Depraved Heart

by Patricia Cornwell

“WHAT JUST HAPPENED?” I drive slowly over flooded bricks.

  “She’s pissed as hell.” Marino pats his pockets the way he does when he needs a cigarette. “That’s what’s happened. She’ll probably sue all of us.”

  “Here’s what I can and will tell you,” Benton says behind my head as we pass other old mansions where Chanel Gilbert’s wealthy well-connected neighbors live.

  But before he can continue, I interrupt. “Did Amanda give you any reason why she thinks Lucy has something to do with Chanel’s murder?”

  “Maybe that’s why the FBI raided Lucy’s property.” Marino is turned in his seat so he can look at me as we talk, and as usual I have to tell him to buckle up. “Erin Loria’s the snake in the woodpile in other words. But what I can’t figure out is how she could have known anything about it so early. You assholes had your chopper up before we even knew it was a murder.” He directs this at Benton.

  “You’re right. We didn’t know about the murder but were aware of the relationship,” Benton answers.

  “Whose relationship?” I ease the SUV to a stop at Brattle Street.

  “We have airport surveillance from Lucy’s trip to Bermuda. We know when she landed at the FBO there and when she returned to Boston. We know that in fact Chanel Gilbert was on the private jet with her.”

  “Wait one damn minute.” I look at him in the rearview mirror, and his eyes meet mine. “Lucy flew Chanel back from Bermuda?”

  “Yes.”

  “You’re absolutely sure?”

  “Chanel Gilbert was on the manifest, Kay,” he says. “And when agents boarded the plane at Logan they checked passports as you’d expect. There’s no question who was on Lucy’s jet.”

  “Quite to the contrary. I think there are plenty of questions about who was on it.” I concentrate on my driving, careful to avoid deep puddles and big branches that are down.

  I try not to give in to what I’m feeling. It’s bad enough that Lucy might have met Chanel in Bermuda. But if Lucy flew her to Boston then that likely makes Lucy a suspect in Chanel’s homicide. It could explain some of what’s happened today. But I don’t believe it explains all of it.

  “Are we absolutely certain it was Chanel on the jet?” I ask him again. “As opposed to someone pretending to be her? Or maybe I should wonder if someone was impersonating Chanel Gilbert. Who the hell got murdered if it wasn’t her?”

  “We’re sure of her identity,” Benton says, answering nothing.

  He may be sure of her identity. But that doesn’t mean he’s telling us the truth about it.

  “Did she work for you?” I ask him point-blank. “Was she undercover FBI?”

  “Not for us. But with us.”

  “I’m getting the feeling that after she left the Navy she didn’t merely do photography,” I reply wryly and with an edge. “But she may very well have suffered from PTSD. I would imagine working for some intelligence service like the CIA is very stressful. When were she and Lucy on the jet?”

  “They landed in Logan day before yesterday, Wednesday,” Benton says.

  “I assume you checked the catering in addition to the manifest,” I reply.

  “Why do you ask?”

  “Do you know what catering Lucy requested for her guest?”

  “Shrimp stir-fry and brown rice.” His eyes are on mine in the mirror. “In addition to the usual things you’d expect Lucy to have on board. Nuts, raw vegetables, humus, tofu. Her standing order.”

  “Someone ate Chinese food cold? Not that I haven’t done it a million times right out of the carton,” Marino says and I slow down as water blasts the undercarriage of the SUV. “But not on a private plane. Lucy’s doesn’t have a big galley and she refuses to have a flight attendant. Stir-fry seems a weird thing for catering.”

  “Chanel’s gastric contents are consistent with her eating shrimp, rice and vegetables but the timing is off,” I reply. “Her meal had barely begun to digest. She certainly didn’t eat it during the short flight from Bermuda to Boston. But what I’m wondering is if she might have taken it home for later. If she’d been out of the house for months as her mother claims then there wouldn’t have been anything in the refrigerator, nothing much to eat.”

  “Which is what we saw when we went through the kitchen,” Marino agrees.

  “Except for the fresh juices, and we can’t assume those were hers. In fact I’m suspicious they aren’t,” I reply. “What time did Lucy’s plane land at Logan?”

  “Shortly after one P.M.” Benton says. “And you’re right. Chanel didn’t eat on the plane. The pilots remember her carrying some of the catering off of it. They had to dig around and find a bag for her.”

  “You’ve talked to the pilots.” I pick up on what he just said and he pauses as if he has to sort through information he might not want to share.

  Then he says, “Yes.”

  “I’m curious about why you were inspired to do that, Benton. What were you hoping to discover? Were you asking the pilots about Chanel Gilbert? Or were your questions about Lucy and whatever the Customs agents might have been looking for when her jet was searched after it landed at Logan?”

  “It wasn’t Customs. It was the DEA.”

  “I see. Well the story gets only more unfortunate and offensive. Let me guess. The DEA showed up because there was a suspicion Lucy had found a way to get medical marijuana to Janet’s dying sister?”

  “It seems Lucy may have gotten it from Chanel Gilbert.”

  “Then how did it end up inside an old wooden box in the closet?” Marino asks. “Who the hell put it there if Chanel’s not been here since last spring?”

  “Last spring was about the time Lucy and Janet realized they needed something to help Natalie. What you’ve found may have been in the wooden box since then,” Benton says. “Beyond that I don’t know.”

  “And that’s the explanation for how Janet, Lucy and Chanel knew each other?” I ask. “Because of Natalie and MMJ?”

  “It’s not,” Benton says. “It’s incidental to it. Medical marijuana has nothing to do with how the three of them were acquainted but it did turn into something they had in common. Again because of Natalie.”

  I begin to wonder if Janet may have introduced Lucy to a spy. I ask myself why Janet would know someone like that.

  “Her mother must get the stuff for her in California or wherever,” Marino says.

  “I think Chanel was perfectly capable of getting anything she wanted,” Benton says. “But to answer you, Kay?” He meets my eyes in the mirror. “Lucy was transporting product shall we say into Virginia. It is believed she was supplying it to Natalie the months before she died.”

  “Maybe if the Feds spent their time and resources on real crimes?” I reply. “What a different world it would be.”

  “Fortunately they didn’t find weapons or contraband when they searched Lucy’s plane,” Benton says.

  “What the hell?” Marino exclaims. “Your FBI assholes are just trying to trap her in anything you can possibly come up with? Because that’s what it’s sounding like.”

  Benton has no answer for that. At least not one he’s going to offer. Instead he brings up what we’ve suspected all along. I’m not surprised but it’s brutal to hear him confirm it so bluntly. The FBI believes Carrie Grethen is a fabrication, a diabolically ingenious one that Lucy conjured up when she went rogue. Pressure points. Triggers. Turbulence in a domestic life that’s already shaky, and Lucy is unstable. She’s always been unstable. And let’s face it she’s a sociopath, Kay.

  CHAPTER 45

  THIS ISN’T ME TALKING,” BENTON ADDS AS IF IT will make me feel better. “It’s everyone else.”

  By everyone else he means the same people he always does. His people. The Feds. I’m aware of Marino next to me in the passenger’s seat, his portable radio upright on his thigh. He’s gotten interested in something and is turning up the volume.

  “This is wrong beyond words and you know it, Benton.” I continue glancing at him in the rearv
iew mirror.

  “I don’t disagree.”

  Then I remind him of the H&K machine gun, an early model with a wooden forestock. I remember it was at my house in Richmond once.

  “You had it in a briefcase that I assumed you locked inside the gun safe. You must have let Lucy borrow it at some point,” I explain what I vaguely recall.

  “Why would I let a child borrow anything I might keep in a gun safe?”

  “Lucy wasn’t a child,” I reply but it’s nagging at me that the chronology is off.

  “If you’re talking about the MP5K? Then Lucy would have been about ten. At the most twelve when it was presented to my unit,” Benton says and I think back to when he showed up with the ominous briefcase, which he said was straight out of James Bond. “I happened to have it with me one night when I came to your house. I showed it to you because it was a novelty.”

  “Did you ever report it missing from my house after you locked it in the gun safe?”

  “I never locked it in your gun safe, and it was never mine, Kay.”

  “But it was in your possession at one time.”

  “Me personally?” His face is unreadable in the rearview mirror.

  “Yes.”

  “Only once. Very briefly in 1990, which was when I brought it to your house.” He has that look he gets when he knows that what I’m about to say is incorrect.

  “Because ultimately it was connected to the assassination of Benazir Bhutto,” I tell him, and I’m distracted by Marino’s radio.

  A female officer is at the River Basin. She sounds keyed up as she requests backup and a detective.

  “And you believe that?” Benton’s reflection looks amused. As if I said something funny.

  “Carrie had it. Then Erin Loria did. Ultimately it ended up in Pakistan,” I say to him as Marino goes through his recent calls, looking for a number. “Erin Loria could be in a lot of hot water and I think that might be one reason she’s framing Lucy.”

  “I don’t know who you’ve been getting your information from,” Benton says. “But the machine gun you’re talking about was a prop my unit was given as a thank-you when the movie folks were filming Silence of the Lambs at Quantico in 1990. A couple of us got fun Hollywood toys like tommy guns, handcuffs, wanted posters. When Lucy showed up for her internship many years later she saw the MP5K prop in my office and asked if she could borrow it. Which was fine since the gun was completely useless not to mention legal,” he adds and I feel foolish. “It was a real MP5K but the barrel had been plugged, the firing group removed and even the receiver was cut.”

  “Is it possible Carrie got hold of it and rebuilt it, got it back into working order?” I ask as Marino talks on his phone.

  “Yeah I heard,” he’s saying to another officer. “What’s going on?”

  “It would have been hard but yes she certainly could have.” Benton’s eyes are on me as I continue to glance at the mirror.

  “That would be a pretty shrewd setup wouldn’t it? Someone gives a machine gun to the FBI profiling unit. And the head of it lets my nineteen-year-old niece borrow it. Then Carrie steals it and years later it’s used to commit an international crime that would cause our government unthinkable embarrassment and bad relations if the truth got out. Not to mention wrecking a few careers. In particular Erin Loria’s. Am I right, Benton? Is it true about Bhutto?”

  “Erin certainly might think it’s true. In my mind it’s uncertain at this time if it’s a bluff or an example of record tampering. Either way you’re right. There’s a massive perception problem if word gets out.”

  Data fiction.

  “We should talk about this later,” he says.

  “The way things are going there may not be a later.” I don’t want to sound incensed but I do. “If that damn MP5K is ever connected even indirectly to Lucy? It makes no difference that the gun was a movie prop at one time. Maybe it was refurbished. Carrie could have done that blindfolded I’m guessing,” I say and Benton is quiet. “And what a lot of trouble she could cause whether the records have been tampered with or not. Who’s going to prove they’ve been tampered with or even admit it because that alone is a massive public perception problem. You know what they say about revenge. It’s much better served cold. So why not wait years, almost a decade or even longer to decimate everyone you hate.”

  “I knew what Carrie did at the time,” Benton says. “Lucy had to explain why the MP5K wasn’t returned to the display case in my unit. She said Carrie had it and wouldn’t give it back, and then they broke up and that was that. There’s paperwork about the gun or prop disappearing. Of course it could be returned to working order and Lucy knew that too. Even as a teenager she was too smart to be hoodwinked.”

  “Erin Loria probably wasn’t. She probably isn’t.”

  “I won’t argue with you.”

  “If a movie prop became a working firearm again and it now appears it was used to assassinate someone”—I give him a scenario—“Erin might truly believe she’s in serious trouble.”

  “Especially if Carrie’s done things to make her paranoid,” Benton agrees, and he knows far more than he’s saying.

  “Which might explain her leading a raid on Lucy’s property. It might explain one of the most bogus search warrants I’ve seen in a while. Whose idea was it to transfer Erin Loria to Boston?”

  “After you were shot in Florida she requested it.”

  “I’m sure she did. Probably about the same time she fell into the trap of believing a former movie prop she’d once been in illegal possession of was suddenly matched to frag recovered from an assassination in 2007,” I reply. “But even if going after Lucy was Erin’s idea the Bureau has to be cooperating or nothing would be happening. So in essence the FBI deliberately moved Erin Loria here to sic her on Lucy.”

  “I don’t deny that’s true,” Benton says as Marino orders me to floor it.

  “Cambridge Street over to Charlestown Ave.” His voice is loud and urgent. “The old gravel quarry.”

  THERE’S NO GOOD REASON for him to have driven his cruiser to the River Basin, especially in this weather. He wasn’t responding to a call. He wasn’t meeting anyone. Not officially.

  Officer Park Hyde, unit 237, never contacted dispatch. He didn’t telephone, radio or inform anyone by any means we know of that he was headed to the navigation locks of the Charles River Dam where boats pass through to enter the Boston Harbor. The abandoned quarry is a foreboding isolated place under the best of conditions, and I can only imagine the reaction of the officer who discovered Hyde’s marked car concealed between mountains of sand. Unlocked. The battery dead. Hyde not inside the car. But the trunk is malfunctioning. It seems no one can open it.

  “I don’t understand why she can’t get inside it,” Benton says to Marino.

  “She?” I inquire.

  “Officer Dern,” Marino says. “She’s on the juvenile crime squad, which is probably one of the reasons she responded. She probably figured she’d be familiar with the little assholes joyriding in the red SUV we’re still trying to locate.”

  “Yes a late-model high-end red SUV which very well may be the one missing from the Gilbert house,” I reply. “The Range Rover that is supposedly registered to Chanel Gilbert,” I add. “I assume that Carrie stole her identity?”

  “She would assume any identity she wants if it serves a certain purpose,” Benton says. “What’s happening at the River Basin?”

  “The call where one of the subjects supposedly had a gun?” Marino says. “Well then there was another call reporting shots fired in the old gravel quarry.”

  “Supposedly shots were fired,” Benton reminds us. “We can’t say for a fact who’s been making these calls to nine-one-one.”

  “The officer went there and got out of her car to look for any sign that the red SUV and dirtbags had been there. She was walking around when she found Hyde’s police car. You probably can’t see it unless you’re on foot. I’m familiar with the area and you’re not goin
g to drive close to huge mountains of sand and gravel that have been there forever. We always joke that you’ll disappear into a sinkhole. I’m pretty sure the car was deliberately dumped there by someone who didn’t want us to find it for a while. There’s no way in hell Hyde drove it there.”

  “I don’t understand why Officer Dern can’t open the trunk,” Benton says. “Unless it’s been sealed shut somehow.”

  “She says it’s been glued,” Marino replies and I think about the silver fish-shaped box he opened with acetone. “So maybe there’s another camera inside, right Doc?” His jaw muscles are clenching. “Or some other prize in the Cracker Jacks like a murdered cop?”

  “I think we can figure out what we’re supposed to assume is inside the trunk,” Benton says as if we shouldn’t be so sure.

  “If Hyde’s in there he’s likely dead,” I tell them. “But let’s not assume it, and we also have to be concerned that gunpowder, specifically black powder has turned up. While it might be very old and not a danger to anything or anyone we can’t be certain.”

  “Happy Fourth of July.” Marino picks up his phone to make a call. “Carrie wants to turn this day into a damn fireworks display. Fuck that.”

  I listen to him get Officer Dern on the line and order her not to touch the trunk. He barks at her to move back from the car. I can tell she’s putting up an argument. Every cop worth his salt has only one concern and that’s Officer Hyde’s safety. If he’s inside the trunk they need to get him out now. What if he’s still alive?

  “You hear any movement?” Marino asks Officer Dern as he cracks his window open and lights a cigarette. “Is there any sign someone might be inside? Okay. We’ll be there in three minutes.” Then he’s off the call and saying to Benton and me, “How could he be in the trunk and not be kicking or banging around to get out? She told me she doesn’t hear anything. You’d probably better get Harold and Rusty there ASAP in case what we suspect turns out to be true.”

  “How about you call them,” I reply. “And while you’re at it tell them to bring a power drill and grab a borescope camera probe from the firearms lab. I assume the bomb squad has what it needs but just to be sure.”