Depraved Heart - Patricia Cornwell

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Investigator Pete Marino permission. You’ve given me, your aunt, the chief medical examiner permission. Both of us have your permission to be on your property,” I reply. “Is the FBI inside your house?”

      “Yes.”

      “Where are Janet and Desi?” I’m worried about Lucy’s partner and their little boy. They’ve been through quite enough.

      “They’re here.”

      “The FBI probably isn’t going to let us inside your house right now,” I inform her of what I’m sure she already knows.

      “I’m sorry.”

      “Don’t be. They should be sorry. Not you.” I stare at the agent, fixing on a point between his eyes and I’m further emboldened by my protectiveness of someone I love more than I can describe. “Meet us outside, Lucy.”

      “They won’t like it.”

      “I don’t care if they don’t like it.” I stare hard between the agent’s eyes. “You’re not under arrest. They haven’t arrested you, correct?”

      “They’re looking for a reason. Obviously, they think they’re going to get me on something, anything. Littering. Jaywalking. Disturbing the peace. Treason.”

      “Have they read you your rights?”

      “We haven’t gotten that far.”

      “They haven’t gotten that far because there’s no probable cause, and they can’t detain you if you’re not under arrest. Head out now. Meet us on the driveway,” I tell her, and we end the call.

      Next the game of chicken starts. I hold my ground, sitting in my medical examiner’s monster white truck while the agent stands next to his dwarfed white Bureau SUV. He makes no move to get inside it. He intends to block the driveway, and I wait. I give him a minute, and I wait. Two minutes, three minutes and when nothing changes I shove the gear into drive.

      “What are you doing?” Marino looks at me as if I might be a little crazy.

      “Moving so traffic can get past.” It isn’t true. The truck is off the street by a good twenty feet.

      Nosing forward, I cut the wheel at a tight angle. I park at a slant, almost perpendicular to the SUV, not even three inches from the rear bumper. If the agent backs up he’s broadsiding me. If he pulls ahead and turns around he’s no better off.

      “Let’s go.” I cut the ignition.

      Marino and I climb out and I lock the doors. Click. I drop the keys into my shoulder bag.

      “Hey!” The agent is animated now, giving me direct eye contact, glaring like a vicious dog. “Hey! You’ve got me blocked in!”

      “See how that feels?” I smile at him as we move past through the open gate, Lucy’s house about a quarter of a mile from here.

       11

      “I can’t believe you did that,” Marino says.

      “Why not?” The relentless churning of the helicopter is building on my nerves, and I’m struggling.

      Lucy’s house is on a rise high above the Sudbury River, and the driveway is steep in this direction. It’s not an easy walk. It’s not possible for me to keep up with Marino’s thoughtless long stride. He seems to forget what happened not that long ago. Maybe because he wasn’t there. Maybe because he’s in denial. It would be like him to suppose he could have saved me, and for his focus to be that instead of what I’m left with and how I feel.

      “Well one thing’s for sure. There’s not a single cop in Massachusetts who would tow a medical examiner’s truck,” he says next.

      “It weighs almost five tons and could have dead bodies inside. So not a good idea.” I’ve resorted to walking several yards behind him, forcing him to slow down and turn around to talk.

      “Yeah no kidding.” He looks back at me, then up at the helicopter. “What the hell? This is what we’ve been hearing since Cambridge? You think it’s the same chopper?”

      “Yes.”

      “It’s no news crew, that’s for sure. It’s the damn Feds and they followed us from that scene to here. Why? What’s their interest in Chanel Gilbert or us?” he asks.

      “You tell me.” Pain shoots through my thigh.

      “Obviously they knew we were headed here.”

      “I don’t know what they knew.”

      “It’s like they escorted us to Lucy’s property.”

      “I don’t believe that’s what they’re doing. I got the distinct impression a minute ago that we’re not welcome here. They may have followed us. But they’re certainly not escorting us.” I have to stop for a moment.

      I rest my weight on my left leg, and the full symphony of pain in my right thigh subsides to a low drumroll, to the slow sawing of a cello. The high pitches are gone, and it’s those that are intolerable. The rest I’ve learned to live with, the quieter, deeper rhythm of hurt.

      “Geez Doc.” Marino pauses. “You all right?”

      “I’m the same.”

      He stares straight up, and we resume walking. “Something fucking weird is going on,” he decides.

      He has no idea how weird it is. “It’s serious. That’s for sure,” I reply.

      The chopper is a beefy twin-engine Bell 429. Completely blacked out, Apache-ominous, and I note the mounted gyro stabilized camera under the nose, the thermal imaging system or FLIR that looks like a radar dome on the belly. I recognize the special operations platforms known as cargo racks that are designed to move SWAT or members of the FBI’s elitist Hostage Rescue Team (HRT). There are going to be at least half a dozen agents on bench seats inside the cabin, ready to rappel down and swarm the property on command.

      “Maybe they’re spying on you,” Marino says, and his comment reminds me of other types of spying that I can’t stop thinking about.

      For an instant I see Carrie inside Lucy’s dorm room. I see her piercing eyes and startlingly short bleached hair. I feel her cold-blooded aggression. I sense her as if she’s within reach, and she might be.

      “Then they should think of something a little less obvious than a tactical helicopter.” I continue to say one thing while my mind is on another as we follow a circular driveway long enough to jog on.

      In the center are acres of meadowland splashed with wildflowers where huge granite sculptures of fantastic creatures seem to wander and make themselves at home. We’ve already walked past a dragon, an elephant, a buffalo, a rhinoceros, and just now a mother bear with her cubs, sculpted from native stone out west somewhere and set in place by a crane. Lucy doesn’t have to worry about anyone stealing her tons of art, and I watch for her as the monotonous noise continues overhead, rotor blades batting air. Thump-Thump-Thump-Thump.

      I’m hot and sticky and hurting as I walk, and the sound is maddening. THUMP-THUMP-THUMP-THUMP! I love helicopters except for this one. I feel hateful as if it lives and breathes and we’re personal enemies. Then I do a systems check of myself, concentrating on my hearing, my vision, my breathing, the pain jolting my leg with each step, with each shift of balance.

      Focusing keeps me centered and calm, and I feel the hot pavement through the soles of my ankle-high boots, and the sunlight soaking into the soft fabric of my cotton tactical shirt. Sweat is cool as it trickles down my chest, my belly, my inner thighs. I’m conscious of the pull of gravity as I push my way uphill, and my body seems to weigh twice what it does. Moving around on land is heavy and slow, and when I was underwater I weighed nothing at all. I floated.

      I

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