‘And someone’s talked to this businessman?’
‘Not yet. Remember, this is Sparkes’s story. And I hate to tell you this, Doc, but don’t think people wouldn’t lie for him, either. If he’s behind all this, I can guarantee that he planned it right down to the fine print. And let me also add that by the time he’d arrived at Dulles to catch the flight to London, the fire was already going and the woman was dead. Who’s to say he didn’t kill her and then use some kind of timer to get the fire going after he’d left the farm?’
‘There’s nothing to say it,’ I agreed. ‘There’s also nothing to prove it. And there doesn’t seem to be much chance of our knowing such a thing unless some material turns up in forensic exams that might point to some sort of explosive device used remotely as an igniter.’
‘These days half the stuff in your house can be used as a timer. Alarm clocks, VCRs, computers, digital watches.’
‘That’s true. But something has to initiate low explosives, like blasting caps, sparks, a fuse, fire,’ I said. ‘Unless you have any other cleaning to do,’ I added dryly, ‘I’ll be heading out.’
‘Don’t be pissed at me,’ Marino said. ‘You know, it’s not like this whole damn thing is my fault.’
I stopped at his front door and looked at him. Thin gray wisps of hair clung to his sweating pate. He probably had dirty clothes flung all around his bedroom, and no one could clean and tidy up enough for him, not in a million years. I remembered Doris, his wife, and could imagine her docile servitude until the day she suddenly left and fell in love with another man.
It was as if Marino had been transfused with the wrong blood type. No matter how well his meaning or brilliant his work, he was in terrible conflict with his environment. And slowly it was killing him.
‘Just do me one favor,’ I said with my hand on the door.
He wiped his face on his shirt sleeve and got out his cigarettes.
‘Don’t encourage Lucy to jump to conclusions,’ I said. ‘You know as well as I do that the problem is local law enforcement, local politics. Marino, I don’t believe we’ve even come close to what this is all about, so let’s not crucify anyone just yet.’
‘I’m amazed,’ he said. ‘After all that son of a bitch did to run you out of office. And now suddenly he’s this saint?’
‘I didn’t say he was a saint. Frankly, I don’t know any saints.’
‘Sparkes-the-ladies’ man,’ Marino went on. ‘If I didn’t know better, I’d wonder if you were getting sweet on him.’
‘I won’t dignify that with a response.’
I walked out onto the porch, halfway tempted to slam the door in his face.
‘Yeah. Same thing everyone says when they’re guilty.’
He stepped out after me.
‘Don’t think I don’t know it when you and Wesley aren’t getting along . . .’
I turned to face him and pointed my finger like a gun.
‘Not one more word,’ I warned him. ‘You stay out of my business, and don’t you dare question my professionalism, Marino. You know better than that, goddamn it.’
I went down the front steps and got inside my car. I backed out slowly and with deliberate skill. I did not look at him as I drove off.
13
MONDAY MORNING WAS carried in on a storm that thrashed the city with violent winds and pelting rains. I drove to work with windshield wipers going fast and air conditioning on to defog the glass. When I opened my window to toss a token into the toll bin, my suit sleeve got drenched, and then of all days for this to happen, two funeral homes had parked inside the bay, and I had to leave my car outside. The fifteen seconds it took me to dash through the parking lot and unlock the back door of my building concluded my punishment. I was soaked. Water dripped from my hair and my shoes squished as I walked through the bay.
I checked the log in the morning office to see what had come in during the night. An infant had died in his parents’ bed. An elderly woman appeared to be a suicidal overdose, and, of course, there was a drug-related shooting from one of the housing projects on the fringes of what had become a more civilized and healthy downtown. In the last several years, the city had been ranked as one of the most violent in the United States, with as many as one hundred and sixty homicides in one year for a population of less than a quarter of a million people.