
"Can you get photos of these?" I asked Marino.
"Sure. But I got nothing to make casts."
Then we returned to the house. He gathered the wood and carried it into the living room while Lucy and I returned our attention to dinner, which I was no longer certain I could eat because I was so tense. I poured another glass of wine and tried to dismiss the prowler as a coincidence, a harmless peregrination on the part of someone who enjoyed the snow or perhaps diving at night.
But I knew better, and kept my gun nearby and frequently glanced out the window. My spirit was heavy as I slid the lasagne into the oven. I found the Parmesan reggiano in the refrigerator and began grating it, then I arranged figs and melon on plates, adding plenty of prosciutto for Marino's share. Lucy made salad, and for a while we worked in silence.
When she finally spoke, she was not happy. "You've really gotten into something, Aunt Kay. Why does this always happen to you?"
"Let's not allow our imaginations to run wild," I said.
"You're out here alone in the middle of nowhere with no burglar alarm and locks as flimsy as flip-top aluminum cans-"
"Have you chilled the champagne yet?" I interrupted.
"It will be midnight soon. The lasagne will only take about ten minutes, maybe fifteen, unless Dr. Mant's oven works like everything else does around here. Then it could take until this time next year. I've never understood why people cook lasagne for hours. And then they wonder why everything is leathery."
Lucy was staring at me, resting a paring knife on a side of the salad bowl. She had cut enough celery and carrots for a marching band.
"One day I will really make lasagne coi carciofi for you.
It has artichokes, only you use bechamel sauce instead of marinara-"
"Aunt Kay," she impatiently cut me off. "I hate it when you do this. And I'm not going to let you do this. I don't you give a shit about lasagne right now. What matters is that this morning you got a weird phone call. Then there was a bizarre death and people treated you suspiciously at the scene. Now tonight you had a prowler who might have been in a damn wet suit."
"It's not likely the person will be back. Whoever it was.
; Not unless he wants to take on the three of us."
"Aunt Kay, you can't stay here," she said.
"I have to cover Dr. Mant's district, and I can't do that from Richmond," I told her as I again looked out the window over the sink. "Where's Marino? Is he still out taking pictures?"
"He came in a while ago." Her frustration was as palpable as a storm about to start.
I walked into the living room and found him asleep on the couch, the fire blazing. My eyes wandered to the window where Lucy had looked out, and I went to it. Beyond cold glass the snowy yard glowed faintly like a pale moon, and was pockmarked by elliptical shadows left by our feet.
The brick wall was dark, and I could not see beyond it, where coarse sand tumbled into the sea.
"Lucy's right," Marino's sleepy voice said to my back.
I turned around. "I thought you were down for the count."
"I hear and see everything, even when I'm down for the count," he said. I could not help but smile.
"Get the hell out of here. That's my vote." He worked his way up to a sitting position. "No way I'd stay in this crate out in the middle of nowhere. Something happens, ain't no one going to hear you scream." His eyes fixed on me. "By the time anyone finds you, you'll be freeze-dried.
If a hurricane don't blow you out to sea, first,"
"Enough," I said.
He retrieved his gun from the coffee table, got up and tucked it in the back of his pants. "You could get one of your other doctors to come out here and cover Tidewater
"I'm the only one without family. It's easier for me to move, especially this time of year."
"What a lot of bullshit. You don't have to apologize for being divorced and not having kids."
"I am not apologizing."
"And it's not like you're asking someone to relocate for six months. Besides, you're the friggin' chief. You should make other people relocate, family or not. You should be in your own house."
"I actually hadn't thought coming here would be all that unpleasant," I said. "Some people pay a lot of money to stay in cottages on the ocean."
He stretched. "You got anything American to drink around here?"
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