Page 19 of Unnatural Death

IHAVE THE WEIRD SENSE we’re not alone. I’m sure it’s nothing.” I continue looking around as if something is observing us.

“I’ve been feeling the same thing all morning.” Marino’s eyes dart everywhere. “I feel something staring. I feel it like a rash.”

“Never know. There could be something watching.” Lucy looks around, a bland expression on her face. “It’s best to assume that wherever you are these days. Never safe to think otherwise.”

“Watching us from where?” Marino scans the tree canopies.

“Dunno. Maybe a satellite up there using L-band frequencies that can penetrate dense foliage.” She waves at the sky just to annoy him. “Privet tam!” she yells. Then to him she says, “That’s Russian forhello up there.”

“You telling me someone could be spying on us this very minute and the freakin’ Secret Service wouldn’t know?” Marino asks. “I thought that’s why you carry a fish finder everywhere.”

“It depends,” Lucy says. “Some things we’ll know about. Not necessarily others.”

She routinely uses spectrum analysis to detect rogue electromagnetic signals that might indicate an invisible and unwelcome presence. Her habitats are monitored twenty-four/ seven, and that includes the old estate where Benton and I live. The guesthouse she stays in is set up like a cyber lab.

“Something could be watching us right now, and we might know about it but can’t do much.” Lucy is walking around her dry creek bed landing zone, checking it out. “We also don’t have the same absolutes today that we did even a year ago. What was science fiction one month may not be the next.”

She offers explanations that are both cryptic and technical while I continue watching the woods all around us. Shapes and shadows are playing tricks on me. I think I see something. But I don’t.

“… An example of what one might miss is a transmitted signal the software doesn’t screen for because the frequencies are spread out and hopping all over the place.” Lucy is unlocking the helicopter’s back cabin. “Or maybe one signal is hiding behind another.”

“Speaking of spying?” Marino says. “A seaplane’s been flying over, white with red stripes, the last time about an hour ago. I thought it might be a TV station but got no clue except it’s suspicious. I’ve pointed it out to your investigators. But they don’t seem interested.”

“We may have spotted the same plane as we were flying near the Manassas airport,” I tell Marino as I open the back cabin to retrieve my briefcase.

“I Googled the tail number. It comes up as an LLC in Delaware, which doesn’t tell me anything helpful,” he informs Lucy. “I’m assuming you must know who’s been flying around here and why.”

“A 2015 Twin Otter worth about seven million. Belongs to Wild World.” She passes along the same information she shared with me earlier. “They have several pilots who fly it for them. I don’t know who’s in it this morning.”

“I’m just hearing this?” Marino can’t believe it. “We’re down here working the scene and the victims’ plane is buzzing right over us? And you couldn’t bother passing that along?”

“Those who need the information have it.” She doesn’t add that certain investigative details are none of his business.

But that’s what she’s saying. It’s not the first time she’s reminded him that he works for me and not the police. He doesn’t have Lucy’s authority or power.

“It would have been good to know sooner,” he says to her.

“So you could do what about it?”

“More than it seems you have, that’s for sure.”

Walking around the helicopter, she begins picking up loose branches blown down, and he helps her. They toss them out of the way while pecking at each other the way they always have.

“The seaplane is part of the Mansons’ sporting goods business, or that’s what they pretended.” She moves more sticks and downed branches away from the skids. “Customers charter it for outdoor adventure packages.”

“Do you think that’s what it’s doing this morning? Taking people on adventures?” he asks.

“It’s extremely unlikely the plane was taking customers anywhere. It’s usually empty.” Lucy tosses several large rocks off to the side.

“And how would you know that unless you’ve been watching it for a while?” he says, and she doesn’t answer. “The damn thing has flown overhead three freakin’ times since you dropped me off. It was going kind of slow like it might be filming.”

“No telling what it’s doing. But I strongly suspect it’s not what you think,” Lucy says.

“I’m wondering who might have a clue that the Mansons are here alive or dead,” I ask her. “Who knew they were camping inside Buckingham Run? It’s not like a violent person just happened upon their campsite. What was done to them isn’t seeming random. In fact, I don’t see how it could be.”

“That’s because it isn’t. They were targeted by someone who knows a lot about them.” Lucy unlocks the baggage compartment. “Everything done to them was premeditated with the intention of taking them out while creating havoc. And I have a feeling that by now Dana Diletti has an inkling what’s happened out here.”

I dig in my briefcase for my satellite phone, turning it on.

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