Page 100 of Sharp Force
My sister and Marino were supposed to housesit while Benton and I were overseas.
“Yep,” Lucy says.
“But Benton and I canceled our trip.” I’m dismayed by the thought of Dorothy and Marino under the same roof with us while they’re at war.
“Mom knows you’re not going,” Lucy says. “She has an idea what we’re doing, obviously. This case is all over the news. She’s hoping we’ll be home in time to have a late Christmas dinner together. She said to tell you she’s cooking.”
“Cooking what?” I worry.
Dorothy isn’t known for her culinary talents.
“She said it would be a surprise.” Lucy looks at me, shrugging. “But I know she’s baking cookies, and I’m guessing she’ll whip up tacos. That’s usually what she makes when she’s surprising us.”
“Oh God. Tacos on Christmas,” I reply.
Benton and I climb into the Tesla, and the road running through the hospital grounds is wet. The traffic has gone from a standstill to nonexistent when we drive through the entrance gate, the same FBI police officers there as before. They move sawhorses to let us through.
TV satellite trucks are parked on the roadside, news correspondents and their crews busy filming. I recognize David Muir and Anderson Cooper. Helicopters hover over Mercy Island, a lot of people on the roads now. It takes the better part of a half hour to retrace our steps through Old Town, the restaurants and bars bustling.
We pick up King Street to West Braddock, driving close to my office, and I send a text to Shannon asking for an update. Doug Schlaefer is up to his elbows in Georgine Duvall’s autopsy. Once he’s dictated his provisional report, my secretary will transcribe it. She complains that TV crews are hanging around my headquarters, filming bodies being picked up and delivered.
“More of the same,” I tell Benton the latest. “Apparently one of the local networks is buzzing a drone around.”
Past Episcopal High School’s tennis courts and playing fields are the Virginia Theological Seminary and a synagogue. Then wooded neighborhoods with homes decorated for the holidays as we reach the sprawling modern brick hospital. It’s doing a brisk business on Christmas, and I’m not surprised.
Some of their patients who didn’t fare well have ended up at my office this morning. According to Shannon, we have six cases so far, half of them motor vehicle fatalities involving alcohol. A woman who shot herself in the head died in surgery here and is inside my morgue cooler.
The hospital grounds are messy with slush, the parking lotspacked. It takes a few minutes to find a visitor’s spot, and Benton texts Secret Service agents inside that we’re on location. We push through the glass front door, the lobby crowded with unhappy people waiting in plastic chairs, some of them injured, others clearly unwell.
Piped-in Christmas music seems incongruous as we walk through. Benton stops at the information desk, the woman working it older with wispy white hair. She’s wearing a green Christmas sweater with Mrs. Claus on it.
“Here to see Zain Willard.” Benton flashes his badge.
“Let me check.” Her face is uneasy as she reaches for the phone.
“You don’t need to check,” he says. “I know what room he’s in.”
“But I’ve been instructed…” she starts to fret.
“Several of our agents should already be there waiting for us,” Benton explains. “And I have the chief medical examiner with me.”
“Has someone died?” She looks at me in alarm.
“If you could just tell us how to get to his room?” Benton keeps pushing.
She tells us that Zain Willard is on the second floor. He’s on the orthopedic wing because there were no other private rooms available. As we walk off, she’s talking on the phone, alerting someone that we’re coming.
“We’re going to need privacy,” I tell Benton. “I don’t want to examine him in front of an audience.”
We’ve stopped by a stainless-steel elevator door, waiting for it to open.
“I don’t want doctors, residents, nurses or whatever watching as I scan him with a UV light,” I continue to explain.
The elevator door slowly opens, a medical aide pushing out a man in a wheelchair, both legs in casts. His face is bruised and he’swearing a neck brace. We step inside and a moment later are getting out on the second floor.
The ward where Zain Willard has a private room is locked. A Secret Service agent is standing guard, a young blond woman in a dark suit.
“How’s it going?” Benton asks her.
