Chaos. Patricia Cornwell
were actually with her in her lab when Investigator Barclay called you?” I ask, and Marino nods, explaining he’d just gotten there and they were getting started going over the 911 recording.
“Then my phone rings and it’s Barclay. He says he’s at a homicide scene in JFK Park on the riverbank.”
“Did he actually use the word homicide?” I ask. “Because I wish he hadn’t said that either.”
“He said it looked like an attempted sexual assault, and that she was beaten to death.”
“I don’t know why you bothered to pick me up.” Cops like Barclay can create dangerous problems. “It appears he’s happy to do my job.” I’m going to have to have a word with him before the night is over. “Why did I bother interrupting my dinner?”
“Yeah he pisses me off too,” Marino says. “You got no idea. Talk about someone who doesn’t look before he leaps. It never occurs to him that maybe he’s not a damn expert at whatever it is.”
“I hope he’s not freely offering these same opinions to everyone he talks to,” I add, “because this is how misinformation ends up all over the place. Let’s get back to Interpol. Tell me about the phone call.”
“Like I was saying, Clay asked me to meet him at the scene. Then he wanted to know if he should contact your office, and I said I would take care of it. By the time I’d walked out of Lucy’s lab, taken the elevator down to the lower level and was getting in my car in the parking lot, my phone was ringing again,” Marino tells the story loudly, over the noise of the engine.
“This time the call’s from an unknown number. You know, when a call comes up with a row of zeros? Like when caller ID is blocked and it’s not somebody in your contacts list?” he says. “So I answered, and it was Washington, D.C.”
“It was Interpol,” Marino states as if there can be no doubt about it.
I ask him how he could be so sure. “You said the number was blocked. So I’m not clear on how you knew who was calling,” I add, and other drivers are moving out of our way.
“The person identified himself as an investigator from their Washington bureau, the NCB, and said he was trying to reach Investigator Peter Rocco Marino of the Cambridge Police Department.”
Interpol’s United States headquarters, the National Central Bureau (NCB), reports directly to the attorney general. And neither the NCB nor Interpol’s global headquarters in France would be interested in any U.S. case unless there’s reason to suspect criminal activity that extends beyond our national borders. That thought brings me back to the cyclist with the British accent, and I hope she’s not dead.
I envision her blue helmet with the unbuckled chin strap, and I should have said something. I should have told her to fasten it.
“I asked the NCB guy what he was calling in reference to, and he said he was aware of the developing situation in the park on the waterfront,” Marino explains.
“Those were his exact words? The developing situation?” Now I’m really baffled.
“I swear to God. And I’m thinking, What the hell? What situation could he know about? How could he know there’s a body in the park by the water here in Cambridge?”
“I don’t understand …” I start to say.
“I asked how he could be aware of any situation period around here,” Marino talks over me. “What was his source? And he said that was classified.”
“I don’t understand,” I repeat myself. “How is it possible that Interpol’s call to you was in reference to Elisa Vandersteel, assuming that’s who’s dead?” It’s completely illogical. “Was her name mentioned?”
“No, but he was talking about a sudden death. That was how he phrased it, a sudden death that had international consequences, which is why Interpol is involved,” Marino says.
“Elisa Vandersteel would have international consequences,” I reply, “since she’s not American. Once again, that’s assuming the driver’s license is the dead woman’s.”
“It felt like that was the situation he was referencing. That he somehow knew about it.”
“Tell me how it’s possible? I’ve never heard of something like this happening,” I reply. “The local media hasn’t even caught wind of it yet. Is there something on the Internet I’ve not been told about? How could Interpol know about a death before you’ve been to the scene or called the medical examiner?”
“I asked Lucy if anything had been tweeted or whatever,” he says. “I called her right after I hung up from talking to the Interpol investigator. Nothing’s out there about the Vandersteel case that we know of. Assuming that’s who she is. But you’re right. It seems Interpol knew before either of us did, and I don’t understand that either.”
Marino’s portable radio is charging upright in the console, and it hasn’t escaped my notice that there’s very little chatter. In fact it’s so quiet I forget the radio is in the car until I notice it. I’ve heard nothing go over the air that might alert anyone about the dead body awaiting us at the park.
“But how would Interpol investigators or analysts know about a body found in a Cambridge park near the water in the past thirty-some-odd minutes?” I ask. “I’m sorry, something’s off about this, Marino. And it’s not the way the process works. Local law enforcement requests assistance because there might be an international interest—”
He interrupts, “I know how it’s supposed to work. You think this is my first friggin’ rodeo?”
“I don’t believe I’ve ever heard of Interpol initiating contact about a homicide scarcely anyone knows about yet,” I emphasize. “We don’t know she’s a homicide for that matter. We also haven’t verified the victim’s identity. We don’t know a damn thing.”
“All I can tell you is the investigator who called said he was from their counterterrorism division. He said he understood we have a situation,” Marino uses that word again. “A death with international consequences, and I got the feeling he was thinking about terrorism, based on the words he used. I sure as hell wish I had a recording of what he said.”
“And where did the information come from?” I’m going to keep pounding that drum. “Just because a British driver’s license was found on a bike path? And how would he even know about that unless Barclay told him? This is absurd.”
“When I asked him how the hell he could know about anything going on in Cambridge, and why he was calling me directly, he said they’d received e-mailed information that listed my name and number as the contact.” Marino stares straight ahead, and he must be thinking the same thing I am, but he won’t want to admit it.
“Interpol doesn’t work that way.” I’m not going to back down because this is something I know about, and Marino has been duped. “And they don’t hire psychics with crystal balls who can predict cases before the rest of us know about them, last I heard.” I instantly regret saying this because he’ll take it as a slight directed at him, when it’s not. “It’s implausible if not impossible that they could know about a scene and a dead body we’ve not so much as looked at yet.”
“Well I’m not the one who’s pals with the secretary-general,” Marino replies with a sarcastic snap. “Maybe you should call him up and ask him how the hell they found out so damn fast.”
I’ve been to Interpol’s headquarters in Lyon, France, numerous times, and am on friendly terms with the secretary-general Tom Perry, who’s actually American, a Rhodes scholar, a former head of the National Institute of Justice, and a bona fide Renaissance man.