Black Notice - Cornwell Patricia (книги онлайн без регистрации txt) 📗

The external examination of Bray took two more hours as Fielding and I meticulously, measured, drew and photographed every wound. Her facial bones were crushed, the flesh lacerated over bony prominences. Her teeth were broken. Some were knocked out with such force they were halfway down her throat. Her lips, ears and the flesh of her chin were avulsed off the bone, and X rays revealed hundreds of fractures and punched-out areas in bone, especially the bone table of the skull.

I was taking a- shower at 7:00 P.m., and the water running off of me was pale red because I had gotten so bloody. I felt weak and light-headed, because I hadn't eaten since early morning. There was no one left in the office but me. I walked out of the locker room drying my hair with a towel, and Marino suddenly emerged from my office. I almost screamed. I placed a hand on my chest as adrenaline shocked me.

"Don't startle me like that!" I exclaimed.

"Didn't mean to." He looked grim.

"How'd you get in?"

"Night security. We're pals. I didn't want you walking out to your car by yourself. I knew you'd still be here."

I ran my fingers through my damp hair, and he followed me into my office. I draped the towel over my chair and began collecting everything that needed to go home with me. I noticed lab reports Rose had left on my desk. Fingerprints on the bucket found inside the container matched the unidentified dead man's.

"Well, a shitload of good that does," Marino said.

In addition, there was a DNA report with a note from Jamie Kuhn. He had used short tandem repeats, or STR, and already had results.

"… found a profile… very similar with very slight differences," I scanned out loud without much heart for it. "… consistent with the depositor of the biological sample… close relative…"

I looked up at Marino.

"So, long story short, the unidentified man's and the killer's DNA are consistent with these two individuals being related to each other. Period."

"Consistent," Marino said in disgust. "I hate all this scientific consistent shit! The two assholes are brothers"

I had no doubt of that.

"We need blood samples from the parents to prove it," I said.

"Let's just call 'em up and see if we can drop by," Marino cynically replied. "The lovely Chandonne sons. Hooray."

I threw the report on top of my desk.

"Hooray is right," I said.

"Who gives a shit."

"I sure would like to know what tool he used," I said.

"I've spent all afternoon calling these big hoity-toity mansions on the river." Marino had changed his lane of thought. "The good news is everyone seems to be present and accounted for. The bad news is we still got no idea where he's hanging put. And it's twenty-five degrees out there. No way he's just walking around or sleeping under a tree.

"What about hotels?"

"Nobody hairy with a French accent or ugly teeth. Nobody even close. And no-tell motels ain't too chatty with cops."

He was walking along the hallway with me, and he seemed in no hurry to leave, as if he had something else on his mind.

"What's wrong?" I asked. "Besides everything?"

"Lucy was supposed to be in D.C. yesterday, Doe, to go before the review board. They've flown in four Waco guys to counsel her, the whole nine yards. And she insists on staying here until Jo's okay."

We walked out into the parking lot.

"Everybody understands that," he went on as my anxieties grew. "But that ain't the way it works when the director of ATF is rolling up his sleeves in this and she's a no-show."

"Marino, I'm sure she's let them know what's…" I started to defend her.

"Oh yeah. She's been on the phone and promised she'll be there in a few days."

"They can't wait a few days for her to get there?" I asked as I unlocked my car.

"The whole fuckup down there was videotaped;" he said as I slid into a cold leather seat. "And they've been going through it over and over again."

I started the engine as the night suddenly seemed darker and colder and emptier.

"There's a lot of questions." He dug his hands in the pocket of his coat.

"About whether the shooting was justified? Isn't saving Jo's life, her own life, justification enough?"

"I think it's her attitude, mainly, Doc. She's so, well, you know. So ready to charge in and fight all the time. It comes across in everything she does, which is why she's so damn good. But it can also be one hell of a problem if it gets out of hand."

"You want to get inside the car so you don't freeze?"

"I'm going to follow You home, then I got things to do. Lucy's going to be there, right?"

"Yes”

Otherwise I ain't leaving you alone, not with that asshole still on the loose out there."

"What do I do about her?" I quietly asked.

I no longer knew. I felt my niece was beyond my reach. Sometimes I wasn't even sure she loved me anymore.

"This is all about Benton, you know," Marino said. "Sure, she's pissed at life in general and goes off on a regular basis. Maybe you should show her his autopsy report, make her face it, get it the hell out of her system before she does herself in."

"I will never do that;" I said as old pain rushed back, but not as intensely.

"Jesus, it's cold. And getting closer to a full moon, which is exactly what I don't want to see right now."

"All a full moon means is that if he tries again, it will be easier to see him," T said.

"Want me tу follow you?"

"I'll be fine."

"Well, you call me if for some reason Lucy ain't there. No way you're staying alone."

I felt like Rose as I drove toward home. I knew exactly what she meant about being held hostage by fear, by old age, by grief, by anything or anyone. I had almost reached my neighborhood when I decided to turn around and cut over to West Broad Street, where I occasionally went to Pleasants Hardware on the twenty-two-hundred block. It was an old neighborhood store that had expanded over the years and tended to carry more than just the standard tools and garden supplies.

When I shopped here, I never arrived earlier than seven o'clock in the evening, when most men came in after work and cruised the aisles like boys coveting toys. There were many cars, trucks and vans in the parking lot, and I was in a hurry as I walked past close-out lawn furniture and discontinued power tools. Just inside the door, spring flower bulbs were on special, and clearance-sale gallon cans of blue and white paint were stacked in a pyramid.

I wasn't sure what class of tool I was looking for, although I suspected the weapon that had killed Bray was something like a pickaxe or a hammer. So I kept an open mind and went up and down aisles, scanning shelves of nails, nuts, fasteners, screw hooks, hinges, hasps and latches. I wandered through thousands of feet of neatly coiled rope and cord, and weatherizers and caulk and just about everything one needed for plumbing. I saw nothing that mattered, not in the large section of bars and claws and hammers, either.

Pipes didn't quite work, because the threads weren't thick or widely spaced enough to have left the strange striped pattern we found on Bray's mattress. Tire tools didn't even come close. I was getting very discouraged by the time I reached the masonry section of the store, and I saw the tool hanging on a distant peg board and I felt flushed, my heart jumping.

It looked like a black iron pickaxe with a coiled handle that brought to mind a thick large spring. I went over and picked one up. It was heavy. One end was pointed, the other like a chisel. The tag on it said it was a chipping hammer and cost six dollars and ninety-five cents.

The young man who rang it up had no idea what a chipping hammer was, and didn't know the store carried such a thing.

"Is there anyone here who would know?" I asked.

He got on an intercom and asked for an assistant manager named Julie to come to his register. She got there right away and seemed far too proper and well dressed to know about tools.