Chapter 37

CHAPTER 37

T he instant Marino and I walk inside the hangar we’re hit by the sharply pungent odor of white vinegar. Dozens of big white plastic drums of it are on pallets against a wall.

… A pungent odor… Sort of vinegary, I remember Lucy describing what she smelled around Sal’s body at the scene.

I notice the single-engine Cessna plane Daku mentioned, and I suspect Carrie used it often to get around. Perhaps she’d fly it to Ronald Reagan Washington National Airport when she had meetings with the Brileys or other business in that area. Marino and I walk past a windowless white cargo van with a folded ladder on top. It looks like the van I saw on Sal’s driveway and also inside my vehicle bay.

The van fits the description of the one Dorothy believed was following her. There are no license plates, front or back. Nearby is a ground power unit (GPU) cart that’s plugged into a weirdly configured single-engine Eurocopter Carrie was just starting to use for crop dusting. The four doors have been taken off and are stored in a rack.

The helicopter’s skin has a chameleon paint job that changes colors as we move closer. The point may be aesthetic, but the pigments reflecting light differently would interfere with radar. Bolted to the undercarriage is a metal spray system rig, and there are others on the floor near a workbench.

Stainless steel booms, some ten feet long, are equipped with multiple spray nozzles, and attached to either side of the helicopter’s chassis. I envision Sal’s contused upper leg. I remember the periodicity of the pattern, the four abrasions exactly the same distance apart. I dig a tape measure out of my briefcase, and the space between the nozzles is the same as the abrasions.

I look through the openings where the doors should be, and on the cyclic is the spray rig’s trigger. I wonder if Carrie accidentally hit it while struggling to push Sal’s body out of the left seat. Perhaps in the process she doused the scene with the vinegar solution. Or maybe when he struck the boom on his way down, that somehow released an acidic-stinking shower. Either scenario might explain why the odor was strong when Lucy and Tron first arrived at the Oz theme park.

Harnesses are fastened on top of the seats in front and back. That’s the proper way to crew an aircraft, and I remember the fastened seat belts inside Sal’s crashed Chevy pickup. It would be habit for Carrie to leave them like that, and I suppose that could be the reason. Or more likely, she didn’t want the seat belt alarm chiming while she drove Sal to an awaiting vehicle before sending his empty truck off the mountain.

I wander closer to the fifty-five-gallon drums of vinegar that would be diluted with water and pumped into the white plastic tank attached to the helicopter’s belly. As Marino and I continue searching and taking pictures, I’m glancing around for cameras, wondering when someone’s going to interfere with our snooping. Digging out gloves from my briefcase, I hand a pair to Marino and we pull them on.

We walk over to the workbench, where he roots through a pile of magnetic signs, one of them for BUG OFF , another for FIRST FAMILY FLORISTS . There are shop cloths, tubs of grease remover, and a mechanic’s trolley case with drawers of aviation tools. I notice a box of transparent plastic food service mitts typically used in restaurants and delis, and they strike me as strange in this context.

I pull out one of the mitts, and it’s like a sandwich baggie, only mitten shaped. They make sense when preparing food but also would be a convenient way to safely handle certain materials and substances such as vinegar that can be caustic on the skin. Designed for one-time use, the mitts are inexpensive, two thousand to a box. Another benefit depending on who we’re talking about is the wearer won’t leave fingerprints, possibly not DNA either.

I think of the odd impressions lifted from the glass of Sal’s pickup truck. I envision Carrie’s left hand, the two missing fingertips, the scars on her finger pads and a thumb. Gloves wouldn’t fit her the way they once did, I’m explaining to Marino as I take more pictures with my phone. He’s looking through a stack of Virginia license tags that he guesses are stolen.

I look on as he riffles through a pile of aviation and agriculture magazines. They’re mixed in with other mail on top of the workbench. Picking up a manila envelope, he reads the address label.

“Zofia Puda,” he says, showing me the printed label:

Zofia Puda, Sabo Solutions, Aviation Unit Chief…

“Sabo Solutions hired her as their crop-dusting pilot, having no idea who they were tangling with,” I explain.

“Meanwhile, she’s stealing all their tech secrets, who knows what the hell else. And she targeted Sal Giordano,” Marino says. “Maybe she was out here when he showed up to do his fake moon dust research at some point.”

“That could be what happened. We may never know,” I reply. “But I seriously doubt he ever met the alleged Zofia Puda here or even caught a glimpse of her face. Otherwise, he would have realized that’s who was following him in Rome several weeks ago.”

“Assuming it was Carrie he saw.”

“I think we know.”

“You’re probably right,” Marino says. “She grabs him as he was driving up to the lodge. Then she kept him here all night trying to get intel out of him and whatever else she wanted. Finally, she choppered him to the theme park and pushed him overboard.”

I remember when Carrie learned to fly helicopters long ago, using one to escape from the Kirby Forensic Psychiatric Center on Hart Island in New York City. She has to do everything that Lucy does, only in a way that causes the most harm. As we’re talking, I continue glancing at my phone, hoping the police are headed in this direction.

A lot of evidence to collect here, I text to Benton.

Help is on the way, he answers.

“She’s been working at Bando Solutions, likely doing aerial spraying with a vinegar solution to clean the miles of solar farms,” Marino is saying.

“The same thing I use to clean the old glass windows in our house,” I reply. “As long as it’s not too concentrated, vinegar and water won’t harm livestock like the sheep we noticed earlier. And it also helps mitigate weeds…”

I’m interrupted by footsteps, someone coughing behind us.

“Finding anything interesting?” An aggressive voice sounds as Marino and I spin around.

Norm Duffy strides toward us from the hangar’s big square opening. The security officer I fired last fall is in jeans and a loose-fitting denim shirt with the True North logo on it. He has an evil smile on his bearded face, his fists clenched at his sides, coughing quietly as if he has asthma.

“Take it easy, man…,” Marino starts to say.

“You’re trespassing, assholes!” Reaching around to the back of his pants, Norm pulls out a pistol.

Then Marino has out his gun, pointing, and nothing happens. He frantically switches off the safety, firing and missing as Duffy ducks for cover. The cartridge case is sticking up from the ejector port, the pistol jammed. Marino tries to clear what’s called a stovepipe while we run toward the door, zigzagging behind the helicopter, then the van as gunfire explodes.

Bullets ping as we dash back inside the building with Norm in pursuit, another shot ripping through the door as Marino slams it. We shut the office door, locking it, blocking it with a chair. Yawning open next to us is the entrance to the cavern, and I grab Marino’s arm, pulling him toward it. As claustrophobic as he may be, for once he doesn’t argue.

We hurry inside, the air instantly cooler, the sound of water dripping in the uneven shadows. Caged overhead lights push back the darkness as we duck into a recess as Marino clears his pistol jam. We listen, barely breathing, and I know Marino’s plan. He’ll wait until Norm Duffy steps inside the cavern, and then Marino’s going to blow him away. I hear footsteps at the cavern’s entrance, Norm Duffy coughing quietly and clearing his throat.

“Nighty night!” he yells, coughing again.

The light of his flashlight probes past us, then vanishes as the door bangs shut. For an instant I’m too shocked to move. That can’t just have happened.

“Jesus,” I whisper. “I hope we didn’t just get locked inside here.”

Marino has his pistol ready, making his way back to the door, trying the knob.

“Fuck.” He keeps trying to force it. “FUCK!”

He kicks the metal door hard, and suddenly it flies open to the sound of gunfire as Marino falls inside with a loud heavy thud. Then silence. I listen for him, hearing nothing, and I’m seized by dread. He would be calling out to me if he were okay, and I wait. Nothing except the sound of footsteps returning to the entrance of the cavern. Then they’re headed toward me.

Please no… Please no…

I make my way deeper inside, my heart hammering, sick with worry about Marino. The tunnel I follow is wide enough for a car, water drip-dripping from a ceiling of stalactites that look like icicles of all sizes. Reaching up, I break off one, and it crumbles in my hand, ruined after the thousands of years it took to form.

God forgive me for my sins, I think as I try another one, unable to break it.

I try yet again, this stalactite snapping off about eighteen inches from the tip. It seems sturdy enough. The lights inside the cavern suddenly go out, throwing me into blackness as complete as outer space. I feel my way along a wall, not daring to turn on my phone’s flashlight or make a sound.

I have no idea where I’m going, and should I get lost in here I might not be found anytime soon. Or far worse, Norm Duffy finds me first. The cold, rough stone is uncomfortable against my back, and I’m inching along when I see the first beam of light probing. I hear footsteps heavy on stone, loose pebbles clicking and clinking.

“I know you’re in here somewhere, Kay!” Norm calls out, followed by a wheezy cough. “Where’s the big bad chief now? Cowering somewhere, aren’t you?”

I can hear the triumph in his mocking voice as he closes in on me, breathing heavily, coughing some more. I think of the dangerous dust he’s been exposed to chronically if he’s out here often while making the security rounds for Briley Enterprises.

“As usual, Kay, you stick your nose where it doesn’t belong. And guess what happens?” Norm takes another step. “Nobody better than yours truly to take care of bitches like you, and I’ve been waiting for this moment a long fucking time. Come out, come out wherever you are, Kay!”

He can’t be more than ten feet away, and I’m aware of the broken bits of stalactite I’m still clutching. I toss a piece of it beyond the beam of probing light, and Norm chuckles again, wheezing.

“You know, Kay, it all goes back to what motivates someone.” Another step, another cough. “And I have plenty of motivation when it comes to fucking you.”

I toss another piece a little farther this time. Then the last chunk, and he chuckles again. I can smell his sweat as he pauses by the recess where I’m flat against the wall like the moth trapped inside the SLAB.

“This is getting tedious, Kay!” he calls out, the red dot of his pistol’s laser sight bouncing around the cavern walls.

Then I see the vague bulk of him in the glow of the phone he holds in one hand, his pistol in the other, and he’s inches from me. Gripping the intact stalactite like a dagger, I lunge, throwing my weight behind the stabbing motion from low to high. I feel the sharply pointed tip pierce fabric and flesh as he screams, the pistol clattering to the rock floor.

I drive the stony shaft up under his ribs, into his chest cavity as he shrieks and shrieks, grabbing at me, but it’s too late. I back away, and he falls heavily, my hands trembling and slick with blood. Turning on my phone’s flashlight, I shine it on him, his eyes wide open and fixing on me. The thick end of the stalactite protrudes from his torso, blood soaking his shirt.

He moves his lips as if begging for help, and I won’t give it. Finding his gun, I pick it up, a Glock 9-millimeter that I’m taking no chance he might retrieve. I don’t see how he could survive what I just did to him. But I’m not trusting anything right now, maybe never again. Following my light, I find the way back to the door Norm Duffy left open wide.

Texting MAYDAY to Benton, I tell him to send an ambulance as I hurry back inside the building, terrified.

“Marino?” I yell.

Please be okay.

“Marino?” I call out, passing the bathroom.

Please God.

“Yo! In here!” he shouts to my enormous relief, my knees going weak.

He’s inside the office, bare-chested and sitting in a chair, his face dazed. The floor under him is spattered and pooled with blood, his pistol some distance away halfway under the sofa.

“Jesus! Don’t move.” I wash my bloody hands in the sink.

“I’m not moving,” he says. “I don’t even know how I got in the chair.”

I take away the shirt he’s holding over a gaping bullet graze at the back of his head. “An ambulance should be on the way shortly. Do you remember falling and hitting the ground? Were you unconscious?”

“When?” he weirdly asks.

“You’re going to be all right, Marino,” I assure him even as we hear the wailing of sirens.

“Is there a fire somewhere?” His eyes are glassy.

On the security monitors I see a caravan of police cars and ambulances charging through the cement plant. Benton has gotten my texts and taken care of it from Poland.

“How’d you get here, Doc? We’re not flying the helicopter home, are we?” Marino asks, and he’s not thinking straight. “Tell Lucy we’re driving, okay? Where is she anyway?”

“Take it easy,” I reply.

He winces as I gently palpate his scalp, making sure the bullet didn’t penetrate, and it didn’t. But another fraction of an inch and it would have smashed through his skull. My bigger concern is that he fell and hit his head. We need to get him to the hospital as soon as possible.

“Tell me what you remember.” I tie his bloody shirt around his wounded scalp, making a bandage of sorts.

“About what?”

“About Norm Duffy shooting you.”

“What’s he doing here?” Marino looks baffled. “I don’t remember getting shot. Are we sure I was?”

“A graze, but you might have been knocked out,” I reply.

He begins to ramble about maybe coming to on the floor, trying to stop the bleeding, not knowing where he is or what happened.

“Then you walked in, Doc, and I couldn’t believe it. Where’d you go?” he goes on drowsily. “I thought, oh no! She’s been beamed up the same way Sal Giordano was. And I’ve been left behind…”