“Fado’s isn’t in the best part of town,” Benton says. “Not far from the projects in West Cambridge.”
“He left the pub and do we know where he was headed?” I inquire as I remember the police call earlier, suspicious youths in a red SUV who may have just broken into a number of vehicles in the parking lots of the subsidized housing development on Windsor Street.
“According to his paperwork, he was on Memorial Drive near the Mass Ave Bridge. It may be he was headed home,” Anne says.
I imagine gang members in a red SUV following the Jaguar, waiting for the tire to go flat, maybe planning to rob the driver, but things turned out a lot worse than that. Possibly they nudged the car, sending it out of control into a guardrail.
“If they get the kids seen fleeing the projects on Windsor, we need to compare the paint of their red SUV to the paint transferred to the Jaguar,” I decide. “Let’s make sure the Cambridge police know.”
“Well, if Carin Hegel was trying to find you as early as five-thirty, she sure as hell didn’t waste any time.” Anne stops talking about food and quits the bad puns. “She called here about an hour ago, at almost eleven. You know it’s got to be the pub’s fault. The pub shouldn’t have kept serving him. And of course we couldn’t offer what his blood alcohol is, that he wasn’t intoxicated, because we can’t release his information before the investigation is completed, et cetera, et cetera. The usual, from what I gathered from Bryce, who told me the same story in fifty different ways of course.”
“I heard my name and it better not have been in vain,” he says.
“Apparently Hegel doesn’t know a tire was slashed and that he may be a homicide,” I say to Anne as Lucy holds out her hands to make Bryce surrender what promises to be a large pie with beef, sausage, pepperoni, peppers, fresh tomato, onions, garlic, extra mozzarella, and Asiago. The usual I order.
My mouth waters and hunger stabs my empty stomach. It feels constricted, practically tubular, and if aromas were audible, the volume would be as high up as it could go. It would be deafening.
“Not so fast.” Bryce pulls the box away from Lucy. “Not even if you tell me to put my hands up or you’ll shoot.”
“Don’t dare me.”
“Oh I’m scared. You’re not even armed.”
“How do you know?”
“You’re such a monster even when you’re sweet.”
“Looking for someone to sue,” Anne is saying to me. “Let me guess. The wife wants money from her husband’s death and we’ve not even autopsied the poor guy yet.”
“I guess Carin Hegel doesn’t discuss her other clients.” I look at Lucy.
“She has a lot of rich ones but how do we know he was a client?” She directs this at Bryce.
“Well, I assumed,” he says. “She was asking questions about how drunk he was and if that’s why he crashed his car. She sounded upset and sensitive for a lawyer and kept saying what a bad day it’s been. Maybe she knew him.”
He’s typing something on his phone.
“He had a fight with his wife?” I repeat this to Bryce. “Do we know where that detail came from?”
“It’s on the call sheet,” he says. “When he didn’t come home his wife called nine-one-one all teary and described his car. She said they’d had a disagreement and he left the house angry. And, well, look at this. Dr. Schoenberg was an expert witness in several lawsuits with big verdicts over the past few years and guess who the trial lawyer was? So maybe Carin Hegel was calling because it’s personal. She just lost a friend and a consultant who helps her make a lot of money.”
“We don’t take personal calls from lawyers,” I reply. “No information goes to her or anyone else about this case or any of our cases. We don’t do those types of favors.”
“Granby wants to meet at three.” Benton places his hands on my shoulders from where he stands behind my chair.
“I’m sure he does.”
“What should I tell him?”
“With the way my day is looking, it will have to be here.” I turn around to answer him. “I’ll reserve the war room or the PIT, depending on what we’ll be looking at.”
The PIT is our Progressive Immersion Theater, where we review cases in three-dimension or virtual reality. One of Lucy’s latest innovations as she continues her efforts to rid the world of paper, it features a HAPTIC and a Lidar data tunnel among other far-flung things.
“I need to replace a projector in the multi-touch table,” she lets me know as DNA scientist Gloria walks in.
I hand over evidence to her.
“After you it goes to Ernie,” I say as she initials the package. “As fast as you can.”
In her thirties, with spiky black hair and a pierced left nostril, she specializes in low copy number DNA and is used to my wanting everything yesterday.
“I’ll move it to the head of the line,” she says to me.
“You may be getting lab reports from Dr. Venter’s office in Baltimore,” I say next.
“I’ve already forwarded them,” Lucy informs me.
Gloria gives me a lingering, curious look as she heads to the door. A DNA profile from one of the Capital Murderer cases and my top molecular biologist isn’t ignorant or out of touch. Something big and bad is going on and she knows it.
“Needless to say…” I meet her eyes.
“Of course, and I’ll have something by tomorrow morning but will shoot for sooner.” And then she’s gone, out the door, on the other side of the window, walking fast down the corridor toward the elevator, like everybody else glued to her phone.
“When did Benton get back from Washington?” Anne asks me. “Is he doing okay because he looks like he could use a little meat on his bones. Did you get a load of that tank Lucy drove up in? When she pulled into the bay it sounded like she flew her helicopter in.”
“I’m standing right here.” Lucy sets the pizza box on a desk. “There’d better be vegan or I really will kill you, Bryce.”
“Wish Anne a good morning for Benton, who’s standing right behind you,” Bryce says to me. “I mean, really?” He directs this at Anne. “Sauce, mushrooms, broccoli, spinach, eggplant.” He counts on his fingers for Lucy’s benefit. “And let’s see. Presto!” He opens the lid. “Two boring slices just for you.” He hands her a paper plate, making sure he flaunts his leather bracelets. “Do you like?” He holds up his wrist. “Totally made by hand with a dragon clasp. In brown and royal blue because, what can I say? Ethan is way generous. And Anne? Lucy says good morning to you through me and I’m wishing you a good morning through her. Point taken?”
Anne is unable to refrain from talking about people as if they’re not in the room but it’s hard to take offense. She’s one of the least provocative people I’ve ever met, with her gentle face and demeanor and her plain-speaking and practical manner. No amount of ragging by Marino has ever gotten a rise out of her and even Bryce’s silly compulsive blather doesn’t pluck at her nerves.
She opens Gail Shipton’s scan for me, 3-D images of the head and thorax appearing on a flat screen.
“J.Crew,” Bryce shows off more bling. “And this one is almost over the top, but far be it from me to look a gift horse in the mouth.” He plucks at a black leather cuff with a stainless-steel chain. “To go with…” He pulls a necklace out of his sweater, black leather with some sort of tribal metalwork, and then he places a slice of pizza on a plate and presents it to me.
The first bite is an explosion of pleasure. My God, I’m starved. I’ve eaten half the slice before I can talk.