Cause of Death (10 page)

"Yeah, we were talking about you," he said, "because I don't think you should be looking at this."

Clasps sprang open.

"It's your case." Her eyes were calm as they turned to me. "I am interested in it and would like to help in even the smallest way, if I can. But I'll leave the room, if you want me to."

Oddly, the decision was one of the hardest ones I'd had to make, because my allowing her to look at evidence I wanted to protect her from was my concession to her professional accomplishment. As wind shook windows and rushed around the roof, sounding like spirits in distress, I moved over on the couch.

"You can sit next to me, Lucy," I said. "We'll look at it together."

The New Zionist bible was actually titled the Book of Hand, for its author had been inspired by God and had modestly named the manuscript after himself. Written in Renaissance script on India paper, it was bound in tooled black leather that was scuffed and stained and lettered with the name of someone I did not know. For more than an hour, Lucy leaned against me and we read while Marino prowled about, carrying in more wood and smoking, his restlessness as palpable as the fire's wavering light.

Like the Christian Bible, much of what the manuscript had to say was conveyed in parables, and prophesies and proverbs, thus making the text illustrative and human. This was one of many reasons why reading it was so hard. Pages were populated with people and images that penetrated to deeper layers of the brain. The Book, as we came to call it during the beginning of this new year, showed in exquisite detail how to kill and maim, frighten, brainwash and torture. The explicit section on the necessity of pogroms, including illustrations, made me quake.

I found the violence reminiscent of' the Inquisition, and it was, in fact, explained that the New Zionists were here on earth to effect a new Inquisition, of sorts.

"We are in an age when the wrongful ones must be purged from our midst," Hand had written, "and in doing so we must be loud and obvious like cymbals. We must feel their weak blood cool on our bare skin as we wallow in their annihilation. We must follow the One into glory, and even unto death."

I read other ruinations and runes, and perused strange preoccupations with fusion and fuels that could be used to change the balance of the land. By the Book's end, a terrible darkness seemed to have enveloped me and the entire cottage. I felt sullied and sickened by the reminder that there were people in our midst who might think like this.

It was Lucy who finally spoke, for our silence had been unbroken for more than an hour. "It speaks of the One and their loyalty to him," she said. "Is this a person or a deity of some sort?"

"It's Hand, who probably thinks he's Jesus friggin' Christ," Marino said, pouring more champagne. "Remember that time we saw him in court?" He glanced up at me.

"That I'm not likely to forget any time soon," I said.

"He came in with this entourage, including a Washington attorney who has this big gold pocket watch and a silver-topped cane," he said to Lucy. "Hand is wearing some fancy designer suit, and he's got long blond hair in a ponytail, and women are waiting outside the courthouse to get a peek at him like he's Michael Bolton or something, if you can believe that."

"What was he in court for?" Lucy looked at me.

"He'd filed a petition for disclosure, which the attorney general had denied, so it went before a judge."

"What did he want?" she asked.

"Basically, he was trying to force me to turn over copies of Senator Len Cooper's death records."

"Why?"

"He was alleging that the late senator was poisoned by political enemies. In fact, Cooper died of an acute hemorrhage into a brain tumor. The judge granted Hand nothing."

"I guess Joel Hand doesn't like you too much," she said to me.

"I expect he doesn't." I looked at the Book on the coffee table, and asked Marino, "This name on the cover. Do you know who Dwain Shapiro is?"

"I was about to get to that," he said. "This is as much as we could pull up on the computer. He lived on the New Zionists' compound in Suffolk until last fall when he defected. About a month later he got killed in a carjacking in Maryland."

We were quiet for a moment, and I felt the cottage's dark windows as if they were big, square eyes.

Then I asked, "Any suspects or witnesses?"

"None anybody knows of."

"How did Eddings get hold of Shapiro's bible?" said Lucy.

"Obviously, that's the twenty-thousand-dollar question," Marino replied. "Maybe Eddings talked to him at some point, or maybe to his relatives. This thing ain't a photocopy, and it also says right in the beginning of it that you're not supposed to let your Book ever leave your hands. And if you're ever caught with someone else's Book, you can kiss your ass good-bye."

"That's pretty much what happened to Eddings," Lucy said.

I did not want the Book anywhere near us and wished I could throw it into the fire. "I don't like this," I said. "I don't like it at all."

Lucy looked curiously at me. "You're not getting superstitious on us, are you?"

"These people are consorting with evil," I said. "And I respect that there is evil in the world and it is not to be taken lightly. Where exactly in Eddings' house did you find this God-awful book?" I asked Marino.

"Under his bed," he said.

"Seriously."

"I'm very serious."

"And we're certain Eddings lived alone?" I asked.

"Appears that way."

"What about family?"

"Father's deceased, a brother's in Maine and the mother lives in Richmond. Real close to where you live, as a matter of fact."

"You've talked to her?" I asked.

"I stopped by and told her the bad news and asked if we could conduct a more thorough search of her son's house, which we'll do tomorrow." He glanced at his watch.

"Or I guess I should say today."

Lucy got up and moved to the hearth. She propped an elbow on a knee and cupped her chin in her hand. Behind her, coals glowed in a deep bed of ashes.

"How do you know this bible originally came from the New Zionists?" she said. "Seems to me all you know is it came from Shapiro, and how can we be sure where he got it?"

Marino said, "Shapiro was a New Zionist until just three months ago. I've heard that Hand isn't real understanding when people want to leave him. Let me ask you something.

How many ex-New Zionists do you know?"

Lucy could not say. Certainly, I couldn't either.

"He's had followers for at least ten years. And we never hear anything about anyone leaving?" he went on. "How the hell do we know who he's got buried on his farm?"

"How come I've never heard of him?" she wanted to know.

Marino got up to top off our champagne.

He said, "Because they don't teach subjects like him at MIT and UVA."

Chapter
5

AT DAWN, I LAY IN BED AND LOOKED OUT AT MANT'S ,backyard. The snow was very deep and piled high on the wall, and beyond the dune the sun was polishing the sea. For a while I shut my eyes and thought of Benton Wesley. I wondered what he would say about where I was living now, and what we would say to each other when we met later this day. We had not spoken since the second week of December, when we had agreed that our relationship must end.

I turned to one side and pulled the covers up to my ears as I heard quiet footsteps. Next I felt Lucy perch on the edge of my bed.

"Good morning, favorite niece in the world," I mumbled.

"I'm your only niece in the world." She said what she always did. "And how did you know it was me?"

"It had better be you. Someone else might get hurt."

"I brought you coffee," she said.

"You're an angel."

"Yo, to quote Marino. That's what everybody says about me."

"I was just trying to be nice." I yawned.