Now here we go again, and there will always be those in charge who hire me to find out the truth as long as it’s the truth they want. I’ve about had enough of it. I’m trying hard to keep a lid on rage fueled by old setups and slights, and I can’t promise I’m going to be on my best behavior today.
“Remember to stay seated until we shut down,” Clare lets us know as we fly lower and slower over Williamsburg Road.
The blue and white air traffic control tower is in sight, and then we’re settling into a hover taxi, and effortlessly landing on a wooden dolly, the touchdown as light as a feather. While our pilots run through their laminated shutdown checklist, I let Benton know we’re down and secure.
I unfasten my shoulder harness, and I shouldn’t have worn the simple white cotton blouse I decided on. Already it’s wrinkled, and I feel frumpy in the same suit I had on at the White House yesterday. The rotor blades are braked, the battery shut off, and the doors open front and back.
CHAPTER 36
STEPPING DOWN ON ONE of the helicopter’s skids, I notice the courtesy vehicle parked nearby, a pickup truck that’s neither small nor green.
“I assume this is for us?” I ask Clare.
“Yes, ma’am,” she says, and I tell her, Lucy and Bob that I probably won’t be very long.
I don’t elaborate on the reason, expecting the health commissioner to spend just enough time to threaten or outright fire me, and that’s fine.
“I’ll be waiting right here,” Lucy says, and I’ve not seen her this engaged and confident in recent memory.
“I couldn’t even feel the landing.” I resist the impulse to hug her in front of a crowd. “You haven’t lost your touch.”
“I’ll say she hasn’t. I didn’t have my hands on the controls even once,” Clare brags about her, and she’s one of the few people my niece talks to as far as I know.
At least Lucy confides in someone who’s not an avatar, I can’t help but think as I climb into the passenger seat of our borrowed gas guzzler. Marino slides behind the wheel while I check my phone, and Benton has texted me back. He has an update I read as other messages land, two of them from DNA analyst Clark Givens. I try Benton first.
“Hi,” I say when he answers. “We just landed, are driving away from the airport.”
“You might want Marino to hear what I’m about to tell you.”
“That sounds ominous,” I reply. “You’re now on speakerphone. What’s going on?”
“I don’t guess you’ve talked to your DNA lab.”
“I have messages from Clark to call him,” I reply as we take I-64 West, heading downtown.
“Apparently, he got started at oh-dark-hundred on the blanket, the clothing Officer Fruge brought in,” Benton says. “And it’s looking like I’m headed to Boston.”
He and another agent are on their way to interview Jinx Slater, who doesn’t know they’re coming. Gwen’s former boyfriend likely also isn’t aware that his DNA has been recovered from an unbloodied part of the Star Wars blanket missing from her townhome’s inflatable bed.
“The question is when his semen was deposited on it,” I reply. “This past Friday night when she was attacked? Or some time earlier when she was living with him in Boston?”
“What I know is the blanket was on her bed when Lucy and I did our security walk-through for Gwen,” Marino reminds us.
“But where was it before that?” I ask. “If she brought it with her when she moved to Old Town, that could be the explanation. The stain might be old.”
“Do we have any idea where Jinx Slater was the past Friday night?” Marino wants to know.
“He claims he was staying with a friend over the Thanksgiving holiday, a woman he’s started seeing in Cambridge.” Benton’s voice inside our courtesy truck. “She’s confirmed that this is true, but consider the source.”
“You should be able to check the airlines, tollbooths, the GPS in his car,” Marino says, and he can’t help himself.
He has to tell my husband how to do his job. Benton patiently assures him that the Secret Service is working closely with other law enforcement agencies. They’re trying to find out if Jinx Slater left Massachusetts last week and might have headed to Northern Virginia.
“There’s no indication of it so far,” Benton says, and I try Clark Givens next.
He confirms the news about Jinx Slater’s DNA showing up on the blanket. Clark also got an unknown profile from skin cells under Gwen’s fingernails.