Page 113 of Unnatural Death

“You’ll love his mom and dad, and please give them my best,” I reply. “Art Etienne is legendary as a coroner, and when you get to know him, you’ll understand Fabian better. But it seems a shame for you not to witness Marino’s surprise. He’s not expecting any of this, and I can’t wait to see the look on his face. If you change your mind and want to drop by even for dessert? Not just any dessert, I might add …?”

“Total transparency? We have other plans tonight. We’re having Ledger over for Thai food.” Faye and Fabian have taken him under their wing since his mother was killed. “We’re his only friends right now, and I hate leaving him for the weekend.”

“You’re welcome to bring him tonight,” I reply, but I know it’s too soon.

“He’s not ready to be around that many people,” Faye says. “Talk about PTSD. I feel so bad for him.”

“It will be ten of us if you come.”

“Too much for now.”

“We’ll make sure he’s checked on while you’re gone,” I reply. “How’s he doing overall?”

“Better but sad and easily stressed. He cries a lot and has terrible nightmares.” She rolls back her chair, turning off her microscope. “The last few months have been hell for him. He’d act like he was fine with the rough people wandering around the dairy farm, these terrorists using the woods, the fields for training. He’d watch his mom bringing them food, beer, you name it. She was the only woman and got off on the attention.”

When Ledger came home from UVA for the summer, he was extremely alarmed by the company his mother was keeping on the farm. He learned early on to make himself scarce as best he could but was frightened. After seeing Yana flying the drones near the cornfield and in the woods, he later suspected she sicced them on his stepfather.

“He’s just glad Yana can’t hurt anyone or anything anymore.” Faye gets up from her workstation.

“What you and Fabian are doing is very kind,” I reply. “When you’re back from Baton Rouge, we’ll have Ledger over to the house for a quiet supper if he feels up for the company.”

“He’s started talking to a therapist here in Alexandria,” Faye says, and I’m very glad to hear it.

The nineteen-year-old wasn’t present when his mother, Bonnie Abel, and FBI Agent Patty Mullet were shot by yellow-tipped copper bullets that tumbled through their chests, killing them within minutes. Hours earlier, Patty had appeared in Nokesville unannounced. Ledger spotted a black Tahoe with government plates and figured it might be the feds poking around.

Maybe it was that FBI agent who’d been calling and now she’s looking for him. He was running an errand for his mother at Mayhugh’s grocery when Patty rolled up to the gas pump, unaware that he was there. Not much later, she appeared at his house as Ledger was putting away groceries in the kitchen. He watched through a window as she dug out her badge wallet, ringing the doorbell, repeatedly yellingFBI! Open up!

The instant she drove away he trotted out to the barn where he tucks his car in bad weather. He got the hell out of town while Patty Mullet headed to Old Comfort Farm. She happened to show up while Yana Popova was inside the upstairs apartment. Using the alias of Joan Tesco, she’d bought the animal rescue facility when the Mansons moved to Nokesville three years ago.

The alleged Joan Tesco would show up unannounced and just as suddenly vanish, supposedly living in Europe the rest of the time. She also was Nan Romero’s patient and possible lover. Benton says that the two of them planned to meet at her office late in the day on October 30. Nan would work on Yana’s dental restorations after hours, and Benton theorizes that on this occasion the Russian psychopath gave Nan a choice.

The dentist could die comfortably. She could drift away on a pleasant nitrous oxide cloud. Or she could suffer. But her death was inevitable. Nan knew too much, and Yana felt neither fear nor remorse when taking her out, Benton says. She was a sadistic bully who picked on Ledger. He’d seen her when she had on the exoskeleton, and what an unnerving sight that must have been.

She’d wear it around the animals to spook them. She got a kick out of harassing the snakes in particular, reaching an armored hand into a cobra tank, laughing as fangs struck the bulletproof composite. Ledger witnessed her throttling a copperhead to death. He saw her flying mini-drones near the cornfield where his stepfather would drive his tractor crazily and die.

She’d use the swarm to terrify the cows, sending them running, thinking this was funny. Yana had scores of the tiny drones inside the blockhouse that Benton and I discovered on the edge of the dairy farm. She would deploy them from the back of the white van belonging to the late Mike Abel, whose widow was accommodating to Yana and expendable.

Ledger said his mother and the so-called Joan Tesco were friendly, and it wasn’t uncommon for Bonnie to drop by the animal rescue to chat with her. The two of them were there when Patty Mullet suddenly showed up. Yana’s solution was to kill both women, and she would have done the same to Ledger had he been around.

Her final act was to smash glass tanks and open cages, making sure she kept the authorities busy once they arrived. She bought herself plenty of time to get into the white van and head to Alexandria. It’s ironic and awful to realize that she was driving there even as Benton and I were after we left the crime scene. He believes Yana’s intention was to return to Russia, likely for good.

But first, she planned to pay her little visit to my office. Maybe Carrie would forgive her for not having found the micro hard drive. Maybe taking me out would be Yana’s peace gesture. Ledger deliberately led Benton and me to the cornfield because he wanted us to find the terrorist cell. Now the dairy farm will belong to him. He’s the only one left.

“He’ll probably sell it. No way he’ll stay in Nokesville, but he wants to make sure the animal rescue is okay,” Faye is saying. “We’re encouraging him to go back to UVA and finish his degree. He’s thinking he’d like to be a veterinarian. Maybe a herpetologist, although I’m not getting his thing with snakes. If I so much as see a picture of one, it about gives me a heart attack.”

“Well, I’d best be going.” I put on my coat and pick up my briefcase. “If you change your mind, Faye, you know where to find us.”

On her desk is a simple white cake box, and I’m desperate to see her handiwork. But she again makes me promise to have the unveiling at the table.

“No cheating,” she insists.

Marino is to do the honors. He’s to open the box in front of everyone and will freak out. As she’s saying this my attention wanders around her lab. It’s an unreal feeling to see my morgue pedestrian door bent up and off the hinges, propped against a wall, marked as evidence.

Disassembled on a long exam table are the components of Yana Popova’s electrically powered exoskeleton that made her bulletproof while giving her superhuman strength. Lucy says I was lucky with my swings of the baseball bat in the dark. Apparently I whacked her in the lower back just right, disconnecting the battery pack. From that point on, the exoskeleton was more of a hindrance than a help.

This was made worse for Yana because she’d had two knee replacements after a skiing accident. She didn’t have the agility she once did, and I recall noticing that she moved awkwardly, stiffly in the video of her with Carrie in Russia.

“Not to mention, she was in huge distress because of the formalin you threw in her face, which was a brilliant move by the way,” Faye says.

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