“Jesus!” Posner said. “Now that’s a creepy thought.”
When I returned to my office, Marino was sitting in a chair by my desk.
“You look like you been up all night,” he said to me, slurping coffee.
“Lucy ran off to New York. I talked to Jo and her parents.”
“Lucy did what?”
“She’s on her way back. It’s all right.”
“Well, she’d better mind her p’s and q’s. This ain’t a good time for her to be acting squirrelly.”
“Marino,” I quickly said, “it’s possible the killer bathes in rivers with some notion it might cure his disorder. I’m wondering if he’s staying someplace near the James.”
He thought about this for a minute, an odd expression spreading over his face. Running footsteps sounded in the hall.
“Let’s hope there ain’t some old estate along there where the owner ain’t been heard from for a while,” Marino said. “I have a bad feeling.”
Then Fielding was in my office yelling at Marino.
“What the hell’s wrong with you!”
Veins and arteries were bulging in Fielding’s neck, his face bright red. I’d never heard him raise his voice to anyone.
“You let the fucking press find out before we can even get to the goddamn scene!” he accused.
“Hey,” Marino said. “Calm down. Let the fucking press know what?”
“Diane Bray’s been murdered,” Fielding said. “It’s all over the news. They’ve got a suspect in custody. Detective Anderson.”
39
It was very overcast and rain had begun to fall when we reached Windsor Farms, and it seemed bizarre to be driving the office’s black Suburban past Georgian brick and Tudor homes on gracious acres beneath old trees.
I’d never known my neighbors to worry much about crime. It seemed that old family money and genteel streets with English names had created a fortress of false security. I had no doubt that was about to change.
Diane Bray’s address was at the outer limits of the neighborhood, where the Downtown Expressway ran loudly and continuously on the other side of a brick wall. When I turned onto her narrow street, I was dismayed. Reporters were everywhere. Their cars and television trucks blocked traffic and outnumbered police vehicles three to one in front of a white Cape Cod with a gambrel roof that looked like it belonged in New England.
“This is as close as I can get,” I said to Marino:
“We’ll see about that,” he replied, jerking up his door handle.
He got out in heavy rain and stalked over to a radio van that was halfway on the lawn in front of Bray’s house. The driver rolled down his window and was foolish enough to poke his microphone Marino’s way.
“Move!” Marino said with violence in his voice.
“Captain Marino, can you verify . . . ?”
“Move your fucking van, now!”
Tires spun, clawing up grass and mud as the driver of the van pulled out. He stopped in the center of the street and Marino kicked the back tire.
“Move!” he ordered.
The van driver rolled away, windshield wipers flying. He’ parked on someone’s lawn two houses away. Rain whipped my face and strong gusts of wind pushed me like a hand as I got my scene case out of the back of the Suburban.
“I hope your latest act of graciousness doesn’t make it on the air,” I said when I reached Marino.
“Who the hell’s working this thing?”
“I hope you are,” I said, walking fast with head bent.
Marino grabbed my arm. A dark blue Ford Contour was parked in Bray’s driveway. A patrol car was parked behind it, an officer in front, another in back with Anderson. She looked angry and hysterical, shaking her head and talking fast in words I couldn’t hear.
“Dr. Scarpetta?” A television reporter headed toward me, the cameraman on his heels.
“Recognize our rental car?” Marino quietly said to me, water running down his face as he stared at the dark blue Ford with the familiar number RGG-7112 on the license plate.
“Dr. Scarpetta?”
“No comment.”
Anderson didn’t look at us as we walked past.
“Can you tell . . . ?” Reporters were relentless.
“No,” I said, hurrying up the front steps.