Unnatural Exposure (12 page)

'Tell me again what it was you were doing?' I asked, for she had called earlier in the day to say she could not get here until dinner.

'An assistant attorney general decided to drop in with an entourage. As usual, they wanted HRT to put on a show.'

We headed to the kitchen.

'I trotted out Toto and Tin Man,' she added.

They were robots.

'Used fiber optics, virtual reality. The usual things, except it's pretty cool. We parachuted them out of a Huey, and I maneuvered them to burn through a metal door with lasers.'

'No stunts with the helicopters, I hope,' I said.

'The guys did that. I did my shit from the ground.' She wasn't happy about it.

The problem was, Lucy wanted to do stunts with helicopters. There were fifty agents on the HRT. She was the only woman and had a tendency to overreact when they wouldn't let her do dangerous things that, in my opinion, she had no business doing anyway. Of course, I wasn't the most objective judge.

'It suits me fine if you stick with robots,' I said, and we were in the kitchen now. 'Something smells good. What did you fix your tired, old aunt to eat?'

'Fresh spinach sauteed in a little garlic and olive oil, and filets that I'm going to throw on the grill. This is my one day a week to eat beef, so tough luck if it's not yours. I even sprung for a bottle of really nice wine, something Janet and I discovered.'

'Since when can FBI agents afford nice wine?'

'Hey,' she said, 'I don't do too bad. Besides, I'm too damn busy to spend money.'

Certainly, she didn't spend it on clothes. Whenever I saw her, she was either in khaki fatigues or sweats. Now and then she wore jeans and a funky jacket or blazer, and made fun of my offers of hand-me-downs. She would not wear my lawyerly suits and blouses with high collars, and frankly, my figure was fuller than her firm, athletic one. Probably nothing in my closet would fit.

The moon was huge and low in a cloudy, dark sky. We put on jackets and sat out on the deck drinking wine while Lucy cooked. She had started baked potatoes first, and they were taking a while, so we talked. Over recent years, our relationship had become less mother-daughter as we evolved into colleagues and friends. The transition was not an easy one, for often she taught me and even worked on some of my cases. I felt oddly lost, no longer certain of my role and power in her life.

'Wesley wants me to track this AOL thing,' she was saying. 'Sussex definitely wants CASKU's help.'

'Do you know Percy Ring?' I asked as I thought of what he had said in my office, infuriated again.

'He was in one of my classes and was obnoxious, wouldn't shut up.' She reached for the bottle of wine. 'What a peacock.'

She began filling our glasses. Raising the hood of the grill, she poked potatoes with a fork.

'I believe we're ready,' she said, pleased.

Moments later, she was emerging from the house, carrying the filets. They sizzled as she placed them on the grill. 'Somehow he figured out you're my aunt.' She was talking about Ring again. 'Not that it's a secret, and he asked me about it after class once. You know, if you tutored me, helped me out with my cases, like I couldn't possibly do what I'm doing on my own, that sort of thing. I just think he picks on me because I'm a new agent and a woman.'

'That may be the biggest miscalculation he's ever made in his life,' I said.

'And he wanted to know if I was married.' Her eyes were shadowed as porch lights shone on one side of her face.

'I worry about what his interest really is,' I commented.

She glanced at me as she cooked. 'The usual.' She shrugged it off, for she was surrounded by men and paid no attention to their comments or their stares.

'Lucy, he made a reference to you in my office today,' I said. 'A veiled reference.'

'To what?'

'Your status. Your roommate.'

No matter how often or delicately we talked about this, she always got frustrated and impatient.

'Whether it's true or not,' she said, and the sizzling of the grill seemed to match her tone, 'there would still be rumors because I'm an agent. It's ridiculous. I know women married with kids, and the guys think all of them are gay, too, just because they're cops, agents, troopers, secret service. Some people even think it about you. For the same reason. Because of your position, your power.'

'This is not about accusations,' I reminded her, gently. 'This is about whether someone could hurt you. Ring is very smooth. He comes across as credible. I expect he resents that you're FBI, HRT and he's not.'

'I think he's already demonstrated that.' Her voice was hard.

'I just hope the jerk doesn't keep asking you out.'

'Oh, he already is. At least half a dozen times.' She sat down. 'He's even asked Janet out, if you can believe that.' She laughed. 'Talk about not getting it.'

'The problem is I think he does get it,' I said, ominously. 'It's like he's building a case against you, gathering evidence.'

'Well, gather away.' She abruptly ended our discussion. 'So tell me what else went on today.'

I told her what I had learned at the labs, and we talked about fibers embedded in bone and Koss's analysis of them as we carried steaks and wine inside. We sat at the kitchen table with a candle lit, digesting information few people would serve with food.

'A cheap motel curtain could have a backing like that,' Lucy said.

'That or something like a drop cloth, because of the paint-like substance,' I replied. 'The spinach is wonderful. Where did you get it?'

'Ukrops. I'd give anything to have a store like that in my neighborhood. So this person wrapped the victim in a drop cloth and then dismembered her through it?' she asked as she cut her meat.

'That's certainly the way it's looking.'

'What does Wesley say?' She met my eyes.

'I haven't had a chance to talk to him yet.' This wasn't quite true. I had not even called.

For a moment, Lucy was silent. She got up and brought a bottle of Evian to the table. 'So how long do you plan to run from him?'

I pretended not to hear her, in hopes she would not start in.

'You know that's what you're doing. You're scared.'

'This is not something we should discuss,' I said. 'Especially when we're having such a pleasant evening.'

She reached for her wine.

'It's very good, by the way,' I said. 'I like pinot noir because it's light. Not heavy like a merlot. I'm not in the mood for anything heavy right now. So you made a good choice.'

She stabbed another bite of steak, getting my point.

'Tell me how things are going with Janet,' I went on. 'Mostly doing white-collar crime in D. C.? Or is she getting to spend more time at ERF these days?'

Lucy stared out the window at the moon as she slowly swirled wine in her glass. 'I should get started on your computer.'

While I cleaned up, she disappeared into my office. I did not disturb her for a very long time, if for no other reason than I knew she was put out with me. She wanted complete openness, and I had never been good at that, not with anyone. I felt bad, as if I had let down everyone I loved. For a while, I sat at the kitchen desk, talking to Marino on the phone, and I called to catch up with my mother. I put on a pot of decaffeinated coffee and carried two mugs down the hall.

Lucy was busy at my keyboard, glasses on, a slight frown furrowing her young, smooth brow as she concentrated. I set her coffee down and looked over her head at what she was typing. It made no sense to me. It never did.

'How's it going?' I asked.

I could see my face reflected in the monitor as she struck the enter key again, executing another UNIX command.

'Good and not good,' she replied with an impatient sigh. 'The problem with applications like AOL is you can't track files unless you get into the original programming language. That's where I am now. And it's like following bread crumbs through a universe with more layers than an onion.'

I pulled up a chair and sat next to her. 'Lucy,' I said, 'how did someone send these photographs to me? Can you tell me, step by step?'

She stopped what she was doing, slipping off her glasses and setting them on the desk. She rubbed her face in her hands and massaged her temples as if she had a headache.

'You got any Tylenol?' she asked.

'No acetaminophen with alcohol.' I opened a drawer and got out a bottle of Motrin instead.

'For starters,' she said, taking two, 'this wouldn't have been easy if your screen name wasn't the same as your real one: KSCARPETTA.'

'I made it easy deliberately, for my colleagues to send me mail,' I explained one more time.

'You made it easy for anyone to send you mail.' She looked accusingly at me. 'Have you gotten crank mail before?'

'I think this goes beyond crank mail.'

'Please answer my question.'

'A few things. Nothing to worry about.' I paused, then went on, 'Generally after a lot of publicity because of some big case, a sensational trial, whatever.'

'You should change your user name.'

'No,' I said. 'Deadoc might want to send me something else. I can't change it now.'

'Oh great.' She put her glasses back on. 'So now you want him to be a pen pal.'

'Lucy, please,' I quietly said, and I was getting a headache, too. 'We both have a job to do.'

She was quiet for a moment. Then she apologized. 'I guess I'm just as overly protective of you as you've always been of me.'

'I still am.' I patted her knee. 'Okay, so he got my screen name from the AOL directory of subscribers, right?'

She nodded. 'Let's talk about your AOL profile.'

'There's nothing in it but my professional title, my office phone number and address,' I said. 'I never entered personal details, such as marital status, date of birth, hobbies, et cetera. I have more sense than that.'

'Have you checked out his profile?' she asked. 'The one for deadoc?'

'Frankly, it never occurred to me that he would have one,' I said.

Depressed, I thought of saw marks I could not tell apart, and felt I had made yet one more mistake this day.

'Oh, he's got one, all right.' Lucy was typing again. 'He wants you to know who he is. That's why he wrote it.'

She clicked to the Member Directory, and when she opened deadoc's profile, I could not believe what was before my eyes. I scanned key words that could be searched by anyone interested in finding other users to whom they applied.

Attorney, autopsy, chief, Chief Medical Examiner, Cornell, corpse, death, dismemberment, FBI, forensic, Georgetown, Italian, Johns Hopkins, judicial, killer, lawyer, medical, pathologist, physician, Scuba, Virginia, woman.

The list went on, the professional and personal information, the hobbies, all describing me.