Sharp Force, page 7
“He quit going to church after getting hit by the car,” Mick says.
“Catholic?” Marino eyes the crucifix on the wall near the dining room.
“We used to go to Saint Mary’s. But not anymore,” Rick explains.
“I grew up Catholic too,” Marino confides. “But haven’t been to church in a long time.”
“Sometimes Mom goes by herself,” Mick replies. “Dad hates it. He said God shouldn’t have let the car hit him.”
“I can understand him feeling that way,” Marino replies as I think of the necklace Rowdy O’Leary was wearing when he died.
He may have turned against the church, but not entirely. Or why would he have on a crucifix? Why would he allow one to hang inside his house?
“He was mad that God didn’t punish whoever hit him without stopping.” It’s Rick saying this. “He blamed God for a lot of things.”
“I can understand him feeling that way, too,” Marino replies.
“How many murders have you worked?” Mick then asks.
“More than I can count,” Marino answers as Reba returns with Christmas cookies.
She sets down the plate on the coffee table, her hands trembling as she passes around cocktail napkins with a partridge in a pear tree on them. I get up from the sofa, carrying over the evidence envelope. I show Reba that the back of it is sealed and scrawled with initials.
“Someone who works for me placed the items inside it,” I explain. “Are you all right with my opening it here?”
What I’m really asking is if it’s okay to do it in front of her children. Because that’s not my preference. It will be traumatic, and I can’t talk freely if they’re sitting here.
“Why don’t you two watch TV in your room for a little bit?” their mother says to them.
“Do we have to?” they plead in unison.
“Just for a little while,” she replies, her face distressed again, and Marino gets up from his chair.
He helps himself to a cookie, taking a bite while giving Reba a thumbs-up.
“Reminds me of when I was a kid,” he says with a mouthful. “I used to love M&M cookies, especially at Christmas when the candy coatings are red and green like these.”
He’s shamed me to reaching for one, nibbling off a small bite. The buttery sweetness melts in my mouth, and what I’m doing goes against my training and better judgment. I don’t eat at crime scenes or with witnesses, least of all potential suspects. I could use a glass of water but won’t ask for anything.
“Delicious,” I tell her. “That was very kind of you.”
“I wanted to show at least a little hospitality.” Another bright smile, her eyes tragic. “Thank you both for going to the trouble of coming here, Doctor Scarpetta. And I believe you said your name is…?”
She looks blankly at Marino, and he tells her.
“Well, it was mighty nice of both of you to stop by with Rowdy’s things, especially in this weather…” Her voice dies in her throat again.
“Are you a real doctor?” Mick asks me cautiously. “Do you work in a funeral home?”
“I’m a real doctor, what’s called a forensic pathologist,” I reply. “And no, I don’t work in a funeral home. But I deal with them often.”
“What does a forensic pathologist do?” His eyes are wary.
“We try to figure out what happened to people who have died suddenly and unexpectedly,” I reply, and the boys don’t react. “Legally, we have to answer questions.”
“Please go on to your room,” Reba tells them.
“Come on, I’ll go with you,” Marino volunteers. “You can give me a tour. Are you two into sports?” he asks as they walk out of the living room.
“Baseball,” one of them says.
“I’m a pitcher,” says the other as they follow the hallway, disappearing through a doorway.
Reba sits down on the other end of the sofa, the leather cushion creaking. She turns to me, and I read the questions in her eyes. I can guess what’s coming.
“He thinks something’s not adding up? And I overheard him say he works murders?” She’s talking about Marino. “Why would he mention that unless you suspect somebody did something to Rowdy? Now it’s making more sense why I’m being asked so many questions I find disturbing.”
Digging into my briefcase, I pull out my Moleskine notebook. I open it to a clean page, contemplating what I can tell her. And what I won’t.
7:15 p.m., Christmas Eve, I jot down.
“I use those same notebooks at work,” Reba says to me.
W/Mrs. O’Leary inside lv room. I shorthand who I’m with and where we’re sitting.
“A habit that goes back to nursing school,” she adds, clearing her throat nonstop.
Pausing my pen, I look up to see her staring through tears.
“It’s a good way to keep track of things as they’re happening,” I reply. “An old habit of mine, too.”
I make a note of the address on South Payne Street, my every written word discoverable by attorneys. That doesn’t stop me from creating a record. People forget what they say during desperate moments. They misrepresent unintentionally. They also lie.
“You examined him,” Reba says. “What did you find out?”
“It’s too early for me to know for sure why your husband died,” I inform her. “I have an idea of the cause but not what might have led up to it.”
“What cause are you thinking?” She’s having trouble taking a deep breath.
“Your husband had serious heart disease,” I reply. “Had he complained about chest pains? Tachycardia? Getting out of breath?”
“That’s what killed him?” She’s wiping her eyes. “He wouldn’t go to a cardiologist. He wouldn’t go to doctors at all anymore. I knew it was just a matter of time…”
Her voice trails off. She stares down at her hands clasped in her lap.
“Likely, his heart disease was a factor.” I’m careful what I share. “But again, there’s a lot of information we don’t have. I won’t make a final ruling for a while.”
“It’s obvious there are suspicions about what really happened. A lady who works for the state called here today asking all kinds of questions,” she says.
“What lady?”
“Maggie something,” Reba replies to my dismay, and it was wrong of Maggie Cutbush to do such a thing.
Damn her!
She must have pounced on Reba not long after her husband’s body was recovered from the Potomac River. How insensitive. Not to mention stupid. Should Reba have any involvement in her husband’s death, Maggie just tipped her off.
“Maggie Cutbush?” I make sure, and Reba nods her head.
“She was asking questions about Rowdy’s mental health.” She dabs her eyes with a tissue. “And if he had an alcohol problem that might have caused him to fall off the pier.”
“I can tell you that she shouldn’t have been asking you anything at all,” I reply, and right about now I’d like to take off Maggie’s head. “I’m sorry that happened.”
Coughing several times, Reba continues glancing in the direction of her sons’ bedroom. The murmur of them talking with Marino is barely audible.
“She also wanted to know about Rowdy’s job. Did he work anymore,” she goes on. “Truth is, I don’t know.”
“I understand he was a software designer.”
“That’s right. He’s been working from home for the past six years. Ever since the accident.”
“Did he have many clients?” I ask.
“I’m not sure about anything he was doing. Or maybe not doing would be closer to the truth.” She continues staring off toward her sons’ bedroom. “Obviously, I don’t know what’s on his computers. Or who all he was in contact with. I didn’t talk about my work much, and he almost never mentioned his.”
“What type of software did he design?” I ask.
“He’s truly gifted with computers.” She looks at me. “But he wasn’t productive like he used to be. Doesn’t feel the same about the work. Doesn’t love it anymore. Before he was hit by the car, he had a passion for what he did. He was earning good money. He used to joke that we were on our way to being rich enough to buy a big house on the river like Monticello.”
“At the time of the hit-and-run, did he have much in savings?” I turn to a new page in my notebook.
“Whatever he’d put away? He went through it quickly.” A glint of despair mixed with resentment. “I don’t know what all he spent it on, to be honest.”
“But he worked here in the house.”
“Supposedly,” she rues.
“Where is his office?” I ask.
“On the other side of the house. I can show you if you want.”
“Yes, I’d like to see it if that’s all right,” I reply. “Was he able to make a living anymore?”
“I don’t know. For sure nothing like he did. And whatever he made, he spent. And then some,” she says as we get up from the sofa.
CHAPTER 9
I follow Reba O’Leary through the foyer. On the other side is a brief hallway that leads to a door she opens, turning on the lights.
We step inside a brown-carpeted room paneled in wormy chestnut, a wooden ceiling fan overhead, framed photographs covering the walls. The air is chilled, the thermostat registering sixty degrees, the metal-slatted blinds closed.
“As you’re probably noticing right away, there are no computers,” she tells me. “That’s because the police took them. The workstations, and his laptops.”
The L-shaped desk is crowded with video displays and disconnected cables, a router, a pair of Meta goggles and other gaming equipment. Near the ergonomic chair is a large gunmetal-gray safe with a keypad. Indentations in the carpet are from two computer towers no longer here.
Backup batteries and surge protectors are still plugged in. A blank whiteboard leans against a wall, and I don’t see files or paperwork of any kind. There’s none of the usual clutter I’d expect in a place where someone runs a business. Unless it’s a fraudulent one.
“When were the police here?” I ask Reba.
“The day after he disappeared,” she replies. “A couple of officers and a detective came by and said they’d found Rowdy’s phone on the pier. Also his gun, and that it had been fired twice.”
“Was his office searched? Or any other areas of your home?”
“Yes, the detective looked around the house, the basement,” Reba says. “But what they were most interested in were his computers.”
“Did the police give you a reason?”
“Maybe there would be something on them that showed he was having a problem with someone,” Reba explains. “I was asked permission. The detective was very polite. Nice, actually, and gentle with the boys. I didn’t see any reason not to let the police look at whatever they wanted.”
“Who’s the detective?”
“Blaise Fruge.”
“I know her well,” I reply. “She’s a good investigator.”
“She asked a lot of questions, that’s for sure. Wanting to know if Rowdy might have disappeared on purpose, maybe because he was involved in something illegal,” Reba explains. “And I told her I wouldn’t think so. He was a lot of things. But I’ve never known him to be dishonest.”
“Did Investigator Fruge want you to open the safe?” I continue taking notes.
“Yes. But I don’t have the combination,” Reba says. “That’s where Rowdy kept important documents. And his backup drives, things related to his programming and software design. As best I know.”
I’ve paused in front of a bookcase filled with technical volumes relating to software development, video games, artificial intelligence, the metaverse. There are works by John Mack, Richard Dolan and Avi Loeb. It would seem Rowdy was interested in UFOs and alien abductions.
I check dates on copyright pages, most going back to around the time Rowdy was hit by a car. He has books on health, wellness, exercise, most of all running. Reba watches me perusing.
“He was serious about his marathons, what he ate and how much sleep he got, fanatical, really, before the accident,” she says. “After he was hit by the car, he had to have both knees replaced.”
“Yes, I know that from his x-rays,” I reply. “And I could see he had significant arthritic changes in his hips and other joints. He must have been in chronic pain.”
“He was,” she says. “The only real joy in life he had left were the boys. And I’m not going to pretend otherwise, but things were strained between us. He was so unhappy and paranoid.”
I begin walking around her dead husband’s office, looking at photographs of him crossing the finish line in various marathons. Before he was the victim of the hit-and-run, he was wiry, strong, with thick red hair and a big smile. It doesn’t seem possible he’s the same man I had on my table a few hours ago.
His body bloated by the gases of decomposition, his froglike face flash in my thoughts. I envision the damage marine life did to his ears and lips. His eyes were gone, and I push away the images.
“Most of all, Rowdy was angry,” Reba says. “He was so angry, always saying there’s no justice. There just isn’t.”
“I suspect I’d feel the same way.” I continue looking around.
The shadowbox of medals from races he won. The framed newspaper stories and a magazine article about him in Runner’s World. I stop in front of a hotel-size refrigerator, and microwave oven. On a Formica side table are salt and pepper, hot sauce, a coffeemaker, a toaster oven and a cutting board.
Against the wall is a sofa bed, and behind the desk a bathroom. A large-screen TV is on the wall between the two windows.
“Did your husband ever sleep in here?” I ask. “It looks like the sofa pulls out into a bed?”
“Well, yes.” Reba stares at the corner of a sheet peeking out, bending down to tuck it in. “This was his man cave. He slept in here most of the time.”
“Would you mind if I check what’s in his medicine cabinet?” I ask, and she doesn’t care, shrugging permission. “Did Investigator Fruge look?”
“I think so,” Reba says. “But she didn’t take anything from in there.”
I step inside the office bathroom with its blue tile and brass fixtures, the décor 1990s. An electric toothbrush, a razor and shaving cream are on the back of the blue porcelain sink. I take in the jungle-themed wallpaper, the combined shower and tub. The heated towel rack is turned off, the blinds closed in the window near the blue toilet.
Opening the mirrored cabinet door, I scan shelves of amber plastic prescription bottles with printed labels. Rowdy was on medication for high blood pressure and migraine headaches. He had multiple refills of them and the antidepressant Effexor. Most of the bottles appear untouched and were prescribed years ago.
In the wooden cabinet under the sink, I discover a variety of laxatives, and diarrhea and stomach medications. There are bottles of Aleve and Motrin. A box of condoms has an expiration date of six years ago. Reba averts her gaze as I return the Trojans to where I found them.
“Did your husband stop taking his meds, including Effexor?” I ask her. “I notice that many of the bottles are full.”
“He didn’t take anything like he was supposed to and hadn’t been for the past three or four years.”
“Was the Effexor prescribed for depression, I assume?” I jot down the details.
“That and anxiety,” she says. “But he refused to go back to his doctor, and he certainly wouldn’t listen to me. Doesn’t matter that I might know a thing or two as a nurse. I’ve seen up close and personal what happens to people who don’t take their meds. As have you.”
“Where are you a nurse?” I walk out of the bathroom.
“Here in Alexandria. The hospital on Seminary Road. I work four a.m. to four p.m. Thursday through Sunday so I can be home as much as possible with the twins. Mostly I’m in the E.R., but I go wherever’s needed.”
“I hope you’re taking some time off to cope with all this?” I reply as we leave Rowdy’s office.
“Keeping busy while helping others is the best thing,” she says in the hallway. “And we’re shorthanded right now, even more than usual. ’Tis the season.”
We return to the living room, and I retrieve the manila envelope from the sofa. I tear open the flap, sliding out an evidence receipt that lists Rowdy’s personal effects.
“Fortunately, I have a sister in D.C. She’ll be here tomorrow morning bright and early,” Reba is saying. “That’s assuming the roads are okay. But they usually clear them pretty quick.”
Signing the form, I hand it and the pen to her. She reads the inventory carefully, taking a long time, as if she can’t comprehend what she’s looking at, wiping her eyes.
“My sister will keep the boys company and out of trouble until I get home,” Reba explains, her voice fractured. “We’ll open gifts. We’ll have Christmas dinner then.”
She places the form on the coffee table, bending over it with the pen.
“What about his other things?” she asks, signing her name shakily. “I don’t see anything about his clothing.”
“I’ll be holding on to that for now,” I answer.
She slides the form my way, and I tuck it in my briefcase, giving her the evidence envelope. Sitting back down on the sofa, I ask if she knew why her husband night-fished at that location on the Potomac.
“The pier is remote and in poor repair, and there are no facilities. No restrooms, for example,” I explain. “From what I understand, no one really fishes there. Except your husband did. I’m wondering what appealed to him about it.”
“I’ve never been there, and I hate fishing.” Resentment glints in her eyes. “I don’t eat fish, certainly not the ones he caught.”
“When did he start fishing on that pier at night?” I try again.
“He didn’t fish at all until after the accident. I’ve never understood it really except he liked spending time by himself when he could get it,” she explains as I think about Rowdy looking at pornography on his phone while digging into his cooler of beer.
A nervous sigh, and Reba steels herself, reaching for the envelope. She digs out the small jewelry box. Opening it, she doesn’t move, staring at what’s inside. Then she takes a deep silent breath. She’s clumsy working the ring out of its velvet slot.
