"Is someone meeting us?" I asked him as if this were all that had been on my mind during our hour in the air.
He looked at me for a long moment. His eyes were the color of bottled beer when light hit them a certain way. Then the shadow of deep preoccupations returned them to hazel flecked with gold, and when his thoughts were more than even he could bear, he simply looked away.
"I suppose we're returning to the Travel-Eze," I next asked as he collected his briefcase and unbuckled his seat belt before we had been signaled that we could. The flight attendant pretended not to notice, because Wesley sent out his own signals that made most people slightly afraid.
"You talked to Lucy a long time in Charlotte," he said.
"Yes." We rolled past a wind sock having a deflated day.
"Well?" His eyes filled with light again as he turned toward the sun.
"Well, she thinks she knows who's behind what's happened to her."
"What do you mean, who's behind it?" He frowned.
"I think the meaning's apparent," I said.
"It's not apparent only if you assume nobody is behind anything because Lucy is guilty."
"Her thumb was scanned at three in the morning, Kay."
"That much is clear."
"And what is also clear is that her thumb couldn't have been scanned without her thumb being physically present, without her hand, arm, and the rest of her being physically present at the time the computer says she was."
"I'm very aware of how it looks," I said. He put on sunglasses and we got up.
"And I'm reminding you of how it looks," he said in my ear as he followed me down the aisle. We could have moved out of the Travel-Eze for more luxurious quarters in Asheville. But where we stayed did not seem important to anyone by the time we met Marino at the Coach House restaurant, which was famous for reasons that were not exactly clear.
I got a peculiar feeling immediately when the Black Mountain officer who had collected us at the airport let us off in the restaurant parking lot and silently drove away. Marino's state-of-the-art Chevrolet was near the door, and he was inside alone at a corner table, facing the cash register, as everyone tries to do if he's ever been touched by the law. He did not get up when we walked in, but watched us dispassionately as he stirred a tall glass of iced tea. I had the uncanny sensation that he, the Marino I had worked with for years, the well-meaning, street-smart hater of potentates and protocol, was granting us an audience. Wesley's cool caution told me that he knew something was very off center, too. For one thing, Marino had on a dark suit that clearly was new.
"Pete," Wesley said, taking a chair.
"Hello," I said, taking another chair.
"They got really good chicken fried steak here," Marino said, not looking at either of us.
"They got chef salads, if you don't want nothing that heavy," he added, apparently for my benefit. The waitress was pouring water, handing out menus, and rattling off specials before anyone had a chance to say another word. By the time she went on her way with our apathetic orders, the tension at our table was almost unbearable.
"We have quite a lot of forensic information that I think you'll find interesting," Wesley began.
"But first, why don't you fill us in?" Marino, who looked the unhappiest I'd ever seen him, reached for his iced tea and then set it back down without taking a sip. He patted his pocket for his cigarettes before picking them up from the table. He did not talk until he was smoking, and it frightened me that he would not give us his eyes. He was so distant it was as if we had never known him, and whenever I had seen this in the past with someone I had worked with, I knew what it meant. Marino was in trouble. He had slammed shut the windows leading into his soul because he did not want us to see what was there.
"The big thing going down right now," Marino began as he exhaled smoke and nervously tapped an ash, "is the janitor at Emily Steiner's school. Uh, the subject's name is Creed Lindsey, white male, thirty-four, works as a janitor at the elementary school, has for the past two years.
"Prior to that he was a janitor at the Black Mountain public library, and before that did the same damn thing for an elementary school in Weaverville. And I might add that at the school in Weaverville during the time the subject was there, they had a hit-and-run of a ten-year-old boy. There was suspicion that Lindsey was involved…"
"Hold on," Wesley said.
"A hit-and-run?" I asked.
"What do you mean he was involved?"
"Wait," Wesley said.
"Wait, wait, wait. Have you talked to Creed Lindsey?" He looked at Marino, who met his gaze but fleetingly.
"That's what I'm leading to. The drone's disappeared. The minute he got the word we wanted to talk to him-and I'll be damned if I know who opened his fat mouth, but someone did-he split. He ain't showed up at work and he ain't been back to his crib." He lit another cigarette. When the waitress was suddenly at his elbow with more tea, he nodded her way as if he'd been here many times before and always tipped well.
"Tell me about the hit-and-run," I said.
"Four years ago this November, a ten-year-old kid's riding his bike and gets slammed by some asshole who's over the center line coming around a curve. The kid's DOA, and all the cops ever get is there's a white pickup truck driving at a high rate of speed in the area around the time the accident occurred. And they get white paint off the kid's jeans.
"Meanwhile, Creed Lindsey's got an old white pickup, a Ford. He's known to drive the same road where the accident occurred, and he's known to hit the package store on payday, which coincidentally was exactly when the kid got hit." Marino's eyes never stopped moving as he talked on and on. Wesley and I were getting increasingly restless.
"So when the cops want to question him, boom, he's gone," Marino continued.
"Don't come back to the area for five damn weeks-says he was visiting a sick relative or some bullshit like that. By then, the friggin' truck's as blue as a robin's egg. Everybody knows the son of a bitch did it, but they got no proof."
"Okay." Wesley's voice commanded that Marino stop.
"That's very interesting, and maybe this janitor was involved in the hit-and-run. But where are you going with this? "
"Seems like that ought to be pretty obvious."
"Well, it's not, Pete. Help me out here."
"Lindsey likes kids, plain and simple. He takes jobs that put him in contact with kids."
"It sounds to me like he takes the jobs he has because he's unskilled at anything but sweeping floors."
"Shit. He could do that at the grocery store, the old folks' home, or something. Every place he's worked is full of kids."
"Okay. Let's just go with that. So he sweeps floors in places where children are. Then what?" Wesley studied Marino, who clearly had a theory he was not to be dissuaded from.
"Then he kills his first kid four years ago, and I'm sure as hell not saying he meant to do it. But he does, and he lies, and he's guilty as hell and gets totally screwed up because of this terrible secret he carries. That's how other things get started in people."
"Other things?" Wesley asked very smoothly.
"What other things, Pete?"
"He's feeling guilty about kids. He's looking at'em every goddam day and wanting to reach out, be forgiven, get close, undo it, shit. I don't know.
"But next thing his emotions get carried away and now he's watching this little girl. He gets sweet on her, wants to reach out. Maybe he spots her the night she's walking home from the church. Maybe he even talks to her. But hell, ain't no problem to figure out where she lives. It's a friggin' small town. He's into it now." He took a swallow of tea and lit another cigarette as he talked on.
"He snatches her because if he can keep her with him for a while, he can make her understand that he never meant to hurt no one, that he's good. He wants her to be his friend. He wants to be loved because if she'll love him, she'll undo the terrible thing he did back then. But it don't go down like that. See, she's not cooperating. She'
s terrified. And bottom line is when what goes down don't fit the fantasy, he freaks and kills her. And now, goddam it, he's done it again. Two kids killed." Wesley started to speak, but our food was arriving on a big brown tray. The waitress, an older woman with thick, tired legs, was slow serving us. She wanted everything to please the important man from out of town who was wearing a new navy blue suit.
The waitress said many yes sirs and seemed very pleased when I thanked her for my salad, which I did not plan to eat. I had lost any appetite I might have had before we arrived at the Coach House, which was famous for something, I felt quite sure. But I could not look at julienne strips of ham, turkey, and cheddar cheese, and especially not sliced boiled eggs. In fact, I felt sick.
"Would there be anything else?"
"No, thank you."
"This looks real good. Dot. You mind bringing a little more butter?"
"Yes, sir, it will be coming right up. And what about you, ma'am? Can I get you some more dressing maybe?"
"Oh, no, thank you. This is perfect the way it is."
"Why, thank you. You folks are mighty nice, and we sure appreciate your visiting. You know, we have a buffet every Sunday after church."
"We'll remember that." Wesley smiled at her.
I knew I was going to leave her at least five dollars, if only she would forgive me for not touching my food. Wesley was trying to think what to say to Marino, and I had never before been witness to anything between them quite like this.
"I guess I'm wondering if you've completely abandoned your original theory," Wesley said.
"Which theory?" Marino tried to cut into his fried steak with a fork, and when that didn't work, he reached for the pepper and AI. sauce.
"Temple Gault," Wesley said.
"It would appear that you aren't looking for him anymore."
"I didn't say nothing like that."
"Marino," I said, "what about this hit-and-run business?" He raised his hand and motioned for the waitress.
"Dot, I guess I'm going to need a sharp knife. The hit-and-run is important because this guy's got a history of violence. The local people are real antsy about him because of that and also because he paid a lot of attention to Emily Steiner. So I'm just letting you know that's what's going down."
"How would that theory explain the human skin in Ferguson's freezer?" I asked.
"And by the way, the blood type is the same as Emily's. We're still waiting on DNA."
"Wouldn't explain it worth a damn." Dot returned with a serrated knife, and Marino thanked her. He sawed into his fried steak. Wesley nibbled broiled flounder, staring down at his plate for long intervals while his VI CAP partner talked.
"Listen, for all we know, Ferguson did the kid. And sure, we can't rule out the possibility Gault's in town, and I'm not saying we should."
"What more do we know about Ferguson?" Wesley asked.
"And are you aware that the print lifted from the panties he was wearing comes back to Denesa Steiner?"
"That's because the panties was stolen from her house the night the squirrel busted in and snatched her kid. Remember? She said while she was in the closet she thought she heard him going through her drawers, and later was suspicious he took some of her clothing. "
"That and the skin in his freezer certainly cause me to want to look very hard at this guy," Wesley said.
"Is there any possibility he'd had contact with Emily in the past?"
I interjected, "Because of his profession, he certainly would have had reason to know about the cases in Virginia, about Eddie Heath. He could have tried to make the Steiner murder mimic something else. Or maybe he got the idea from what happened in Virginia."
"Ferguson was squirrelly," Marino said, sawing off another piece of meat.
"That much I can tell you, but nobody around here seemed to know a whole hell of a lot."
"How long did he work for the SBI?" I asked.
"Going on ten years. Before that he was a state trooper, and before that he was in the army."
"He was divorced?" Wesley asked.
"You mean there's somebody who ain't?" Wesley was quiet.
"Divorced twice. Got an ex-wife in Tennessee and one in Enka. Four kids all grown and living the hell all over the place."
"What does his family have to say about him?" I asked.
"You know, it's not like I've been here for six months." Marino reached for the AI. sauce again. "} can only talk to so many people in one day, and that's only if I'm lucky enough to get them the first or second time I call.
And seeing's how you two haven't been here and all of this has been dumped in my lap, I hope you won't take it personal if I say that there's only so much goddam time in a day."
"Pete, we understand that," Wesley said in his most reasonable tone.
"And that's why we're here. We are well aware there is a lot of investigating to do. Maybe even more than I originally thought, because nothing's fitting together right. It seems this case is going in at least three different directions and I'm not seeing many connections, except that I really want to look hard at Ferguson. We do have forensic evidence that points at him. The skin in his freezer. Denesa Steiner's lingerie. "
"They got good cherry cobbler here," Marino said, looking for the waitress. She was standing just outside the kitchen door watching him, waiting for his slightest signal.
"How many times have you eaten here?" I asked him.
"I got to eat somewhere, isn't that right. Dot?" He raised his voice as our ever-vigilant waitress appeared. Wesley and I ordered coffee.
"Why, honey, wasn't your salad all right?" She was sincerely distressed.
"It was fine," I assured her.
"I'm just not as hungry as I thought."
"You want me to wrap that up for you?"
"No, thank you." When she moved on, Wesley got around to telling Marino what we knew about the forensic evidence. We talked for a while about the pith wood and the duct tape, and by the time Marino's cobbler had been served and eaten and he had started smoking again, we had pretty much exhausted the conversation. Marino had no more idea what the blaze orange flame-retardant duct tape or pith wood meant than we did.
"Damn," he said again.
"That's just strange as shit. I haven't come across a thing that would fit with any of that."
"Well," said Wesley, whose attention was beginning to drift, "the tape is so unusual that someone around here has to have seen it before. If it's from around here. And if it isn't, I'm confident we'll track it down." He pushed back his chair.
"I'll take care of this." I picked up the bill.
"They don't take American Express here," Marino said.
"It's one-fifty now." Wesley got up.
"Let's meet back at the hotel at six and work out a plan."
"I hate to remind you," I said to him.
"But it's a motel, not a hotel, and at the moment you and I don't have a car."
"I'll drop you at the Travel-Eze. Your car should already be there waiting. And Benton, we can find you one, too, if you think you're gonna need it," Marino said as if he were Black Mountain's new chief of police, or perhaps the mayor.
"I don't know what I'm going to need right now," he said.
13
Detective Mote had been moved to a private room and was in stable but guarded condition when I went to see him later that day. Not knowing my way around town very well, I'd resorted to the hospital gift shop, where they had but a very small selection of flower arrangements to choose from behind refrigerated glass.
"Detective Mote?" I hesitated in his doorway. He was propped up in bed dozing, the TV on loud.
"Hi," I said a little louder. He opened his eyes and for an instant had no idea who I was. Then he remembered and smiled as if he'd been dreaming of me for days.
"Well, Lord have mercy. Dr. Scarpetta. Now I never would've thought you'd still be hanging'round here."
"I'm sorry about the flowers. They didn't have much to choose from downstai
rs." I carried in a pitiful bunch of mums and daisies in a thick green vase.
"How about if I just put them right here?"
I set the arrangement on the dresser, and felt sad that his only other flowers were more pathetic than mine.
"There's a chair right there if you can sit for a minute."
"How are you feeling?" I asked. He was pale and thinner, and his eyes looked weak as he stared out the window at a lovely fall day.
"Well, I'm just trying to go with the flow, like they say," he said.
"It's hard to know what's around the corner, but I'm thinking about fishing and the woodworking I like to do. You know, I've been wanting for years to build a little cabin someplace. And I like to whittle walking sticks from basswood."
"Detective Mote," I said hesitantly, for I did not want to upset him, "has anyone from your department come to visit?"
"Why sure," he answered as he continued staring out at a stunning blue sky.
"A couple fellas have dropped by or else called."
"How do you feel about what's going on in the Steiner investigation?"
"Not too good."
"Why?"
"Well, I'm not there, for one thing. For another, it seems like everybody's riding off in his own direction. I'm worried about it some."
"You've been involved in the case from the start," I said.
"You must have known Max Ferguson pretty well."
"I guess not as well as I thought."
"Are you aware that he's a suspect?"
"I know it. I know all about it." The sun through the window made his eyes so pale they seemed made of water. He blinked several times and dabbed tears caused by bright light or emotion. He talked some more.
"I also know they're looking hard at Creed Lindsey, and you know it's sort of a shame for either of'em."
"In what way?" I asked.
"Well, now. Dr. Scarpetta, Max ain't exactly here to defend himself."
"No, he isn't," I agreed.
"And Creed couldn't begin to know how to defend himself, even if he was here."
"Where is he?"
"I hear he's run off someplace, not that it's the first time. He done the same thing when that little boy was run over and killed. Everybody thought Creed was guiltier than sin. So he disappeared and turned up again like a bad penny. Now and again he just goes off to what they used to call Colored Town and drinks himself into a hole."
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