Flesh and Blood

“They’re not fake and they definitely were polished,” Benton says to me. “If you look at them under a lens, each has the same very subtle pitting. It may be that a tumbler was used. Gun enthusiasts who hand-load their own ammo often use tumblers to polish cartridge cases. The pennies need to go to the labs now.”

Marino holds up the Baggie. “I don’t get it.”

“They were left on top of our wall,” I explain. “It could have waited until we were sure nobody is around,” I say to Benton.

“Nobody is. That’s not how an offender like this works.”

“An offender like what?” Marino asks. “I feel like I missed the first half of the movie.”

“I’ve got to go.” Benton holds my gaze. He looks around and back at me before returning to the house where I have no doubt he’s been making plans he’s not sharing.

Marino initials the Baggie, scribbles the time and date, screwing shut one eye behind his Ray-Bans as smoke drifts into his face. Another drag on the cigarette and he bends down to wipe it against a brick, scraping it out, and he tucks the butt in a pocket. It’s an old habit that comes from working crime scenes where it’s poor form to add detritus that could be confused with evidence. I know the drill. I used to do it too. It was never pretty when I’d forget to empty my pockets before my pants or jacket ended up in the washing machine.

Marino climbs into the SUV and impatiently shoves the Baggie into the glove box.

“The pennies go to fingerprints first, then DNA and trace,” I tell him as we shut our doors. “Be gentle with them. I don’t want any additional artifact introduced such as scratches to the metal from you banging them around.”

“So I’m taking them seriously, really treating them like evidence? In what crime? You mind explaining what the hell’s going on?”

I tell him what I remember about the anonymous email I received last month.

“Did Lucy figure out who it is?”

“No.”

“You’re kidding me, right?”

“It wasn’t possible.”

“She couldn’t hack her way into figuring it out?” Marino backs out of the driveway. “Lucy must be slipping.”

“It appears the person was clever enough to use a publicly accessed computer in a hotel business center,” I explain. “She can tell you which one. I recall she said it was in Morristown.”

“Morristown,” he repeats. “Holy shit. The same area where the two Jersey victims were shot.”

We back out onto the street and I’m struck by how peaceful it is, almost mid-June, close to noon, the sort of day when it’s difficult to imagine someone plotting evil. Most undergraduate students are gone for the summer, many people are at work and others are home tending to projects they put off during the regular academic year.

The economics professor across from our house is mowing his grass. He looks up at us and waves as if all is fine in the world. The wife of a banker two doors down is pruning a hedge, and one yard over from her a landscaping truck is parked on the side of the street, sonny’s lawn care. Not far from it is a skinny young man wearing dark glasses, oversized jeans, a sweatshirt and a baseball cap. He’s loud with a gas engine leaf blower, clearing the sidewalk, and he doesn’t look at us or do the polite thing and pause his work as we drive past. Grass clippings and grit blast the SUV in a swarm of sharp clicks.

“Asshole!” Marino flashes his emergency lights and yelps his siren.

The young man pays no attention. He doesn’t even seem to notice.

Marino slams on the brakes, shoves the SUV into park and boils out. The blower is as loud as an airboat. Then abrupt silence as the young man stops what he’s doing. His dark glasses stare, his mouth expressionless. I try to place him. Maybe I’ve just seen him in the area doing yard work.

“You like it if I did that to your car?” Marino yells at him.

“I don’t have a car.”

“What’s your name?”

“I don’t have to tell you,” he says in the same indifferent tone, and I notice his hair is long and carrot red.

“Oh yeah? We’ll see about that.”

Marino stalks around the truck, inspecting it. He pulls out a notepad and makes a big production of writing down the truck’s plate number. Next he photographs it with his BlackBerry.

“I find anything I’ll write you up for damaging city property,” he threatens, the veins standing out in his neck.

A shrug. He isn’t scared. He doesn’t give a shit. He’s even smiling a little.

Marino gets back in and resumes driving. “Fucking asshole.”

“Well you made your point,” I reply dryly.

“What the hell’s wrong with kids these days? Nobody raises them right. If he was mine, I’d kick his damn ass.”

I don’t remind him that his only child, Rocco, who is dead, was a career criminal. Marino used to kick his ass and a lot of good it did.

“You seem very agitated today,” I comment.

“You know why? Because I think we’re dealing with some type of fucking terrorist who’s now in our backyard. That’s my gut and I wish to hell it wasn’t, and me and Machado are having a real beef about it.”

“And you started thinking this when exactly?”

“After the second case in Jersey. I got a real bad feeling Jamal Nari is the third one.”

“Terrorists generally claim responsibility,” I remind him. “They don’t remain anonymous.”

“Not always.”

“What about enemies?”

I get back to the reason my vacation is being delayed and possibly ruined. More to the point, I need Marino to focus on what’s before us and not on connections he’s making to cases in New Jersey, to terrorism or to anything else.

“I would imagine that after the storm of publicity Jamal Nari must have gained a few detractors,” I add.

“Nothing to account for this that we know about so far.” Marino turns on Irving Street.

A light wind stirs hardwood trees and their shadows move on the sunny pavement. The traffic is intermittent, a couple of cars, a moped, and a boxy white construction truck that Marino tailgates and blares his horn at because it’s not going fast enough. The truck pulls over to let him pass and Marino guns the engine.

He’s in a mood all right and I doubt it’s solely related to his so-called beef with Machado. Something else is going on. Marino might be scared and going out of his way to act like he’s not.

“And the highly publicized problem with the FBI was about this time last year?” I’m asking him. “Why strike now? A lot of people have forgotten about it. Including me.”

“I don’t know how you forget after the way he treated you at the White House. Accusing you of selling body parts, saying autopsies are for profit and all that bullshit. Kind of an irony that the very thing he went after you about is now going to happen to him.”

“Did he live alone?” I ask.