Page 27 of Sharp Force (Kay Scarpetta #29)

Holiday lights sparkle in the heart of Old Town, some of the decorations blown down and soggy in the ice-watery mess. Snow that hasn’t melted is patchy white on rooftops and winter-brown grass. I don’t see anybody out walking or jogging, the roadside empty of the usual parked cars.

Restaurants and bars are empty, and through shadowy glass I can make out the shapes of tables and chairs, nothing open except hotels. In the distance, the George Washington Masonic National Memorial looms like an ancient temple, the top of it veiled in mist.

Everywhere I look I see handsome edifices and precise engineering, evidence of an advanced and civil society it would seem.

But within those solid walls are tragedies waiting to happen and humans who do unthinkable things.

At moments like this I’m weighed down by the gravity of our impermanent and imperfect existence.

How much easier if I didn’t know so much.

It would be reassuring never to scratch below the surface, to avoid looking up at the heavens wondering who might be looking back.

But I can’t ignore what’s all around me.

As Dorothy likes to say, once the truth genie gets out, it’s not possible to put it back in the bottle.

Which is why you don’t always want to let it out to begin with, she often warns.

According to her it’s wiser to remain selectively ignorant. Best not to question if you don’t want the answer.

Why do you have to know everything, Kay?

Dorothy’s been saying that most of our lives.

Why can’t you learn to leave well enough alone?

I’m hearing her in my head as Benton drives, paralleling the Potomac River several streets over. No doubt, Dorothy is sleeping off her night of drinking and arguing with Marino. I hope I didn’t add to the tension between them.

But he was with me for hours, driving to the O’Learys’ house, not wanting to leave me alone for a moment. Meanwhile, my sister was by herself, the timing unfortunate.

“I hope Dorothy’s all right,” I say to Benton. “I’ve sent several texts and she’s not answering.”

“I have a feeling she wasn’t in great shape by the time she’d finished fighting with Marino and went to bed.”

“Should we be worried? What if she forgot to set the alarm after he left?”

It’s too early to call and wish her a Merry Christmas, and now’s not the time for a personal conversation. I type Lucy a text.

All okay with your mom? Haven’t heard from her.

I begin checking various news feeds on my phone, disappointed by what I find but expecting as much.

“Well, that’s too bad but par for the course,” I say to Benton. “The media knows what’s happened, and it’s going viral.”

“I’m not surprised.” He sips his coffee as I read the headlines out loud.

Slasher Strikes Again.

Phantom Slasher Terrorizes Alexandria.

Serial Killer Targets Mercy Island.

Couple Butchered Near Mental Hospital…

“Christ. The public will be buying out the gun stores again.” Benton’s eyes are on traffic and the mirrors.

“We can’t seem to keep anything quiet for longer than five minutes,” I tell him as Lucy answers me that her mother is fine.

Just hungover and grumpy, Lucy reports.

“Not to mention, nothing much is reported accurately. Not even close,” I’m saying to Benton.

It’s increasingly common for reporters and social media influencers to find out about a case before we reach the scene. This never happened in the early years of our careers. What ensues is an avalanche of unsubstantiated wild tales endlessly replicated and accepted as gospel.

Details that might be accurate often provide information we don’t want the offender having. The worry is that a first responder is the leak. Possibly someone who works for a rescue squad or the local police, and I click open the link of a live video news feed.

“… We can’t see it from here. But where the horrific attack occurred is in a remote wooded area overlooking the Potomac River,” Dana Diletti is saying.

“Why did the Slasher choose Mercy Island? How did he come and go without leaving a trace? And does he have a connection to the hospital, possibly a former patient?”

Tall and beautiful, she looks like a Paris model in a red trench coat and Russian Cossack fur hat. She seems energetic, no worse for the wear after last night’s scare. The Slasher sent the hologram through her window and hours later murdered someone else.

She shows no sign of being shocked or frightened, not a hint of sadness for the latest victims. Positioned near the entrance gate to the hospital grounds, she broadcasts live while police ensure no one unauthorized enters the island.

In the background the six-story Tudor-style hospital hulks ancient and haunted. The rising sun glints on mullioned windows, the stucco a dingy insipid yellow.

“It’s way back there.” Dana Diletti dramatically swings her arm, pointing a gloved hand like a referee.

“On the river’s edge at the back of the hospital, originally built in the early eighteen-thirties.

In those days, it was known as Mercy Lunatic Asylum, and it doesn’t sound like it was merciful based on what I’ve been finding out… ”

Her tone turns ominous as she moves closer to the barricaded entrance, her crew scurrying after her.

“Old murders you’re going to hear about later during a special report I’m working on,” she’s saying. “And now this. We’ve got our Eye in the Sky covering the investigation live to show you where it happened…”

I mute the sound.

“I’m assuming any drones flying around the scene right now aren’t what was detected earlier,” I say to Benton. “That’s not what has the CIA’s knickers in a knot?”

“No, it isn’t.” He takes a right at the history museum, formidable and columned like the Greek Parthenon. “What was detected earlier is the orb Lucy described.”

“And no one’s ever spotted it?” I find myself looking up at the sky, the sun pale like a fish scale in the lifting grayness.

“We haven’t, and it’s not been captured on camera that we know of. We see the holograms, the projections, but not what’s making them,” Benton explains with an edge of frustration.

“Yet we somehow know what it looks like. An orb.”

“From radar and other sensors, we know the shape,” he says, and I turn on the volume of my phone again.

“… Originally it was the hospital chapel, and imagine the stories it could tell, most of them terribly sad, I’m betting.” Dana Diletti’s voice sounds from the Tesla’s speakers. “Three-bedroom with a library and wine cellar, assessed at almost two million dollars…”

We’re shown aerial images of 13 Shore Lane as the low sun touches the hazy Potomac running along the back of the fenced-in property. The house is three-story stucco and timber with a fieldstone portico and bright red front door.

The place looks the same as I remember, except for the police vehicles parked on the slushy street, and the Christmas lights entwining shrubbery.

“… Officials aren’t talking much yet, but from what I’ve learned from other sources?

” Dana Diletti is saying into her microphone.

“Another Slasher ghost was spotted drifting through the fog earlier, what we’re told is a hologram the killer uses to stalk and create panic.

The same thing that floated through my bedroom window as I was exercising last night… ”

“This is bad,” I say to Benton. “Who the hell is she talking to?”

“I’m guessing she has a network of people leaking information to her,” he replies.

“… And that’s not all the breaking news, folks. This just in,” she’s saying. “The woman murdered in her own bed has been identified as Georgine Duvall, a psychiatrist at the hospital…”

“Oh my God,” I mutter.

“… The surviving victim, Zain Willard, was staying with her,” she goes on.

“Turns out he’s the nephew of Senator Calvin Willard, expected to be the Democratic nominee for president.

The plot thickens, as they say. Could the Slasher’s attacks be politically motivated?

Was Zain Willard targeted because of his prominent and powerful uncle… ?”

“I can’t believe how irresponsible she is.” I end the video feed. “Now the names are out there before we can confirm identity and notify next of kin.”

We’re driving on the George Washington Memorial Parkway now. Beyond trees I catch glimmers of the river.

“What I know for a fact is she’s been a frequent visitor to the White House in recent months,” Benton informs me. “A few weeks ago, I saw her having lunch with Calvin Willard in the mess hall.”

The private dining room is used by West Wing potentates, including the president and vice president of the United States. Not just anybody can step foot in there.

“A rumor is circulating that she might become the next press secretary if Calvin Willard is elected,” Benton explains.

“You’re implying that Calvin Willard might have tipped off Dana Diletti about his nephew almost being killed on Mercy Island?” I spell it out.

“It’s possible,” he says as the driving app announces a police vehicle two hundred feet ahead.

The Virginia State Police SUV is gray like a shark with push bars on the front bumper. It’s parked off-road in a sloppy soup of snow, slush and greenish-brown grass. The trooper stares as we drive past, giving me an uneasy feeling.

Ronald Reagan Washington National Airport is but a few miles ahead, the thunder of low-flying aircraft pervasive. I text Marino that we should reach the Pitié Bridge in the next fifteen minutes.

It’s slow going, I write to him.

Since Benton and I left the house, traffic has gone from moderate to heavy as it always does regardless of the holiday. I wonder where people are headed this early on Christmas morning. Most are oblivious, others furious in a discord of honking horns and rumbling engines.

10-4, Marino answers. See you when you get here.

“Everything okay?” I ask Benton as he continues glancing at his mirrors.

“Not sure,” he says, and I turn around to see what’s snagged his attention.