Chapter 31

CHAPTER 31

W e’re buzzed inside by the same older woman who was sitting behind the desk yesterday when we were here. Her laptop is gone, her face resentful as Secret Service agents search the lobby and offices. I can feel her anger while investigators pack up computers and bottles of vitamin water.

“How are you doing?” Tron asks her as if this day is like any other.

“What do you expect?” She looks us up and down, taking in our windblown hair, our bike shorts and boots. “It’s not fun being invaded.” She stares at the investigators working.

“I’m sure not,” Tron says pleasantly, a strap of her backpack slung over a shoulder. “Were you working early this morning when Dana Diletti flew out of here?”

“I’ve already talked to them.” The woman continues staring at the investigators as if they’re the enemy.

“And now you get to talk to us.” Tron smiles patiently, treating me like her partner.

“It would appear I have no choice.” She picks up a scrunchie and begins tying back her long dyed blond hair.

Every time I’ve seen her working the desk at Briley Flight Services, she has on a skirt suit, this one navy blue with brass buttons, her figure matronly, her fingernails painted the same pink as bougainvillea.

“I’ve seen you in here before but we haven’t been introduced,” Tron is saying to her. “I’m with the Secret Service. Special Agent Sierra Patron, but everyone calls me Tron. This is Doctor Scarpetta who works with us. And what’s your name?”

“I already gave them all my information,” the woman replies icily.

“As you’ve mentioned, and it’s much appreciated. What’s your name?” she tries again, still smiling.

“Wilma Gaither.”

“Wilma, where do you live?”

“Pentagon City and they already know all this.” She stares at the investigators, a glint of hatred in her smoky made-up eyes.

“Were you here when Dana Diletti and her crew took off in their helicopter for Berkeley Plantation?” Tron asks.

“I work eight to five Monday through Friday,” Wilma recites. “Sometimes I work additional hours if we’re shorthanded. Whatever my employers need, that’s what I do.”

“Then you were working the desk when Dana Diletti and three of her crew were here this morning with their pilot Bret Jones,” Tron says.

“I wasn’t watching them every minute.” Wilma is getting flustered. “It was busy, and I had other aircraft to deal with. I do my best not to bother so-called celebrities. Especially ones who obviously want everyone to notice them.”

“I would imagine you talked to Bret Jones,” Tron continues.

“Of course.” Wilma sits stiffly at her desk, her hands clasped in her lap. “But for the most part he was in the pilots’ lounge, on his phone and checking the weather. Then when Dana Diletti arrived, they left.”

“Did anything strike you as unusual about her pilot’s demeanor early this morning?” I ask.

“He wasn’t happy about getting called at the last minute.” Wilma eyes me suspiciously. “Other than that, there was nothing noteworthy.”

“Dana Diletti and her people were in and out of here a lot,” Tron replies. “So what you’re telling us is it was business as usual this morning?”

“That’s right. Nothing seemed out of the ordinary except it wasn’t the pilot she flies with most of the time.”

“Do you have any idea why Bret Jones was picked for this particular flight?” Tron asks. “Did he mention anything?”

“I already told them.” Glaring at the investigators again.

“And now we’re asking.” Tron will keep reminding her.

“He said that the usual pilot called him at four o’clock in the morning to say she wasn’t feeling up to flying,” Wilma tells us.

“What does that mean exactly?” I ask.

“She had a scratchy throat. It started during the night and she was hoping it would get better. But it didn’t. That’s what Bret Jones told me. And I don’t know anything else.”

“You’re aware that there are cameras everywhere.” Tron points out one directly over Wilma Gaither’s desk as my attention wanders around the lobby.

I spot other cameras, and when I notice the bins of candy on the wall, I see flashes of Luna Briley on her bedroom floor. I see her on my table.

“The cameras aren’t always working,” Wilma answers with a hint of smugness. “Sometimes people turn them off.”

“Who?” Tron asks, and she already knows the answer.

“Security has to do it.”

“Were the cameras on when Bret Jones was here?” Tron knows the answer to that too.

Lucy has made sure the cameras can’t be turned off even if it appears that they are. Wilma Gaither wouldn’t know that.

“I have no way of telling unless I’m notified.” She continues to evade.

“And were you notified about them this morning at any point?”

“Not that I recall.”

“Which security officers were here when Bret Jones was?” Tron asks.

“I’m not sure.”

“Did that person turn off the cameras?”

“I wouldn’t necessarily know.”

“Okay. That’s fine. There are ways to find out what’s true and what isn’t,” Tron then says with a shrug.

“I’ve told the truth.” Wilma stares at me as she says this.

“Not to us, you haven’t,” Tron replies, watching her comrades walking around the flight service as they continue searching for evidence. “But here’s a word of advice, Wilma. Now that your boss and his wife are facing criminal charges and possible prison time? Now that other people connected to them are being looked at very carefully? You might want to think twice about making false statements. Which security officers were here when Dana Diletti was?”

“It might have been Mira Tang. She’s not here now but your colleagues were talking to her earlier.” Wilma doesn’t hesitate to throw someone under the bus when it’s in her best interest. “Mira got here at seven o’clock this morning. An hour before her shift.”

“Why was she early?”

“She didn’t say. But she was here at the same time Dana Diletti and her people were. That’s my point.”

“Thank you for that,” Tron replies. “Isn’t it so much easier when people cooperate with each other? And it seems foolish to lose everything because someone else is in trouble. And you feel you have to protect them.”

“Even though they might not do the same for you,” I add as Wilma’s cold face is touched by fear.

“You’ve been working for the Brileys a long time, haven’t you?” Tron says in a gentler tone.

“Going on twenty years, but I wouldn’t call us friends.” Wilma lowers her voice to an upset whisper as the cameras secretly record her every word and gesture. “I never liked the way they treated their little girl when she was here with them. So impatient. The mother especially.”

“Why would they bring Luna into this terminal?” Tron asks.

“When they were flying places on one of their private jets. I’ve been seeing them in here since Luna was born.”

“And the last time you saw her?”

“December,” Wilma says. “She wasn’t in and out very often, as sickly as she was.”

“Sickly in what way?” I ask. “What were you told was wrong with her?”

“It was generally known that she was… well, she wasn’t right.”

“Can you be more specific?” I go on.

“As I said, sickly. One was left to wonder what wasn’t wrong with her. A sweet child, always smiling even when the mother would yell at her for no good reason.” Wilma has a habit of looking askance at us as she talks. “Children are supposed to be curious. They’re supposed to get into things even when you tell them no.”

“And there’s plenty to get into here.” I indicate the bins of candy on the wall inside the sitting area. “I would think that was very tempting.”

“Every single time.” Wilma nods her head, the expression on her unfriendly face almost sad. “That child had a sweet tooth. And of course, candy wasn’t allowed. Apparently, she was diabetic.”

“How do you know that?” I inquire as I think about what Fabian told me.

Luna wasn’t prescribed insulin, her diabetes yet another lie.

“That’s what Mrs. Briley told me.” Wilma Gaither talks in a conspiratorial tone now as if we’re comrades. “She said don’t ever let her get into the candy unless you want her in a coma or dead. And…”

Her voice trails off. She doesn’t want to finish the sentence.

“And what?” I prod her.

“And when they were here right before Christmas, the little girl found a candy cane hanging on the Christmas tree we had near the fireplace.”

She points to the spot in the sitting area, describing Piper Briley snatching the candy cane from Luna and throwing it in the trash. She grabbed the child by the upper arms, shaking her hard, telling her how bad she was.

“I was getting coffee.” Wilma’s almost whispering. “I don’t think Mrs. Briley knew I saw the whole thing. The poor child was terrified, trembling like a leaf. And that wasn’t the only time I saw things…”

Wilma’s eyes fill with tears, and she impatiently snatches a tissue out of the box of them on her desk.

“Now look at what you’ve done. You’ve made me talk out of school!” she snaps at us. “Now I’ll probably lose my job.”

“You’d better hope you don’t lose more than that,” I reply.

Like your soul. If you still have one. But I don’t say it.

“You could have fucking told someone that the parents were abusive.” Tron turns to walk away.

“Maybe she’d still be alive.” I look Wilma Gaither in the eye.

As we pass through the lobby, Tron checks with investigators sealing electronic devices in big paper bags. They quietly confer about evidence listed in the warrant. One of them gives her a key to an SUV waiting outside. Then the two of us leave as Blaise Fruge is parking her unmarked Ford Interceptor in the misting rain.

The lights in the parking lot have switched on, the wet pavement scummy with pollen. Fruge is in jeans and a windbreaker, trotting up to us, and she can’t keep the smile off her face. She joins us beneath the overhang at the building’s entrance, huddling out of the rain.

“What brings you here?” Tron asks her.

“Endless follow-up, talking to people who work for the Brileys. Most of them liars, what a shocker.” Fruge is digging in a jacket pocket, pulling out a pack of cigarettes and a chrome lighter with an American flag on it.

“When did you start smoking?” I’ve never known her to do it before now.

“I used to and quit. Then I started and quit again.” Sliding out a cigarette, she tucks it between her lips. “I’m not really smoking again, just sneaking one now and then.”

Just like her mentor, Marino, I think. He chews gum to beat the band when I’m around because he knows I won’t cheat. I refuse to break down and have a smoke when it would take nothing to be addicted again. But Fruge sneaks a cigarette with him when the urge strikes. That’s the upshot of what I’m hearing.

“I know you’re not supposed to celebrate the misfortunes of others.” The Alexandria investigator turns her face away from the wind, blowing out smoke that goes everywhere. “But not much could feel better than locking up Ryder and Piper Briley’s sorry asses. Let the games begin.”

“We have interest in them for other reasons,” Tron tells her.

“Well, you know where to find them. You can talk to the Brileys all you want, be my guest. They’re what’s known as a captive audience.”

Fruge explains that when I ruled the death a homicide, she charged the parents with child abuse and first-degree murder.

“I was ready when you gave the word, and they didn’t see it coming,” she says to me, the rain gusting, water dripping from the overhang’s eaves. “Me personally putting them in cuffs was a special pleasure, I must admit. I hope Luna’s smiling wherever she is.” Fruge flicks an ash.

“When will bail be set?” Tron asks.

“In the morning. But I’m making a big point of the obvious flight risk they pose considering the homes they own abroad and their private jets and all the rest. If I play my cards right, they’ll be held without bail.”

“Yours aren’t the only charges they’ll be facing,” Tron promises. “Wait until we start piling on federal indictments.”

“They could be locked up for a long time before trial,” I reply.

“That’s the idea.” Fruge takes another deep drag. “I want to make sure they never see the light of day again.”

The rain is falling harder, lightning veining the distant darkness. Fruge heads inside Briley Flight Services to see what other dirt she can find on the owners, as she puts it. Tron and I hurry through the downpour to the Secret Service black Tahoe SUV left here for her. I watch thunderclouds churning and lighting up dangerously, the storm front rolling in.

Driving away from the airport, we follow the George Washington Memorial Parkway along the Potomac River, and it’s too foggy to see across it. I’m relieved when Lucy texts me that she’s safe and sound at the training facility in Maryland. She’ll be in her car headed home shortly.

“If Carrie Grethen’s been in and out of Briley Flight Services, wouldn’t it be on camera?” I ask Tron.

“Depending on whether she has the ability to turn the cameras on and off.”

“I suspect that would be child’s play to her,” I answer.

“And I’ll keep saying the same thing,” Tron replies with surprising anger. “She doesn’t care. In fact, if we find video of her walking in and out of Briley Flight Services, she’s going to get a kick out of it. Wherever she is, she’ll be laughing at us.”

“Because she doesn’t believe we can stop her.” I squint in the bleary glare of oncoming traffic, the rain splashing against glass.

“I’m thinking she’s flown the coop and doesn’t give a damn what we find.”

“I don’t know what your plans are.” I look over at her. “But you’re welcome to join us for dinner. Lucy, Marino, Dorothy and Shannon, something relaxed and simple.”

“That’s really nice. But I think Lucy and I could use a break from each other.” Tron is joking and she’s not.

“You two getting along all right?”

“She can be pretty intense in certain situations.”

The certain situation Tron alludes to is Carrie. She’s not done. Maybe she never will be.

“I think you can understand why Lucy would be vigilant when that subject is raised,” I reply with a reasonability I sure as hell don’t feel.

“It’s more than that, Doctor Scarpetta.” Tron has yet to call me by my first name, and we’ve known each other more than four years. “What’s between them is pathological.”

I sit quietly in the passenger’s seat, familiar with the terrain of Lucy’s inner darkness. I know what lurks there, and I’m not about to discuss it with Tron. Or hardly anyone.

“Lucy gets fixated,” she’s saying. “No matter what she’s doing I can tell that a part of her mind is on Carrie Grethen. It’s been like that since last fall. Like something dormant that’s wide-awake again, and it’s not that I don’t understand. But it’s always there holding her like a tractor beam.”

“I think that’s to be expected when someone she once loved became her mortal enemy,” I reply, feeling the heat of my rage.

“Once loved?” Tron stares straight ahead. “I’m beyond believing that Lucy can be objective about her. Or that she hates her as much as she claims.”

Tron is driving less aggressively, perhaps because I’m sitting next to her in awful weather. Or maybe what we’re discussing is causing her mood to shift. I wouldn’t have guessed before now that her feelings for Lucy run deep. Deeper than work. Deeper than friends.

I don’t know if Lucy feels the same way. Or if she’s been with anyone since Janet and their son contracted COVID before there was a vaccine. By the time Lucy could get to their flat in London, it was too late.