Chapter 32

CHAPTER 32

P uddles splash the undercarriage, trees thrashing in the wind, the Old Town Harbor shrouded in fog, the moored boats ghostly. It’s 7:15 when we reach Benton’s and my eighteenth-century modest estate surrounded by fencing that blends with the trees.

Tron stops in front of the closed wrought iron gate, and I tell her the code. Rolling down her window, she enters the numbers into the squawk box keypad. The gate begins to slide along its track as Lucy’s AI-assisted cameras and spectrum analyzers relay our information. Video images are uploaded in real time as databases are searched.

Facial recognition software identifies whoever it is while the algorithm mines for other information such as someone’s criminal history. Or if they have purchased firearms. Or made threats over the internet. Tron drives through, stopping to wait for the gate to close after us. She follows the winding driveway, lamplight shimmering on wet red bricks, the dark shapes of giant oak trees arching over us.

The guest cottage where Lucy lives is white brick with a slate roof, and has blackout shades in the windows. It’s hard to tell when she’s inside. The presence or absence of her government take-home car doesn’t mean she’s home or away. She could be riding with someone else or out on her tactical bicycle. But I know she’s not here now, and I remind Tron to keep a sharp eye out for Lucy’s cat, Merlin.

“He shouldn’t be out in this weather, but you know how he is,” I explain. “A part of him will always be feral.”

Rain slashes through the headlights as we near the main house, white brick with dusky blue shutters and doors. The roof is slate with two chimneys standing proud against the volatile sky. Parked in front is Benton’s SUV, and next to it Marino’s pickup truck, and my sister’s white Audi convertible with a red leather interior, a Christmas gift to herself.

I step out into the rain, reaching for my bags as I’m thanking Tron. I dash inside the house while Marino holds open the door, shutting it behind me. In a sweatsuit, he’s drinking a bottle of St. Pauli Girl, and I smell the aroma of marinara sauce warming in the kitchen while Mozart plays over the sound system. I drop my bags on top of the pumpkin pine flooring, taking off my rain slicker.

“Nice outfit.” Marino looks me up and down in my damp polo shirt and bike shorts. He takes a swallow of beer. “The unlaced tactical boots really set it off. That and your hair.”

I search his eyes for what was there earlier. But I see no trace of his old anger and hurt feelings. He and Dorothy must have worked out their differences for now, and maybe he won’t project his frustrations onto me for a while. Then thought takes form, my sister making her way down the stairs, asking questions with every step.

“Where were you yesterday? Why all the secrets? It’s like name, rank, serial number around here.” Ice rattles as my sister carries her drink in one hand, a bottle of tequila in the other. “Pete repeats the same things over and over again. Being evasive, in other words…”

Dorothy is partial to onesies, and tonight she’s the Jolly Green Giant because it’s springtime, I suppose. A wide sash of green plastic leaves skimpily covers her bosomy figure, her long shapely legs in green tights with built-in green feet and curled-up toes.

“And of course, whatever you’ve been doing is related to all this UAP news that’s everywhere. No point in being coy about that,” Dorothy goes on. “Was Sal Giordano abducted by aliens? I must know the truth.”

“I already told you we can’t talk about what we’ve been doing because it involves military stuff,” Marino says to her.

“What’s the answer to my question? A simple yes or no will do.” Another sip. “Did he get beamed up and tossed out? Like what happens to horses and cows when they’re found mutilated and dropped from the sky, if the stories are to be trusted? Was he pushed out after the aliens were done with him? Meaning, they’re brutes. Dear me, what a terrible thought. Who the fuck wants to be the lesser children of a hateful God ?”

“Shit, Dorothy.” Marino rolls his eyes at her. “Let’s talk about something else.”

“The two of you have been someplace you can’t share, and obviously it’s related.” She directs this at me, sipping tequila, a healthy amount on the rocks.

As she continues to badger us for information, we’re interrupted by the sound of footsteps in the dining room. Then Benton and Shannon are joining us in the entryway.

“I trust you have everything you need?” I ask my secretary.

Staying in the guestroom on this floor, she’s outfitted in a pink velour lounge suit and matching slippers. She’s drinking what I detect is Irish whisky neat, no ice, probably the Jameson we keep on hand for her visits. But now and then she commits treason by drinking Scotch, she’s admitted.

“You’ve had quite the day.” Benton hands me a bottle of water, and a Manhattan with a cherry and a slice of orange peel. “I thought you might need some warming up,” he says as thunder cracks nearby like a missile strike.

“Thank the Lord we’re together.” Shannon looks up at the ceiling. “It’s like the universe is furious and lashing out. The planet is very agitated.”

“I’ll feel better when Lucy’s home.” Parched after diving, I drink the water first.

“She’s going to be held up for a while,” Benton informs us. “She just texted.”

“It’s always something.” Dorothy rolls her heavily made-up eyes. “Nothing with her is ever as it seems. Well, it’s not right she’s not here. My only child’s not going to join us for dinner when I’ve not seen her since last week?”

“Probably not,” Benton says. “She just turned around and is driving straight back to the training facility. The cloud computer again.”

“I hope that’s not been hacked like so many things,” Shannon says. “And speaking of mysteries, the hornet nest is where the exterminator left it.” She directs this at Marino and me. “I’ve made repeated calls asking when she’ll return to remove it so more hornets don’t move in. But nobody at her company knows who I’m talking about. The owner of Bug Off told me they have no women working for them and that they hadn’t dispatched anyone to the medical examiner’s office yet. For which he was most apologetic, by the way.”

“I’m not sure who that exterminator was, but I don’t have a good feeling about her,” I reply, envisioning the woman in protective clothing that covered her face.

I explain that the vehicle bay cameras briefly turned off while the exterminator was near the ceiling’s support trusses. While she was up there she could have tucked some type of surveillance device out of sight. After that, the cameras magically came back online, and the elevator went berserk, as did the parking lot security gate. Then at three o’clock in the morning the vehicle bay door retracted with nobody there.

I’m betting it was Carrie untethered on top of that ladder. She installed something that enabled her to take control of my building. I can’t stand the thought that she was that close when Marino and I were arguing with the mortician from Shady Acres Funeral Home. She could have pulled out a gun and killed us right then. But she didn’t. She’d rather watch, and I think about what Benton says.

The world’s more interesting to her with us in it…

“Lucy needs to check my building as soon as possible,” I add while wishing Carrie had fallen from forty feet up.

Maybe she would have suffered Sal’s same fate, lying on the ground with her head smashed in, slowly dying all alone. It would be what she deserves.

“Lucy doesn’t know if she’ll be back tonight.” Benton is preoccupied with his phone, a red-checked apron over jeans and a tight T-shirt that look very good on him.

“I hope she’s going to find some dinner and stay out of this weather.” I take a sip of the Manhattan.

“I believe that’s the plan,” Benton replies. “Sounds like Tron’s on her way to the training center, which is good.”

“They should be together in this ugly weather and everything else going on,” Shannon adds. “That makes me feel better.”

“I understand the Brileys are in the city jail.” Marino makes sure we know that Fruge leaked the breaking news to him. “That’s at least something good, right?” He drains the bottle of beer.

“And a little while ago, our agents picked up one of Ryder Briley’s security guards, Mira Tang.” Benton offers another update. “She has quite the rap sheet. And owes him a lot of favors.”

I remember Lucy saying that the ex-con would do anything for Ryder Briley. Including murder, it seems. Benton explains that video from the flight service’s cameras shows the security guard inside the hangar where Dana Diletti’s helicopter was kept. Mira Tang was wearing gloves, carrying a bottle of berry-flavored vitamin water and a red plastic gas can.

“The helicopter was waiting to be towed out to the tarmac,” Benton is saying as I stand near the stairway, wrapped in my limp towel. “There was nobody else around. And you can tell she wasn’t worried about the cameras. She’s the one who turned them off at around seven o’clock this morning, assuming everything she did from then on would be unwitnessed and unrecorded.”

She didn’t know that earlier Lucy accessed the flight service’s security system, making sure the cameras can’t be disabled. Even if the software indicates they’re turned off, they aren’t. Mira Tang is on video opening one of the helicopter doors and placing the bottle of vitamin water between the front seats. Then she removed the fuel cap and emptied the contents of the gas can inside the tank.

“She was sabotaging it, pouring in water,” Benton says. “We know that because there’s video of her filling the gas can in a sink inside the hangar. She’s getting ready to cause the deaths of five people if all goes according to plan, and figures no one will be the wiser. But we’re seeing everything she did and so will a jury.”

“Obviously, she was following orders,” my sister deduces with another splash of tequila in her glass. “She didn’t decide to do this on her own. Why would she?” Setting down the bottle again.

“Ryder Briley’s orders.” Marino begins massaging Dorothy’s neck, and they’re getting along fine now. “He and his wife ordered a hit on Dana Diletti because of all the shit she said about them on the TV news.” He wraps his arms around Dorothy’s waist, pulling her close.

“The Brileys are horrible human beings,” she declares, her eyes half shut as Marino kisses her ear. “What they put that little girl through is unimaginable. But did they really believe it would never catch up with them? Why don’t people think about consequences?”

“Hardly anybody does. Including me, if I have enough of this.” Shannon holds up her glass of whisky. “But there are a lot of people out there who believe they can get away with murder.”

“Stupidity like that is what keeps some of us employed.” Marino holds Dorothy tight, and usually he’s not this amorous when there’s an audience.

“But Dana Diletti should have anticipated what Ryder Briley might try to do to her,” my sister reasons.

“Most people never assume someone will go that far,” Benton answers. “And Dana Diletti is a raging narcissist herself. She thinks she’s invincible and came extremely close this morning to finding out she’s not.”

“A miracle.” Dorothy is starting to slur her words, getting clumsy-tongued , as she describes it.

“Had the engine flamed out sooner, had the pilot been incapacitated earlier in the flight?” Benton says. “The result would have been vastly different.”

“It’s a miracle,” Dorothy repeats. “The engine could’ve quit over a crowded neighborhood right after takeoff. Or landed on a school…”

“God forbid.” Shannon is shaking her head.

“Or a beach where people are sunbathing,” Dorothy continues. “Or in the middle of Fort Monroe for that matter, destroying a national monument and lots of people living there…”

“I talked to Lucy before you got home,” Benton says to me. “She explained that if you pour water into an aircraft fuel tank that’s already full, it’s unpredictable how long before it hits the fuel line, causing the engine to flame out and quit. But it could take a while, which fortunately is what happened in this case or there would be at least five people dead instead of one.”

“It’s just a miracle that things weren’t ever so much worse.” Dorothy takes a sloppy sip of her drink. “Dana-fucking-Diletti narrowly escaped. We’ve all been hearing about it ad-fucking-nauseam, her near-fucking-death experience. Never mind the pilot is fucking dead. Not near-dead. But dead-fucking-dead.”