LITMIR.BIZ

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“July two years ago. We had VIP backstage passes. We never miss them.”

      One of the band’s tour stops was Boston where they played for several nights, and Lucy got seats two rows back, center stage. We may have been at the same concert, perhaps near Joanna and her musician husband, all of us there on a rock-and-roll high.

      It happens in the blink of an eye. A lightning strike. A heart attack. A wrong place. A wrong time.

      “You … You saw Jamal,” she says to me. “What happened to him? He was shot?”

      “Preliminarily that’s the way it looks. I’m very sorry.”

      “The way it looks? You don’t know?”

      “He needs to be examined. Then I’ll have answers I can be sure of.” I’m next to her now as if she’s in my care, and I tell her I regret that I don’t have more information at the moment.

      I repeat how sorry I am for her terrible loss. I say all the right things as she starts crying again and this is exactly how Marino wants it to go. We’ve danced this dance since the beginning of our time. I’m the doctor who’s not here to accuse or cause further harm. The more he leans on her, the more she’ll bond with me, feeling I’m on her side. I know exactly how to insert myself without violating the boundaries of what I have a right to answer or ask. I also know how to be useful without saying a word.

      “We got it from here,” Marino tells the officer hanging back in the doorway. “Make sure none of the reporters out there get any closer to the house.”

      “What about the residents?” The officer whose silver name tag says t. j. hardy watches me pull off my shoe covers and gloves and drop them in a red biohazard bag on the kitchen counter.

      I wear no personal protection clothing now, just my field clothes, which are official-looking with their many pockets and CFC crest. But I’m not threatening. I return to Joanna’s side as T. J. Hardy begins to explain that residents are trying to return to their apartments.

      “Two of them just pulled up in their cars, are in front of the house as we speak. They’re getting upset that we won’t let them back in.” His Massachusetts accent is elastic and strong, his r’s sounding like w’s.

      His voice triggers memories of him showing up in the autopsy room on several occasions for motor vehicle fatalities, and I’d had the distinct impression it was the last place he wanted to be. He’d collect personal effects and keep his distance from the steel tables. He’d avert his gaze, breathing out of his mouth because of the stench.

      “Positively ID them and escort them into their apartments,” Marino says to him. “I want their names and how to reach them. Email me the info ASAP. Nobody gets near the red SUV and the immediate area around it. We’re clear on that?”

      “Got it.”

      “You parked out there?” Marino directs this at Joanna, and she nods, not meeting his eyes.

      “What kind of vehicle?”

      “A Suburban. A rental. We’re moving things … We were supposed to move things around and needed something big.” She looks past him in a fixed wide-eyed stare.

      “You don’t own a car?” Marino asks.

      “We traded in both of ours on his new Honda.” Her voice quavers. “The red one out there.”

      “The cleanup crew wants to start picking up the spilled groceries. And …” T. J. Hardy glances at Joanna as he chooses his words. “And you know, start tidying things up.”

      Marino looks at me. “We’re done, right?”

      The body is at the CFC but I don’t mention it. The blood, the gore certainly need to be gone and I’m not going to say that either. I tell Marino that cleanup can get started, and Joanna quietly cries in spasms. Officer Hardy steps back outside. The solid sound of the oak door shutting startles her and her knees almost buckle. She gasps and holds a tissue over her nose and mouth, her eyes bloodshot and smeared with makeup.

      “Why don’t you come sit and let’s talk,” Marino says to her, and he introduces himself, adding, “Doctor Scarpetta is the chief medical examiner of Massachusetts and also works for the Pentagon.”

      “The Pentagon?” Joanna isn’t impressed and he just scared her.

      “It just means I have federal jurisdiction in certain cases.” I dismiss it as nothing.

      “What? You’re the fucking FBI.” The look in her eyes changes just like that.

      Marino had to brag and now I have to undo it. I explain I’m an Air Force special reservist affiliated with the Armed Forces Medical Examiners. She wants to know what that means. I tell her I assist the federal government with medical intelligence and help out with military matters but I also work for the state and my office is here in Cambridge. The more detail I give the more she glazes over. Wiping her eyes. Not listening. She doesn’t care about my pedigree. She’s not threatened by it and that’s what I want.

      “Point being you couldn’t be in better hands,” Marino adds. “She may have a few questions about medications, about any general health details she should know about your husband.”

      He’s says it as if I’m their family doctor and it’s a tried-and-true manipulation, a familiar one I wish wasn’t needed. Nari’s prescription drugs and health history have nothing to do with what killed him. A gun did. But Marino wants me present, and if Joanna thinks what he’s saying is a ploy she makes no indication. Instead she’s suddenly deflated as if there’s no point in fighting what can’t be changed. There’s no protest or argument that will make it untrue.

      “Where is he? Where’s Jamal?” Her tone is dead. “Why is that big black box set up in front of the house? I don’t understand. Was that where they put him? They wouldn’t let me look inside it. Is he in there? Where is he?”

      “He’s been taken to my office for examination.” I repeat what I’ve already told her. “The black enclosure was to ensure privacy and respect. Come sit down.” I touch her elbow and lead her to the couch, and she sits stiffly on the edge of it, wiping her eyes.

      “Who did this? Who would do this?” Her voice shakes and catches.

      “Well that’s what this is all about, Joanna. We gotta find that out.” Marino sets a chair directly across from her and sits down. “I’m real sorry. I know how hard this is but I’ve got a lot of questions I need you to answer if you’re going to help us figure out what happened to Jamal, okay?”

      She nods. I sit down off to the side.

      “Starting with what time you left here this morning, where you were headed and why.” Marino has his notepad out.

      “I already told the other one that. He said Jamal was shot while he was getting groceries out of the car. That someone shot him.” She looks at me. “But you said you don’t know if he was shot.”

      “He needs to be examined so we can be sure of exactly what happened.” I avoid using the word autopsy.

      Her eyes race around the living room and then she stares at the three guitars. “Who did that?” Her voice goes up a notch and is louder as she stares accusingly at us. “Jamal packed them in their cases. He’s so careful with his guitars. Who put them back on their stands?”

      “That’s interesting,” Marino says. “There’s two cases on the bed. Where’s the third one?”

      “You had no right! Touching his things, you had no right!”

      “We didn’t touch his guitars,” Marino says and I think of Machado.

      But he wouldn’t do that. I look across the room at the guitars, different shapes, black carbon fiber, one a matte finish, two shiny and shimmering with mother-of-pearl inlays. Upright on stands, a rubber gooseneck clamped over the strings. Facing out. Perfectly,

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