Page 80 of Unnatural Death

Maybe my niece had been working undercover and was associating with them. Patty started tossing out criminal profiling jargon likeStockholm syndrome,identifying with the aggressor, Faye explains. As if Lucy might have gotten too close to the bad guys and started sympathizing with them.

“Vandalizing electrical grids, the shooting at Old Town Market create attention and destabilize the public while recruiting other extremists to join the cause,” Faye goes on as I get more offended. “Patty said thatpeople like Lucyare especially vulnerable to changing sides and sleeping with the enemy.And unfortunately, she’s done it before. I’m quoting.”

“Patty should be careful,” I reply. “She’s falsely implicating another federal agent in a very serious crime. Worse than that, she’s blaming the victim.”

I can see Lucy bagging Bibb lettuce and Vidalia onions while I picked out heirloom tomatoes. Suddenly, an enormous explosion, the crash of glass shattering, and she grabbed her gun, clutching her bleeding neck, yelling at everyone to get down. Several shoppers were badly hurt, people running and screaming.

“I don’t think Patty Mullet or a lot of people realize how close Lucy came to being killed,” I’m saying as someone starts pounding on the lab door, trying the knob.

* * *

“Hey! Open up!” Marino thumps on the door some more, and Faye leaves her workstation. “Anybody home?”

“Hold your horses already.” She lets him in. “For a minute I thought it was Bigfoot about to break down the door, looking for his evidence.”

“It’s a damn good cast, right?” Marino’s attention is everywhere as he searches for his handiwork.

No longer in scrubs, he’s changed into jeans and a hooded sweatshirt. Draped over his arm is a waterproof shell jacket. Like me he keeps spare clothing in his office, never knowing when we might have a wardrobe emergency.

“You’ve not taken a bad cast that I’ve seen, whether it’s footwear or a tire track,” Faye is saying to him as I glance again at the weather report on my phone.

The temperature is below freezing, the winds light and variable. The snow is several inches deep already and predicted to be heavy at times until tomorrow midmorning when the front moves out. State government offices and area schools are announcing their closings. People are asked to stay off the roads tonight, Roxane Dare already declaring a state of emergency.

“Back in the day, you had to learn the basics. You had to be able to do anything.” Marino loves to tell everyone that he came along the hard way. “Whether it was lifting prints with tape, making comparisons without a computer. Doing scene sketches using a measuring tape. Or mixing up plaster of Paris and pouring casts of footwear impressions, tire tracks, including in awful weather, the whole nine yards.”

“Your good ol’ days are before my time, Detective Flintstone,” Faye says, and the two of them are close.

They spend hours on the range conducting test fires together. He goes with her to gun shows, and for him it’s a candy store. For her it’s research as she does what she can to keep up with the latest weapons and their components.

“What are you talking about with the door locked and the shades down?” Marino’s attention is all over the lab.

“I’ll let you fill him in about Patty Mullet,” Faye says to me as she sits back down in front of her microscope. “It’s a long and ugly story.”

“Always is when it has to do with her.” Marino moves closer to shelves of plaster casts as if his might be among them. “She’s a whack-a-mole always popping up when big cases go down.”

“Causing her usual interference, only worse,” I reply.

“Okay, I give up. Where is it?” Marino wanders over to us. “Someone didn’t take it, did they? Like the FBI, for example? I sure as hell hope not! Because Patty freakin’ Mullet would love to get her hands on something like this. They’ll use it to make all of us look like morons …”

“Stop getting worried over nothing. Your cast is locked up as it should be,” Faye answers sternly with a hint of affection. “Do you need to see it for some reason? Because I’d rather not open the vault. More paperwork.”

“I’m just wondering what your opinion is after examining it.” “I’m thinking this is beyond my pay grade. But I see nothing that screams fake to me.”

“I knew it!” he says happily.

“No imperfections or artifacts that might make me suspect the impression was made by a prosthetic, perhaps one 3-D printed,” she explains.

“Even if it was?” Marino replies. “Then where’s the original image? You can’t just print something without a photograph, a scan of something.”

“I never thought I’d hear myself utter these words,” Faye says. “But you need a Bigfoot expert.”

“We’re working on it,” I reply. “And I never thought I’d say that, either.”

“I walked Shannon to her car, making sure she’s safely on her way,” Marino lets me know. “I told her to go straight home and stay put. Speaking of?” This to Faye. “You should get the hell out of here while the getting’s good. How about I escort you along with the doc?”

“I’m staying until Fabian’s ready to call it a day.” Faye turns off her microscope and its video screen. “He’ll leave his car here and ride with me. My truck has snow tires and four-wheel drive. No problem. But I think we’re going to hang out for a while. We like it when no one else is around. A good time to catch up, and where I live we’re prone to get power outages. Fabian’s old place isn’t much better. Charming but drafty as hell even when the electricity is working.”

“You’re always welcome to stay in the on-call room,” I tell her. “Fabian just restocked the refrigerator in there yesterday. The TV is working and the linens are clean. If you get chilly, the space heater is in the closet. Make yourselves cozy and at home.”

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