There was a depth to her no one was ever going to reach. And she drank a lot, at least she did that day at lunch–had three cocktails, which struck me as rather excessive considering it was the middle of the day. It may not have been in character, though. She was nervous, upset, tense. Her reason for coming to Orndorff & Berger wasn’t a happy one. I’m sure all this business about Harper had to be upsetting her.”
“What did she drink?”
“Pardon?”
“The three cocktails. What were they?” asked.
He frowned, staring off across the kitchen. “Hell, I don’t know, Kay. What difference does it make?”
“I’m not sure it makes a difference,” I said, recalling her liquor cabinet. “Did she talk about the threats she’d been getting? In your presence, I mean?”
“Yes. And Sparacino’s mentioned them. All I know is she started receiving phone calls that were very specific in nature. Always the same voice, wasn’t somebody she knew, or at least this is what she said. There were other strange events. I can’t remember the details–it was a long time ago.”
“Was she keeping a record of these events?” asked.
“I don’t know.”
“And she had no idea who was doing this or why?”
“That’s the impression she gave.” He scooted back his chair. It was getting close to midnight. As I led him to the front door, something suddenly occurred to me.
“Sparacino,” I said. “What’s his first name?”
“Robert,” he replied.
“He doesn’t go by the initial M, does he?”
“No,” he said, looking curiously at me.
There was a tense pause.
“Drive carefully.”
“Good night, Kay,” he said, hesitating.
Maybe it was my imagination, but for an instant I thought he was going to kiss me. Then he walked briskly down the steps, and I was back inside my house when I heard him drive off.
The following morning was typically frantic. Fielding informed us in staff meeting that we had five autopsies, including a “floater,” or decomposed body from the river, a prospect that never failed to make everybody groan. Richmond had sent in its two latest shootings, one of which I managed to post before dashing off to the John Marshall Court House to testify in another homicidal shooting, and afterwards to the Medical College to have lunch with one of my student advisees. All the while, I was working hard at pushing Mark’s visit completely from my mind. The more I tried not to think about him, the more I thought about him. He was cautious. He was stubborn. It was out of character for him to contact me after more than a decade of silence.
It wasn’t until early afternoon that I gave in and called Marino.
“Was just about to ring you up,” he launched in before I had barely said two words. “On my way out. Can you meet at Benton’s office in an hour, hour and a half?”
“What’s this about?” I hadn’t even told him why I was calling.
“Got my hands on Beryl’s reports. Thought you’d wanna be there.”
He hung up as he always did, without saying good-bye.
At the appointed time, I drove along East Grace Street and parked in the first metered space I could find within a reasonable walk of my destination. The modem ten-story office building was a lighthouse watching over a depressing shore of junk shops parading as antique stores and small ethnic restaurants whose “specials” weren’t. Street people drifted along cracked sidewalks.
Identifying myself at the guard station inside the lobby, I took the elevator to the fifth floor. At the end of the hall was an unmarked wooden door. The location of Richmond’s FBI field office was one of the city’s best-kept secrets, its presence as unannounced and unobtrusive as its plainclothes agents. A young man sitting behind a counter that stretched halfway across the back wall glanced at me as he talked on the phone. Placing his hand over the mouthpiece, he raised his eyebrows in a
“May I help you?” expression. I explained my reason for being here, and he invited me to take a seat.
The lobby was small and decidedly male, with furniture upholstered in sturdy dark-blue leather, the coffee table stacked with various sports magazines. On paneled walls were a rogue’s gallery of past directors of the FBI, service awards, and a brass plaque engraved with the names of agents who had died in action. The outer door opened occasionally, and tall, fit men in somber suits and sunglasses passed through without a glance in my direction.