Blow Fly (Kay Scarpetta #12)(110)
"See any gators down there?" she asks Marino.
"I ain't looking for gators. And there ain't nothing down there."
As creeks move into rivers and Lucy spots a faint blue line on the horizon, they begin to reach civilization. The day is balmy and partly cloudy, good weather for being on the water. A lot of boats are out, and fishermen and people on pleasure crafts stare up at the helicopter. Lucy is careful not to fly too low, avoiding any appearance of surveillance. She's just a pilot heading somewhere. Banking east, she starts looking for Blind River. She tells Marino to do the same.
"Why do you think they call it Blind River?" he says. " 'Cause you can't see it, that's why."
The farther east they go, the more fishing camps they see, most of them well cared for, with boats docked in front. Lucy spots a canal, turns around and follows its convolutions south as it gets wider and turns into a river that empties into the lake. Numerous foreboding canals branch out from the river, and she circles, getting lower, finding not a single fishing shack.
"If Talley baited that hook with the arm," Lucy says, "then I have a feeling he's hiding out not too far from here."
"Well, if you're right and keep circling, he damn well is going to see us," Marino replies.
They head back, keeping up their scan, mostly concentrating on antennas and careful not to overfly petrochemical plants and find themselves intercepted. Lucy has spotted several bright orange Dauphine helicopters, the sort usually flown by the Coast Guard, which is now part of homeland security and constantly on alert for terrorists. Flying over a petrochemical plant is not a wise move these days. Flying into a thousand-foot antenna is worse. Lucy has pushed back the airspeed to ninety knots, in no hurry to return to the airport as she debates if now is the time to tell Marino the truth.
She won't be able to look at him while airborne and keeping alert to avoid coming anywhere near obstacles. Her stomach tightens and her pulse speeds up.
"I don't know how to say this," she begins.
"You don't have to say nothing," he replies. "I already know."
"How?" She is baffled and scared.
"I'm a detective, remember? Chandonne sent two sealed letters, one to you, one to me, both of them inside NAJ envelopes. You never let me read yours. Said it was a lot of deranged crap. I could've pushed, but something told me not to. Then next thing, you've disappeared, you and Rudy, and a couple days later I find out Rocco's dead. All I ask is if Chandonne told you where to find him and gave you enough info to get Rocco pinned with a Red Notice."
"Yes. I didn't show you the letter. I was afraid you'd go to Poland yourself."
"And do what?"
"What do you think? If you found him inside that hotel room and finally confronted him, saw him up close for what he was, what would you have done?"
"Probably the same thing you and Rudy did," Marino says.
"I can tell you all the details."
"I don't want to know."
"Maybe you really couldn't have done it yourself, Marino. Thank God you didn't. He was your son," she tells him. "And in some very hidden part of your heart, you loved him."
"What hurts worse than him being dead is I never did," he says.
115
THE FIRST BLOOD IS THREE feet inside the front door, a single drop the size of a dime, perfectly round with a stellate margin reminiscent of a buzzsaw blade.
Ninety-degree angle, Scarpetta thinks. A drop of blood moving through the air assumes an almost perfect spherical shape that is maintained on impact if the blood falls straight down, at a ninety-degree angle.
"She was upright, or someone was," Scarpetta says.
She stands very still, her eyes moving from one drop to the next on the terra-cotta tile floor. At the edge of the rug in front of the couch is a bloody area that appears to have been smeared by a foot, as if the person who stepped on the blood-spotted tile slipped. Scarpetta moves in for a closer inspection, staring at the dry, dark red stain, then turning her head and meeting Dr. Lanier s eyes. He comes over, and she points out an almost indiscernible partial footwear impression of a heel with a small undulating tread pattern that reminds Scarpetta of a child's drawing of ocean waves.
Eric begins taking photographs.
From the couch, the signs of the struggle continue around a glass and wrought-iron coffee table that is askew, the rug rumpled beneath it, and just beyond, a head was slammed against the wall.
"Hair swipes." Scarpetta points out a bloody pattern feathering over the pale pink paint.
The front door opens and in walks a plainclothes cop, young, with dark, receding hair. He looks back and forth between Dr. Lanier and Eric, and fixes on Scarpetta.
"Who's she?" he asks.
"Let's start with who you are," Dr. Lanier says to him.
The cop seems threatening because he is frantic, his eyes darting back in the direction of an area of the house they can't see. "Detective Clark, with Zachary." He swats at a fly, the black hair on top of his fingers showing through translucent latex gloves stretched over his big hands. "I just got transferred into investigations last month," he adds. "So I don't know her." He nods again at Scarpetta, who hasn't moved from her spot by the wall.
"A visiting consultant," Dr. Lanier replies. "If you haven't heard of her, you will. Now tell me what happened here. Where's the body, and who's with it?"