The Bone Bed

six

I FLIP UP THE HINGED BOX COVER OF THE BIOMETRIC reader mounted on the side of the building and lightly press my left thumb against the glass scanner. The torque motor purrs, and steel roller chains noisily begin lowering the half-ton sectional shutter bay door.

The Coast Guard should have drysuits,” I say to Marino, as I settle into the Tahoe’s front passenger’s seat, and I know him.

He picked whatever was most recently washed and filled with gas, which likely was what Luke Zenner observed when he noticed Marino scouting out various vehicles in the parking lot. I smell the pleasant scent of Armor All and notice the dash is glossy, the carpet spotless. Marino likes a V8 engine, the bigger and louder a vehicle the better, and I’m reminded of how much he loathes the new fleet of SUVs I picked, Toyota Sequoias, fuel-efficient, practical, what I drive every day because I don’t need to prove anything to anyone.

We always keep a couple drysuits in the storage lockers. I make sure of it with every scene truck.” Marino reminds me of his diligence, and I sense an unpleasant conversation coming on. “There’s two in back. I checked.”

Good.” I fasten my shoulder harness and find my sunglasses as he backs up. “But hopefully whatever the Coast Guard has on board is better than ours, which isn’t saying much. The suits we have are pretty awful, intended for very basic search and rescue, and not evidence recovery.”

Government surplus,” Marino complains, and he has something on his mind.

I can always tell.

Crap that’s the lowest bid for Homeland Security or DoD, and then they don’t want it and it gets passed down the line at a deal,” he says. “Like those cartons for organ sections that said Fish Bait? Back in our Richmond days? Remember?”

It’s not exactly something one could forget.”

Marino started tweeting, maybe started drinking again, not long after I hired Luke, and I wonder if Luke said something to him in the parking lot a few minutes ago. I wonder if Luke asked where we were going and added the reminder that he is PADI trained and certified at a professional level, is a master instructor and rescue diver.

Because you needed a shitload of plasticized cartons and it went out on bid?” Marino remembers fondly.

And we used them, had no choice.”

Yeah, if that happened now a defense attorney would have a field day with it.”

I think of Mildred Lott and what I likely face. Court is still on for me, as far as I know. If only I had been more careful. If only I hadn’t made a damn stupid comment that I fear will soon be all over the news.

We may not need to go in at all unless she’s no longer close to the surface.” Marino stops the Tahoe at the black metal security gate. “In the photo Pam sent it looks like she’s within easy reach. Probably we can just pull the lines in and won’t even need a drysuit, but who the shit knows.”

We shouldn’t assume it’s a she.”

Nail polish.” He splays his hands as if he’s wearing it, then reaches up to the visor and pushes a button on the remote. “You could see it in the pic Pam sent.” He refers to the young-looking marine biologist as if they are instant friends. “Definitely nail polish. I couldn’t tell what color, though, maybe pink.”

It’s best not to assume anything at all.”

Well, we need our own damn dive team. I’ve been thinking about it, thinking of getting certified,” he says, and that will never happen.

Marino likes to comment that if God meant for us to breathe underwater he would have given us gills. He said it for Luke to hear, and I wonder if Marino has a clue that Luke just volunteered to buddy dive with me, if words were exchanged between the two of them in the parking lot.

All the bodies we get out of water around here,” Marino continues. “Bays, lakes, rivers, the ocean. And the fire guys and the guardsmen and even rescue dive teams, they don’t want to deal with floaters.”

That’s not what they’re in the business to deal with,” I remark, and whenever he is full of himself like this and talking nonstop I get ready to find out something I won’t be happy about.

If we just had a boat. I got my captain’s license, and it would be nothing to be in business. A Zodiac Hurricane rigid-hull inflatable, a twenty-one-footer, two-forty-horsepower inboard jet would be plenty. Maybe we could try to get grant money for new drysuits and also a boat and keep it back here on a trailer and then we got our own way to handle things,” he says confidently. “I could be in charge of that easy. It’s what I know like the back of my hand.”

Traffic is heavy as we pull onto Memorial Drive, the gate frozen open behind us as other CFC employees turn into the lot.

I’d make sure everything is stocked and stowed perfectly and deconned,” he says. “Would do everything by the book so no worries about some defense attorney saying evidence is contaminated. If you’re still going this afternoon, I should be with you. I don’t want you alone if it’s anywhere near Channing Lott.”

I don’t think he’ll be in a position to do anything to me inside the federal courthouse, with marshals everywhere.”

Problem is who a scumbag like that might have on the outside,” Marino says. “Someone with his money could pay anybody to do anything.”

Apparently he didn’t bother paying anything when he decided to have his wife murdered.”

No shit. Probably a good thing for him that he’s been locked up all this time. I wouldn’t want to promise some hit man a hundred g’s and then not ante up.”

Do we have transport?”

Yeah. Toby will be waiting at the Coast Guard base with one of the vans. I told him he doesn’t need to head out until at least an hour from now.”

On the other side of the busy street bending around our building, the river flows deep blue and sparkles in the sun, and leaves of hardwood trees along the embankment are beginning to turn yellow and red where the cold water chills the air. Fall is late this year, not a single frost yet, and most of the trees are green on the verge of brown. I fear we will transition straight to winter, which this far north can happen almost instantly.

I know about the e-mail,” Marino finally says, and I figured he would get around to it eventually.

I can’t imagine Lucy didn’t tell him, and I say as much.

How come you didn’t call me right away?” he asks.

Across the river are the high-rises of downtown Boston, and on the other side of them the inner and outer harbors and the Massachusetts Bay, where a fireboat waits for us. I hope the leatherback made it. I will feel sick to my soul if it drowned.

I didn’t know if you were off the plane or why I should bother you with it,” I reply. “Some disturbed person who wanted to get a rise out of me and unfortunately succeeded. I hope it’s nothing more than an ugly prank.”

You should have bothered me with it, because it could be interpreted as a threat. A threat to a government official. I’m surprised Benton wouldn’t see it that way.” Marino’s remark is more of a probe, as if he’s wondering as usual if Benton is vigilant about my safety or even a decent husband.

Did Lucy also tell you where it was sent from? The IP?”

Yeah, I’m aware. Maybe to make it look like it was one of us. Bryce, me, any of us who flew into Logan yesterday right about the time you got the e-mail. You need to ask who might want you to think that, who it might benefit if you don’t feel you can trust those you’re closest to.”

He switches into the right lane to turn onto the Longfellow Bridge, with its central towers that are shaped like salt and pepper shakers, and I think of Lucy searching my office a little while ago. We merge into a long line of cars crossing the river into Beacon Hill, rush hour barely moving, traffic stretching across the water and onto Cambridge Street for as far as I can see. I recall what she said about someone in our own backyard, someone we know, and I imagine Marino and her talking about it, speculating and accusing. It doesn’t take much to get her worked up and on the warpath.

Look, it’s no secret I don’t have a good opinion of him. I mean, what the hell do we really know about him except he’s Anna’s nephew?” Marino then says, and I’m really not surprised this is what he’s been waiting to confront me with. “Me and Lucy are worried about motives that might not occur to you. We were trying to figure out a connection, and there is one, with his father.”

A connection to what?”

Maybe a connection to a lot of things. Including that e-mail sent from Logan. Including maybe the two of you having more going on between you than . . . I mean, it’s pretty obvious you’re under his spell. . . .”

I wish you wouldn’t plant ideas like this with Lucy or anyone else.” I won’t let him finish such an accusation about my relationship with Luke.

His father’s a big financial tycoon in Austria, right?”

You really should be careful what you suggest to people.”

You just saw Guenter at Anna’s funeral, right?” He won’t stop pushing.

Guenter Zenner is Anna’s only living sibling. I saw him briefly at her graveside service in Zentralfriedhof, a gaunt old man draped in a long, dark duster, leaning on a cane and immeasurably sad.

Just so happens one of the things he’s into is oil trading,” Marino continues, as we crawl across the bridge, the low sun directly in our faces and as bright as the light from a burning lens.

Lucy found this out?”

What matters is it’s true,” he says. “And that pipeline from Alberta to Texas is a huge deal to oil traders. They’re counting on it, have huge investments and stand to make millions, maybe billions.”

Do you have any idea how many oil traders there are in the world?” I remind him.

This had to come from Lucy, and I imagine her finding out about Marino staying at the CFC last night because at some point she looked for him. Maybe she went there to talk to him and discovered him drinking and napping on the AeroBed, I don’t know, and I reconstruct what happened after I received the anonymous e-mail at 6:30 p.m.

Benton and I spent some time discussing it before I called the Grande Prairie police and next was directed to an Investigator Glenn with the Royal Canadian Mounted Police, who has been working the Emma Shubert case since she disappeared in August. What struck me most was the hesitation I sensed and what it implied, and I mentioned something about it to Lucy when we discussed the e-mail over the phone.

Dr. Shubert was skilled in reconstructing dino skeletons, Investigator Glenn said to me, and he was intimating that anyone who knows how to make molds and anatomically exact casts of bones in a lab might be capable of other types of fabrications, including a severed ear.

The pipeline’s really important to global oil prices,” Marino continues, spinning his web, a web he intends to ensnare Luke Zenner in.

I’m sure it is,” I reply.

A multitrillion-dollar business venture.”

That wouldn’t surprise me.”

So how do you know for a fact there’s no link?” He glances over at me as he drives.

Please explain how Guenter Zenner’s trading in oil among many other commodities, I can only imagine, would have something to do with Emma Shubert disappearing and my getting the e-mail?” I put it bluntly.

Maybe she disappeared because she wanted to. Maybe she’s in collusion with people who have big money. The picture of the ear, the video are sent to you so we assume she’s dead.”

You’re basing this on nothing.”

No matter what, you’ll stick up for him,” Marino says. “That’s what worries Lucy and me.”

Did the two of you stay up all night trying to force these pieces to fit into some puzzle you’ve devised? You really do want me to get rid of him that badly?”

All I’m asking is you try to be objective, Doc,” Marino says. “As hard as that is in this situation.”

I always do my best to be objective,” I reply calmly. “I recommend the same to you, to everyone.”

I know how close you were to Anna, and I really liked her, too. Back in our Richmond days she was one of the few people I was glad as hell you trusted and spent time with.”

As if Marino picks my friends for me.

But her family’s got a shady past, and I hate to remind you of that fact,” he adds.

The Zenner family home was occupied by Nazis during the war.” I know exactly what he’s getting at. “That doesn’t make Anna or her family, including Luke, shady.”

Well, the blond hair, the blue eyes. He sure as hell fits the part.”

Don’t say things like that, please.”

When you look the other way you’re just as guilty as the sons of bitches that do it,” he says. “Nazis lived in the Zenners’ ritzy castle while thousands of people were being tortured and murdered right down the road, and Anna’s family didn’t do shit.”

What should they have done?”

I don’t know,” Marino says.

A mother, a father, three young daughters, and a son?”

I don’t know. But they should have done something.”

Should have done what? It’s a miracle they weren’t murdered, too.”

Maybe I’d rather be murdered than go along with it.”

Being held hostage in your own home by soldiers who are raping your daughters, and God only knows what they did to the little boy, doesn’t exactly mean you’re going along with it.” I remember Anna telling me her terrible truths, the wind gusting fiercely and flinging dead branches and brittle brown vines across her backyard as I sat in a carved rocker and felt fear pressing me from all sides.

I could barely breathe as she told me about the schloss that had been in the family for centuries, near Linz, on the Danube River. Day in and out, clouds of death from the crematorium stained the horizon above the town of Mauthausen, where there was a deep crater in the earth, a granite quarry worked by thousands of prisoners. Jews, Spanish Republicans, Russians, homosexuals.

You don’t know where Guenter Zenner got all his money,” I hear Marino say, as I look out at a bright morning and am dark inside, reminded of nights in Richmond at Anna’s house during one of the most harrowing periods of my life. “Fact is, Guenter was already rich before he went into banking. Him and Anna inherited a shitload of money from their father, who had Nazis living in the family castle. The Zenners got rich off Jewish money and granite quarries, one of them a concentration camp so close they could see the smoke rising from the ovens.”

These are terrible accusations,” I say to him, as I stare out my window.

What’s terrible is what Luke reminds you of,” Marino says. “A time you don’t need to be dwelling on now that things are good. Why the hell do you want a reminder of those old days when everything was f*cked up and you were blaming yourself for Benton being dead or at least thinking he was, blaming yourself for everything, including Lucy? She doesn’t want it, either. She doesn’t want you getting all hung up again about her and how it’s somehow your fault.”

I wasn’t thinking about such things,” I reply, but now I will, since he’s managed to remind me.

Lucy’s early days at the FBI’s Engineering Research Facility in Quantico have not been foremost on my mind for a very long time, but he has conjured up the Lucy from back then and the reminder isn’t a happy one. A troubled teenager whose computer skills were savant-esque, she almost single-handedly created the FBI’s Criminal Artificial Intelligence Network, CAIN, while falling in love with a psychopath who nearly destroyed all of us.

I got her that FBI internship, I remember saying bitterly to Anna as we sat in her living room close to the fire with the lights out because I’ve always found it easier to talk in the dark. I did. Me, her influential, powerful aunt.

Didn’t quite lead to what you intended, did it?

Carrie used her. . . .

Made Lucy gay?

You don’t make people gay, I said, and Anna the psychiatrist abruptly got up, the firelight moving on her proud fine face, and she walked away, as if she had another appointment.

I know you don’t want to hear it.” Marino keeps talking. “But I’m going to point out that you hired Luke in early July and this dinosaur lady disappeared barely six weeks later from the very area where they’re extracting the oil his father’s invested in.”

The entire region of northwest Canada is dependent on natural gas and oil production, he says, and if the completion of that pipeline gets blocked, Luke’s father probably stands to lose a fortune—a fortune that would be inherited by Luke.

All of it,” Marino says. “He’s the only one left. And we know the e-mail with the cut-off ear and maybe Emma Shubert in the jetboat was sent to you from Boston, from Logan. Where the hell was Luke yesterday at six-thirty p.m.?”

How would Emma Shubert’s disappearance relate to the pipeline being further delayed or blocked?” I ask him. “Explain how what you’re suggesting makes sense at all or is anything more than wild theorizing. Because in my mind if it turns out that she’s been murdered and it’s connected to the pipeline, that will only outrage the detractors, the environmentalists more. It certainly can’t improve public sentiment if the brutal death of a paleontologist is connected with it.”

Maybe that’s the point,” he says. “Like those investors who bet against the housing market and made a killing because it collapsed.”

Good God, Marino.”

He is quiet for a moment.

Look. I realize I’ve not always made the best choices in staff.” I’ll give him that, because it’s beyond dispute, and I resist pointing out there are those who would say that my hiring him is a prime example. “I don’t always have the best judgment about people closest to me.” Including Pete Marino, but I will never say it to him.

When we first met more than two decades ago he was a homicide detective in Richmond, a recent transplant from NYPD to the former Capital of the Confederacy, where I had been installed as Virginia’s new chief medical examiner, the first woman ever appointed to that position. Marino went out of his way to be a bigoted ass at the onset of our working lives together, and there have been betrayals since. But I keep him and would choose no one over him because I’m loyal and I care and he’s just as good as he is bad. We’re an unlikely pair and probably always will be.

I couldn’t be more aware that whoever I choose impacts everyone,” I add in the same calm voice, as I do my best to be patient with his insecurities and fears and to remind myself I’m far from perfect. “But please don’t assume that if I know someone personally it somehow obviates any possibility of him being a good employee or even a civilized human being.”

That was something when the Bruins won the Stanley Cup.” It’s Marino’s way of ending a conversation that no longer furthers his agenda. “Wonder if it will happen again in my lifetime.”

The TD Garden, or the Garden, as the locals refer to the arena, looms ahead of us on the left, and on Commercial Street, the Coast Guard base is only minutes away.

I’ve seen a couple of them around here out with their wives, walking their dogs. Really nice guys, not snooty or nothing,” Marino says, and up ahead at the intersection a Boston cop is directing traffic.

I think there’s a funeral.” I notice black hearses and orange traffic cones across from the ice-skating rink.

Okay. We’ll hang a right here and cut through on Hanover.” He begins to do it as he says it. “I tweeted a couple of them, but they’re not going to answer when you’re anonymous and can’t even use your own photo for your avatar.”

They might not do it, anyway, I’m sorry to tell you.”

Yeah, I guess when you got fifty thousand people following you. I only got one hundred and twenty-two,” he says.

That’s quite a lot of friends to have.”

Hell, I don’t got a clue who they are,” he says. “They think I’m Jeff Bridges or whatever. You know, the movie. Tons of bowlers love that movie. Sort of a cult thing.”

So you’re following strangers and they’re following you.”

Yeah, I know how it sounds, and you’re right. No question I’d have a lot more followers and more people would tweet me back if I could be myself instead of in disguise,” he says.

Why is it so important to you?” I look at him as he drives slowly past the Italian restaurants and bars of the North End, where the sidewalks are busy as this hour but very little is open except coffee and pastry shops.

You know, Doc? You get to a point when you want to see where you fit in, that’s all,” he says. “Like the tree falling in the forest.”

His big face is pensive, and in the sun shining hotly through the windshield I can see the brown spots on the tops of his muscular tan hands and the fine lines in his weathered cheeks and the heavy folds around his mouth and that his close-shaven beard is white like sand. I remember when he still had hair to comb over, when he was a star detective and was always showing up at dinnertime in his pickup truck. We’ve been together since it all began.

Explain the tree and the forest,” I say to him.

If it fell, would there be anybody to hear it?” he ponders, as we bump over pavers along a side street as narrow as an alleyway.

At the end of it I can see Battery Wharf and the inner harbor, and on the other side of it, the distant brick buildings of East Boston.

I believe the question is, if there were nobody to hear it, would it make a sound?” I tell him. “You always manage to make a lot of noise, Marino, and all of us hear it. I don’t think you’ve got anything to worry about.”