Flesh and Blood. Patricia Cornwell

us and them, our lives now and the past. What’s left of our wall has become a metaphor for our attempts at barricading ourselves from anyone who might want to harm us. It’s really not possible if someone is determined enough, and a sensation flutters inside my mind, deep and unreachable. A memory. A buried or scarcely formed one.

      “Why would someone leave seven pennies, heads up, all the same date?” I ask.

      The range of our security cameras doesn’t include the far corners of the wall, which leans slightly and terminates in limestone pillars completely overtaken by ivy.

      In the early 1800s when our house was built by a wealthy transcendentalist, the estate was an entire block surrounded by a serpentine wall. What’s left is a crumbling brick segment, and half an acre with a narrow driveway of pavers and a detached garage that originally was a carriage house. Whoever left the pennies probably won’t have been caught on video and I feel the same uneasiness again, a remnant of what I can’t recall.

      “They look polished,” I add. “Obviously they are unless they’re not real.”

      “Neighborhood kids,” Benton says.

      His amber eyes watch me over the top of the Boston Globe, a smile playing on his lips. He’s in jeans and loafers, a Red Sox windbreaker on, and he sets down his espresso and the paper, gets up from the bench and walks over to me. Wrapping his arms around my waist from behind, he kisses my ear, resting his chin on top of my head.

      “If life were always this good,” he says, “maybe I’d retire, say the hell with playing cops and robbers anymore.”

      “You wouldn’t. And if only that was what you really played. We should eat fairly soon and get ready to head to the airport.”

      He glances at his phone and rapidly types what looks like a one or two-word response to something.

      “Is everything all right?” I hug his arms around me. “Who are you texting?”

      “Everything’s fine. I’m starved. Tease me.”

      “Grilled swordfish steaks Salmoriglio, seared, brushed with olive oil, lemon juice, oregano.” I lean into him and feel his warmth, and the coolness of the air and the heat of the sun. “Your favorite panzanella. Heirloom tomatoes, basil, sweet onions, cucumbers …” I hear leaves stirring and smell the delicate lemony fragrance of magnolia blossoms. “… And that aged red wine vinegar you like so much.”

      “Full-bodied and delicious just like you. My mouth is watering.”

      “Bloody Marys. Horseradish, fresh-squeezed key limes and habanero to get us in the mood for Miami.”

      “Then we shower.” He kisses me on the lips this time, doesn’t care who sees it.

      “We already did.”

      “And we need to again. I feel extra dirty. Maybe I do have another present for you. If you’re up for it.”

      “The question is are you?”

      “We have a whole two hours before we need to leave for the airport.” He kisses me again, longer and deeper as I detect the distant rapid stuttering of a helicopter, a powerful one. “I love you, Kay Scarpetta. More every minute, every day, every year. What is this spell you have over me?”

      “Food. I’m good in the kitchen.”

      “What a happy day when you were born.”

      “Not if you ask my mother.”

      He suddenly pulls back from me almost imperceptibly as if he just saw something. Squinting in the sun, he stares in the direction of the Academy of Arts and Sciences a block north of us, separated from our property by a row of homes and a street.

      “What?” I look where he’s looking as the helicopter gets louder.

      From our backyard we can see the corrugated metal roof the green color of copper patina peeking above densely wooded grounds. The world’s top leaders in business, government, academia and science routinely speak and meet at the Academy’s headquarters, the House of the Mind as it’s called.

      “What is it?” I follow Benton’s intense stare, and the roar of a helicopter flying low is coming closer.

      “I don’t know,” he says. “I thought I saw something flash over there, like a camera flash but not as bright.”

      I scan the canopies of old trees and the multiangled green metal roof. I don’t notice anything unusual. I don’t see anyone.

      “Maybe sunlight reflecting off a car window,” I offer and Benton is typing on his phone again, something brief to someone.

      “It came from the trees. I might have noticed the same thing earlier, caught it out of the corner of my eye. Something glinted. A flick of light maybe. I wasn’t sure …” He stares again and the helicopter is very loud now. “I hope it’s not some damn reporter with a telescopic lens.”

      We both look up at the same time as the deep blue Agusta comes into view, sleek with a bright yellow stripe and a flat silver belly, its landing gear retracted. I can feel the vibration in my bones, and then Sock is cowering on the grass next to me, pressing against my legs.

      “Lucy,” I say loudly and I watch transfixed. She’s done this before but never at such a low altitude. “Good God. What is she doing?”

      The composite blades whump-whump loudly, their rotor wash agitating the tops of trees as my niece overflies our house at less than five hundred feet. She circles in a thunderous roar then pauses in a hover, nodding the nose. I can just make out her helmet and tinted visor before she flies away, dropping lower over the Academy of Arts and Sciences, circling the grounds slowly, then gone.

      “I believe Lucy just wished you a happy birthday,” Benton says.

      “She’d better hope the neighbors don’t report her to the FAA for violating noise abatement regulations.” All the same I can’t help but be thrilled and touched.

      “There won’t be a problem.” He’s looking at his phone again. “She can blame it on the FBI. While she was in the area I had her do a recon. That’s why she was so low.”

      “You knew she was going to buzz the house?” I ask and of course he did and at exactly what time, which is why he’s been stalling in the backyard, making sure we weren’t in the house when she showed up.

      “No photographer or anybody else with a camera or a scope.” Benton stares in the direction of the wooded grounds, of the cantilevered green roof.

      “You just this minute told her to look.”

      “I did and in her words, no joy.” He shows me the two-word text on his iPhone that Lucy’s partner Janet sent, aviation lingo meaning they didn’t see anything.

      The two of them are flying together, and I wonder if the only reason they’re up is to wish me a very loud and dramatic happy birthday. Then I think of something else. Lucy’s twin-engine Italian helicopter looks law enforcement, and the neighbors probably think it has to do with President Obama arriving in Cambridge late today. He’ll be staying in a hotel near the Kennedy School of Government, barely a mile from here.

      “Nothing unusual,” Benton is saying. “So if someone was there up in a tree or wherever, he’s gone. Did I mention how hungry I am?”

      “As soon as I can get our poor rattled dog to potty,” I reply as my attention wanders back to the pennies on the wall. “You may as well relax for a few more minutes. He was already stubborn this morning and now he’ll only be worse.”

      I crouch down in the grass and stroke Sock, doing my best to soothe him.

      “That noisy flying machine is gone and I’m right here,” I say sweetly to him. “It was just Lucy flying around and nothing to be scared about.”