Depraved Heart. Patricia Cornwell

can’t say with certainty who’s rooting me. But it’s probably them or related to them. The FBI often uses outside servers when they’re investigating cybercrime. And alleged cybercrime is their excuse for snooping. You know for example if they have reason to suspect I’m laundering money or surfing kiddy porn sites, shit like that. So if it’s them, they’ll say they were investigating me for something totally trumped-up just so they can spy.”

      “What about my office?” I ask about the most problematic scenario. “Is it safe? Is there any chance our computers have been breached?”

      Lucy is the systems manager and I.T. administrator for the CFC computer network. She does all the programming. She forensically examines all electronic and data storage devices turned in as evidence. While she may be the firewall that surrounds the most sensitive information associated with any death, she’s also the biggest vulnerability.

      Should the wrong person get past her, it would be catastrophic. Cases could be compromised before they ever reach court. Charges could be dropped. Verdicts could be overturned. Thousands of murderers, rapists, drug dealers and thieves could be released from prison in Massachusetts and elsewhere.

      “Why all of a sudden?” I ask her. “Why the interest right now, assuming it’s the FBI?”

      “It started when I got back from Bermuda,” she says.

      “What the fuck did you do?” Marino demands with his usual tact.

      “Nothing,” she says. “But they’re determined to fabricate a case that sticks.”

      “What case?”

      “Something,” she says. “Anything. I wouldn’t be surprised if they’ve already convened a grand jury, in fact you can count on it. In fact I’m convinced. The Feds have the nasty little habit of raiding a place after they’ve already got a grand jury ready to indict you. They don’t base a case on the evidence. They base the evidence on the case they’re determined to make even if it’s wrong. Even if it’s a lie. Do you know how rare it is for a grand jury not to indict someone? Less than one percent of the time. They aim to please the prosecutor. They hear only one side of the story.”

      “Where can we talk?” I don’t want to continue this conversation in her driveway.

      “They can’t hear us. I just knocked out the audio for that lamp and that one and the next one.” She points at copper lampposts. “But let’s go someplace we don’t have to worry about it. My own personal Bermuda Triangle. They’re watching and all of a sudden we vanish from their radar.”

      The agents searching her house are monitoring us on her security cameras, and I feel a rush of frustration. Lucy’s battle with the Feds is as old as wars in the Middle East. It’s a power struggle, a clash that’s gone on so long I’m not sure anyone remembers exactly what started it. She was probably one of the most brilliant agents the Bureau ever hired, and when they eventually ran her off, that should have been the end of it. But it wasn’t. It never will be.

      “Follow me,” she says.

       12

      We trudge through bright green grass spattered with poppies as red as blood and brazen with gold sunflowers, white daisies, orange butterfly weed and purple aster.

      It’s as if I’m wading through a Monet painting, and beyond a shady fragrant stand of spruces we emerge into a low-lying area I’ve never seen before. It looks like a place of meditation or an outdoor church with stone slab benches and sculpted rock outcrops evocative of a pond filled by running water formed of river stones. I can’t see the house or the driveway from here, nothing but rolling grass and flowers and trees and the constant whomping of the helicopter.

      Lucy takes a seat on a boulder while I choose a stone bench in dapples of light shining through dogwoods. Hard unyielding surfaces aren’t my first choice these days, and I sit down very carefully, doing what I can to diminish my discomfort.

      “Has this always been here?” I ask, and the light moves on my face as branches move in the wind. “Because I’ve never seen it.”

      “It’s recent,” Lucy says and I don’t ask how recent.

      Since mid-June, I suspect. Since I almost died. I look around and don’t see any sign of cameras, and guarding her rock garden is another sculpted dragon, this one small and comical lounging on a huge chunk of rose quartz. Its red garnet eyes stare right at me as Marino tries the bench across from mine, shifting his position several times.

      “Shit,” he says. “What are we? Cave people? How about wooden benches or chairs with cushions? Ever thought of that?” He’s dripping sweat in the heat and humidity, and he flaps irritably at bugs and checks his socks for ticks. “Jesus! Did you forget to spray out here?” His dark glasses turn on Lucy. “There’s damn mosquitoes everywhere.”

      “I use a garlic spray, pet and people safe. Mosquitoes hate it.”

      “Really? These must be friggin’ Italian mosquitoes. Because they love it.” He slaps at something.

      “Steroids, cholesterol, large people who give off more carbon dioxide than the rest of us,” Lucy says to him. “Plus you sweat a lot. Hanging garlic around your neck probably wouldn’t help.”

      “What does the FBI want?” I look up at the helicopter hovering at no more than a thousand feet. “What exactly? We need to figure this out while we have a few minutes to talk privately.”

      “Their first stop was my gun vault,” she replies. “So far they’ve packed all of my rifles and shotguns.”

      Carrie is suddenly in my mind again. I see her inside the dorm room, the MP5K strapped around her neck.

      I ask Lucy, “Do they seem interested in any gun in particular?”

      “No.”

      “They must be looking for something in particular.”

      “Everything I have is legal and has nothing to do with the Copperhead shootings,” Lucy says, “which they damn well know were committed with the Precision Guided Firearm recovered from Bob Rosado’s yacht. They confirmed it’s the weapon two months ago so why are they still looking? If they’re looking for anyone it should be his rotten little shit of a son, Troy. He’s at large. Carrie’s at large. He’s probably the latest Clyde to her Bonnie, and where’s the FBI? Here on my property. This is harassment. It’s about something else.”

      “I got a couple shotguns you can borrow,” Marino offers. “And a thumpin’ four-fifty Bushmaster.”

      “That’s all right. I’ve got more than they’re bargaining for,” she says. “They have no idea what they’re missing, what they’re walking right past.”

      “Please don’t poke a stick at them,” I warn her. “Don’t give them cause to hurt you.”

      “Hurt? I think hurt is the point and it’s already started.” Her bright green eyes look at me. “They want me hurt. They intend to leave me unprotected so I can’t take care of my family, my home. They’re hoping all of us will end up defeated, annihilated, at each other’s throats. Better yet, dead. They want all of us murdered.”

      “You need something all you gotta do is ask,” Marino says. “With the likes of Carrie on the loose you should have more firepower than just your handguns.”

      “They’ll take those next if they haven’t already,” she replies, and it really is outrageous that they listed handguns on the warrant. “Plus they’re bagging up all of my kitchen cutlery, the Shun Fuji santoku knives you gave to us,” she says to me, adding yet another outrage.

      As far as we know, Carrie Grethen’s recent deadly rampage includes a stabbing with a tactical knife. There’s no evidence, not even a hint that