Since Bray couldn’t walk through the door of that ivydraped eighteenth-century club unless she was the guest of a member, my suspicions about her ultimate ambition we s virtually confirmed. Bray was lobbying members of the General Assembly and powerful businessmen. She wanted to be the Secretary of Public Safety and have my office transferred to that secretariat. Then she could fire me herself.
I reached Midlothian Turnpike and could see Marino’s house long before I got near it. His gaudy, outrageous Christmas decorations, including some three hundred thousand lights, glowed above the horizon like an amusement park. All one had to do was follow the steady traffic heading that way, because Marino’s house had risen to number one on Richmond’s annual Christmas Tacky Tour. People couldn’t resist coming to see what was truly an amazing sight.
Lights of every color were sprinkled in trees like ,neon candy. Santas, snowmen, trains and toy soldiers glowed in
the yard, and gingerbread cookies held hands. Candy canes brightly stood sentry along his sidewalk, and lights spelled out Season’s Greetings and Think Snow on the roof. In a part of the yard where scarcely a flower grew and grass was patchy brown all year long, Marino had planted happy electric gardens. There was the North Pole, where Mr. and Mrs. Claus seemed to be discussing plans, and nearby choirboys sang while flamingos perched on the chimney and ice skaters twirled around a spruce.
A white limousine crept past, followed by a church van, as I hurried up his front steps, feeling irradiated and trapped in a spotlight.
“Every time I see this, it confirms you’ve lost your mind,” I said when Marino came to the door and I quickly ducked away from curious eyes. “Last year was bad enough.”
“I’m up to three fuse boxes,” he proudly announced.
He was in jeans and socks and a red- flannel shirt with the tail hanging out.
“Least I can come home and something makes me happy,” he said. “Pizza’s on the way. I got bourbon if you want some.”
“What pizza?”
“One I ordered. Everything on it. My treat. Papa John’s, don’t even need my address anymore. They just follow the lights.”
“What about hot decaffeinated tea,” I said, quite certain he would have no such thing.
“You got to be kidding,” he replied.
I looked around as we walked through the living room into his small kitchen. Of course, he had decorated the inside of his house, too. The tree was up and flickering by the fireplace. Presents, almost all of them fake, were piled high, and every window was framed by strands of red chili pepper lights.
“Bray called me,” I said, filling the teakettle with water. “Someone gave her my home number.”
“Guess who.” He yanked open the refrigerator door, his good mood retreating fast.
“And I think I might know why that happened.”
I set the kettle on the stove and turned on the burner. Lights flickered.
“Deputy Chief Carson resigned today. Or supposedly resigned,” I said.
Marino popped open a beer. If he was aware of this news, he didn’t show it.
“Did you know he quit?” I asked.
“I don’t know nothing anymore.”
“Apparently Major Inman is the acting deputy chief . . .”
“Oh, of course, of course,” Marino loudly said. “And you know why? Because there’re two majors, one in uniform, the other in investigations, so of course Bray sends her boy from uniform in there to take over investigations.”
He’d finished the beer in what seemed three gulps. He violently crushed the can and threw it into the trash. He missed, and the can clattered across the floor.
“You got any. idea what that means?” he said. “Well, let me tell you. It means Bray now’s running uniform and investigations, meaning she’s running the entire fucking department and probably controlling the entire budget, too. And the chief’s her biggest fan because she makes him look good. Tell me how this woman comes in and not even three months later can do all that?”
“Clearly she’s got connections. Probably did before she took this job. And I don’t mean just to the chief.”
“Well, to who then?”
“Marino, it could be anyone. It doesn’t matter at this point. It’s too late for it to matter. Now we have to contend with her, not the chief. Her, not the person who might have pulled strings.”