Flesh and Blood (8 page)

“What about an alarm system?”

“He probably disarmed it when he went in unless it hadn’t been set, and I’ve got a call to the alarm company to find out the history for earlier today.” He glances at his phone. “Hopefully I’ll be getting that any minute.”

“Machado certainly handed off a lot of detail considering how much the two of you don’t seem to like each other at the moment.” I’m going to make him talk about it. “There’s no room in a homicide investigation for personal problems.”

“I’m a hundred percent focused.”

“If you were I wouldn’t have noticed that anything is wrong. I thought you were friends.”

His gloved hand turns a modern satin chrome knob that is an insult to the vintage oak front door.

“It’s completely closed now but when the first responding officers got here it was ajar.” He continues to ignore my questions.

I follow him in and stop just beyond the jamb, pulling the door shut. Opening my scene case I retrieve shoe covers for both of us as I glance around before stepping farther inside. The apartment is tiny, the kitchen and living area combined, the oak paneling painted chocolate brown. The wide board flooring is heavily varnished and scattered with colorful throw rugs. One bedroom, one bath, two windows across from me and two to my left, the drapes drawn, and I take my time near the door. I’m not done with him.

He and Machado are fighting and I wonder if it’s over a woman, and my thoughts dart back to Liz Wrighton. I’m rather startled but probably shouldn’t be. Single, in her late thirties, attractive, and I recall that when Marino worked for me, the two of them sometimes went shooting together or grabbed a few drinks after work. She’s been out sick since Monday and for some reason Machado knew about it.

“Did you mention to Machado that Liz has been out sick?” I ask.

“I didn’t know about it.”

“Is that a yes?”

“It isn’t.”

I look up at two rubbed bronze hanging fixtures shaped like inverted tulip bulbs. Cheap. What’s called
antique inspired
. Their bulbs are glaring, the dimmer switches near the door pushed up as bright as the lights will go. I doubt Jamal Nari did that when he came in with groceries and left the door ajar. I have a feeling Machado did plenty of looking around when he did his walk-through, and I suggest this to Marino. I ask him if the lights were on when the police got here or if Machado might have done it.

“I’m sure he turned them on so he could see anything in plain view before we got the warrant.” Marino is skimming through it, his mouth set angrily. “And guess what? I don’t see a sniper rifle on it. What if we find one in the closet or under the bed? It’s not like I didn’t damn tell him.”

“I don’t understand. Are you implying Joanna Cather shot her husband with a rifle they keep in the apartment?”

“I’m implying that Machado is being bullheaded and jerking me around. What he doesn’t want to hear is we’re probably looking for a special type of firearm. One that not so long ago wasn’t readily available to the public. So he’s not acknowledging anything I tell him.” Marino’s gloved hands pick up keys on the kitchen counter next to three upright brown paper Whole Foods bags. “A 5R. Like the rifle used in New Jersey.”

He’s talking about the engraving on the bullet made by the rifling of the barrel.

“Five lands and grooves with rolled leading edges,” he says. “And when do you see that in shooting cases?”

“I’m not sure I have.”

“I personally don’t know of any homicides where the shooter used a rifle with a 5R barrel except the two Jersey cases,” Marino says. “Even now there’s only a few models out there unless you custom-build, and most people don’t know crap about barrels or even think they’re important. But this shooter does because he’s damn smart. He’s a gun fanatic.”

“Or he somehow got hold of a gun like that …”

“We need to look for anything that might be related, put everything on a warrant including solid copper bullets, cartridge cases, a tumbler.” Marino talks over me. “Anything you can think of in any place we search including any vehicles like the wife’s rental car. But Machado’s fighting me. Basically he’s giving me the finger because if I’m right it’s a huge case and it’s mine not his.”

“Under ordinary circumstances it should be both of yours.”

“Well the circumstances aren’t ordinary and I should be the lead investigator. He’s already run the wrong way with the ball.”

“Your hope is that it’s Machado who gets reassigned.”

“Maybe he will and maybe he should before there’s a bigger problem.”

“What bigger problem?” There’s more to this than Marino is saying.

“Like him pinning this murder on some kid who maybe was fooling around with the dead man’s wife. A kid didn’t do this,” Marino says but that’s not his reason. There’s something else.

HE OPENS HIS SCENE
case on the floor as I survey the sitting area.

A chesterfield brown leather sofa and two side chairs. A coffee table. A flat-screen TV has been dismounted from the wall and so have framed Jimi Hendrix, Santana and Led Zeppelin posters. In a corner are three black carbon fiber guitars on stands, iridescent like a butterfly wing when the light catches just right, and I get close to inspect.

RainSong
.

“He must have really loved his guitars to get a tattoo,” I comment, and I’m in the kitchen now.

Four wall-mounted cabinets, a three-burner stove, an oven, a refrigerator. On the counter are a microwave, the keys and bags of groceries Nari carried in before he returned to his car and was shot to death. I work my hands into a pair of fresh gloves before inspecting what he bought.

“Sliced cheeses, coffee, jars of marinara sauce, pasta, butter, several different spices, rye bread, detergent, dryer sheets,” I go through the inventory. “Advil, Zantac, valerian. Prescriptions for Zomig, Clarinex, Klonopin filled at the CVS at nine this morning, possibly after he bought the groceries and right before he drove home.”

I look at Marino as he slides the trash can out from under the sink.

“Who does this much shopping for a long weekend?” I open the refrigerator.

There’s nothing inside but bottles of water and an open box of baking soda.

“I’m thinking the same thing you are. Something’s wrong with this picture.” Marino lifts the trash bag out of the can. “Nothing in it but a bunch of paper towels. They’re damp. It looks like they were used to wipe something down. What do the meds tell you?”

“It would seem that one or both of them suffer from headaches, possibly migraines in addition to allergies and stomach problems,” I reply. “And valerian is a homeopathic remedy for muscle spasms and stress. Some people use it to sleep. Klonopin is a benzodiazepine used for anxiety. The name on all of the prescriptions is Nari’s. That doesn’t necessarily mean his wife wasn’t sharing.”

Marino heads toward the bedroom and I follow him. Another former jewel that is sad to see, the oak flooring original to the house and painted brown. The crown molding like the paneled walls is painted an insipid yellow. On top of the double bed are two guitar cases, hard plastic and lined with plush red fabric, and on the handles are elastic bands from baggage tickets. There are nightstands and lamps, and near the open closet door are suitcases and stacks of taped-up Bankers Boxes.

On top of the dresser are two laptop computers plugged in and charging, and Marino’s gloved fingers tap the mouse pads and the screen savers ask for passwords. He returns to the living area. Then he’s back with evidence tape and plastic bags.

“They weren’t going away for just the weekend. It’s obvious they were moving.” I step inside the bathroom.

It’s not much bigger than a closet. The vintage claw-foot tub has been outfitted with a showerhead and a yellow plastic curtain on enclosure rings. There’s a white toilet, a sink and a single frosted window.

“Didn’t you mention that they just rented this apartment a few years ago?” I ask. “And now they’re moving again?”

“It sure looks that way,” Marino says from the bedroom.

“The guitars aren’t in their cases.” I direct my voice through the open doorway so he can hear me. “And I would think that’s significant since they were important to him. Almost everything else is packed up but not his guitars.”

“I don’t see a third case anywhere. Just the two on the bed,” Marino says and I hear him opening a door, I hear coat hangers scraping on a rod.

“There should be three. One for each guitar.”

“Nope and nothing in the closet.”

I open the medicine cabinet, the mirror old and pitted. There’s nothing inside. In the cabinet under the sink are nonlubricated condoms and Imodium. Boxes and boxes of them, and it’s unusual. I wonder why these were left in here when nothing else was. They’re perfectly arranged, the boxes lined upright like a loaf of sliced bread, each label facing out. None of them are open. I detect a chlorine smell. Possibly a bathroom cleanser that was stored in here before it was packed or thrown out.

“I wonder where the building empties garbage?” I ask.

“There’s a Dumpster.”

“Someone should go through it to see what they might have tossed.” I return to the bedroom.

I notice the Bankers Box on top of the stack. The tape has been cut. Someone opened it. The lid is marked bathroom. I take a look. It’s half empty, nothing inside except a few toiletries that appear to have been rummaged through. I look at the other boxes, eleven of them and they’re taped up. They look undisturbed and I get the same weird feeling I had when I noticed the condoms and Imodium in the cabinet.

“You gotta see this.” Marino is opening dresser drawers now. “More of the same, friggin’ unbelievable. Something was definitely going on. Like they were on the damn run.”

“If so he didn’t exactly make it very far,” I reply as I hear voices outside the apartment.

“Maybe that’s why. Someone decided to stop him.” The dresser drawer he pulls open is completely empty and wiped clean.

I can see the swipe marks and lint of the wet paper towels used, perhaps the ones he found in the kitchen trash. I suggest he bag them as evidence.

“Let’s make sure it was only dust and dirt being cleaned out of drawers,” I add as the voices get closer and sound argumentative, a man and a woman. She’s extremely upset.

“No question about it.” Marino checks the drawers in the nightstands and they’re empty. They also have been wiped clean. “They were getting the hell out of Dodge. And I’m guessing someone good with a rifle wasn’t happy about it.”

We return to the living room as the voices get louder.

“Ma’am, you need to hold here,” the male voice says from the other side of the front door. “You can’t go in until I check with the investigator …”

“This is where we live! Let me in!” a woman screams.

“You need to hold here, ma’am.” And the door opens, and a uniformed officer steps halfway inside, blocking the woman behind him.

“Jamal! Jamal! No!”

Her screams pierce the quiet apartment as she tries to push past the officer, a heavyset man, gray hair, in his fifties, an impassive air I associate with cops who have been at it too long, and I try to place him. Ticketing parked cars. Picking up personal effects in the autopsy room.

“Let me in! Why won’t you tell me anything! Let me in! What’s happening? What’s happening?”

Her anguish and terror come from where no one should have to go, a wrenching hopeless place. It’s not true that we are never given more than we can bear. Only it isn’t given. It simply happens.

“It’s okay. No problem,” Marino says to the officer. “You can let her in.”

J
OANNA CATHER ISN’T WHAT
I expected.

I’m not sure what I imagined but not the tiny girlish woman weeping and staring glassy-eyed in grief and terror. She’s pretty in a delicate, fragile way like a porcelain doll that might break in half if you knocked her over, dressed in black leggings, boots and a pink
COLDPLAY
sweatshirt that hangs to her knees. She wears multiple rings and bracelets, her nails painted turquoise, and her long straw-blond hair is so straight it looks ironed.

“Did you see them in Boston?” I indicate her sweatshirt and she stares blankly as if she doesn’t remember what she has on. “I’m Doctor Kay Scarpetta. I’m trying to think back to when it was. Maybe two summers ago.”

My offhand reference to the British rock band and query about when it performed in the area reboots her shocked distraction, a tactic I learned early on when people are too fragmented by hysteria to give me what I need. I make a nongermane observation about the weather or what they’re wearing or anything at all we might have in common. It almost always works. I have Joanna’s attention.

“You’re a doctor?” Her eyes fasten on me, and I’m mindful of the hard stiffness of the vest underneath my shirt, of my hands still gloved in purple nitrile, of my boots cocooned in boat-shaped blue shoe covers.

“I’m handling Jamal’s case, the medical aspects of it.” I’m gentle but sure of my position, and I sense the beginning of trust.

She pauses, staring with a hint of relief and says, “July two years ago. We had VIP backstage passes. We never miss them.”

One of the band’s tour stops was Boston where they played for several nights, and Lucy got seats two rows back, center stage. We may have been at the same concert, perhaps near Joanna and her musician husband, all of us there on a rock-and-roll high.

It happens in the blink of an eye
.
A lightning strike. A heart attack. A wrong place. A wrong time.

“You … You saw Jamal,” she says to me. “What happened to him? He was shot?”

“Preliminarily that’s the way it looks. I’m very sorry.”

“The way it looks? You don’t know?”

“He needs to be examined. Then I’ll have answers I can be sure of.” I’m next to her now as if she’s in my care, and I tell her I regret that I don’t have more information at the moment.

I repeat how sorry I am for her terrible loss. I say all the right things as she starts crying again and this is exactly how Marino wants it to go. We’ve danced this dance since the beginning of our time. I’m the doctor who’s not here to accuse or cause further harm. The more he leans on her, the more she’ll bond with me, feeling I’m on her side. I know exactly how to insert myself without violating the boundaries of what I have a right to answer or ask. I also know how to be useful without saying a word.