If a hurricane don’t blow you out to sea, first,”
“Enough,” I said.
He retrieved his gun from the coffee table, got up and tucked it in the back of his pants. “You could get one of your other doctors to come out here and cover Tidewater
“I’m the only one without family. It’s easier for me to move, especially this time of year.”
“What a lot of bullshit. You don’t have to apologize for being divorced and not having kids.”
“I am not apologizing.”
“And it’s not like you’re asking someone to relocate for six months. Besides, you’re the friggin’ chief. You should make other people relocate, family or not. You should be in your own house.”
“I actually hadn’t thought coming here would be all that unpleasant,” I said. “Some people pay a lot of money to stay in cottages on the ocean.”
He stretched. “You got anything American to drink around here?”
“Milk.”
“I was thinking more along the lines of Miller.”
“I want to know why you’re calling Benton. I personally think it’s too soon for the Bureau to be involved.”
“And I personally don’t think you’re in a position to be objective about him.”
“Don’t goad me,” I warned. “It’s too late and I’m too tired.”
“I’m just being straight with you.” He knocked a Marlboro out of the pack and tucked it between his lips. “And he will come to Richmond. I got no doubt about that. He and the wife didn’t go nowhere for the holidays, so my guess is he’s ready for a little field trip right about now.
And this is going to be a good one.”
I could not hold his gaze, and I resented that he knew why.
“Besides,” he went on, “at the moment it ain’t Chesapeake who’s asking the FBI anything. It’s me, and I have a right. In case you’ve forgot, I’m the commander of the precinct where Eddings’ apartment is. As far as I’m concerned right now, this is a multijurisdictional investigation.
“The case is Chesapeake’s, not Richmond’s,” I stated.
“Chesapeake is where the body was found. You can’t bulldoze your way into their jurisdiction, and you know it. You can’t invite the FBI on their behalf.”
Look,” he went on, “after going through Eddings’ apartment and finding what I did- I interrupted him, “Finding what you did? You keep referring to whatever it is you found. You mean, his arsenal?”
“I mean more than that. I mean worse than that. We haven’t gotten to that part yet.” He looked at me and took the cigarette out of his mouth. “The bottom line is Richmond’s got a reason to be interested in this case. So consider yourself invited.”
“I’m afraid I was invited when Eddings died in Virginia.”
“Don’t sound to me like you felt all that invited this morning when you were at the shipyard.”
I didn’t say anything, because he was right.
“Maybe you had a guest on your property tonight so you would realize just how uninvited you are,” he went
“I want the FBI in this thing now because there’s more to it than some guy in a johnboat you had to fish out of the river.”
“What else did you find in Eddings’ apartment?” I asked him.
I could see his reluctance as he stared off, and I did not understand it.
“I’ll serve dinner first and then we’ll sit down and talk,” I said.
“If it could wait until tomorrow, it would be better.” He glanced toward the kitchen as if worried that Lucy might overhear.
“Marino, since when have you ever worried about telling me something?”
“This is different.” He rubbed his face in his hands. “I think Eddings got himself tangled up with the New Zionists.”
The lasagne was superb because I had drained fresh mozzarella in dishcloths so it did not weep too much during baking, and of course, the pasta was fresh. I had served the dish tender instead of cooking it bubbly and brown, and a light sprinkling of Parmesan reggiano at the table had made it perfect.
Marino ate virtually all of the bread, which he slathered with butter, layered with prosciutto and sopped with tomato sauce, while Lucy mostly picked at the small portion on her plate. The snow had gotten heavier, and Marino told us about the New Zionist bible he had found as fireworks sounded in Sandbridge.