She plays the enhanced recording, an earlier one, and I hear the distinct noise of a car engine idling. Then I hear something else. I hear my niece.
“…We’ll get something drafted when I get back from D.C.,” Lucy’s recorded voice says. “Now’s not the time to start a problem, in light of the trial, even if you don’t think it’s going to happen. You don’t need even the appearance of a problem with me.”
“Why would there be? They’ll settle. Don’t you worry and everything will be fair,” Gail says sweetly, what sounds insincere to me, and I hear what else is there.
The rumble of an engine. A car idling nearby in the dark behind the bar and if Gail notices, she doesn’t seem concerned, not even slightly nervous.
26
“A V-eight,” Lucy says to me. “Decent horsepower, four hundred maybe, a sizable sedan or SUV.”
SUV mud tires for off-roading, I remember Benton said. Someone involved in high-risk activities and sports who doesn’t hesitate to break into a pickup truck or drive through a golf course.
“Not a performance car, definitely not that kind of high-rev sound,” Lucy says. “It was there the entire time she was talking to me which means it was out back when she left the bar to take my call. She has no interest, possibly little or no awareness until this.”
Lucy clicks on a file, playing the same sound byte I’ve heard before.
“I’m sorry? Can I help you?”
“She’s not saying this to Carin. She’s saying it to someone else,” Lucy explains decisively. “You can tell. Her tone changes. It’s very subtle as if someone has walked up to her, someone who intends to speak to her, someone doing so comfortably, calmly.”
“This person is approaching her even though she’s on the phone. He doesn’t hesitate to interrupt her,” I consider. “And she doesn’t sound alarmed or guarded.”
“She doesn’t sound friendly either,” Lucy replies. “I don’t think the person was familiar to her but she’s not afraid of whoever it is. She sounds polite but not threatened. And here’s the other thing, if I enhance the background noise at the beginning of the conversation with Carin? I’ve separated everything out except the car.”
She plays a clip and I hear the rumble of an engine. That’s all I hear, just that low steady noise of a large gas-powered engine idling.
“Then she speaks to someone,” Lucy says.
“I’m sorry? Can I help you?”
“But what you didn’t hear is a car door shutting,” Lucy explains. “Whoever was back there must have gotten out of his vehicle and approached her but he left his car door open or at least didn’t shut it all the way or we’d pick it up as an audio event. There’s absolutely no fluctuation in the sound measurement. Whoever he is he’s quiet as hell and she doesn’t seem the least bit startled, just politely curious but cool.”
Lucy plays the sound byte again.
“I’m sorry? Can I help you?”
“He masquerades as something that causes no suspicion at first.” I can see it.
Dressed a certain way with an impeccable rehearsed approach that’s worked for him on at least three other murderous occasions, and also many more times than that when someone stalked had no clue what a close call it was. Offenders like this thrive on dry runs. They encounter potential victims and get off on the fantasy until they finally consummate the act by abducting and killing someone.
“You’re thinking her death isn’t isolated.” Lucy watches me intensely. “Is that what Benton thinks after prowling around Briggs Field? You examined her at the scene. She was murdered, not just possibly but definitely? Is what happened to her something you recognize? Or Benton does?”
“Who else might have known about these capabilities, about the technology you and Gail had been working on?”
“Whoever attacked her didn’t have the slightest idea.” Lucy stares intensely at me. “It’s got nothing to do with what happened to her and I repeat that emphatically. Would you grab somebody carrying a device like this? If you knew?” She indicates her phone on the table.
“If I knew, I’d be wary,” I agree. “I’d worry about being recorded.”
“And if the point was to steal the technology, the phone wouldn’t have been left on the pavement,” Lucy says. “Whoever grabbed her wasn’t interested in it, didn’t have a clue about a drone phone.”
“I have no idea what that is.”
“It’s basically a handheld robotic device and not evidence in this case.”
“Marino has decided it is.”
“He’s full of shit.”
“It appears you surreptitiously made recordings —”
“Because I couldn’t trust Gail and was trying to get to the bottom of it. I was almost there.”
“And now Marino doesn’t trust you and you don’t trust him. I don’t want you having a problem with him,” I say it again.
“He can’t prove a damn thing. I saw everything he did. By the time he so cleverly bypassed the password with the analyzer I programmed and taught him how to use, I was ten steps ahead of him. I was seeing him and he wasn’t seeing a damn thing I didn’t want him to.”
“He says apps, e-mails, voice mails that were on the phone earlier are gone.”
“Once he picked it up, there were certain precautions to take.”
“I don’t believe he’ll cut you any slack, Lucy. It might be the opposite, in fact. He’ll want to show everyone he doesn’t have favorites and the past is past.”
“The phone can go to the CIA, I don’t care. No one can prove anything. And I don’t have to worry about her sick shit or anything else getting into the wrong hands. It won’t now.”
“Sick shit that could be motive for murder?” I ask.
“No way. Whoever killed her didn’t realize the importance of the device she was talking on when he approached her. It was just a phone.”
Lucy looks at me and beneath her indignation I detect disappointment and hurt.
“She wasn’t a good person, Aunt Kay. She tried to screw me. She tried to screw Carin. At the end of the day Gail didn’t care about anybody but herself and she had even less than she did before. I don’t mean money.”
“What exactly is a drone phone?” I ask.
The bay’s buzzer sounds and its intrusion is loud and grating.
“My idea was domestic usage that actually could help people,” Lucy explains. “It could save lives. Imagine controlling drones with your phone, not military unmanned aircraft but smaller ones. For aerial filming of real estate, sports events, highway and weather monitoring, wildlife research, activities that aren’t safe for pilots.”
She becomes animated as she talks about what gives her joy and it is always inventions and machines that she finds more compelling than a sunset or a storm.
“That was the point and then she headed off in a bad direction or maybe that was her intention all along.” Her mood goes back to dark. “Paparazzi photos, violating privacy in the worst way. Hunting animals. Hunting people. Spying. Acts of aggression committed by civilians for the worst of reasons.”
I watch the bay door begin to crank up and the narrow bar of daylight in the opening space beneath it isn’t as bright as it was earlier.
“Something happened to her.” Lucy sounds hard and unforgiving. “It may have happened to her before we met but eventually it owned her. That I know for a fact. I would have helped her if she’d asked but instead she tried to hurt me.”
I feel the damp chill of the late-morning air seeping in as my phone rings and I look to see who it is. The Maryland Office of the Chief Medical Examiner, Dr. Henri Venter, and I answer.