Page 106 of Unnatural Death

“Wally called my mom a few minutes ago saying he was contacted by someone in your office who was asking a lot of questions. Some guy with an unusual first name,” Ledger says, and he’s one to talk.

“Fabian Etienne, a death investigator who works for me,” I reply. “He’s following up on your stepfather’s case as we try to finalize his records.”

“Wally and my mom don’t know I’m calling you, and I’d like to keep it that way. It’s important to let you know what’s going on around here, ma’am. I’ve been sitting on it long enough. But I can’t tell just anyone, and we need to talk face-to-face.”

* * *

“Are you saying you have information about your stepfather’s death? Were you there when it happened? Might you have witnessed it?” As I’m asking this over speakerphone, I’m looking at Benton. He’s sitting down on his side of the bed, listening.

“If you’ve got four-wheel drive, come on out here and I’ll show you exactly where it happened,” Ledger says.

“It would be best if you’d contact Wally Jonas. I feel he should be there too. Have you told him what you’re about to tell me …?”

“Hell no.” With surprising hostility. “I don’t mean to be vulgar, ma’am, but he just wants to get into my mother’s pants. I’m not telling him a thing.”

Benton meets my eyes, nodding that he’ll drive me there and we’ll talk to Ledger Smithson face-to-face as he’s requested. No one better than my psychologist husband, and he’ll make sure the young man isn’t up to no good.

“I’m asking you not to be talking to Wally,” Ledger says emphatically. “Don’t tell him you’re meeting me, and the same goes for the FBI agent that keeps trying to get hold of me. I don’t like her tone in the messages she leaves, and want nothing to do with her.”

“Do you know the name?” I have a good idea.

“Special Agent Mullet,” he says, and that figures.

“I won’t be saying anything to anyone but will be bringing my law enforcement husband,” I tell Ledger.

“I know about him. I looked you up.”

“I hope you’re all right with that. Because I’m not coming alone.”

“One o’clock would be good. You remember the cornfield where it happened?”

“I’m sure it will look different covered in snow,” I answer.

“It’s across from the blue silo and close to the edge of the woods,” Ledger explains.

“So much for doing paperwork in bed,” Benton says when I’m off the phone. “Or even just relaxing, taking a breath for once.”

“You don’t mind going with me? I can ask Marino …”

“He and Dorothy drove home a while ago. I think they’re planning on spending the day together in front of the fire, eating popcorn, drinking beer, watching movies.”

“Good for them,” I reply. “I’ll finish going through these files, then get dressed. I assume Lucy got home at some point last night?”

“She’s in the cottage,” Benton says.

He informs me that Tron left around the same time Marino and Dorothy did. He’s headed over now to see how Lucy’s doing with the cyberattack.

“The good news is it doesn’t involve the Secret Service, not that we thought it did,” Benton explains. “The bad news is Lucy is locked out of her programming. I don’t think she’s made much progress. Her only real option is to kill off the instantiation of Bad Janet that’s running. But Lucy isn’t sure what will happen. She’s never used thekillcommand and is worried about what might be lost.”

“That would be a very hard button to push, so to speak.” I imagine if it were an avatar of Benton, and he wasn’t here anymore. The thought makes me feel sick.

“It’s psychological. She’s so afraid something will go wrong, and she’ll lose Janet. That she’ll slip away from Lucy forever,” he’s saying while leaving the bedroom. “Except, she already did lose Janet. This is something Lucy has to work through, and it’s time she did.”

I skim through the rest of Fabian’s files, finding a printout of a newspaper story in theManassas Observerfrom a year ago. It shows a photograph of Ledger Smithson bottle-feeding a baby goat. He’s slender with a mop of brown hair and a sweet smile, wearing baggy jeans and a University of Virginia T-shirt. I notice the tattoo of a coiled snake on his forearm and think of the peculiar trace evidence that showed up on scanning electron microscopy.

I speed-read the lengthy transcript from Fabian’s telephone conversation with Wally Jonas yesterday. The comments the Prince William County investigator made give hints of his personal interest in Ledger’s recently widowed mother, who is a proverbial bombshell. Tall and voluptuous, Bonnie Abel has long straw-blond hair, I note in photographs Fabian has found on the internet. She hasendless legsandbig ideas, as he described her.

In Fabian’s transcript, Wally Jonas continuously refers to Bonnie asBonzo, and it’s not appropriate. He calls Ledgerthe kidand it’s obvious that Wally has no use for him, considering himsquirrelly. The investigator coldly refers to Mike Abel asthe deceased, and I’m feeling uneasy about what I’m seeing.

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