The Bone Bed ks-20

by Patricia Cornwell

  “You’re right. We don’t have all the facts,” I reply. “But her body ended up here. That’s beyond dispute.”

  “Even so, we just don’t know where she vanished from.” If nothing else, Burke is reminding me why the FBI is involved, reminding me of the Bureau’s jurisdiction when crimes cross state lines, reminding me why it’s justified for me to feel intruded upon and confronted. “She might have left town of her own volition, been in and out, ended up in the area. Maybe she was with someone and died of natural causes and the priority became to dispose of the body for some reason.”

  “Nothing indicates she died of natural causes,” I assert.

  “And nothing indicates otherwise,” she pushes back.

  “Someone likely held her hostage and kept her body in cold storage for months. And then tethered it in such a way that it would be pulled apart when we tried to recover her from the bay. I’d say that’s an indication she didn’t die of natural causes,” I remark.

  “But you don’t know what killed her, as I understand it?” She lets that same question hang in the air.

  “At this time I don’t.”

  “You don’t have a guess.”

  “I don’t guess.”

  “Then you don’t know.”

  “I don’t know for a fact at this point.”

  “Isn’t that unusual, when the body is in relatively good shape?” Burke hasn’t taken her eyes off me, and it occurs to me she might think I’m lying.

  “Yes,” I answer. “I find this case extremely complicated and unusual. It’s probably going to be a tox case or asphyxia. It may take a while to sort through it.”

  “Then we’ll look for anything in here that could point in the direction of an overdose, a poisoning, or asphyxia,” she says. “Drugs, meds, something like a plastic dry-cleaning bag that could have been used to smother her.”

  “Then what?” I remind her. “Someone carried her body out of here without anybody seeing it and dumped her into the bay?”

  “I’m hoping you’ll tell me. Cold storage or heat?” Her questions are beginning to feel like an interrogation, as Benton looks around and doesn’t look at us.

  “Where she was kept was cold,” I reply. “Very cold and dry.”

  “We just don’t have the facts,” Burke says dismissively, as my boot covers make plastic sounds on heart pine flooring.

  “Are you allergic to cats?” I ask.

  “As a matter of fact, horribly. And I thought Benton was the psychic.”

  “The plastic ring on the floor.” I indicate what’s behind the umbrella stand. “A cat toy.”

  “No sign, but appears there was one.”

  “As in recently?” Benton is interested.

  “There’s a litter box in the master bath,” Burke says. “Water and food bowls are on the kitchen floor.”

  “But no cat alive or dead?” Benton is caught up in what it might mean.

  “Not so far.”

  “Where is her car key now?” I inspect the entryway table, crafted of old distressed wood with hammered copper accents, the bowl high opalescent glass with a pattern of bluebirds.

  I pick it up and read the back. Lalique, another expensive antique, and I wonder if Peggy Stanton spent much time in France.

  “Sil has it. Swabbed it and the keychain for DNA, checking them for possible prints, for anything, before he unlocks her car, assuming the car is locked,” Burke says. “But when the fire guys got us inside, the key was right there in that bowl you’re looking at, what appears to be a key to her 1995 Mercedes. The keychain has an old compass on it, maybe an old Boy Scout compass? Where you’d expect keys to be when someone’s walking into the house. A typical place to put them, just inside the door.”

  “Except if she’s coming in from the garage she’s not likely to walk all the way around to the front, up the steps, and onto the porch, especially if she’s carrying groceries,” I reply. “There’s a path that leads from the garage to a side door that I’m guessing is the kitchen door.”

  “Anything else on the keychain besides a car key and a compass?” Benton asks. “A house key, garage key?”

  “No.”

  “What about mail?” He looks through doorways, but he doesn’t walk inside the rooms. “I noticed a mailbox in front.”

  “Empty.”

  “Was she having her mail forwarded to another address?” I set down the bowl on the smooth top of the hand-built table and don’t believe for a minute that Peggy Stanton kept her car key or any keys in the entryway. “If her mail wasn’t forwarded, the mailbox should be overflowing.”

  “Nothing in it but a couple of circulars, junk mail,” Burke replies. “So it appears someone was taking it for some reason.”

  “The same person paying her bills and impersonating her,” Benton says, as if he knows. “What I’d like to do first is check out the garage, walk the property with Machado, then walk through the house while giving Kay room for what she needs. Doug, maybe you can show her around in here.”

  What he’s doing is giving me space, but he knows I can’t be alone. I convince myself he’s simply following protocol because I don’t want to believe he’s delivered me to this place and to Douglas Burke so she can casually and spontaneously continue an inquisition I can’t afford to abort.

  Looping the camera strap around my neck and picking up my scene case, I tell her for the record that I intend to go through certain areas of the house very thoroughly and it’s important she’s with me the entire time. I won’t open drawers or look inside medicine cabinets or closets unless what I do is witnessed, and I won’t collect any evidence myself unless it directly relates to the body, I explain.

  Biological materials, medications, for example, I say to her. But I will look at whatever I’m allowed to look at, assuming my opinion is helpful, I make myself clear.

  “Sure, it’s all helpful,” she says. “I’m curious if you usually do your own photography.”

  “Generally, no.”

  “So if Marino’s not available, you wouldn’t bring one of the other investigators. You have what? About six of them?”

  “I wouldn’t bring Marino or anyone here,” I answer her. “Not under the circumstances.”

  twenty-four

  OFF THE ENTRYWAY TO THE LEFT IS THE DINING ROOM, small, with Wedgwood-blue walls and white molding and trim, the mahogany table in front of the fireplace set with six antique chairs upholstered in dark red velvet.

  A built-in hutch displays royal-blue dishes trimmed in gold, French Saxon china that is old, and sterling flatware in cabinets, also French and antique, is stored in wooden chests, a patina of tarnish on all of the pieces. White candles on the table and the mantel have never been lit, and potted plants by the curtained window are long dead, everything covered in dust that hasn’t been disturbed in many months, I estimate. I flip a wall switch and nothing happens, the bulbs of the chandelier and sconces burned out.

  “It doesn’t appear they’re on timers.” I scan wall switches and outlets, looking for any sign of power strips or other devices that might have allowed Peggy Stanton to program certain lights to turn on and off. “Were these switches in the on position when you got here?”

  “Yes.” Burke is interested in her cell phone.

  “And you left them in the on position?” I ask because it’s important.

  “Any lights that are burned out, it’s because they were left on by whoever was in the house last.” She’s scrolling through e-mails.

  “It’s probably safe to assume that either she left the dining room lights on the last time she was in her house or someone else did.”

  “The window in here faces the street.” She’s reading e-mails and wiping her nose with a tissue. “Maybe she was in the habit of leaving the lights on in the dining room so it looked like someone was home.”

  “Most people wouldn’t leave on a crystal chandelier and crystal sconces when they go out, especially if they were leaving town. It’s a real pain to repla
ce the bulbs.” I’ve seen what I need to see in here, and Burke is barely listening.

  I walk out of the dining room and across the entryway, waiting for what’s next as I wonder how much of what’s happening was masterminded by Benton. How much is he allowing? Burke is walking me through this house because she intends to walk me through something else.

  “If it was her habit to come and go in her car, it might have made more sense to leave lights on that illuminate the garage.” I tell her my thoughts anyway, feeling uncannily the way I did earlier today when Jill Donoghue played her games with me in court.

  I stop by the floral upholstered couch in the formal living room and look around at more European antiques, probably French, everything immaculate and dusty. I notice a canvas bag on the floor next to a wing chair, and inside are skeins of wool and knitting needles, and a navy blue scarf that looks about halfway done. If she’d left town for the summer, would she have neglected to take with her a project she’d begun? The fireplace is fitted with a gas insert that’s supposed to look like birch logs, a remote on top of the mantel.

  “The fireplace works; I checked,” Burke says.

  “Most people shut off the pilot light in the summer and turn it back on in the fall. Is her house heated with natural gas? It’s warm in here.” I find the thermostat. “The heat is on and set to seventy degrees.”

  “Not sure if it’s natural gas.”

  “Most likely it is. Pilot lights burn gas, too. You leave one on for five or six months and chances are good the gas will run out. So she’s been getting fuel deliveries.”

  “Someone collecting her mail, paying her bills, making sure gas deliveries don’t stop, and suspending her newspaper.” She doesn’t indicate what that makes her think or even if she finds it noteworthy. “I don’t mean to tell you how to do your job.”

  “That’s good, because you couldn’t possibly.”

  “I don’t mean to question you.”

  “Of course you do. But go right ahead.” I look at flowers on the coffee table that are so wilted it’s difficult to tell what they once were.

  “You’re sure she didn’t die in the bay?”

  “She didn’t.” Possibly tulips and lilies, which I associate with spring, an empty plastic card holder stuck in the vase.

  “No way she was tied up, thrown overboard, and drowned?”

  “There’s no way,” I reply. “She was already dead when she was tied up. If she were leaving town for the summer, would she leave a fresh flower arrangement on a table? Why not throw it out?”

  “And she was in the water how long?” Burke isn’t interested in the flowers.

  “I’d estimate her body hadn’t been in the water even twenty-four hours by the time she was found.”

  “Estimate based on what? If you don’t mind my asking.”

  “I don’t mind,” I answer, because it doesn’t matter if I do, and I’m certain she will ask whatever she wants, and I wonder if she’s slept with my husband.

  I wonder how much of this is competitive and personal.

  “My estimate is based on there being no evidence of significant immersion changes or marine depredation, for example,” I explain.

  “‘Marine depredation’?”

  “Fish, crabs. Nothing had started eating her.”

  “Right. So she died somewhere else.”

  “Yes, she did.”

  “Your thoughts based on the autopsy?”

  “I think she likely was held hostage someplace she attempted to escape from,” I reply. “Her postmortem findings indicate she’s been dead for months.”

  “Any chance she’s not been dead as long as you think?” Burke studies me as if I’m a puzzle she can take apart and reconstruct.

  “I’m not sure how long she’s been dead,” I reply. “Not down to the week or day or hour, if that’s the answer you want. But based on what I’m seeing so far, it appears to me she hasn’t been home since it was still cool enough to keep the heat on. Around here, that would be last March or April. I assume there was no card in this floral arrangement?”

  “I didn’t touch it, and Sil wouldn’t have. So apparently not.” She pinches her nose together with the tissue and looks miserable and irritable.

  “Do we know when these flowers were delivered or by whom?”

  “We’ll be checking area florists to see if there’s a record of a delivery,” she says. “And we’ll check her credit card bills to see if she might have bought the flowers herself.”

  “I wonder if someone was paying those, too.”

  “Someone who had access to her bank account. Someone who had her checks,” Burke says. “Wouldn’t be anyone in her family. Her family’s dead.”

  “Most people don’t remove the card from the arrangement and throw it away. Not if the flowers came from someone who’s significant to them.”

  “I haven’t checked the trash yet.”

  “To answer your question as definitively as I can?” I look through magazines on the coffee table. “Based on the condition of her body, I’m estimating she’s been dead for many months.”

  Antiques & Collecting, Antique Trader, Smithsonian from December through April.

  “Knowing for a fact how long is really important,” Burke says, and that’s what she wants from me and intends to dispute because she has her mind made up about what she’s looking for and what she believes she can prove.

  Some theory that at the moment I can’t fathom, but I have no doubt I wasn’t asked to do a walk-through of this house for the reasons I assumed. I’m not here to check for evidence of violence, for asphyxia or a drug overdose. I’m here because of Marino.

  He is what Burke wants to ask about, and I have a leaden feeling of inevitability, a sense of something dark and heavy spreading over me that I can’t escape, don’t even dare to run from, because it will only be worse if I do. I know what she’s walking me deeper into, and Benton saw it coming. He warned me in his own way while we were driving here. Burke is aware of details about Marino’s past that aren’t found in searchable records.

  “Months? Two, three, five months? How does this work when you look at a dead body and calculate?” she asks, and I do the best I can to explain what isn’t simple as I walk into a kitchen dominated by an antique oak table and handmade iron chandelier.

  Double porcelain sinks are empty and dry, the bistro coffeemaker unplugged and clean, and blinds are shut in windows on either side of the door that leads out to the garage. She follows me, lets me lead the way, scarcely attending to what I say as she continues to check her phone and probe, carrying on with what feels like a chipping away of who and what I am. I can’t help but feel betrayed. I can’t help but feel Benton chose the side he’s on and it isn’t my side, and at the same time I completely understand and would suspect nothing less from him.

  The FBI is doing its job the same way I do mine, and Burke can ask anything she wants without Mirandizing me because I’m not in police custody. I’m not a suspect in a crime or even a person of interest. Marino is. I could stop Douglas Burke at any time, but that would only further galvanize her suspicions about him.

  “It’s impossible to precisely determine how rapidly a body desiccates unless you know the conditions.” I explain mummification as she continues to question whatever I say about it. “How hot? How cold? How humid? The name Stanton isn’t French.” I look around. “Antiques and certain other items in this house are French and quite fine and somewhat unique. What was her family name?”

  “Margaret Lynette Bernard. Peggy Lynn. Born on January twelfth, 1963, in New York. Father was a French antiques dealer with shops in New York, Paris, London. She grew up in the city, was working on her master’s degree in social work at Columbia but didn’t finish, presumably because she got married and started a family.”

  She’s been doing research, digging into records, covering a lifetime of history in the blink of an eye or in the keystrokes of a cyber-expert like Valerie Hahn, who is conspicuously absent
, it crosses my mind. E-mails seem to be landing nonstop on Burke’s phone.

  “All that sacrifice. Look what she gave up for him, and the guy decides to fly in bad conditions.” She stands in one spot, her watery eyes on me. “Pilot error.” She sneezes, and I think of the irony.

  The FBI’s DNA, not Marino’s, will be all over the house.

  “That’s the NTSB’s conclusion or yours?” I inquire.

  “Took off in an overloaded aircraft, failed to maintain airspeed, possible the nine-year-old daughter, Sally, might have been at the controls—”

  “A nine-year-old child was flying the plane?”

  “She’d been taking lessons, apparently was quite skilled, a lot of media attention about the latest little Amelia Earhart.”

  Live feeds from headquarters, I think. Search engines chugging through the news and downloading it to Burke so she can ambush me while she’s got the chance. I could walk out, leave.

  “Anyway, the plane went into a stall after taking off from Nantucket. One hundred percent pilot error. One hundred percent parental error.” Burke says it judgmentally.

  “That’s very sad. I’m sure a father would never mean to make such an error,” I reply. “And what did Peggy Lynn do in life after her entire family was gone?”

  “It appears she received a few public-service awards that made the news,” Burke says. “Volunteer work with the elderly, teaching them hobbies, arts and crafts. Exactly how long do you think she’s been dead?” she asks, as if I’ve yet to answer that.

  The black granite countertop is neat and mostly bare, a pad of paper and a pen next to the phone, and I notice a six-ounce pouch of salmon-flavored cat treats that has been torn open and resealed.

  “I think this should be collected.” I nudge the cat treats with my gloved finger, and the space beneath it is free of dust.

  Burke stares at the bag on the counter without stepping closer, a blank expression on her splotchy face.

  “The cat appears to be missing,” I remind her. “And it appears someone gave it treats, which suggests the cat wasn’t missing while the house was still occupied.”