Patricia Cornwell – Scarpetta11 – The Last Precinct

By noon, Anna has her car packed for the beach and her kitchen countertops are covered with lasagna noodles. Tomato sauce simmers on the stove. Parmesan reggiano and aged asa-gio cheeses are grated in bowls and fresh mozzarella rests in a towel and surrenders some of its moisture. The house smells like garlic and wood smoke, and Christmas lights glow while smoke drifts out the chimney, and when Marino arrives with all his typical noise and gaucheness he finds more happiness, than he has seen from any of us for a while. He is dressed in jeans and a denim shirt and laden with gifts and a bottle of Virginia Lightning moonshine. I catch the edge of a file folder peeking out from behind wrapped packages in a bag, and my heart skips.

“Ho! Ho! Ho!” he bellows. “Merry fucking Christmas!” It is his standard holiday line, but his heart isn’t into it. I have a feeling he didn’t spend the past few hours merely looking for the Tlip file. He has been through it. “I need a drink,” he an­nounces to the house.[“_Toc37098933”]

CHAPTER 31

IN THE KITCHEN, I SET THE OVEN AND COOK PASTA. I mix grated cheeses with ricotta and begin layering it and meat sauce between noodles in a deep dish. Anna stuffs dates with cream cheese and fills a bowl with salted nuts while Marino, Lucy and McGovern pour beer and wine or mix whatever holiday potion they want, which in Marino’s case is a spicy Bloody Mary made with his moonshine.

He is in a weird mood and well on his way to getting drunk. The Tlip file is a black hole, still in the bag of presents, ironically under the Christmas tree. Marino knows what’s in that file, but I don’t ask him. Nobody does. Lucy begins get­ting out ingredients for chocolate-chip cookies and two pies one peanut butter, the other key limeas if we are feeding the entire city. McGovern uncorks a Chambertin Grand Cru red burgundy while Anna sets the table, and the file pulls silently and with great force. It is as if all of us have made an unspo­ken agreement to at least drink a toast and get dinner going before we start talking about murder.

“Anybody else want a Bloody?” Marino talks loudly and hangs out in the kitchen doing nothing helpful. “Hey, Doc, how ’bout I mix up a pitcher?” He yanks open the refrigerator and grabs a handful of Spicy Hot V8 juices and starts popping open the small cans. I wonder how much Marino had to drink before he got here and the safety comes off my anger. In the first place, I am insulted that he put the file under the tree, as if this is his idea of a tasteless, morbid joke. What is he imply­ing? This is my Christmas present? Or is he so callous it didn’t even occur to him that when he rather unceremoniously stuck the bag under the tree the file was still in it? He bumps past me and starts pressing lemon halves into the electric juicer and tosses the rinds in the sink.

“Well, I guess nobody’s gonna help me so I’ll just help myself,” he mutters. “Hey!” he calls out as if we aren’t in the same room with him. “Anybody think to buy horseradish?”

Anna glances at me. A collective bad mood begins to settle in. The kitchen seems to get darker and chillier, and my anger itches. I am going to fire at Marino any minute, and I am try­ing so hard to hold back. It is Christmas, I keep telling myself. It is Christmas. Marino grabs a long wooden spoon and makes a big production of stirring his pitcher of Bloody Marys as he slops in an appalling amount of moonshine.

“Gag.” Lucy shakes her head. “At least use Grey Goose.”

“Ain’t a way in hell I’m drinking French vodka.” The spoon clacks as he stirs and then taps it on the lip of the pitcher. “French wine, French vodka. Hey. What happened to things Italian?” He exaggerates a New YorkItalian accent. “What happened to the neigh-ba-hood?”

“Nothing Italian about that shit you’re mixing,” Lucy tells him as she gets a beer out of the refrigerator. “You drink all that, Aunt Kay will take you to work with her in the morning. Only you’ll be lying down in a bag.”

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