Page 35 of Sharp Force (Kay Scarpetta #29)

The small bird is busy on the foyer skylight, flitting and flickering. I realize it’s a sparrow, brown and industrious, flashes of feathers and shiny dark eyes. It strews bits of dead grass over the glass, repairing a nest as Benton returns to the foyer.

“How many exterior doors?” he asks. “When we walked through this place five years ago, there were three. One in front, one in back and a door in the basement that was always deadbolted.”

“That’s it.” Marino has his gloves off, a trace of a smile as he types a text on his phone.

“Were the doors locked or unlocked when first responders got here?” Benton asks.

“Basement and back door were locked.” Marino is reading another message landing. “The front door was unlocked and not closed all the way.”

“So, when Zain left the house to find a phone signal, he didn’t shut the door,” I reply.

“Apparently,” Marino says.

“What about the gate?” Benton asks. “I noticed that it opens when you’re leaving but requires a key to enter.”

“It was open when Officer Horace arrived,” Marino answers.

He begins typing again, distracted, the same shadow of a smile.

“Everything okay?” I look at him.

“Mick and Rick.” Marino’s face is touched by emotion.

“Who?” Benton puzzles, and Marino tells him.

“Fortunately, they didn’t lose power,” he adds, as if that’s the reason he’s communicating with the O’Leary twins on Christmas morning. “So I don’t need to drop off my spare generator.” He seems disappointed. “If there’s time later today, I’ll stop by to see how they’re doing.”

“Very kind of you, but be careful, Marino. Don’t let your feelings get you in trouble,” Benton says. “Whatever’s going on, I worry Rowdy O’Leary is tangled in the web. We don’t know who or what he might have been dealing with.”

“They’re nine-year-old kids,” Marino growls like a protective bear. “Whatever their loser of a dead father might have been involved in? It has nothing to do with them.”

“He might not have been a loser before he was hit by a car,” Benton says.

“I got hold of Trad Whalen last night,” Marino tells us. “And everything I’m hearing makes me think Rowdy O’Leary was screwed up and not much of a family man even before he got run over.”

“You’d be most unwise to consider Trad Whalen a reliable narrator,” Benton warns.

He tells Marino about our being pulled over by the trooper on our way here, and how aggressive he was. But Benton doesn’t mention the tracking device.

“I’ll be outside.” He zips up his Secret Service jacket, putting on his sunglasses.

He wants to let the scene speak to him and needs to be alone to channel. His method is to save the worst for last. He won’t look at the body until he’s scrutinized everything leading up to it.

I no longer hear Lucy’s helicopter as Benton opens the front door, a chilly damp wind blowing in. Sunlight paints over the sticky mats, illuminating our footprints on them. He walks out as Marino checks his phone, a dark expression crossing his face.

“What now?” I ask as the door shuts.

“Have you heard from her?” He means Dorothy.

“Not yet.”

“I texted her again when you were pulling up. Still nothing.”

“I’m sorry. You know how she can get, but I hear she’s fine,” I tell him. “Benton and I talked to Janet a little while ago—”

“Fucking troublemaker.” He cuts me off.

“Dorothy’s already been in communication with her this morning.” I hate to tell him.

“What a shock.”

He opens the front door, inspecting the brass hardware. The exterior curved handle and keyhole are corroding from exposure to the elements. Several of the FBI crime scene investigators stand up, and Marino waves them off.

“How much longer?” one of them yells.

“We’ll let you know!” Marino shouts.

“We need to get in…!”

“You ready to rock and roll, Doc?” Marino shuts the door again.

We work our legs into flimsy white coveralls that always make me think of a FedEx envelope. Tyvek rustles, the same polyethylene material used to wrap a building under construction. We zip up, putting on new face masks and gloves.

“What are you doing?” I ask as Marino opens his toolbox.

“You’ll see.”

“I never trust it when you say that.”

Usually he would laugh or joke, but he doesn’t react. Fueled by bruised feelings and anger, he isn’t interested in approval or permission. I watch him pick out screwdrivers, realizing his intention.

“Marino?”

His Tyvek-covered boots lightly stick to the mats by the front door. He begins studying the interior knob and lock lever. He picks up a small flathead screwdriver.

“And why is this our responsibility?” I ask. “Since when?”

His answer is to put on LED magnifiers that look like high-tech opera glasses.

“What’s gotten into you?” I say to him, but it’s not hard to figure out the answer.

“I know what the hell I’m doing better than any of them. That’s what’s gotten into me,” he replies. “I’m sick and tired of pretending a bunch of newbie cops and big-shot federal agents are smarter than me.”

“Nobody’s treating you that way,” I reply. “Not today.”

He uses the screwdriver to pry up the interior knob’s backplate.

“Like I’m nothing more than a morgue diener. An old horse who can’t learn any new tricks.” He mixes metaphors as usual.

Behind the backplate is a lever that he manipulates with the screwdriver blade. He pulls the interior knob out of the door, exposing two screws that hold the exterior handle in place. He tries to turn a screw, but it’s not budging.

“It’s rusted in there pretty good, and I’ve got to do this carefully. Don’t want to strip the threads, and if the screw breaks that will be even worse,” he explains. “There should be WD-40 in my scene case.”

I find the can of lubricant, handing it to him. Flipping up the red straw, Marino lightly sprays the two screws. Setting the WD-40 on the floor, he picks up a Phillips screwdriver.

“No telling how long ago everything was installed,” he observes. “The door looks really old and wasn’t always red. The hardware’s definitely been replaced at some point, but not anytime recently. Probably decades ago. Now we’re talking.”

The screw turns, and he keeps working with the light touch, the sure hand of a surgeon. I snap open the locks on my scene case, finding evidence labels and a Sharpie. Marino drops the steel screw into a small plastic evidence bag.

“I used to do stuff like this all the time. Not just at crime scenes but fixing up my own house.” He starts on the second screw. “Back in the day when I could install and fix whatever I wanted without the peanut gallery deciding otherwise.” He means my sister.

Moments later he’s removed the screw, grabbing the front handle before it clatters to the stone porch. Sunlight fills the borehole, and he begins working on the deadbolt.

“Whoever touched it with bloody hands wasn’t wearing gloves,” he says. “Zain I’m all but positive.”

Marino pries off the deadbolt mounting plate, exposing the screws, and they look old and rusty like the others.

“Mostly what we’re going to find out is what you and me already know,” he says. “There won’t be any tool marks left by the Slasher. The lock wasn’t jimmied open. Nothing was pried, I can see that already. I wonder if that’s true in the first three cases?”

We don’t know. At the earlier scenes, Marino wasn’t removing door handles or anything else that’s not our department.

“I guarantee the Slasher used a key,” Marino deduces.

“How might someone have gotten hold of a key, assuming the person didn’t already have one?” I ask. “Unless Georgine hid one somewhere. Or maybe Zain did while staying on Mercy Island whenever he’s up this way.”

“We know the Slasher had to be spying on Georgine.” Marino sprays more WD-40. “He might have seen where she hid a spare key. Or maybe he saw someone else hide or retrieve it.”

“He may have done the same thing with the other victims.” I take off my gloves, throwing them away.

Picking up my phone, I check messages.

“The Slasher’s figuring out where his victims hide their house keys.” Marino works on another screw. “Then he strikes, probably coming and going through the front door like he lives there.”

As we’re talking, I read the latest messages from Clark Givens and Fabian. Hospital staff are arriving for work, and they’re behind a long line of cars trying to drive onto the island. Every one of them will be checked by the police.

This could take a while, Clark texts.

Marino is telling me about Zain Willard’s 1968 muscle car, a hornet-green Cougar in mint condition. It’s not something he likely drove in bad conditions. And it’s conspicuous.

“Apparently he uses Georgine Duvall’s Cadillac to run errands when the two of them are here at the same time,” Marino explains.

“Maybe he’s also been borrowing it without her knowing.

As quiet as electric cars are, she might not have heard him drive out of the garage during the early morning hours.

If he’s the Slasher, maybe that’s what he’s been driving to his victims’ neighborhoods. ”

“How do you know for a fact that she let Zain borrow her car?” I ask. “Although it wouldn’t surprise me.”

I’m not going to tell him that Georgine used to do the same thing with Lucy. I was stunned when she came to visit me in Richmond on one occasion, showing up in her psychiatrist’s Land Rover.

“Graden Crowley said he’s seen Zain driving her Cadillac Lyriq.” Marino works on another screw.

“The car’s cameras should be able to prove that,” I reply. “I would think it has a black box, a data recorder.”

“I’m not sure it would tell you where the car went unless a GPS location was entered.” Marino drops the screw into the small plastic bag. “And the Slasher’s way too smart to do that.”

“But it would tell you if the car was driven around the time of the murders,” I reply.

“Usually, black boxes don’t store data longer than thirty days. I know that’s true with the one in my truck,” he explains. “And the last time the Slasher struck before now was on Halloween, almost two months ago. So, forget it.”

“And if Zain Willard is the killer, he didn’t need to drive anywhere last night.” I feel another wave of discouragement.

“Exactly.”

“I wonder if Georgine was staying here when the first three murders were committed,” I reply.

“I have a feeling she’s been here every time Zain has. That’s why she comes,” Marino has decided. “Assuming she was his private shrink, and I guarantee that’s the case.”

“I’m surprised Graden was so helpful,” I reply. “I’m surprised he didn’t refuse to answer anything at all the way he does when we show up.”

“That’s because I handled him,” Marino says. “He was helpful until he realized he wasn’t going to get what he wanted in return.”

“Which was?” I ask.

“He wanted to see the body. And for a while I played good cop. I acted buddy-buddy with him, like it might be a possibility for him to come inside and poke around,” Marino explains.

“When he finally realized that wasn’t going to happen, he got belligerent.

He tried to come up on the porch. I promised to arrest his pompous ass if he didn’t leave right then. ”

“I hope you didn’t really say all that,” I reply as I think, Oh God.

“Hell yeah, I ordered him off the property.”

“Well, we’ve not heard the end of it.” I have no doubt. “You can rest assured he’ll cause a stink.”

“I’m just doing my job.” Marino partly opens the front door again, a bar of sunlight painting on the mats.

“How did he react?” I ask.

“He started walking around the outside of the house, trying to look through windows, breathing on the glass. I told him I needed to swab him for DNA, and he refused at first.”

Marino pulls out the lock cylinder, clanking the hardware into a paper bag.

“We’re not supposed to threaten people with arrest.” I hand him another label. “That’s not what the medical examiner’s office does.”

“It’s exactly what we’re supposed to be doing, according to the General Assembly.” He places the bag inside the Pelican case as I hear footsteps on the porch that don’t sound like Benton’s.