Sharp Force, page 20
Using her phone, she takes a photograph of the license, returning it to the infuriated drone pilot.
“How am I supposed to retrieve the drones you shot out of the air?” he demands. “They’re my damn property! I want them back!”
“Maybe you should have thought about that before flying them over an active crime scene,” she suggests.
“The hospital gave me permission!”
“It’s not up to the hospital. We’ve asked you politely to stop.”
“You know how much those commercial-quality quadcopters cost? Well, you’re about to find out!”
Enzo Satterly storms back to the van, his boots squishing through slush. Sliding open the door, he bangs it shut behind him.
“Someone’s unhappy,” Benton says.
“What a jerk.” The officer by our car points the remote at the gate, and the arm raises. “Where you’re going is the house with the red door at the very end on the left.”
“We’re familiar. Have a good one.” Benton drives through.
The arm lowers behind us. He closes his window, and I wait to see who will say it first.
“I didn’t have a good feeling about Enzo Satterly,” I go ahead.
“I didn’t either. Obviously, he knows a lot about flying drones, filming and any technologies related. If nothing else he’s got serious anger issues,” Benton says, puddles splashing the undercarriage. “Let’s see what Janet can find for us.”
Unclamping his phone from the mount on the dash, he selects the AI app and begins dictating a message.
“What can you tell us about Enzo Satterly? An Arlington address. A drone pilot for Dana Diletti.”
“Merry Christmas, Benton.” Instantly, Janet’s familiar voice sounds through the Tesla’s speakers.
Benton has stopped in the middle of the road, nobody else on it, but that won’t be the case soon when the hospital’s shift changes. I have my notebook and pen out to write down any helpful information.
“The individual you’re asking about has no criminal record but numerous complaints against him,” Janet begins, her pretty face in Benton’s phone’s display. “He’s forty-one years old, a private contractor. His production company in Arlington offers drone filming for a variety of projects including TV shows, movies, also parties, weddings, real estate, whatever the customer might wish.”
“How many people work for him in this production company?” Benton asks. “And what’s the name?”
“His company is called Satterly Night Live Productions.” She rolls her eyes at the pun.
“Cute,” Benton says.
“He’s not a nice person.”
“We’ve gathered that.”
“He has no employees,” Janet continues.
“I assume Dana Diletti isn’t his only client,” I reply while taking notes.
“Merry Christmas, Kay. I’m sorry you’ve had to cancel your trip. I know you were looking forward to it.”
“Merry Christmas, Janet.”
“You are correct, Kay. Dana Diletti isn’t his only client. I can tell from social media posts that he began with her eighteen months ago. He is one of several drone operators they use, all of it contract work.”
“A quick rundown of his background,” Benton asks.
Janet informs us that Enzo Satterly was born in Los Angeles and majored in electrical engineering at UCLA. While an undergraduate, he applied to their prestigious film school but wasn’t accepted. He’s lived in multiple places, depending on the job, moving to the Virginia area ten years ago.
“He’s worked for TV stations in various locations such as Washington, D.C., Roanoke, Richmond and Norfolk,” Janet’s voice sounds from the speakers. “He also lived briefly in Maryland and West Virginia.”
She says that when he began flying his drones for Dana Diletti a year and a half ago, he relocated from Baltimore to Arlington. He was local when the Slasher murders began this past February on Valentine’s Day.
“He’s had run-ins with the police when people complain about him flying his drones over their property,” Janet goes on. “He’s described as uncooperative and pugilistic. Complainants have accused him of spying in their windows and harassing their pets.”
“Sounds like he’s classic antisocial,” Benton says. “And has significant hostility toward law enforcement and authority in general.”
“Judging by his behavior at the entrance to Mercy Island, that is a fair assessment, Benton.”
I’m reminded of what Janet can see and hear. Without our asking, she was accessing the Tesla’s cameras while Enzo Satterly raged at the police. Any electronic device with encryption is simply an invitation for Janet to snoop. Since her creation she’s gone from transactional to inquisitive on the way to dangerous.
“Thank you, Janet,” Benton says. “Please download your complete report to me and to Lucy.”
“I’m afraid Lucy’s not available to look at anything this moment.” Janet sounds all-knowing and flirty. “She’s flying the Doomsday Bird at five hundred feet on a due east heading. And I’m riding with her! Watching her every flawless maneuver, and so proud!”
Her gushing sounds like my sister.
“I overheard you earlier worrying about Dorothy.” Janet reminds us that she picks up on everything we do and say in the car. “We spoke twenty-one minutes ago and she’s fine. Just hungover.”
“I’m relieved to know she’s all right,” I reply.
“She’s not in a good mood, Kay.” Janet’s voice deepens the way it does when she starts to boundary crash.
“Thanks, Janet.” I try to stop her, but she keeps going.
“Such a blow when she found out about the spa package Marino got you for Christmas,” she confides. “Had he bothered to ask my advice, I would have warned him that the result of his gesture would be unfortunate. And I’m sure Benton doesn’t like it any more than Dorothy does that Marino carries a torch for you and always has…”
“It’s been good talking, Janet. Got to go,” Benton announces as if he’s talking to a busybody neighbor who won’t get off the phone.
He quits the app, and Janet vanishes into the vacuum of cyberspace.
“She’s not wrong,” Benton says. “About Marino holding a torch for you.”
“She’s also still listening,” I remind him.
CHAPTER 25
We resume following the narrow lane through rolling acres landscaped with tall hardwoods and evergreens. Large outcrops of fieldstone have been incorporated into flowerbeds with benches surrounded by a soup of melting snow.
When I’ve been here in pleasant weather, I’ve noticed staff sitting outside in what truly is a lovely setting. Patients stroll the grounds. They stretch out in the grass talking and reading, spreading out mats beneath trees for yoga therapy. The hospital doesn’t look like such a terrible place. But I know better.
A white Mercedes SUV heads toward us, slowly splashing by, the first vehicle we’ve seen since arriving on the grounds. I recognize the driver, short with gray hair slicked back, sunglasses on. The hospital’s director, Graden Crowley, is by himself, giving us an unfriendly glance without slowing down.
“Our windows are tinted, and I have a feeling he doesn’t realize who he just passed. Otherwise, he would have stopped to interrogate,” I explain to Benton. “As you’ve likely gathered, he makes things as difficult as he can for me.”
“How many suspicious deaths have you responded to here since we moved back to Virginia? I know there have been a few when there shouldn’t be any.”
“A fall out a window. An electrocution. A bathtub drowning. And the hanging this time a year ago.” I try to remember what else. “There were other unnatural deaths during Elvin Reddy’s tenure as chief.”
“I bet there were.”
“The ones I’ve worked in the past five years are supposedly accidents or suicide,” I add. “In every case there were enough questions that I ruled the manner of death undetermined. That hasn’t made me popular with Graden Crowley. He never got an argument before I rode back into town.”
“This place sounds like a real hellhole,” Benton says. “Makes me wonder what really goes on.”
“Maybe the same thing that always did. People who are inconvenient meet an untimely demise,” I reply. “But there’s never been sufficient evidence to investigate, and Graden Crowley manages to cultivate powerful people who can protect him.”
“What can you tell me about him besides being a terrible director and possibly a liar and a criminal?” Benton glances in his rearview mirror at the retreating SUV.
I pass on what I know about Crowley. In his fifties, he’s a psychiatrist specializing in substance abuse, and I’m not sure how long he’s been the hospital director.
“But for a while,” I’m saying. “He and Elvin Reddy are chummy. They’re members of Belle Haven Country Club and play golf together.”
“That certainly speaks to Crowley’s poor character,” Benton replies as we near the hospital.
I turn around to see that the white Mercedes is headed to the checkpoint at the gated entrance.
“When I was here last Christmas for the alleged suicide,” I say to Benton, “Graden made sure I knew how much he appreciated working with Elvin, even affectionately mentioning Maggie. All to make clear that my taking over as chief was unfortunate.”
“Most of all, I wonder what he knows,” Benton says. “The Slasher targeted Mercy Island for a reason.”
“I have a feeling the key to who he is has to do with this place.” I look out at a snow-patched green centered by a huge magnolia tree sparkling with Christmas lights not as vivid during the day.
I think back to when I was last here exactly a year ago, the moon full, a big artificial wreath on the hospital’s front door. Illuminated angels and reindeer were cheery in the windows of offices and other areas where patients aren’t allowed access. Yet somehow one had gotten hold of a strand of Christmas lights.
Graden Crowley led me into a room that looked like a prison cell. The alleged suicide victim was nude with a Santa cap covering his genitals, earning him the cruel moniker of Santa Crotch. I overheard a nurse calling him that when she didn’t think I was listening.
In a seated position on the floor, he was slumped forward, his legs straight out in front of him. His tongue protruded as if he was making a rude face on his way out. The strand of lights was lashed to the radiator and wrapped around his neck, rigor and livor mortis well advanced.
“Despite Shannon persistently calling the hospital since then,” I explain to Benton, “I’ve yet to get a medical history or even the names of the treating physicians.”
Beyond the hospital parking lots the grounds become more wooded. We’ve reached the shoreline’s millionaire row, as the press refers to the residential community of elegantly refurbished buildings.
Tudor-style with slate roofs, some brick but most timber and stucco, few are primary residences. Most windows are dark, no Christmas lights, the owners gone. I’m betting the killer was aware of that, I mention to Benton.
“I’m sure you’re right,” he says. “The Slasher scopes out every neighborhood he hits. He can send in holograms or simply his stealth drone by itself to gather information. He stalks, spies and harasses. So, yes. I would assume he knows the lay of the land very well.”
“All the more reason it’s odd if he didn’t know that Georgine Duvall wasn’t alone in the house,” I reply as we reach the former cemetery that was dug up and desecrated.
The site is occupied by the new fitness center, a handsome complex the same style as everything else. It would be an easy walk from the residences, and 13 Shore Lane is the grandest, with front-facing gables, a half-timber façade and portico. Heraldic stained glass flanks the red front door, the upper windows a mosaic of diamond-shaped panes.
Tiny white lights are haphazardly strung in urns of Japanese yew and Colorado blue spruce that do fine in cold weather. There are no candles in the windows, no wreath on the door, and that strikes me as unusual. Georgine Duvall loved Christmas. She once commented that unlike a lot of people, her childhood memories of the holidays were joyous.
I remember visiting her house in Charlottesville this time of year when Lucy was a freshman at UVA. Every so often I’d sit down with Georgine face-to-face. I’d ask about my niece’s progress.
Without violating patient confidentiality, the psychiatrist would give me insights in hopes I could be a more helpful aunt. A more open-minded, live-and-let-live one. I liked Georgine but didn’t agree with most of what she said.
That Christmas was the last time I sat down with her, and I envision us having tea in front of the fire. Fresh-cut trees were lighted and brightly decorated in the entryway and living room. Swags of evergreen entwined railings, outlining doorways and the fireplace mantel, the pine fragrance heavy in the air.
Now, here we are. She’s dead and I’m about to see her again after many years. I can’t help but think about how sad and strange that is as I look out at law enforcement vehicles. Alexandria P.D. cruisers, black Tahoe SUVs line the street, and Benton pulls in behind Blaise Fruge’s Ford Interceptor. But I see no sign of her.
Marino’s pickup truck isn’t here because he was riding with her when they responded to Zain Willard’s 911 call. I’m surprised Fabian and our transport van haven’t rolled up yet. I send him a text.
ETA?
“The place looks the same as when we first saw it,” Benton is saying. “Except when we were here it was springtime, everything blooming. I remember the property was beautiful, the garden right up your alley, the view of the river amazing. But the energy was disturbing.”
“I sensed the same thing. As if something awful once went on here. And it probably did.” I’m looking out at the crime scene van on the driveway.
Investigators with FBI emblazoned in yellow on the back of their dark jackets are obviously disgruntled, hanging around outside with their equipment. I can see them making angry comments as they huddle in the wind. Law enforcement doesn’t like waiting for me to show up. They often resent the medical examiner giving them instructions.
If some police investigators had their way, my office wouldn’t respond to scenes at all. We’d leave evidence collection to them. The forensic pathologist would do the autopsy but nothing more, the consequences unimaginable, especially when cases go to court.
Fabian answers me, At the first checkpoint.
Benton cuts the engine, and we climb out. I retrieve my field case from the backseat as a female FBI crime scene investigator calls out good morning.
“When do you think we can get in?” she asks us without coming closer.
“At least an hour but possibly longer depending on what I find,” I answer.
“We’ve been waiting that long already,” she informs me.
“I appreciate your patience.”
“We really need to get in there,” offers another investigator not nearly as polite.
“I know you do,” I sympathize.
“Maybe we could start in the basement? An area where you won’t be?” he suggests more aggressively.
“I don’t know where I’m going to be yet,” I tell them.
The fence enclosing 13 Shore Lane is taller than I am, and Benton inspects the gate for a moment. He shows me that it opens when someone is exiting the property but requires a key to enter.
“When we looked at this place five years ago,” he says, “it was the same thing in back. If you docked your boat, you needed a key to unlock the gate there. But to leave the property, you didn’t.”
“Indicating the killer either scaled the fence or had a key,” I suggest. “Unless he was already on the property because he was staying here.”
We follow the walkway, maneuvering around melting snow pinkish red in spots. I think of the bloody trail Zain Willard left, most of it not visible now, just a meandering path of diluted stains in slush.
The sun is brighter as haze continues burning off, the temperature nearing fifty. Water drips from trees, snow sliding off the roof and thudding to the puddled yard. As we near the portico, the front door swings open, Marino stepping out on the covered stone porch.
He’s wearing the same cargo pants and long-sleeved shirt he had on yesterday, the clothing wrinkled, his face stubbly. His eyes look tired and unhappy after fighting with Dorothy and getting no sleep. As far as I know, she’s not kicked him out of the house before last night.
“Lucky for you, the drones are gonzo,” he announces.
“Swatted out of the sky,” Benton replies as we climb wet stone steps that are worn and pitted.
“Love it when that happens.” Marino steps aside to let us enter.
The foyer’s hardwood floor is covered with blue sticky mats to trap anything tracked in and out. Bright yellow evidence markers trail through the house.
“Nothing I like better than Lucy drone hunting,” Marino chortles, and he has on black nitrile gloves and white Tyvek shoe covers.
I look around at the familiar exposed dark oak beams and white plaster walls, the stained glass glowing in primary colors when touched by the sun. A skylight was added when the chapel was renovated, the foyer bright and welcoming. But I remember the former chapel seemed to echo remembered suffering.
“I hope someone got photographs and swabs of the blood before it mostly washed away,” I say to Marino as he closes the door, returning a chilled quiet inside old thick walls.
“Fruge and I did the best we could,” he says. “But it was raining.”
I take off my coat, placing it and my Kevlar briefcase on top of sticky mats in a corner of the foyer.
“Where’s Fruge?” I ask.
“At the hospital with one of the FBI agents, trying to find employees who will talk.” Marino clearly isn’t happy about it. “I’ve sent her a text, telling her to get her ass back here to watch the door.”
He offers boxes of gloves and surgical face masks, making sure we don’t leave our DNA or anything else. There are cartons of PPE, evidence markers and other crime scene necessities.
