“And this wouldn’t have happened!”
Suddenly she walked out the door to the hallway. She could not bear to be inside her daughters’ bedroom one moment longer, I knew, and I followed her down the stairs and to the front door. When I reached for her hand, she turned away from me as her tears fell.
“I’m so sorry.”
How many times on this earth would I say that? The front door shut quietly as I went down the steps. While driving home I prayed that if I ever encountered Pat Harvey again, it would not be in my official capacity of chief medical examiner.
3
A week passed before I heard again from anyone connected to the Harvey-Cheney case, the investigation of which had gone nowhere, as far as I knew. Monday, when I was up to my elbows in blood in the morgue, Benton Wesley called. He wanted to talk to Marino and me without delay, and suggested we come for dinner.
“I think Pat Harvey’s making him nervous,” Marino said that evening. Tentative drops of rain bounced off his car windshield as we headed to Wesley’s house. “I personally don’t give a rat’s ass if she talks to a palm reader, rings up Billy Graham or the friggin’ Easter Bunny.”
“Hilda Ozimek is not a palm reader,” I replied.
“Half those Sister Rose joints with a hand painted on the sign are just fronts for prostitution.”
“I’m aware of that,” I said wearily.
He opened the ashtray, reminding me what a filthy habit smoking was. If he could cram one more butt in there, it would be a Guinness record.
“I take it you’ve heard of Hilda Ozimek, then,” he went on.
“I really don’t know much about her, except that I think she lives somewhere in the Carolinas.”
“South Carolina.”
“Is she staying with the Harvey’s?”
“Not anymore,” Marino said, turning off the windshield wipers as the sun peeked out from behind clouds. “Wish the damn weather would make up its mind. She went back to South Carolina yesterday. Was flown in and out of Richmond in a private plane, if you can believe that.”
“You mind telling me how anybody knows about it?”
If I was surprised that Pat Harvey would resort to a psychic, I was even more surprised that she would tell anyone.
“Good question. I’m just telling you what Benton said when he called. Apparently, Broom Hilda found something in her crystal ball that got Mrs. Harvey mighty upset.”
“What, exactly?”
“Beats the shit outta me. Benton didn’t go into detail.”
I did not inquire further, for discussing Benton Wesley and his tight-lipped ways made me ill at ease. Once he and I had enjoyed working together, our regard for each other respectful and warm. Now I found him distant and I could not help but worry that the way Wesley acted toward me had to do with Mark. When Mark had walked away from me by taking an assignment in Colorado, he had also walked away from Quantico, where he had enjoyed the privileged role of running the FBI National Academy’s Legal Training Unit. Wesley had lost his colleague and companion, and in his mind it was probably my fault. The bond between male friends can be stronger than marriage, and brothers of the bad more loyal to each other than lovers.
A half hour later Marino turned off the highway, and soon after I lost track of the lefts and rights he took on rural routes that led us deeper into the country. Though I had met with Wesley many times in the past, it had always been at my office or his. I had never been invited to his house, located in the picturesque setting of Virginia farmland and forests, pastures surrounded by white fences, and barns and homes set back far from the roads.
When we turned into his subdivision, we began to pass long driveways leading to large modern houses on generous lots, with European sedans parked before two and three-car garages.
“I didn’t realize there were Washington bedroom communities this close to Richmond,” I commented.
“What? You’ve lived around here for four, five years and never heard of northern aggression?”