From Potter's Field ks-6 Read online

  Marino glanced around as he restlessly moved his empty beer bottle in small circles on the table.

  'She seems obsessed with Carrie and can't see anything else,' I went on. 'I'm worried.'

  'Where is Carrie these days?' he asked.

  'I have no earthly idea,' I said.

  Because it could not be proven that she had broken into ERF or had stolen Bureau property, she had been fired but not prosecuted. Carrie had never been locked up, not even for a day.

  Marino thought for a moment. 'Well, that bitch isn't what Lucy should be worried about. It's him.'

  'Certainly, I am more concerned about him.'

  'You think he's got her envelope?'

  'That's what I'm afraid of.' I felt a hand on my shoulder and turned around.

  'We sitting here or moving on?' Lucy asked, and she had changed into khaki slacks and a denim shirt with the FBI logo embroidered on it. She wore hiking boots and a sturdy leather belt. All that was missing was a cap and a gun.

  Marino was more interested in Janet, who could fill a polo shirt in a manner that was riveting. 'So, let's talk about what was in this envelope,' he said to me, unable to shift his eyes from Janet's chest.

  'Let's don't do it here,' I said.

  Marino's truck was a big blue Ford he kept much cleaner than his police car. His truck had a CB radio and a gun rack, and other than cigarette butts filling the ashtray, there was no trash to be seen. I sat in front, where air fresheners suspended from the rearview mirror gave the darkness a potent scent of pine.

  'Tell me exactly what was in the envelope,' Marino said to Lucy, who was in back with her friend.

  'I can't tell you exactly,' Lucy said, scooting forward and resting a hand on top of my seat.

  Marino crept past the guard booth, then shifted gears as his truck loudly got interested in being alive.

  'Think.' He raised his voice.

  Janet quietly spoke to Lucy, and for a moment they conversed in murmurs. The narrow road was black, firing ranges unusually still. I had never ridden in Marino's truck, and it struck me as a bold symbol of his male pride.

  Lucy started talking. 'I had some letters from Grans, Aunt Kay, and E-mail from Prodigy.'

  'From Carrie, you mean,' Marino said.

  She hesitated. 'Yes.'

  'What else?'

  'Birthday cards.'

  'From who?' Marino asked.

  'The same people.'

  'What about your mother?'

  'No.'

  'What about your dad?'

  'I don't have anything from him.'

  'Her father died when she was very small,' I reminded Marino.

  'When you wrote Lucy did you use a return address?' he asked me.

  'Yes. My stationery would have that.'

  'A post office box?'

  'No. My personal mail is delivered to my house. Everything else goes to the office.' 'What are you trying to find out?' Lucy said with a trace of resentment.

  'Okay,' Marino said as he drove through dark countryside, 'let me tell you what your thief knows so far. He knows where you go to school, where your aunt Kay lives in Richmond, where your grandmother in Florida lives. He knows what you look like and when you were born.

  'Plus he knows about your friendship with Carrie because of the E-mail thing.' He glanced into the rearview mirror. 'And that's just the minimum of what this toad knows about you. I haven't read the letters and notes to see what else he's found out.'

  'She knew most of all that anyway,' Lucy said angrily.

  'She?' Marino pointedly asked.

  Lucy was silent.

  It was Janet who gently spoke. 'Lucy, you've got to get over it. You've got to give it up.'

  'What else?' Marino asked my niece. 'Try to remember the smallest thing. What else was in the envelope?'

  'A few autographs and a few old coins. Just things from when I was a kid. Things that would have no value to anyone but me. Like a shell from the beach I picked up when I was with Aunt Kay one time when I was little.'

  She thought for a moment. 'My passport. And there were a few papers I did in high school.'

  The pain in her voice tugged at my heart, and I wanted to hug her. But when Lucy was sad she pushed everyone away. She fought.

  'Why did you keep them in the envelope?' Marino was asking.

  'I had to keep them somewhere,' she snapped. 'It was my damn stuff, okay? And if I'd left it in Miami my mother probably would have thrown it in the trash.'

  'The papers you did in high school,' I said. 'What were they about, Lucy?'

  The truck got quiet, filled with no voice but its own. The sound of its engine rose and fell with acceleration and the shifting of gears as Marino drove into the tiny town of Triangle. Roadside diners were lit up, and I suspected many of the cars out were driven by marines.

  Lucy said, 'Well, it's sort of ironical now. One of the papers I did back then was a practical tutorial on UNIX security. My focus was basically passwords, you know, what could happen if users chose poor passwords. So I talked about the encryption subroutine in C libraries that-'

  'What was the other paper about?' Marino interrupted her. 'Brain surgery?'

  'How did you guess?' she said just as snootily.

  'What was it on?' I asked.

  'Wordsworth,' she said.

  We ate at the Globe and Laurel, and as I looked around at Highland plaid, police patches and beer steins hanging over the bar, I thought of my life. Mark and I used to eat here, and then in London a bomb detonated as he walked past. Wesley and I once came here often. Then we began knowing each other too well, and we no longer went out in public much.

  Everyone had French onion soup and tenderloin. Janet was typically quiet, and Marino would not stop staring at her and making provocative comments. Lucy was getting increasingly infuriated with him, and I was surprised at his behavior. He was no fool. He knew what he was doing.

  'Aunt Kay,' Lucy said, 'I want to spend the weekend with you.'

  'In Richmond?' I asked.

  'That's where you still live, isn't it?' She did not smile.

  I hesitated. 'I think you need to stay where you are right now.'

  'I'm not in prison. I can do what I want.'

  'Of course you're not in prison,' I said quietly. 'Let me talk to Benton, all right?'

  She was silent.

  'So tell me what you think of the Sig-nine,' Marino was saying to Janet's bosom.

  She boldly looked him in the eye and said, 'I'd rather have a Colt Python with a six-inch barrel. Wouldn't you?'

  Dinner continued to deteriorate, and the ride back to the Academy was tensely silent except for Marino's unrelenting attempts to engage Janet in a dialogue. After we let her and Lucy out of the truck, I turned to him and boiled over.

  'For God's sake,' I exploded. 'What has gotten into you?'

  'I don't know what you're talking about.'

  'You were obnoxious. Absolutely obnoxious, and you know exactly what I'm talking about.'

  He sped through the darkness along J. Edgar Hoover Road, heading toward the interstate as he fumbled for a cigarette.

  'Janet will probably never want to be around you again,'I went on. 'I wouldn't blame Lucy for avoiding you, either. And that's a shame. The two of you had become friends.'

  'Just because I've given her shooting lessons don't mean we're friends,' he said. 'As far as I'm concerned she's a spoiled brat just like she's always been, and a smart-ass. Not to mention, I don't like her type and I sure as hell don't understand why you let her do the things she does.'

  'What things!' I said, getting more put out with him.

  'Has she ever dated a guy?' He glanced over at me. 'I mean, even once?'

  'Her private life is none of your concern,' I replied. 'It is not relevant to how you behaved this evening.'

  'Bullshit. If Carrie hadn't been Lucy's girlfriend, ERF probably never would have been broken into, and we wouldn't have Gault running around inside the computer.'

  'Th
at's a ridiculous statement not based on a single fact,' I said. 'I suspect Carrie would have completed her mission whether Lucy was part of the scenario or not.'

  'I tell you' - he blew smoke toward his slightly opened window - 'queers are ruining this planet.'

  'God help us,' I said with disgust. 'You sound like my sister.'

  'I think you need to send Lucy someplace. Get her some help.'

  'Marino, you simply must stop this. Your opinions are based on ignorance. They are hateful. If my niece prefers women instead of men, please tell me why that is so threatening to you.'

  'It don't threaten me in the least. It's just unnatural.' He tossed the cigarette butt out the window, a tiny missile extinguished by the night. 'But hey, it's not that I don't understand it. It's a known fact that a lot of women go for each other because it's the best they can do.'

  'I see,' I said. 'A known fact.' I paused. 'So tell me, would that be the case with Lucy and Janet?'

  'That's why I recommend them getting help, because there's hope. They could get guys easy. Especially Janet could with the way she's built. If I wasn't so tied up, I'd have half a mind to ask her out.'

  'Marino,' I said, and he was making me tired, 'leave them alone. You're just setting yourself up to be disliked and snubbed. You're setting yourself up to look like a damn fool. The Janets of the world are not going to date you.'

  'Her loss. If she had the right experience, it might straighten her out. What women do with each other's not what I consider the real thing. They have no idea what they're missing.'

  The thought that Marino might consider himself an expert on what women needed in bed was so absurd that I forgot to be annoyed. I laughed.

  'I feel protective of Lucy, okay?' he went on. 'I sort of feel like an uncle, and see, the problem is she's never been around men. Her dad died. You're divorced. She's got no brothers and her mother is in and out of bed with goofballs.'

  'That much is true,' I said. 'I wish Lucy could have had a positive male influence.'

  'I guarantee if she had she wouldn't have turned out queer.'

  'That's not a kind word,' I said. 'And we really don't know why people turn out the way they do.'

  'Then you tell me.' He glanced my way. 'You explain what went wrong.'

  'In the first place, I'm not going to say that anything went wrong. There may be a genetic component to one's sexual orientation. Maybe there isn't. But what's important is that it doesn't matter.'

  'So you don't care.'

  I thought about this for a minute. 'I care because it is a harder way to live,' I said.

  'And that's it?' he said skeptically. 'You mean you wouldn't rather she was with a man?'

  Again, I hesitated. 'I guess at this point, I just want her with good people.'

  He got quiet as he drove. Then he said, 'I'm sorry about tonight. I know I was a jerk.'

  'Thank you for apologizing,' I said.

  'Well, the truth is, things aren't going so good for me personally right now. Molly and me were doing fine until about a week ago when Doris called.'

  I wasn't terribly surprised. Old spouses and lovers have a way of resurfacing.

  'Seems she found out about Molly because Rocky said something. Now all of a sudden she wants to come home. She wants to get back with me.'

  When Doris had left, Marino was devastated. But at this stage in my life I somewhat cynically believed that fractured relationships could not be set and healed like bones. He lit another cigarette as a truck bore down on our rear and swung past. A vehicle rushed up behind us, its high beams in our eyes.

  'Molly wasn't happy about it,' he went on with difficulty. 'Truth is, we hadn't been getting along so hot since and it's just as well we didn't spend Christmas together. I think she's started going out on me, too. This sergeant she met. Wouldn't you know. I introduced them at the FOP one night.'

  'I'm very sorry.' I looked over at his face and thought he might cry. 'Do you still love Doris?' I gently asked.

  'Hell, I don't know. I don't know nothing. Women may as well be from another planet. You know? It's just like tonight. Everything I do is wrong.'

  'That's not true. You and I have been friends for years. You must be doing something right.'

  'You're the only woman friend I got,' he said. 'But you're more like a guy.'

  'Why, thank you.'

  'I can talk to you like a guy. And you know what you're doing. You didn't get where you are because you're a woman. Goddam it' - he squinted into the rearview mirror, then adjusted it to diminish the glare - 'you got where you are in spite of your being one.'

  He glanced again in the mirrors. I turned around. A car was practically touching our bumper, high beams blinding. We were going seventy miles an hour.

  'That's weird,' I said. 'He has plenty of room to go around us.'

  Traffic on 1-95 was light. There was no reason for anyone to tailgate, and I thought of the accident last fall when Lucy had flipped my Mercedes. Someone had been on her rear bumper, too. Fear ran along my nerves.

  'Can you see what kind of car it is?' I asked.

  'Looks like a Z. Maybe an old 280 Z, something like that.'

  He reached inside his coat and slid a pistol from its holster. He placed the gun in his lap as he continued to watch the mirrors. I turned around again and saw a dark shape of a head that looked male. The driver was staring straight at us.

  'All right,' Marino growled. "This is pissing me off.' He firmly tapped the brakes.

  The car shot around us with a long, angry blare of the horn. It was a Porsche and the driver was black.

  I said to Marino, 'You don't still have that Confederate flag bumper sticker on your truck, do you? The one that glows when headlights hit it?'

  'Yeah, I do.' He returned the gun to its holster.

  'Maybe you ought to consider removing it.'

  The Porsche was tiny taillights far ahead. I thought of Chief Tucker threatening to send Marino to cultural diversity class. Marino could go the rest of his life and I wasn't sure it would cure him.

  'Tomorrow's Thursday,' he said. 'I've got to go to First Precinct and see if anyone remembers that I still work for the city.'

  'What's happening with Sheriff Santa?'

  'He's scheduled for a preliminary hearing next week.'

  'He's locked up, I presume,' I said.

  'Nope. Out on bond. When do you start jury duty?'

  'Monday.'

  'Maybe you can get cut loose.'

  'I can't ask for that,' I said. 'Somebody would make a big deal of it, and even if they didn't, it would be hypocritical. I'm supposed to care about justice.'

  'Do you think I should see Doris?' We were in Richmond now, the downtown skyline in view.

  I looked over at his profile, his thinning hair, big ears and face, and the way his huge hands made the steering wheel disappear. He could not remember his life before his wife. Their relationship had long ago left the froth and fire of sex and moved into an orbit of safe but boring stability. I believed they had parted because they were afraid of growing old.

  'I think you should see her,' I said to him. 'So I should go up to New Jersey.' 'No,' I said. 'Doris is the one who left. She should come here.'

  11

  Windsor Farms was dark when we turned into it from Gary Street, and Marino did not want me entering my house alone. He pulled into my brick driveway and stared ahead at the shut garage door illuminated by his headlights.

  'Do you have the opener?' he asked.

  'It's in my car.'

  'A lot of friggin' good that does when your car's inside the garage with the door shut.'

  'If you would drop me off in front as I requested I could unlock my front door,' I said.

  'Nope. You're not walking down that long sidewalk anymore, Doc.' He was very authoritative, and I knew when he got this way there was no point in arguing.

  I handed him my keys. 'Then you go on in through the front and open the garage door. I'll wait right here.'

  He
opened his door. 'I got a shotgun between the seats.'

  He reached down to show me a black Benelli twelve-gauge with an eight-round magazine extension. It occurred to me that Benelli, a manufacturer of fine Italian shotguns, was also the name on Gault's false driver's license.

  'The safety's right there.' Marino showed me. 'All you do is push it in, pump it and fire.'

  'Is there a riot about to happen that I've not been told about?'

  He got out of the truck and locked the doors.

  I cranked open the window. 'It might help if you knew my burglar alarm code,' I said.

  'Already do.' He started walking across frosted grass. 'Your DOB.'

  'How did you know that?' I demanded.

  'You're predictable,' I heard him say before disappearing around a hedge.

  Several minutes later the garage door began to lift and a light went on inside, illuminating yard and garden tools neatly arranged on walls, a bicycle I rarely rode, and my car. I could not see my new Mercedes without thinking of the one Lucy had wrecked.

  My former 500E was sleek and fast with an engine partially designed by Porsche. Now I just wanted something big. I had a black S500 that probably would hold its own with a cement truck or a tractor trailer. Marino stood near my car, looking at me as if he wished I would hurry up. I honked the horn to remind him I was locked inside his truck.

  'Why do people keep trying to lock me inside their vehicles?' I said as he let me out. 'A taxi this morning, now you.'

  'Because it's not safe when you're loose. I want to look around your house before I leave,' he said.

  'It's not necessary.'

  'I'm not asking. I'm telling you I'm going to look,' he said.

  'All right. Help yourself.'

  He followed me inside, and I went straight to the living room and turned on the gas fire. Next I opened the front door and brought in the mail and several newspapers that one of my neighbors had forgotten I to pick up. To anybody watching my gracious brick house, it would have been obvious that I was gone over Christmas.

  I glanced around as I returned to the living room, looking for anything even slightly out of order. I wondered if anyone had thought about breaking in. I wondered what eyes had turned this way, what dark thoughts had enveloped this place where I lived.