Page 30 of Sharp Force (Kay Scarpetta #29)

We’re nearing Daingerfield Island’s picnic areas, parking lots and marina off to our right at the river’s edge. The Mount Vernon Trail cuts through the wooded spit of land, snow showing in shadows between trees, and now Marino is texting again.

I think of the signal jammer found outside the wall around the hospital grounds, the same small black box with eight stubby antennas that’s turned up in the earlier murders.

The homemade device interferes with the signals between cell towers, rather much like background noise in a crowd drowning out a conversation.

“You don’t believe they’re related, do you?” I ask Benton. “The signal jammer at the crime scene, and what the trooper attached to our car?”

“Unfortunately, plenty of people out there are well versed in electronic devices, modification kits, and all that goes with them,” he answers.

“The components are readily available, and you can google for instructions. But it wouldn’t make sense to think the Slasher has something to do with an attempt at hacking into our car. ”

“Let’s hope not. It would suggest he knows a lot about us. But then he probably does if he’s spying on our property.”

I look up at the clearing sky as if I might spot the serial killer’s orb-shaped drone threading in and out of clouds.

“I suspect Whalen was passing along a message,” Benton says. “A threat from someone powerful. We’re being warned.”

“I find that very disturbing since there’s White House involvement,” I reply. “Are you considering what he did might be related to that?”

“Yes.”

“Should we be worried about Calvin Willard? Is he being protective of his nephew and warning us to be careful?” I ask.

“The publicity about Zain won’t be a good thing. No doubt already isn’t,” Benton says. “And if it turns out he’s the killer, that’s enough to tank Calvin Willard’s bid for president.”

I’m alerted of another incoming call. As I see who it is, I can’t help but think of the irony.

“Speaking of someone powerful,” I say to Benton.

“Doctor Scarpetta.” I answer my phone, pairing it with the SUV’s speakers.

“Please hold for the governor,” her chief of staff, Laverne, tells me.

I hope she won’t be listening in on the conversation. I have little doubt she’ll pass on anything useful to her pal Maggie Cutbush, who won’t hesitate to use the information against me somehow.

“Kay? What on earth is going on?” Governor Roxane Dare’s unhappy voice sounds inside the Tesla. “I wake up Christmas morning to news of another Phantom Slasher attack? This time on Mercy Island?”

“I’m on my way there—” I start to reply before she interrupts.

“Not even two months since the last murder, and now again. On Christmas morning of all times. Two victims slashed to pieces, the woman dead. I understand she was attacked in bed like the others.”

“As I’ve said, I haven’t reached the scene yet.” I’m not going to share what I know at this stage. “I’m not in a position to discuss—”

“Kay, we’re supposed to be partners in keeping the public safe.” The governor cuts me off. “Or at least this was my understanding when I brought you back to Virginia, appointing you chief again. Two powerful women working in tandem. I thought we’d have each other’s back.”

She’s making sure I’ve not forgotten why I’m here, and that I should be grateful. Eternally grateful. Most of all I’d better show it.

“I’m assuming it’s correct that one of the victims is Zain Willard.” Roxane gets to the real reason she’s calling. “Calvin Willard’s nephew, a lovely young man I met not so long ago at the lighting of the National Christmas Tree.”

“I won’t be releasing the names of the victims yet,” I tell her. “Not until their identities have been confirmed, the next of kin notified.”

“The news is everywhere, Kay. The next of kin must already know.”

“That would be a shame. No one should find out that way.”

“Listen, let’s not pretend.” The governor is getting testier.

“I happen to know for a fact that Zain Willard is in the hospital with serious injuries. Already there are conspiracy theories questioning his innocence. We need to stop the vicious rumors, and that’s what Calvin Willard wants.

The whole thing is unfortunately messy.”

“Murder always is, Roxane,” I reply.

“The less messy we can make this, the better.” The way she says it is meant to be intimidating. “Which brings me to another case all over the news. Rowdy O’Leary, such a heartbreak for his family. I assume he drowned after drinking too much while fishing at night?”

“He’s pending right now. There are a lot of questions.”

“Well, my sincere hope is you’ll finalize his case ASAP so his poor distraught family can have some peace of mind.”

It’s not a hope. Roxane is giving me a directive, and I think of Maggie appearing at my office as I was leaving yesterday. I have no doubt that she passed on everything I said to Laverne, who then relayed it to the governor.

“I don’t have enough information—” I’m saying, when Roxane interrupts again.

“Certainly sounds like an accidental drowning.”

“That’s not what I’m thinking.” I tell her that much.

“A suicide, and his wife and two little boys won’t get insurance money, my guess is.” The governor continues leaning on me.

“The investigation is far from over,” I reply.

“It’s been a while since we had lunch at the mansion and a proper conversation, Kay,” Roxane says in a hard tone. “We need to get something on the books right away.”

She ends the call without saying goodbye.

“I’m probably about to get fired,” I tell Benton as another passenger jet passes low overhead.

“It can happen whenever she decides. You knew that when she asked you to return to Virginia,” he answers simply, bluntly. “When the governor appoints someone, she can unappoint them in the blink of an eye. We’ve always known that’s the danger.”

“This isn’t like her, and what it tells me is she’s getting a lot of pressure behind the scenes,” I reply as a text from Laverne lands on my phone.

I’m expected at the governor’s mansion tomorrow at noon. The day after Christmas, and I sigh in frustration.

“Exactly what I was afraid of, as if I have time for this,” I tell Benton.

“Someone’s holding Roxane’s feet to the fire,” he says. “And it’s probably coming from Calvin Willard. Sometimes when people are angry and overly aggressive it’s because they’re scared.”

“Scared about what exactly? His chances in the next election?”

“He can’t be happy about what’s happened. He’s got to be worried about how his enemies will use it against him the same way they did with Biden and his son Hunter,” Benton says. “So far, Calvin Willard has been doing extremely well in the polls. But that can turn on a dime.”

“Do you think he persuaded Roxane to sic the trooper on us? Would she be that heavy-handed? Or maybe ham-fisted would be a better way to describe it.”

“It depends on what’s at stake for her,” Benton says.

“I don’t think it’s hard to guess based on the chatter out there. Roxane is hoping to be picked as Calvin Willard’s running mate.” I paint the picture. “I suspect there’s not much she wouldn’t do if it meant being vice president of the United States.”

“But why is she pushing you about Rowdy O’Leary?” Benton muses.

“Appearances as usual. Roxane wants to look hard on crime but compassionate toward victims. Beyond that, I don’t know,” I reply, and the Pitié Bridge is just ahead.

Two-lane with ornamental stone towers, the bridge connecting the mainland of Virginia to Mercy Island was built in the early 1800s. In French, pitié means pity or mercy, and long ago it wasn’t only the desperately ill who crossed over to the island, most never to return.

Countless people were exiled there as punishment. It was a way of solving a problem. Reasons for committal in the nineteenth century and well into the twentieth included mental illness or the accusation of it. Also, political beliefs, epilepsy, syphilis, domestic trouble, immorality.

Even laziness and reading too many novels could send people away for the rest of their days. Most treatments were ineffective and a horror. Ice baths. Bloodlettings with leeches. Exorcisms. Insulin and other shock therapies. Holes cut into skulls to reduce brain pressure or release evil spirits.

They were notorious for performing lobotomies by inserting a needle through an eye socket to destroy brain tissue in the frontal lobe.

Where are you? Marino is texting, and I tell him.

He goes on to warn that a drone is flying over 13 Shore Lane.

Dana Diletti, he writes, and it’s to be expected.

In the past few years, she’s routinely utilized drones when filming outdoors, as do most television and film productions. It’s easier than a helicopter and a fraction of the price.

I was in the driveway and the f*cking thing would have given me a haircut if I had any, Marino adds.

The Potomac is ruffled and leaden in hazy sunlight, no water taxis or sailboats out this early on Christmas morning. I can see the runways of Ronald Reagan Washington National Airport several miles upriver, the roar of low-flying jets constant as they take off and land.

A checkpoint has been set up at the entrance of the bridge. Four uniformed Alexandria police officers in winter gear are standing sentry, all traffic blocked by barricades and police cars. Benton stops the car, rolling down his window.

“Merry Christmas.” He shows his credentials to a female police sergeant who appears to be about my age.

“I’ve had merrier ones,” she says, in ballistic gear, an MP5 submachine gun on a sling across her chest.

Her hair is cropped short, her face masked by aviator sunglasses. I remember the spate of freckles across her cheeks, and her thick figure and broad shoulders. I’ve encountered her before at several death scenes and inside the courthouse on King Street.

“Who you got riding shotgun?” she asks Benton while staring at me.

I can tell she knows who I am. But she’s doing her job.

“Doctor Scarpetta,” he says as I dig out my wallet, holding up my chief medical examiner’s shield.

“I thought I recognized you,” she says with a smile that seems genuine.

“How are things going?” Benton asks her.

“Now that the word is out, we’ve got a lot more people trying to cross the bridge,” she replies.

“Just before you rolled up, we turned away at least a dozen rubberneckers who saw Dana Diletti running her mouth on TV. I expect it to get worse, and two drones are zipping around so far. Nothing I’d like better than to blast them out of the air with a shotgun. But no can do.”

“What makes you think there’s more than one?” Benton asks her. “And are we sure whose they are?”

“Definitely Dana Diletti’s. I’ve been watching her live coverage on my phone to see what she’s showing her TV audience. It’s obvious that her crew is flying a drone at the murder scene. Another one is monitoring people coming and going here on the bridge. In fact, there it is again.”

The sergeant points behind us, and we can see a quadcopter sailing in our direction like a flying black spider carrying a video camera attached to a gimbal. The drone abruptly halts into a wobbly hover above the checkpoint.

“This is what I’m talking about.” She scowls up at it.

I can hear the thing whining like a giant mosquito as it descends, now maybe twenty feet overhead. Rocking in the wind, it hangs in the air blatantly filming us.

“Where’s the person at the controls?” Benton asks the sergeant.

She stares off at Mercy Island, a dark green gash surrounded by water, the hospital peeking above trees on the other side of the bridge. Dana Diletti’s TV crew uses the checkpoint at the entrance to launch the drones, and police aren’t allowed to stop them, the sergeant explains.

“I’ve been told the inside of the TV van looks like NASA,” she continues. “All these control panels and stuff.”

The drone whines louder, aggressively dipping lower as if the pilot is listening and giving us the finger.

“Like I said, it’s nothing that a shotgun wouldn’t fix,” the sergeant says.

She stands by Benton’s open window, staring up contemptuously at the high-pitched annoyance.

“And it’s not right we have to put up with shit like this,” she complains. “The jerk in the van can probably hear everything we’re saying right now.”

“I have a feeling it won’t be a problem for long,” Benton replies as if he knows something we don’t. “I assume you’re also keeping track of anyone leaving the island.”

“Nobody has since we got here except cops in and out. But shift change is in an hour, and a lot of the hospital staff will be heading home.”

She keeps glancing up at the drone, the whining maddening.

“What about the staff coming in?” Benton asks her.

“We’ll check everyone, making sure no one unauthorized tries to sneak past us. Reporters for example.”

She returns Benton’s credentials.

“You’re good to go.” She pats his windowsill with a smile. “Y’all take care now.”

The police remove sawhorses and traffic cones to let us through, the drone following as we begin crossing the bridge. The aggressive quadcopter is directly over the back of our SUV, bird-dogging as if taunting and goading.

“The damn pilot probably picked up everything we were saying.” I watch in my visor mirror. “He’s having a good time messing with us.”

“I’d say that’s a safe bet.” Benton doesn’t seem concerned.

“The pilot knows who we are. Hell, we’re probably on live TV as we speak. Everyone can see your license plate in the process, by the way.”

“Sounds about right,” Benton replies as he drives, and now I’m hearing a helicopter, the thudding faint at first.

Then louder.

Next, it’s bearing down, and the drone zips straight up, speeding away as if escaping a large predator.