BooksBarbecue
Back The Bone Bed Save as PDF
Chapters (48)
  1. also by patricia cornwell
  2. title page
  3. copyright
  4. dedication
  5. contents
  6. prologue
  7. one
  8. two
  9. three
  10. four
  11. five
  12. six
  13. seven
  14. eight
  15. nine
  16. ten
  17. eleven
  18. twelve
  19. thirteen
  20. fourteen
  21. fifteen
  22. sixteen
  23. seventeen
  24. eighteen
  25. nineteen
  26. twenty
  27. twenty-one
  28. twenty-two
  29. twenty-three
  30. twenty-four
  31. twenty-five
  32. twenty-six
  33. twenty-seven
  34. twenty-eight
  35. twenty-nine
  36. thirty
  37. thirty-one
  38. thirty-two
  39. thirty-three
  40. thirty-four
  41. thirty-five
  42. thirty-six
  43. thirty-seven
  44. thirty-eight
  45. thirty-nine
  46. forty
  47. two nights later
  48. credits

“Could I see you for a minute?” Lucy doesn’t step inside.

“If you’ll excuse me. I think we’re done for now,” I say to the FBI.

“I noticed your car in the bay.” I walk with Lucy back toward the receiving area, stopping where no one can overhear us. “I’m wondering why.”

“And I’m wondering a lot of things.” My niece is dressed the way she was when I saw her early this morning, all in black, and it’s not like her to show up when the FBI is in the area. “I’m wondering why Marino and Machado are in the break room with the door shut. I can hear them arguing, that’s how loud Marino is. And I’m wondering why a Sikorsky S-Seventy-six belonging to Channing Lott might have filmed you recovering that body from the water today?”

“His helicopter? That’s stunning.” I hardly know what to say.

With all that’s gone on since, I haven’t given the large white helicopter another thought since I e-mailed the tail number to Lucy while I was in the car with Marino, heading to court.

“That’s really rather unbelievable,” I add, as my thoughts dart through possibilities of what I should do.

Dan Steward needs to know before closing arguments. If Channing Lott somehow is behind his helicopter filming what we just watched in court, and I don’t know how he couldn’t be, then the jury should know before it begins to deliberate. But it may be too late for that.

“The Certificate of Airworthiness is registered in Delaware to his shipping company,” Lucy informs me.

I can imagine how it would appear if I call Steward with this information and he’s forced to say in open court or even to the judge who the source is. The information would be damaging to Jill Donoghue.

Stay out of it.

“His fleet of some hundred and fifty car carriers, container ships, the M V Cipriano Lines,” my niece is telling me.

“I’m sorry.” I try to focus on what she’s saying.

“What the chopper’s registered to,” she says. “A shipping company named after his missing wife, Mildred Vivian Cipriano. Her name before they got married.”

twenty-one

twenty-one

AROUND THE CFC, FORENSIC DENTIST NED ADAMS IS known as the tooth whisperer because of what the dead confide in him. Age, economic status, hygiene, and if that’s not enough to tattle about, teeth snitch on diet, drink, drugs, and if the person were pregnant or had acne or an eating disorder.