Chaos Read online

  “Second, the latest just landed from Tailend Charlie.” Lucy’s eyes are moving as she talks, and I try to figure out where she is. “I haven’t listened to it yet. As soon as I’m freed up from the nine-one-one bullshit call I will.”

  “I assume what was sent was another audio clip in Italian,” I point out because Lucy isn’t fluent and wouldn’t be able to translate all or possibly any of it.

  She says yes, that at a glance the latest communication from Tailend Charlie is like the other eight I’ve received since the first day of September. The anonymous threat was sent at the same time of day, is the same type of file and the recording is the same length. But she hasn’t listened, and I tell her we’ll deal with it later.

  Then she asks, “Where are you? In whose car?” She’s vivid against a backdrop of complete darkness, as if she’s in a cave.

  Yet her rose-gold hair is shiny in ambient light that wavers like a movie is playing in the background. Shadows flicker on her face, and it occurs to me she might be inside the Personal Immersion Theater, what at the CFC we call the PIT.

  I tell her I’m with Marino, and that brings her to the third and most important point; she says, “Have you seen what’s on Twitter?”

  “If you’re asking then I’m sure it’s not good,” I reply.

  “I’m sending it to you now. Gotta go.” And then Lucy is gone from the small rectangular screen just like that.

  “What?” Marino is scowling. “What’s on Twitter?”

  “Hold on.” I open the e-mail Lucy just sent, and click on the tweet she cut-and-pasted. “Well as you suspected, there appears to be a video of you talking to some of the usual suspects in Harvard Square.”

  I show it to him and can feel his wounded pride as he watches the distant figure of himself lumbering about, barking questions at homeless people loitering in front of various businesses. Marino herds one man in and out of the shade as this person tries to duck questions in a most animated fashion. The indistinguishable noise of Marino raising his voice while the man shuffles from pillar to post is embarrassing. And the caption is worse. OccupyScarpetta with a hashtag.

  “What the hell?” Marino says.

  “I guess the gist is that you’re territorial about me and were asking a lot of questions because of it. I presume that’s how my name ended up in the tweet.” His lack of a response answers my question. “But I doubt it will do any real damage except to your ego,” I add. “It’s silly, that’s all. Just ignore it.”

  HE ISN’T LISTENING, AND I really do need to go.

  “I’d like a minute to clean up.” It’s my way of telling Marino I’ve had enough of being held hostage in his truck full of gloom and doom. “So if you’ll unlock the doors and release me please? Maybe we can talk tomorrow or some other time.”

  Marino pulls away from his illegal double-parking spot. He eases to the curb in front of the Faculty Club, set back on acres of grassy lawn behind a split-rail paling.

  “You’re not taking this seriously enough.” He looks at me.

  “Which part?”

  “We’re under surveillance, and the question is who and why. For sure someone’s got Bryce tagged. How else can you explain the marijuana tattoo?”

  “There’s nothing to explain. He doesn’t have a tattoo of any description.”

  “He does. Specifically, a marijuana leaf, as it was referred to in the call,” Marino says.

  “No way. He’s so afraid of needles he won’t even get a flu shot.”

  “Obviously you don’t know the story. The tattoo is right here.” Marino leans over and jabs a thick finger at his outer left ankle, which I can’t see very well from where I’m sitting even if I knew to look. “It’s fake,” he says. “I guess you didn’t know that part.”

  “It would seem I don’t know much.”

  “The marijuana leaf is a temporary tattoo. It’s a joke from last night when he and Ethan were with friends. And typical of Bryce? He figured he could wash it off before he went to bed, but a lot of these temporary tattoos can last for the better part of a week.”

  “Obviously you’ve talked to him.” I look at Marino’s flushed shiny face. “Did he reach out to you?”

  “I got hold of him when I heard about the nine-one-one call. When I asked him about the tattoo he sent me a selfie of it.”

  I turn away to look in the sideview mirror at cars moving past. It occurs to me that I don’t know what Benton is driving tonight. It could be his Porsche Cayenne Turbo S or his Audi RS 7. It could be a bureau car. I was busy with the dogs, with Sock and Tesla, when my husband left this morning at dawn, and I didn’t see or hear him drive away.

  “The tattoo’s a problem, Doc,” Marino says. “It gives credibility to the phone call. It pretty much proves that whoever complained about you and Bryce disturbing the peace saw you—unless there’s some other reason this person knows about the tattoo and what the two of you were wearing.”

  I recognize the sound of a turbocharged engine changing pitch, and I listen as it gets closer, louder.

  “You’re still picking her up tonight?” Marino asks.

  “Who?” I watch Benton’s blacked-out RS 7 coupe glide past slowly, downshifting, sliding into the space in front of us.

  “Dorothy.”

  “That’s the plan.”

  “Well if you need any help I’m happy to get her,” Marino says. “I’ve been meaning to tell you that anything I can do, just say the word. Especially now since it’s sounding like she’s going to be so late.”

  I don’t recall telling him that my sister was coming—much less who was picking her up at the airport. He also didn’t just hear this for the first time when Lucy called a moment ago. It’s obvious he already knew.

  “That’s nice of you,” I say to him, and his dark glasses are riveted to the back of the Audi as Benton maneuvers it so close against the curb that a knife blade barely would fit between it and the titanium rims.

  The matte-black sedan rumbles in a growly purr like a panther about to lunge. Through the tinted back windshield I can make out the shape of my husband’s beautiful head, and his thick hair that’s been white for as long as I’ve known him. He sits straight and wide-shouldered, as still as a jungle cat, his gray-tinted glasses watching us in the rearview mirror. I open my door, and the heat slams me like a wall when I step back out into it, and I thank Marino for the ride even though I didn’t want it.

  I watch Benton climb out of his car. He unfolds his long lank self, and my husband always looks newly minted. His pearl-gray suit is as fresh as when he put it on this morning, his blue-and-gray silk tie perfectly knotted, his engraved antique white-gold cuff links glinting in the early evening light.

  He could grace the pages of Vanity Fair with his strong fine features, his platinum hair and horn-rim glasses. He’s slender and ropy strong, and his quiet calm belies the iron in his bones and the fire in his belly. You’d never know what Benton Wesley is truly like to look at him right now in his perfectly tailored suit, hand-stitched because he comes from old New England money.

  “Hi,” he says, taking the shopping bag from me but I hold on to my briefcase.

  He watches Marino’s dark blue SUV pull back out into traffic, and the heat rising off the pavement makes the air look thick and dirty.

  “I hope your afternoon’s been better than mine.” I’m conscious of how wilted I am compared to my perfectly put-together husband. “I’m sorry I’m such a train wreck.”

  “What possessed you to walk?”

  “Not you too. Did Bryce send out a be on the lookout for a deranged woman with a run in her stockings prowling the Harvard campus?”

  “But you really shouldn’t have, Kay. For lots of reasons.”

  “You must know about the nine-one-one call. It would seem to be the headline of the day.”

  He doesn’t answer but he doesn’t need to. He knows. Bryce probably called him because I doubt Marino would.

  CHAPTER 4

  A BICYCLE B
ELL JINGLES CHEERILY on the sidewalk behind us, and we step out of the way as a young woman rides past.

  She brakes in front of us as if she might be going to the same place we are, and I offer a commiserating smile when she dismounts, wearing sporty dark glasses, hot and red-faced. Unclipping the chin strap of her robin’s-egg-blue bike helmet, she takes it off, and I notice her pulled-back long brown hair, her blue shorts and beige tank top. Instantly I get a weird feeling.

  I take in her blue paisley printed neckerchief, her off-white Converse sneakers and gray-and-white-striped bike socks as she stares at her phone, then at the Georgian brick Faculty Club as if expecting someone. She types with her thumbs, lifts her phone to her ear.

  “Hey,” she says to whoever she’s calling. “I’m here,” and I realize the reason she’s familiar is I met her about a half hour ago.

  She was at the Loeb Center when I was buying the theater tickets. I remember seeing her as I wandered into the lobby to use the ladies’ room. At most she’s in her early twenties, and she has a British accent, what strikes me as a slightly affected or theatrical one. I was aware of it when she was talking with other staff and several actors at the American Repertory Theater.

  She was across the room taping index cards of recipes on walls already covered with hundreds of them. In this particular production of Waitress members of the audience are invited to share their own favorite treats and tasty family secrets, and before I left I wandered over to take a look. I love to cook, and my sister loves sweets. The least I could do is make something special for her while she’s here. I was jotting down a recipe for peanut butter pie when the young woman paused as she was taping up another card.

  “I warn you. It’s lethal,” she said to me, and she had on a whimsical gold skull necklace that made me think of pirates.

  “Excuse me?” I glanced around, not sure at first that she was talking to me.

  “The peanut butter pie. But it’s better if you add chocolate, dribble it over the top. The real stuff. And don’t swap out the graham-cracker crust for anything you think might be better. Because it won’t be, I promise. And use real butter—as you can tell I’m not into low-fat anything.”

  “You don’t need to be,” I replied because she’s wiry and strong.

  This same young woman is in front of Benton and me on the sidewalk along Quincy Street, holding her iPhone in its ice-blue case, clamping it back into its black plastic holder, and she accidently fumbles her water bottle, sending it tumbling. It thuds to the sidewalk, rolling in our direction, and Benton bends down to pick it up.

  “Sorry. Thanks very much.” She looks hot, her face flushed and dripping.

  “You definitely don’t want to be without this today.” He returns the bottle to her, and she secures it in its holder as I notice a young man trotting through the grass of the Faculty Club.

  Her rimless sunglasses are directed at him as she remounts the bike, steadying herself, the toes of her sneakers touching the sidewalk. He’s dark and thin, in slacks and a button-up shirt as if he works in an office. Then he’s in front of her, hot and grinning, handing her a FedEx envelope that’s labeled but not sealed.

  “Thanks,” he says. “Just put the tickets in and it’s ready to go.”

  “I’ll drop it off on my way home. See you later.” She kisses him on the lips.

  Then he trots away, back toward the Faculty Club, where I gather he must work. She puts on her helmet, not bothering with the strap that’s supposed to be snug under her chin. Turning to me, she flashes a smile.

  “You’re the peanut-butter-pie lady,” she says.

  “What a nice way to be characterized. Hello again.” I smile back at her, and I almost remind her to lock her chin strap.

  But I don’t know her. I don’t want to be overbearing, especially after being accused of yelling at Bryce and disturbing the peace.

  “Please be careful out here,” I say instead. “The heat index is hazardous.”

  “What doesn’t kill you makes you stronger.” She grips the flat riser handlebars, pushing down the pedals with long strong strokes.

  “Not always,” Benton says.

  I feel the hot air stir sluggishly as she rides past.

  “Enjoy the pie and the play!” she tosses back at us, and she reminds me of my niece, sharp-featured, bold and extremely fit.

  I watch her bare legs pumping, her calf muscles bunching as she picks up speed, cutting across the street, threading through the same gate I used earlier. I remember being that age when the best and worst was before me, and I wanted to know everything up front as if my fate could be negotiated. Who would I be with and what would I become? Where would I live and would I make a difference to anyone? I speculated, and at times tried to force my life in the direction I thought it should go. I wouldn’t do that now.

  I watch the young woman’s retreating figure getting smaller, more distant and remote as she pedals through the Yard, between the sprawling brick Pusey and Lamont libraries. I don’t understand why anyone would want to know the future. I wonder if she does, and the conservative answer is probably. But the more likely one is absolutely. Whereas I don’t anymore.

  “What did Marino want?” Benton lightly, affectionately touches my back as we follow the sidewalk.

  Up ahead on our left is the split-rail paling, and set far back is the brick-and-white-trimmed neo-Georgian building, two stories with a glass-domed conservatory. The four tall chimneys rise proudly and symmetrically from different corners, and ten dormers stand sentry along the slate hipped roof.

  THE LONG WALKWAY OF dark red pavers winds through rockery and ornamental shrubs. The sun has dipped behind buildings, and the oppressive air is like a steam room that’s slowly cooling.

  Benton has taken off his suit jacket, and it’s neatly folded over his arm as we walk past the bright pink bottlebrushes of summer sweet, purple mountain laurel, and white and blue hydrangeas. None of it stirs in the breathless air, and only a scattering of dark green leaves shows the slightest blush of red. The longer it’s hot and parched, the more unlikely it is that there will be much in the way of fall colors this year.

  As Benton and I talk, I do the best I can to answer his questions about Marino’s intentions, explaining he was emphatic that he didn’t want me out walking by myself. But I don’t think it’s his only agenda. I have the distinct impression that Benton doesn’t either.

  “At any rate,” I continue telling the story, “he was out and about all the while he was on the phone, basically bird-dogging me while he pretended he wasn’t. Then he drove me the last fifty feet, and that’s where you found me a few minutes ago.”

  “The last fifty feet?” Benton repeats.

  “It’s what he mandated. I was to get into his car and he would drive me the last fifty feet. Specifically the last damn fifty feet.”

  “Obviously what he wanted was to have a private face-to-face conversation with you. Maybe it’s true he didn’t want to talk over the phone. Or he used that as an excuse. Or it could be both,” Benton says as if he knows, and he probably does because it’s not hard for him to profile Pete Marino.

  “So tell me why you decided to go for a stroll all by yourself, dressed in a suit and carrying heavy bags?” Benton gets around to that. “Aren’t you the one who warns everybody about the heat index—the way you just did with the woman on the bicycle a minute ago?”

  “I suppose that’s why there’s the cliché about practicing what you preach.”

  “This isn’t about practicing what you preach. It’s about something else.”

  “I thought a walk might do me good,” I reply, and he’s silent. “And besides I had the theater tickets to pick up.”

  I explain that I also had gifts to find at the college bookstore, The Coop. The T-shirt, nightgown and handsome coffee-table book may not be the most original presents I’ve ever bought but they were the best I could muster after wandering the aisles. As Benton knows all too well, my sister is difficult to shop for. br />
  “But that doesn’t mean I don’t know what she likes,” I’m saying, and he isn’t answering.

  A popular musical and a peanut butter pie, for example, and Dorothy also will be very pleased with the skimpy Harvard tee that she can wear with her skimpier leggings or jeans. Her Ivy League shirt will be amply filled by her surgically enhanced bosom, and no doubt she’ll inspire many scintillating conversations in the bars of South Beach and Margaritaville.

  “And the Cambridge photography book is something she can carry back to Miami as if it was her idea,” I explain as Benton listens without a word, the way he does when he has his own opinion and it’s different from mine. “And that’s exactly how my sister will play it when she shares pictures of Harvard, MIT, the Charles River with Mom. It will be all about Dorothy, which is fine if it means Mom enjoys her gift and feels remembered.”

  “It’s not fine,” Benton says as we pass through the deepening shadows of tall boxwood hedges.

  “Some things won’t change. It has to be fine.”

  “You can’t let Dorothy get to you this way.” His tinted glasses look at me.

  “I assume you’ve heard the nine-one-one call.” I change the subject because my sister has wasted quite enough of my time. “Apparently Marino has a copy but he wouldn’t play it for me.”

  Benton doesn’t respond, and if he’s listened to the recording he’s not going to tell me. Had he been made aware of it, he might have requested a copy from the Cambridge Police Department, citing that the FBI wants to make sure a government official wasn’t misbehaving or being threatened.

  My husband could come up with anything he wants to gain access to the 911 recording, and he’s quite friendly with the commissioner, the mayor, pretty much everybody who’s powerful around here. He didn’t need Marino’s help.

  “As you may or may not know, someone complained about me supposedly disturbing the peace.” It sounds even more bizarre as I hear myself describe such a thing to someone whose typical day involves terrorists and serial killers.