Flesh and Blood Read Free Page B

beneath spreading branches of dark green leaves loaded with waxy white blossoms the size of pie pans. “It’s fitting you have a pet that doesn’t listen and completely manipulates you.”
    “Come on.” I lead him over to his favorite privacy area of shaded boxwoods and evergreens in thick beds of pine-scented mulch. He’s not interested. “Seriously? He’s acting odd.”
    I look around, searching for anything else that might indicate something is off and my attention wanders back to the pennies. A chill touches the back of my neck. I don’t see anyone. I hear nothing but the breeze whispering through the trees and the distant sound of a gas-powered leaf blower. It slowly comes to me, what I didn’t recognize at first. I see it. The tweet with the link that I got some weeks ago. The attachment was an odd note to me and a poem, I recall.
    The Twitter name was
Copperhead
and I remember only snippets of what the poem said. Something about the light coming and a hangman that struck me as the ramblings of a deranged individual. Delusional messages and voice mails aren’t uncommon. My Cambridge Forensic Center email address and phone number are public information. Lucy always traces unsolicited electronic communications and lets me know if there is anything I should worry about. I vaguely recall her telling me the tweet was sent from a hotel business center in Morristown, New Jersey.
    I need to ask her about it. In fact I’ll do it now. Her cockpit is wireless, her flight helmet Bluetooth enabled. For that matter she’s probably already landed, and I slide my phone out of a pocket of my jacket. But before I get the chance someone is calling me first. The ringtone sounds like an old telephone. Detective Pete Marino, and I recognize his mobile number in the display, not his personal phone but the one he uses on the job.
    If he were calling to say happy birthday or have a nice trip he wouldn’t be on his Cambridge police BlackBerry. He’s careful about using his departmental equipment, vehicles, email or any form of communication for anything remotely personal. It’s one of life’s many ironies and contradictions when it comes to him. He certainly wasn’t like that all the years he worked for me.
    “Oh God,” I mutter. “This had better not be what I think it is.”
    “Sorry to do this to you, Doc,” Marino’s big voice sounds in my earpiece. “I know you got a plane to catch. But you need to be aware of what’s going on. You’re my first call.”
    “What is it?” I begin slowly pacing the yard.
    “We got one on Farrar Street,” he says. “In broad daylight, plenty of people around and nobody heard or saw a thing. Just like the other ones. And the victim selection bothers the shit out of me, especially the timing with Obama coming here today.”
    “What other ones?”
    “Where are you right now?” he asks.
    “Benton and I are in the backyard.”
    I feel my husband’s eyes on me.
    “Maybe you should go inside and not be out in the open. That’s the way it happens,” Marino says. “People out in the open going about their business …”
    “What other ones? What people?” I look around as I pace.
    Sock is sitting, his ears folded back. Benton gets up from the bench, watching me. It continues to be a beautiful peaceful morning but it’s a mirage. Everything has just turned ugly.
    “New Jersey right after Christmas and then again in April. The same M.O.,” Marino says and I interrupt him again.
    “Hold on. Back up. What’s happened, exactly? And let’s not compare the M.O. to other cases before we know the facts.”
    “A homicide not even five minutes from you. We got the call about an hour ago …”
    “And you’re just notifying my office now? Or more specifically, notifying me?”
    He knows damn well that the more quickly the body can be examined in situ and transported to my office, the better. We should have been called instantly.
    “Machado wanted to secure the scene.”
    Sil