The Last Precinct - Cornwell Patricia (читаем книги онлайн TXT) 📗
"What?" I am incredulous, then furious.
"So the only one at your house is the one with Bray's blood on it. One hammer. Found at your house. And it's got Bray's blood." He makes his point, not without some reluctance.
"You know why I bought that hammer," I reply as if my argument is with him. "I wanted to see if it matched up with the pattern of her injuries. And it was definitely in my house. If it wasn't there when you guys went through everything, then either you overlooked it or someone took it."
"You remember where you had it last?"
"I used it in the kitchen on chicken to see what the injuries looked like, and also what kind of pattern the coiled handle would leave if I put something on it and pressed the handle against paper."
"Yeah, we found pounded-up chicken in the garbage. And a pillowcase with barbecue sauce on it, like maybe from your rolling the handle around." He doesn't think such an experiment is odd. He knows I engage in a lot of unusual research when I am trying to figure out what happened to somebody. "But no chipping hammer. We didn't find that. Not with or without barbecue sauce," Marino goes on. "So I'm wondering if asshole Talley swiped it. Maybe you ought to get Lucy and Teun to turn their secret squirrel organization on him and see what they find out, huh? The Last Precinct's first big investigation. I'd like to ran a credit check on the bastard and see where he gets all his money from, for starters."
I keep glancing at my watch, timing our drive. The subdivision where Mitch Barbosa lived is ten minutes from The Fort James Motel. Taupe clapboard townhouses are new and there is no vegetation, just raw earth sprinkled with dead young grass and patched with snow. I recognize unmarked police vehicles in the lot when we pull in, three Ford Crown Victorias and a Chevrolet Lumina parked in a row. It doesn't escape my attention or Marino's that two of these vehicles have Washington, D.C., plates.
"Oh shit," Marino says. "I smell the feds. Oh boy," he says to me as we park, "this ain't good."
I notice a curious detail as Marino and I follow the brick walkway to the townhouse where Barbosa lived with his alleged girlfriend. Through an upstairs window I see a fishing rod. It leans against the glass, and I don't know why it strikes me as out of place except that this isn't the time of year for fishing, just as it isn't the time of year for camping. Again, I think of the mysterious if not mythical people who fled the campground, leaving behind many of their possessions. I return to Bev Kiffin's lie and feel I am moving deeper into a dangerous airspace where there are forces I can't see or understand moving at incredible speeds. Marino and I wait at the front door of townhouse D, and he rings the bell again.
Detective Stanfield answers and greets us distractedly, his eyes darting everywhere. Tension between him and Marino is a wall between them. "Sorry I didn't make it by the motel," he announces curtly as he steps aside to let us in. "Something's come up. You'll see that in a minute," he promises. He is in gray corduroys and a heavy wool sweater, and he won't meet my eyes, either. I am not sure if this is because he knows how I feel about his leaking information to his brother-in-law, Representative Dinwiddie, or if there is some other reason. It flashes across my thoughts that he might know I am being investigated for murder. I try not to think about that reality. It serves no good purpose to worry right now. "Everybody's upstairs," he says, and we follow him up.
"Who's everybody?" Marino asks.
Our feet thud quietly on carpet. Stanfield keeps moving. He doesn't turn around or pause when he replies, "ATF and the FBI."
I notice framed photographs arranged on the wall to the left of the staircase and take a moment to peruse them, recognizing Mitch Barbosa grinning with tipsy-looking people in a bar and hanging out the window of the cab of a transfer truck. In one photograph, he is sunbathing in a bikini on a tropical beach, maybe Hawaii. He holds up a drink, toasting the person behind the camera. Several other poses are with a pretty woman, perhaps the girlfriend he lives with, I wonder. Halfway up is a landing and the window the fishing pole leans against.
I stop, a strange sensation lightly whispering across my flesh as I examine, without touching, a Shakespeare fiberglass rod and Shimano reel. A hook and split-shot weights are attached to the fishing line, and on the carpet next to the rod's handle is a small blue plastic tackle box. Nearby, as if set down when someone entered the townhouse, are two empty Rolling Rock beer bottles, a new pack of Tiparillo cigars and some change. Marino turns around to see what I am doing. I join him at the top of the stairs and we emerge into a brightly lit living area that is attractively decorated in spare modern furniture and Indian rugs.
"When's the last time you went fishing?" I ask Marino.
"Not freshwater," he replies. "Not around here these days."
"Exactly." I am cut off by an awareness that I know one of the three people standing near the picture window in the living room. My heart jumps when the familiar dark head turns to me and suddenly I am facing Jay Talley. He doesn't smile, his glance sharp as if his eyes are tipped like arrows. Marino makes a barely audible noise that is like a groan from a small, primitive animal. It is his way of letting me know that Jay is the last person he wants to see. Another man in a suit and tie is young and looks Hispanic, and when he sets down his coffee cup, his jacket falls open and reveals a shoulder holster holding a large caliber pistol.
The third person is a woman. She doesn't demonstrate the devastated, confused demeanor of a person whose lover has just been killed. She is upset, yes. But her emotions are well contained beneath the surface, and I recognize the flare in her eyes and angry set of her jaw. I have seen the look in Lucy, in Marino and others who are more than bereft when something bad happens to a person they care about. Cops. Cops are offended and in an eye for an eye mode when something happens to one of their own. Mitch Barbosa's girlfriend, I suspect right away, is law enforcement, probably undercover. In a matter of minutes, the scenario has dramatically shifted.
"This is Bunk Pruett, FBI." Stanfield makes introductions. "Jay Talley, ATF" Jay shakes my hand as if we have never met. "And Jilison Mclntyre." Her handshake is cool but firm. "Ms. Mclntyre's ATF"
We find chairs and arrange them so all of us can look at each other and talk. The air is hard. It is flinty with anger. I recognize the mood. I have seen it so many times when a cop is killed. Now that Stanfield has set the stage, he slips behind a curtain of sullen silence. Bunk Pruett takes charge, typical FBI. "Dr. Scarpetta, Captain Marino," Pruett begins. "I want to state the obvious right off. This is highly, highly sensitive. To be honest, I hate saying anything about what's going on, but you got to know what you're dealing with." His jaw muscles bunch. "Mitch Barbosa is_was_undercover FBI, working a big investigation here in this area, which now of course we have to dismantle, at least to a certain degree."
"Drugs and guns," Jay says, glancing from Marino to me.
