“Well, something like that didn’t happen. Do you have any idea how much this is going to cost?”
I thought of the paperwork on my desk and other important items flung far and wide and possibly damaged.
“Why would anyone trip the system?” I asked.
“Look, at the moment I’m about as informed as you are.”
“But thousands of gallons of chemicals have been dumped over all of’ my offices, and the morgue and the anatomical division.” We climbed stairs, my frustration becoming harder to contain.
“You won’t know it was even there.” He rudely waved off the remark. “it disappears like a vapor.”
“It’s sprayed all over bodies we are autopsying, including several homicides. Let’s hope a defense attorney never brings that up in court.”
“What you’d better hope is that somehow we can pay for this. To refill those halon tanks, we’re talking several hundred thousand dollars. That’s what ought to make you stay awake at night.”
The second level of the parking deck was crowded with hundreds of state employees on an unexpected break. Ordinarily, drills and false alarms were an invitation to play, and people were in good moods as long as the weather was nice. But no one was relaxed this day. It was cold and gray, and people were talking in excited voices. The director abruptly walked off to speak to one of his henchmen, and I began to look around. I had just spotted my staff’ when I felt a hand on my arm.
“Geez, what’s the matter?” Marino asked when I jumped. “You (lot POST-traumatic stress syndrome?”
“I’m sure I do,” I said. “Were you in the building?”
“Nope, but not far away. I heard about your full fire alarm on the radio and thought I’d check it out.”
He hitched up his police belt with all its heavy gear, his eyes roaming the crowd. “You mind telling me what the hell’s going on’? You finally get a case of spontaneous combustion?”
“I don’t know exactly what’s going on. But what I’ve been told is that someone apparently tripped a false alarm that set off the deluge system throughout the entire building. Why are You here?”
“I see Fielding way over there.” Marino nodded. “And Rose. They’re all together. You look cold as shit.”
“You were just in the area?” I asked, because when he was evasive, I knew something was up.
“I could hear the damn alarm all the way on Broad Street,” he said.
As if on cue, the awful clanging across the street suddenly stopped. I stepped closer to the parking deck wall and looked over the top of it as I worried more about what I would find when all of us were allowed to return to the building. Fire trucks rumbled loudly in parking lots, and firefighters in protective gear were entering through several different doors.
“When I saw what was going on,” he added, “I figured you’d be up here. So I thought I’d check on you.”
“You figured right,” I said, and my fingernails had turned blue. “You know anything about this Henrico case, the forty five cartridge case that seems to have been fired by the same Sig P220 that killed Danny?” I asked as I continued to lean against the cold concrete wall and stare out at the city.
“What makes you think I’d find anything out that fast’?”
“Because everybody’s scared of you.”
“Yeah, well they sure as hell should be.”
Marino moved closer to me. He leaned against the wall, only facing the other way, for he did not like having his back to people, and this had nothing to do with manners.
He adjusted his belt again and crossed his arms at his chest, He avoided my eyes, and I could tell he was angry.
“On December eleventh,” he said, “Henrico had a traffic stop at 64 and Mechanicsville Turnpike. As the Henrico officer approached the car, the subject got out and ran, and the officer pursued on foot. This was at night.” He got out his cigarettes. “The foot pursuit crossed the county line into the city, eventually ending in Whitcomb Court.” He fired his lighter. “No one’s real sure what happened, but at some point during all this, the officer lost his gun.”