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.
I pushed back my chair. “It’s midnight. We should open the champagne.”
I was more disturbed than I had supposed, for what Marino had to say was worse than I feared. Over the years, I had heard quite a lot about Joel Hand and his fascist followers who called themselves the New Zionists. They were going to cause a new order, create an ideal land. I had always feared they were quiet behind their Virginia compound walls because they were plotting a disaster.
“What we need to do is raid the asshole’s farm,” Marino said as he got up from the table. “That should have been done a long time ago.”
“What probable cause would anybody have?” Lucy said.
“You ask me, with squirrels like him, you shouldn’t need probable cause.”
“Oh, good idea. You should suggest that one to Gradecki,” she drolly said, referring to the U.S. attorney general.
“Look, I know some guys in Suffolk where Hand lives, and the neighbors say some really weird shit goes on there.
“Neighbors always think weird shit goes on with their neighbors,” she said.
Marino got the champagne out of the refrigerator while I fetched glasses.
“What sort of weird shit?” I asked him.
“Barges pull up to the Nansemond River and unload crates so big they got to use cranes. Nobody knows what goes on there, except pilots have spotted bonfires at night, like maybe there’s occult rituals. Local people swear they hear gunshots all the time and that there have been murders on his farm.”