Marino said.
“We had a conversation.”
“How the hell did he get back there without us seeing him?”
I scanned the street and did not see a car that might have been Roche’s. “I don’t know how he got back there,” I said. “I guess he cut through someone else’s backyard. Or maybe he came up from the beach.”
Lucy did not know what to think as she looked at me.
“You won’t be coming back here?” she asked me. “Not at all?”
“No,” I said. “I will not be coming back here ever again, if I have my way about it.”
She helped me pack the remainder of my belongings, and I did not relay what had happened in the backyard until we were in Marino’s car driving fast on 64 West toward Richmond.
“Shit”, he exclaimed. “The friggin’ bastard hit on you.
Goddamn it. Why didn’t you yell?”
“I think his mission was to harass me on behalf of someone else,” I said.
“I don’t care what his mission was. He still hit on you.
YOU got to take out a warrant.”
” Hitting on someone is not against the law,” I said.
“He grabbed you.”
“So I’m going to have him arrested for grabbing my arm?”
“He shouldn’t have grabbed nothing.” He was furious as he drove. “You told him to let go and he didn’t. That’s abduction. At the very least, it’s simple assault. Damn, this thing’s out of alignment.”
“You’ve got to report him to Internal Affairs,” Lucy said from the front seat, where she was fooling with the scanner because it was hard for her hands to be still. “Hey, Pete, the squelch isn’t right,” she added to him. “And you can’t hear a thing on channel three. That’s Third Precinct, right?”
“What do you expect when I’m way the hell near Williamsburg? You think I’m a state trooper?”
“No, but if you want to talk to one, I can probably figure that out.”
” I’m sure you could tune in to the damn space shuttle,” he irritably remarked.
“If you can,” I said to her, “how about getting me on it.”
CHAPTER 6
WE ARRIVED IN RICHMOND AT HALF PAST TWO, AND )the guard raised a gate and allowed us into the secluded neighborhood where I very recently had moved.
Typical for this area of Virginia, there had been no snow, and water dripped profusely from trees because rain had turned to ice during the night. Then the temperature had risen.
My stone house was set back from the street on a bluff that overlooked a rocky bend in the James River, the wooded lot surrounded by a wrought-iron fence neighboring children could not squeeze through. I knew no one on any side of me, and had no intention of changing that.
I had not anticipated problems when I had decided for the first time in my life that I would build, but whether it had been the slate roof, the brick pavers or the color of my front door, it seemed everyone had a criticism. When it had gotten to the point where my contractor’s frustrated telephone calls were interrupting me in the morgue, I had threatened the neighborhood association that I would sue.
Needless to say, invitations to parties in this subdivision, thus far, had been few.
“I’m sure your neighbors will be delighted to see you’re home,” my niece dryly said as we got out of the car.
“I don’t think they pay that much attention to me anymore.” I dug for my keys.
“Bullshit,” Marino said. “You’re the only one they got who spends her days at murder scenes and cutting up dead bodies. They probably look out their windows the entire time you’re home. Hell, the guards probably call every one of them to let ’em know when you roll in.”
“Thank you so much,” I said, unlocking the front door.
And just when I was beginning to feel a little better about living here.”
The burglar alarm loudly buzzed its warning that I had better quickly press the appropriate keys, and I looked around as I always did, because my home was still a stranger to me. I feared the roof would leak, plaster would fall or something else would fail, and when everything was fine, I took intense pleasure in my accomplishment. My house was two levels and very open, with windows placed to catch every photon of light. The living room was a wall of glass that captured miles of the James, and late in the day I could watch the sun set over trees on the river’s banks.