Flesh and Blood. Patricia Cornwell
was parked.”
It would explain why he wasn’t concerned about Marino storming around like a maniac, taking a picture of the license plate and threatening him, I think but don’t say.
“You ever seen this same truck in your neighborhood before today?” he asks.
“Not that I recall but that doesn’t mean anything. I’m rarely home during the day.”
Marino watches the gray truck turn right onto the Harvard Bridge, and I can tell he’s deliberating whether to follow it. Instead we swing left onto Audrey Street and into an MIT apartment building parking lot where we stop.
“It’s probably nothing but I’m not taking any chances,” he says. “And I don’t want whoever’s driving it to think we’re paying attention.”
“You slowed down so he could pass us,” I remind him.
“He doesn’t know it had anything to do with him.”
I’m not convinced of that. Marino was reminded of the incident this morning and got angry all over again. Had the driver of the pickup truck been observant and able to read lips he certainly would have seen Marino glaring and cursing. But I don’t mention that either as I scan our surroundings, the MIT athletic fields and football stadium just ahead. Across the river the old buildings of Back Bay are dark red brick and gray roofed.
In the distance the skyline of Boston is dominated by the Prudential Tower with its radio mast rampant like a jousting lance, and the Hancock is slightly taller, the shapes of clouds reflected in its glass. Far off the light changes the way it does over great expanses of water, the Charles flowing northeast into the harbor, then sweeping around Logan Airport and the barrier islands before emptying into bays and finally the sea. I’m reminded of what a beautiful spring day it is, the sky bright blue, the trees and grass a vibrant green.
Right now Benton and I should be on the plane to Fort Lauderdale, and I think about a condo he rented on the ocean, my birthday surprise. Knowing his taste it will be extremely nice, and then I force such thoughts from my mind because nothing good comes from imagining what isn’t going to happen. I already know our week away will be postponed, and for us that’s the same as being canceled. Our taking time off isn’t about accumulating vacation days. It’s about bad things stopping long enough for us to have nothing to worry about.
I send him a text. You OK? Heading to my office. We need to talk.
“I got a gut feeling something isn’t right.” Marino is still on the subject of the truck. “I was only a few blocks from where Nari was shot, not to mention near your house where someone left pennies on your wall that might have been polished in a tumbler like cartridge cases.”
He calls the dispatcher on his portable and asks her to run the plate number.
“Let’s see what happens.” He rechecks the photographs on his BlackBerry. “How about dialing the number for me.” He reads the number that was on the truck.
“It’s not a good idea to have my phone involved.”
“Caller ID’s blocked on it.”
“It doesn’t matter. I don’t want a record of my calling a number that’s unrelated to what I’m responsible for. If there’s an issue it’s hard to explain. And attorneys are always looking for issues.”
More to the point I’m not Marino’s assistant. I don’t answer to him and I’m not his partner either. But he can’t seem to remember that. I recite the number back to him and he enters it. A few seconds later a phone rings twice and someone picks up.
“Hello?” a female voice asks over speakerphone.
“Is this Sonny’s Lawn Care?”
“Excuse me? Who are you trying to reach?”
Marino repeats himself and the woman replies that he has the wrong number. He tells her who he is.
“The police? Oh my. Is something wrong?” She sounds confused and worried. “Is this about Johnny? Why is Cambridge calling me? We live in Carlisle … I do, I mean. I don’t live in Cambridge. I live in Carlisle.”
“Ma’am, I’m sorry to bother you. I’m wondering if you’ve gotten other calls from people thinking they’re reaching Sonny’s Lawn Care or maybe Hands On Mechanics. Your number’s on the side of one of their trucks.”
“You must be mistaken.”
“I’m not. It’s this number.” He recites it to her.
“I don’t know what to think. We’ve had this same number for more than twenty years. It’s our home number … my home number. Well if you look in the phone book you’ll see it listed under my late husband’s name. Doctor John L. Angiers.”
It takes a moment for comprehension. Then it hits me hard.
Dr. Johnny Angiers’s widow says she doesn’t answer the phone anymore if she doesn’t know who’s calling.
“You just answered,” Marino reminds her but he’s kind about it. He’s not aggressive with her. “And you don’t know me, right?”
“I’m not sure why I did. I wasn’t thinking. There have been some odd messages in voice mail and maybe what you’re saying explains it. Now and then calls from people wanting trees pruned, sod put down. Earlier today it was someone who wanted his car fixed. If they get me directly I hang up on them.” She sounds upset. “I’m going to have to change my phone number and I don’t want to. I don’t want to change a number we’ve had for twenty years.”
“When did the calls start?” Marino asks.
“It’s been very recent. In the past several weeks.”
“What’s your name, ma’am?”
“Sarah Angiers.”
I check the calendar on my phone. April 28, a Monday, and I roll back my memory, pulling up the case in my thoughts. It’s one hard to forget. I found it particularly tragic and poignant, and I gave Sarah Angiers all the time she wanted when she came to my office to discuss her husband’s death. Tall and thin, she’d bothered to dress up as if she were going to church or the symphony, in a smart suit with her white hair neatly styled. I remember her as lucid and forthcoming and completely devastated.
She said she’d always been nervous about her husband going off on his own, hiking in Estabrook Woods, more than a thousand acres of undeveloped forest, hills and horse trails. She said he could be somewhat difficult when he had his mind made up and she described how much he loved to follow what she referred to as “the path” from their backyard in Carlisle all the way to Hutchins Pond in Concord.
When I examined his body in the heavily forested area where he died I was very close to Fox Castle Swamp and nowhere near Hutchins Pond. The phone signal was bad to nonexistent there, and the dozens of calls he’d made to his wife and 911 had failed. They were all right there on his outgoing log when his phone was recovered in addition to a text to his wife that wasn’t delivered. He said he was cold and exhausted so he’d found a place to sit. He was lost and it was getting dark. He would always love her. The police had nothing to go on except where he usually hiked, which was some two miles south of where he’d actually wandered.
I suspect that early into his hike he wasn’t feeling well and became disoriented, heading in the direction of Lowell Road instead of Monument Street. He realized he didn’t know where he was, and unable to reach anyone he sat on the fallen tree, getting increasingly anxious and agitated as night came. He may have panicked, suffering shortness of breath, dizziness, nausea and chest pains. Acute anxiety would have felt like a heart attack, and a heart attack would have felt like acute anxiety.
When the pain began