I’m sure Judge NoDoz misses me like a hole in the head. What I say is, “And please give him mine.”
“I’m asking you politely to get your hands off me,” Lucy says, and Erin realizes the wisdom of letting her go.
“It looks like walking is pretty hard for you these days.” Erin turns her attention to me. “You were what? Some ninety feet, a hundred feet down and lost consciousness? If someone shot me with a spear gun I’m sure I’d pass out.”
“It will be a while before my leg is back to normal. But I’m expecting a full recovery.” It sounds stilted and it’s supposed to when I recite what I scripted long painful weeks ago. “That’s the only question I’m going to answer before Jill Donoghue gets here.”
“Sure. Have it your way but I don’t see anyone here trying to Mirandize you, Doctor Scarpetta. We’re not interrogating you, just asking for a little helpful guidance.” Then she says to Lucy, “And I’m afraid I’m going to have to take your phone. I’ve been nice about it. I could have taken it when I got here but I didn’t. I gave you the benefit of the doubt and what do you do? You tamper with the security system.”
“It’s not the security system,” Lucy says. “It’s my security system. I can do whatever I want with it.”
“I gave you the benefit of the doubt,” Erin repeats, “and the thanks I get is you interfere with our investigation.” She takes the phone from Lucy. “Now I’m not nice about it anymore.”
“Your benefit of the doubt was to let me keep it long enough to see who I might contact and what else I might do as you tap into everything you think I have,” Lucy says. “And I thank you for that. It was helpful to me to see what you’re interested in but not so helpful to you. What you really want is usernames and passwords, and getting those hasn’t happened, has it? And guess what? It never will. The NSA, the CIA couldn’t break through my firewalls.”
But someone did.
It appears someone, most likely Carrie, is spoofing Lucy’s cell phone and has gotten into her computer system, her wireless network, and that in turn would compromise her home security system. Everything in Lucy’s world is part of a web too complex for me to comprehend. Her networks have networks, her servers have servers, and her proxies have proxies.
The fact is that no one really knows what she does and just how extensive her range might be, and if someone is hacking into her privacy, even if Carrie is? Then I have to wonder if Lucy has allowed it. She may have invited it. If offered a cyber challenge her reaction is to bring it on. She believes she’ll win.
“We can get into anything we want,” Erin boasts to her. “But if you’re smart you’ll decide to cooperate. You’ll give us whatever we need, including passwords. The more difficult you make this, the worse off you’re going to be.”
“Now I’m really scared.” Lucy’s tone has a dry ice bite and I’m reminded of her in the video sarcastically saying to Carrie, I’m scared.
Lucy wasn’t. Not the way anybody else would be.
“You always were too sure of yourself.” Erin bars the doorway with her arm, and I’m deciding what she’s doing right now is for my benefit.
It’s amazing. She’s showing off. I would smile if anything right now were funny.
“It’s what got you into trouble the first time,” Erin says to Lucy.
“The first time?” Lucy watches the helicopter circle her property again. “Let me try to figure out when that was. Let’s see. When did I get in trouble the first time? I was probably two or three or maybe hadn’t been born yet.”
“I can see you’re determined to make this as difficult as possible.”
“Six, seven hundred feet in this heat and humidity with what I’m sure is a heavy payload?” Lucy hasn’t taken her eyes off the helicopter now hovering low over the woods next to the house. “Let me guess. At least six people in back. Probably muscle-head guys with a lot of gear. But I wouldn’t be hanging out in the dead man’s curve if I were Big John. Good luck auto-rotating in an emergency. And if I were him I’d already be back on the ground with this weather rolling in. You might want to radio Big John and tell him that and also remind him he’s got maybe thirty minutes of decent viz left before it rapidly deteriorates to special VFR on its way to nothing. He might want to get the hell back to Hanscom while the getting’s good and tuck your expensive custom bird into its custom hangar because there’s a chance of hail.”
“You’ve not changed. You’re the same arrogant …” Erin starts to say something vulgar and stops herself.
“Arrogant what?” Lucy meets her eyes.
“You’re the same as you always were.” Erin glares at her and then says to me, “Your niece and I were at Quantico at the same time.”
“Funny I don’t remember you,” Lucy lies easily, convincingly. “Maybe you can show me an old class photo, point yourself out.”
“You remember me well enough.”
“I don’t.” Lucy looks innocent.
“You do. And I remember you.”
“And from that I’m supposed to assume you know me?”
“I know enough.” Erin says it to her while she looks at me.
“The fact is you don’t know me,” Lucy says. “You don’t know shit about me.”
Now isn’t the time for me to give Lucy a lecture. But if I could I’d tell her how unsafe it is to talk this way. Her anger has blown her cover. Her anger has asserted itself and given the FBI further incentive to clip her wings or cage her.
“I’d like to see the warrant,” I say to Erin.
“This isn’t your property.”
“Some of my personal possessions including possible case-related materials are inside this house. You might want to be careful about compromising something that could cause you a problem.”
“Start with this. You’re only here because I’m allowing it.” Erin has decided to turn this into a competition. “Because I’m being friendly and inclusive.”
I dig inside my shoulder bag and pull out a pen and legal pad. “I’m just doing the same thing you are. Making notes.”
“I’m not writing anything.” She holds up her empty hands.
“But you will.” I glance at my watch. “It’s twenty-five minutes past eleven on Friday morning, August fifteenth. We are in the foyer of Lucy’s house in Concord.” I write it down. “And I’ve just asked Special Agent Erin Loria for the warrant because I also am an occupant of this house. Not full-time but I have an apartment here that contains personal possessions and confidential information. So I’d like to see the warrant.”
“It’s not your house.”
“To quote the Fourth Amendment in the Bill of Rights,” I reply, “people have a right to be ‘secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects against unreasonable searches and seizures.’ I’d like to see the warrant to make sure it’s properly signed by a judge, and that the judge doesn’t happen to be Special Agent Erin Loria’s husband the honorable Zeb Chase.”
“That’s ridiculous!” she interrupts me. “He’s in Virginia.”
“He’s a federal judge and theoretically could sign off on any federal court order you request. Of course it would be unethical.” I’m jotting notes. “I’d like to see the warrant. I’ve asked you three times.” I underline it for emphasis.
CHAPTER 17
IT’S THE USUAL DOCUMENT, NOTHING CLEVER OR UNEXPECTED. The search-and-seizure warrant lists everything but the kitchen sink, including secret hatches, doors, rooms and egresses that may or may not be attached to the main residence and its outbuildings.
The inventory of what the FBI has nabbed so far includes long guns, handguns, ammunition and reloading tools, and knives and cutting/stabbing instruments of all descriptions, dive and boat gear, electronic recording equipment, computers, external hard drives and any other form of electronic storage. The legal wish list also includes possible sources of biological evidence, specifically DNA, and I find that odd. Not that anything this day is even close to normal.
It’s
on my mind that the FBI has Lucy’s DNA. She used to work for them. They have her DNA profile and fingerprints on file and also Janet’s, Marino’s and mine for exclusionary purposes. I assume they have no interest in seven-year-old Desi. He has nothing to do with anything, and I don’t understand exactly what the agents are hoping for. But clearly they aren’t done yet, and because they’re hell-bent to help themselves to every computer and whatever’s on them I’m forced to consider another grim scenario. What if the Feds are looking for a way to access confidential information at my headquarters, the Cambridge Forensic Center?
Lucy is the skeleton key to everything we do at the CFC. She’s the keeper of my electronic kingdom, and therefore potentially a portal for the Feds. They could attempt to use her to gain access to office e-mail accounts and case records that go back many decades, and next I start wondering why they might care. I wonder why the helicopter followed me here. Did it really? Or did it just seem like it? Is the FBI only after Lucy? Are they after her at all or is it me they want?
“The CFC’s cases and all investigative and laboratory documents related are classified.” I hand the warrant back to Erin Loria. “They’re protected by state and federal law, and you can’t exploit Lucy’s position on my staff and use it as a means to access the CFC’s proprietary information. You know how improper that would be.”
I don’t say illegal because the FBI would make sure it isn’t. They would twist and permute the truth to justify their every move. Going up against them is worse than David and Goliath. It’s David without a rock and Goliath with an assault rifle. But knowing that never scares me from a fight with government officials. I don’t forget they’re supposed to work for the people and aren’t a law unto themselves even if they act like it. I’m always outnumbered and I never forget that either.
“You realize how seriously such a violation could impact every criminal case the CFC works,” I add. “I would be unable to ensure the integrity of any of our records, including thousands of those pertaining to federal cases, FBI cases. I think you’re quite aware of the potential consequences. I also would venture a guess that the Department of Justice doesn’t need more news stories about privacy violations, about spying and screwed-up investigations.”
“Are you threatening me with bad press?”
“I’m reminding you of certain consequences of your potential actions,” I repeat my careful phrasing as I follow her down a hallway of rich cherry paneling hung with Miró paintings and lithographs. “Your warrant to search my niece’s property in no way grants you any rights to access the CFC. Or to me personally for that matter.”
“Because if you do go to the press with anything about this,” Loria says as we reach the master suite, “I’ll charge you with obstruction of justice.”
“I’ve not threatened you in any way.” I write it down. “I’m the one feeling threatened.” I write that too. “Why are you threatening me?” I underline it.
“I’m not.”
“It feels like it.”
“And I respect your feelings.” She has a notebook out now and is writing down what I’m saying, maybe out of self-defense.
I never forget the Bureau is sly like a fox in its insistence on using primitive paper and pen to record what agents supposedly witness. They take notes. That way it’s easier to misrepresent what a suspect or a witness did or said.
“It’s not enough for you to respect what I feel,” I reply, and it’s difficult to watch what’s happening inside the master bedroom. “You have no probable cause, no justification whatsoever to go through confidential medical examiner records or communications associated with them, some of which includes classified materials relating to our troops, our men and women in the military. You have no right to the e-mails and other communications of my staff or me.”
“I understand your position,” Erin says.
“You’ll understand it better if you place any of my cases in jeopardy,” I reply not so politely. “And it’s not a threat. It’s a promise.”
“I’ll make a note you said that.”
THANK GOD Lucy isn’t here to see the two female agents inside her walk-in closet, their gloved hands going through the pockets of everything she’s ever worn, her jeans, her flight suits, her dress clothes.
They’re looking at her shoes, her boots, and riffling through briefcases and built-in drawers while on the other side of the room a male agent roots through Janet’s closet and another removes artwork from the walls, spectacular canvases and photographs of African wildlife. He props them up, pounds on paneling with the flat of his palm, looking for secret compartments I can only guess, and I feel a knot in my stomach the size of a softball.
“This can be made so much easier if we have honest communication,” Erin is saying as I move to a window and open the shade. “So much can be prevented if we get the truth about what happened.”
“About what happened?” I don’t turn around.
“In Florida,” she says. “We need the truth.”
“You’re implying that those of us involved are lying, as if it’s your default position that everybody lies.” I look out the window at the late morning because I’m not going to look at her. “And you might be right. In your world everybody probably does lie, including the organization you work for. In your world the end justifies the means. You can do whatever you want and truth is incidental. Assuming you even recognize it.”
“When you were injured in June …?”
“You mean when I was attacked.” I scan the spacious backyard that drops off precipitously into a steep hillside thick with trees.
“When you were shot. I stipulate that there’s ample evidence you were shot.”
“You stipulate? Sounds like you’re making a court case …”
“Let me ask you,” she interrupts. “Have you ever owned a spear gun?”
“You can ask me that when Jill Donoghue gets here.”
“What about Lucy? She’s obviously into weapons. Do you know how many firearms she stores in her vault? Would it surprise you if I told you almost a hundred? Why does she need so many guns?”
The answer were I inclined to give it is Lucy collects what she calls handcrafted small-batch weapons. She loves intricate technology, the art and science of every fine innovation including those that kill. She’s drawn to symbols of power whether they’re guns or cars or flying machines, and she collects because she can. There isn’t much she can’t afford. If she wants a Zev customized Glock or a 1911 hand-fitted for a lefty and exquisitely beautiful she doesn’t care what it costs.
I don’t answer Erin’s questions but that doesn’t stop her from asking them as I look out at light flickering on the water, at the gentle current and the hundred-foot cypress dock with the teak and glass boathouse at the end. Lucy left to check on Janet, Desi, and Jet Ranger, and I encouraged her not to come back to the main house until Donoghue arrives. I hope it’s soon. I look for Marino but don’t see any sign of him.
“I’m not going to mince words with you, Kay. And I assume you don’t mind my calling you that.”
I say nothing. I do mind.
“All we have to go on is what you claim happened, and what Benton claimed to have observed. You claim Carrie Grethen shot you …”
“It’s not what I claim or what Benton claims. It’s what is factual and true.” I turn around and look at her.
“Your claim that Carrie Grethen shot you is based solely on your visual recognition of her. A woman you’d not seen in what? Thirteen, fourteen years at least? A woman whose death was witnessed.”
“It wasn’t exactly.” I’ll sure as hell tell her this much. “Her death was assumed. We never actually saw her in the helicopter that crashed. Her remains were never found. There’s no proof she died. In fact there’s proof to the contrary, and the FBI knows all this. I don’t need to tell you …”
“Your proof. Your speculative and fanciful proof,” Erin interrupts me again. “You catch a glimpse of a person in a cam
ouflage dive skin and somehow you instantly knew who it was.”
“A camouflage dive skin?” I ask. “That’s an interesting detail.”
“One you gave us.”
I don’t say anything. I offer her an uncomfortable silence to fill.
“Maybe you don’t remember. There’s probably a lot you don’t remember after a trauma like that,” she says. “How’s your memory now by the way? I’ve wondered if you went for a while underwater without breathing.”
I remain silent.
“That can have serious consequences for memory.”
I don’t react.
“You claimed the person who shot you had on a camo dive skin,” she then says. “The detail came from you.”
“I don’t recall saying that but I might have because it’s true.”
“Of course you don’t remember.” Her voice oozes condescension.
“I don’t remember telling your agents this,” I reply. “But I remember what I saw.”
“Somehow you recognized this person presumed dead.” She rephrases her argument about Carrie. “Even though you’d not laid eyes on her or seen a photograph of her in more than a decade you’re positive in your identification of her. And I’m loosely quoting from your own sworn statement that you gave to our agents in Miami on June seventeenth while you were still in the hospital.”
“A statement that wasn’t recorded,” I remind her. “Only written. What agents write down and what was actually said can be difficult to prove since there’s no unimpeachable record. And I’m just wondering how can we be sure my statement was sworn?”
“You’re saying if you didn’t swear under oath to tell the truth you might not …?”
She’s cut off by a familiar voice in the corridor. “Hello! Hello! That’s enough! It’s bad manners to start without me!”
Jill Donoghue walks in smiling, typically chic in one of her designer suits, this one midnight blue. Her wavy dark hair is shorter than when I saw her last. Other than that she looks the same, perpetually energetic and fresh, permanently somewhere between thirty-five and fifty.
Depraved Heart Page 14