Cruel and Unusual - Cornwell Patricia (книги онлайн полные версии .txt) 📗

“Unsurprisingly,” I said. “Her husband had just lost his job.”

“It's too bad he didn't lose his high dollar taste. We're talking Polo shirts and Britches of Georgetown slacks and silk ties. A couple weeks after he gets laid off, the jerk goes out and buys seven hundred bucks' worth of ski equipment and then heads off to Wintergreen for the weekend. Before that it was a two-hundred-dollar leather jacket and a four-hundred-dollar bicycle. So Susan's down at the morgue working like a dog and then coming home to face-bills her salary won't put a dew it”

“I had no idea,” I said pained by a sudden vision of Susan sitting at her desk. Her dally ritual was to spend her lunch hour in her office, and on occasion I would join her thereto chat. I remembered her generic-brand corn chips and the sale stickers on her sodas. I don't think she ever ate or drank anything she had not brought from home.

“Jason's spending habits,” Marino went on, “leads to the shit he's causing you. He's badmouthing you like hell to anybody who will listen because you're a doctor-lawyer-Indian chief who drives a Mercedes and lives in a big house bi Windsor Farms. I think the dumbass believes if he can somehow blame you for what happened to his wife, maybe he can get a little compensation.”

“He can try until he's blue in the face.”

“And he will.”

Our diet drinks arrived, and I changed the subject.

“I'm meeting with Downey in the morning.” Marino's eyes wandered to the television over the bar. “Lucy's getting started on AFIS. And then I've got to do something about Ben Steven,”

”What you ought to do is get rid of him.”

“Do you have any idea how difficult it is to fire a state employee?”

“They say it's easier to fire Jesus Christ,” Marino said. “Unless the employee is appointed and got a grade off the charts, like you. You still ought to find some way to run the bastard off.”

“Have you talked to him?”

“Oh, yeah. According to him, you're arrogant, ambitious, and strange. A real pain in the ass to work for.”

“He actually said something like that?”I asked in disbelief.

“That was the drift.”

“I hope someone is checking into his finances. I'd be interested to know if he's made any large deposits lately. Susan didn't get into trouble alone.”

”I agree with you. I think Stevens knows a lot and is covering his tracks like crazy. By the way, I checked with Susan's bank. One of the tellers remembers her making the thirty-five-hundred-dollar deposit in cash. Twenties, fifties, and hundred-dollar bills that she was carrying in her purse.”

“What did Stevens have to say about Susan?”

“He's saying that he really didn't know her, but that it was his impression there was some problem between you and her. In other words, he's reinforcing what's been in the news.”

Our food arrived, and it was all I could do to swallow a single bite because I was so angry.

“And what about Fielding?” I said. “Does he think I'm horrible to work for?”

Marino stared off again. “He says you're very driven and he's never been able to figure you out.”

“I didn't hire him to figure me out, and compared to him, I am certainly driven. Fielding is disenchanted with forensic medicine and has been for several years. He expends most of his energy in the gym.”

“Doc” - Marino met my eyes- “you are driven compared to anyone, and most people can't figure you out. You don't exactly walk around with your heart on your sleeve. In fact, you can come across as someone who don't have feelings. You're so damn hard to read that to others who don't know you, it sometimes appears that nothing gets to you. Other cops, lawyers, they ask me about you. They want to know what you're really like, how you can do what you do every day - what the deal is. They see you as somebody who don't get close to anyone.”

“And what do you tell them when they ask?” I said.

“I don't tell them a damn thing.”

“Are you finished psychoanalyzing me yet, Marino?”

He lit a cigarette. “Look, I'm going to say something to you, and you ain't gonna like it. You've always been this reserved, professional lady - someone real slow to let you in, but once the person's there, he's there. He's got a damn friend for life and you'd do anything for But you've been different this past year. You've had about a hundred walls up ever since Mark got killed. For those of us around you, it's like being in a room that was once seventy degrees and suddenly the temperature's down to about fifty five. I don't think you're even aware of it.”

“So nobody's feeling all that attached to you right now. Maybe they even resent you a little bit because they feel ignored or snubbed by you. Maybe they never liked you anyway. Maybe they're just indifferent. The thing about people is, whether you're sitting on a throne or a hot seat, they're going to use your position to their advantage. And if there's no bond between you and them, that just makes it all the easier for them to try to get what they want without giving a rat's ass about what happens to you. And that's where you are. There's a lot of people who've been waiting for years to see you bleed.”

“I don't intend to bleed.” I pushed my plate away.

“Doc” - he blew out smoke - “you're already bleeding. And common sense tells me that if you're swimming with sharks and start bleeding, you ought to get the hell out of the water.”

“Might we converse without speaking in cliches, at least for a minute or two?”

“Hey I can say it in Portuguese or Chinese and you're not going to listen to me.”

“If you speak Portuguese or Chinese, I promise I'll listen. In fact, if you ever decide to speak English I promise I'll listen.”

“Comments like that don't win you any fans. That's just what I'm talking about.”

“I said it with a smile.”

“I've seen you cut open bodies with a smile.”

“Never. I always use a scalpel.”

“Sometimes there isn't a difference between the two. I've seen your smile make defense attorneys bleed.”

“If I'm such a dreadful person, why are we friends?”

“'Because I've got more walls up than you do. The fact is, there's a squirrel in every tree and the water's full of sharks. All of them want a piece of us.”

“Marino, you're paranoid.”

“You're damn right, which is why I wish you'd lay low for a while, Doc. Really,” he said.

“I can't.”

“You want to know the truth, it's going to start looking like a conflict of interests for you to have anything to do with these cases. It's going to make you come off looking worse.”

I said, “Susan is dead. Eddie Heath is dead. Jennifer Deighton is dead. There is corruption in my office, and we aren't certain who went to the electric chair the other week. You're suggesting I just walk away until everything somehow magically self-corrects?”

Marino reached for the salt but I got it first.

”Nope. But you can have all the pepper you want,” I said, sliding me pepper shaker closer.

“This health crap is going to kill me,” he warned.

“Because one of these days I'm going to get so pissed I'm going to do everything at once. Five cigarettes going, a bourbon in one hand and a cup of coffee in the other, baked potato loaded with butter, sour cream, salt and then I'm going to blow every circuit in the box.”

“No, you're not going to do any of those things,” I said. “You're going to be kind to yourself and live at least as long as I do.”

We were silent for a while, picking at our food.

“Doc, no offense, but just what do you think you're going to find out about damn feather parts?”

“Hopefully, their origin.”

“I can save you the trouble. They came from birds, “he said.

I left Marino at close to seven P.M. and returned downtown The temperature had risen above forty, the night dark and lashing out in fits of rain violent enough to stop traffic. Sodium vapor lamps were pollen-yellow fudges behind the morgue, where the bay door was shut, every parking space vacant. Inside the building, my pulse quickened as I followed the brightly lit corridor past the autopsy suite to Susan's small office.