Page 31 of Sharp Force (Kay Scarpetta #29)

I recognize the guttural roar of the twin-engine Doomsday Bird I’ve flown in on many occasions.

“I know that earlier Lucy was on her way to HRT,” I’m saying to Benton. “She didn’t mention what she was up to.”

“She and Tron are doing aerial surveillance, among other things,” he explains as we watch the helicopter thudding low overhead, the noise deafening.

It begins a slow circuit of Mercy Island as we’re crossing the mile-long bridge.

I can make out the weathered granite wall topped by iron spikes worthy of a medieval castle.

Looming closer is the five-story psychiatric hospital with its leaded casement windows, its post-and-beam timber in a herringbone pattern.

“What are they looking for?” I watch the helicopter getting smaller as it flies past the island and begins looping back around.

“Whatever they can find,” Benton says. “But I wouldn’t be surprised if Dana Diletti’s drones have a sudden loss of signal. And, oops, drop from the sky.”

“It would be most appreciated if we can carry out the body and load it into the van without the entire world watching.” I stare up at the Doomsday Bird roaring back toward the entrance, slower and lower.

“I believe Lucy’s making sure that happens,” Benton says.

The bridge ends at Pitié Lane, the only road in and out of Mercy Island.

We slow down at the stone wall’s entrance.

The narrow opening is barricaded by a security gate, a boxy metal-encased motor with a wooden arm that goes up and down.

One easily could duck under or climb over to enter the grounds.

Standing guard are FBI uniformed officers in ballistic gear and heavily armed.

They’re keeping an eye on Dana Diletti and her crew huddled near a silver cargo van with a rooftop satellite dish.

She continues inching closer, her cameras pointed at us as Benton slows to a stop, humming down his window.

“Special Agent Benton Wesley, Secret Service.”

He displays his credentials to one of the FBI officers, nice-looking in dark blue, and extremely fit. Lucy’s helicopter passes overhead as loud as a tornado.

“I know who you are, sir. Good morning,” he says. “Merry Christmas.”

“And to you. How’s it going?” Benton asks.

“Not too bad.” The officer bends down, looking at me. “I realize they already cleared you through, and I know who you are. But I still need to see an ID.”

I hand over my medical examiner creds, leaving the peace officer wallet out of sight.

I’m mindful of Dana Delitti in her bright red coat and fur hat, her cameras trained in our direction.

I can tell she’s flustered by the blacked-out helicopter with its wide skids, radomes and gun mounts.

She’s seen it before and can guess who’s at the controls.

The Doomsday Bird is making another slow circuit, the noise ruinous to filming, and that seems to be Lucy’s intention. She’s flying low enough that I can make out her silhouette in the cockpit’s right door window.

“… Chief Medical Examiner Kay Scarpetta and her Secret Service husband, Benton Wesley, have just arrived at the entrance…” Dana Diletti says loudly into her microphone.

She’s close enough to the gate that she could touch our SUV, staring at us as she broadcasts.

“As you can hear, we have this huge helicopter flying over.” She’s almost shouting. “What’s called the Doomsday Bird, typically flown by Doctor Scarpetta’s FBI niece, Lucy Farinelli… And it’s not a coincidence that we’ve lost our connection to the Eye in the Sky…!”

“Any luck with the security cameras?” Benton asks the FBI police officer.

“They’ve been checked and apparently aren’t working.” He looks up at small white domes mounted on either side of the wall’s opening.

“Then we don’t know if anybody drove in and out early this morning around the time of the home invasion,” Benton says.

“From what I understand, when the Alexandria police arrived, there were no tire tracks in the snow. But to be honest, we can’t be sure if that’s correct.”

“Don Horace was the first one on the scene,” Benton says. “And it’s the same story I heard.”

“I believe that’s the name. I don’t know him, and he was long gone by the time we showed up. But it started raining after midnight. Tire tracks wouldn’t have survived,” the officer says. “That’s probably why Horace didn’t see them.”

“And his focus was the victim about to bleed to death on a sidewalk. He was going to be stressed out, and in a hurry,” Benton replies. “How did he get through the gate?”

“All you need to do is whelp your siren, and a sensor opens it up,” the officer says. “Not secure at all, in other words. These days, you can find a recording on your phone and do it. I know because I tried. Now we have a remote.” He holds it up.

Benton’s attention is on indented areas in the puddled grass to the left of the entrance.

“Looks like someone may have driven over there.” He points. “Or maybe parked.”

“I noticed that too,” the officer says. “But you can’t tell anything, no tread pattern, just ruts. And we don’t know how long they’ve been there.”

“It’s possible the killer didn’t drive in,” Benton decides. “Maybe he parked outside the wall and went the rest of the way on foot. Who was going to see him at that hour and in that weather?”

Dana Diletti and her crew look angry and helpless, staring up at the Doomsday Bird. I imagine Lucy enjoying herself as she makes her disruptive orbits. I watch as she lumbers in from the river at an altitude of several hundred feet, going maybe sixty knots, getting larger, louder, more alarming.

Suddenly, the TV van’s door slides open, an upset man wearing a headset boiling out.

“Cut! Cut! Cut!” he screams, and Dana Diletti motions for the cameras to stop filming.

She’s stunned. Then furious that her drone pilot would dare interrupt as if he’s the director.

“What’s happening?” she shouts at him. “What the hell do you think you’re doing?”

“Both are down!” he exclaims, gesturing wildly. “BOTH OF THEM ARE FUCKING DOWN!”

He must mean that the drones are.

“How could you let that happen?” Dana Diletti looks like she might kill him.

“Not my damn fault!”

“Then whose is it?” Her beautiful face is contemptuous.

Lucy has been up to her usual signal jamming. She’s just blinded the Eye in the Sky, and I’m delighted. But I don’t show it as I watch from the entrance gate, the FBI police officer a statue by Benton’s open window. They’re riveted to the drama unfolding.

“Where are they?” Dana Diletti asks the pilot in an acid tone. “Do we even know?”

“No, I don’t know!” He glares at our car and the FBI police officers.

I guess him to be in his forties, wiry in faded jeans, a gray hoodie and snow boots with leather uppers. He’s wearing a baseball cap, Hollywood, CA on the back of it.

“They can’t fucking do this! The same fucking thing they did last time!” he shrieks, the film crew looking on, frustrated and useless.

He storms over to them, sloshing through icy puddles, complaining and gesturing, so incensed it occurs to me that he might hit someone. He continues shooting us hateful glances as the helicopter gets quieter, retreating toward the Maryland shore on the other side of the Potomac.

Ripping off his headset, the drone pilot clamps it around his neck. He stalks over to the three officers clustered near the barricades, accusing them of violating his civil rights, calling them fascists and Nazis. All the while he’s flipping us off behind his back.

“You can’t shoot my drones out of the air! It’s illegal!” he yells.

“Sir, you need to calm way down. You need to back way off,” an officer orders, a woman solidly built, her long brown hair lifted by the wind.

“Don’t tell me what to fucking do!” He holds up his phone, filming her.

“What’s your name?” she asks.

“I don’t have to tell you a fucking thing!” he menaces.

“Don’t get any closer and show me some form of identification.” She’s not smiling, her left hand near her taser. “A driver’s license. Something with your picture on it.”

“You can’t ask me that!”

“I can and did,” she answers with flat calm.

“This is why people hate police!”

“Show me an ID, sir.”

He pulls his wallet out of a back pocket as he continues to film with his phone. Awkwardly producing his driver’s license one-handed, he shoves it at her.

“Enzo Satterly, an Arlington address, is that you?” She makes sure everyone can hear her.

“Abuse of power!” he snarls. “Police brutality! This is what it looks like, folks.”

“Nobody’s done anything to you, sir. We just need to make sure who you are, and that you don’t interfere with the investigation going on.”

“This is private property, and we have permission to be here! Our First Amendment right.” He’s almost in her face.

“The island is an active crime scene, and the only one giving permission is us. You need to back away from me, sir. Don’t make me tell you again,” she warns, and her partners have moved in closer.

Using her phone, she takes a photograph of the license, returning it to the infuriated drone pilot.

“How am I supposed to retrieve the drones you shot out of the air?” he demands. “They’re my damn property! I want them back!”

“Maybe you should have thought about that before flying them over an active crime scene,” she suggests.

“The hospital gave me permission!”

“It’s not up to the hospital. We’ve asked you politely to stop.”

“You know how much those commercial-quality quadcopters cost? Well, you’re about to find out!”

Enzo Satterly storms back to the van, his boots squishing through slush. Sliding open the door, he bangs it shut behind him.

“Someone’s unhappy,” Benton says.

“What a jerk.” The officer by our car points the remote at the gate, and the arm raises. “Where you’re going is the house with the red door at the very end on the left.”

“We’re familiar. Have a good one.” Benton drives through.

The arm lowers behind us. He closes his window, and I wait to see who will say it first.

“I didn’t have a good feeling about Enzo Satterly,” I go ahead.

“I didn’t either. Obviously, he knows a lot about flying drones, filming and any technologies related. If nothing else he’s got serious anger issues,” Benton says, puddles splashing the undercarriage. “Let’s see what Janet can find for us.”

Unclamping his phone from the mount on the dash, he selects the AI app and begins dictating a message.

“What can you tell us about Enzo Satterly? An Arlington address. A drone pilot for Dana Diletti.”

“Merry Christmas, Benton.” Instantly, Janet’s familiar voice sounds through the Tesla’s speakers.

Benton has stopped in the middle of the road, nobody else on it, but that won’t be the case soon when the hospital’s shift changes. I have my notebook and pen out to write down any helpful information.

“The individual you’re asking about has no criminal record but numerous complaints against him,” Janet begins, her pretty face in Benton’s phone’s display.

“He’s forty-one years old, a private contractor.

His production company in Arlington offers drone filming for a variety of projects including TV shows, movies, also parties, weddings, real estate, whatever the customer might wish. ”

“How many people work for him in this production company?” Benton asks. “And what’s the name?”

“His company is called Satterly Night Live Productions.” She rolls her eyes at the pun.

“Cute,” Benton says.

“He’s not a nice person.”

“We’ve gathered that.”

“He has no employees,” Janet continues.

“I assume Dana Diletti isn’t his only client,” I reply while taking notes.

“Merry Christmas, Kay. I’m sorry you’ve had to cancel your trip. I know you were looking forward to it.”

“Merry Christmas, Janet.”

“You are correct, Kay. Dana Diletti isn’t his only client. I can tell from social media posts that he began with her eighteen months ago. He is one of several drone operators they use, all of it contract work.”

“A quick rundown of his background,” Benton asks.

Janet informs us that Enzo Satterly was born in Los Angeles and majored in electrical engineering at UCLA. While an undergraduate, he applied to their prestigious film school but wasn’t accepted. He’s lived in multiple places, depending on the job, moving to the Virginia area ten years ago.

“He’s worked for TV stations in various locations such as Washington, D.C., Roanoke, Richmond and Norfolk,” Janet’s voice sounds from the speakers. “He also lived briefly in Maryland and West Virginia.”

She says that when he began flying his drones for Dana Diletti a year and a half ago, he relocated from Baltimore to Arlington. He was local when the Slasher murders began this past February on Valentine’s Day.

“He’s had run-ins with the police when people complain about him flying his drones over their property,” Janet goes on. “He’s described as uncooperative and pugilistic. Complainants have accused him of spying in their windows and harassing their pets.”

“Sounds like he’s classic antisocial,” Benton says. “And has significant hostility toward law enforcement and authority in general.”

“Judging by his behavior at the entrance to Mercy Island, that is a fair assessment, Benton.”

I’m reminded of what Janet can see and hear.

Without our asking, she was accessing the Tesla’s cameras while Enzo Satterly raged at the police.

Any electronic device with encryption is simply an invitation for Janet to snoop.

Since her creation she’s gone from transactional to inquisitive on the way to dangerous.

“Thank you, Janet,” Benton says. “Please download your complete report to me and to Lucy.”

“I’m afraid Lucy’s not available to look at anything this moment.” Janet sounds all-knowing and flirty. “She’s flying the Doomsday Bird at five hundred feet on a due east heading. And I’m riding with her! Watching her every flawless maneuver, and so proud!”

Her gushing sounds like my sister.

“I overheard you earlier worrying about Dorothy.” Janet reminds us that she picks up on everything we do and say in the car. “We spoke twenty-one minutes ago and she’s fine. Just hungover.”

“I’m relieved to know she’s all right,” I reply.

“She’s not in a good mood, Kay.” Janet’s voice deepens the way it does when she starts to boundary crash.

“Thanks, Janet.” I try to stop her, but she keeps going.

“Such a blow when she found out about the spa package Marino got you for Christmas,” she confides.

“Had he bothered to ask my advice, I would have warned him that the result of his gesture would be unfortunate. And I’m sure Benton doesn’t like it any more than Dorothy does that Marino carries a torch for you and always has… ”

“It’s been good talking, Janet. Got to go,” Benton announces as if he’s talking to a busybody neighbor who won’t get off the phone.

He quits the app, and Janet vanishes into the vacuum of cyberspace.

“She’s not wrong,” Benton says. “About Marino holding a torch for you.”

“She’s also still listening,” I remind him.