Scarpetta's Winter Table - Cornwell Patricia. Страница 7

"You ever eaten anything hot before?" Marino asked, as he chopped.

"Soup."

"Not that kind of hot."

"I don't know."

"Believe me, you'll know," Marino promised. "Let me tell you something, kid. Before the night's out, you're gonna learn something."

"You think there'll be school tomorrow, Mr. Marino?"

"Look, I'm either Captain Marino or Pete. Got it? And no way there'll be school tomorrow. I just hope your mom can get home so I'm not stuck with you another day."

Jimmy smiled. He knew Marino didn't mean it.

"I guess I could go get her in my truck," Marino went on.

"I'd rather stay here." Jimmy sipped his soda.

A more obvious ingredient in Marino's last minute chili is packaged seasoning. He prefers the very spicy Texas style, and dumps in two packages along with the tomato sauce he has on hand. In this case, it was three fifteen-ounce cans. To this he added an amount of water that he did not measure, but it wasn't a lot because he likes his chili thick enough to serve as spaghetti sauce when he needs a little variety. Next, he drained the beans and dumped them in, along with four beef bouillon cubes that initially stuck stubbornly to their wrappers.

"That smells really good," Jimmy marveled, as football players mauled each other on ESPN.

"Thirty minutes, and we're good to go," announced Marino, washing his hands and wiping them on his pants. "I got bread I can put some butter and garlic on, toast it in the oven."

"No, thank you."

"What about salad? Maybe I got some lettuce in here somewhere."

He searched inside the refrigerator, yanking open drawers.

"No, thank you," Jimmy replied. "I don't like salad."

"It's all in the dressing. You ever had Thousand Island? Mix mayonnaise, ketchup, and chop up bread and butter pickles. Mix it all up, put it on your salad, your burger, whatever. Now, you really want a manly meal, you make a really thick sandwich with corn beef and put Thousand Island and sauerkraut on it. Some Swiss if you got it. Hell, I've used mozzarella before. So you put that all together and grill it in butter."

"I don't like mayonnaise," Jimmy politely informed him.

"Won't even know it's there," Marino promised. "Maybe we'll do that for lunch tomorrow."

"I thought you didn't want me here."

"I don't," Marino said.

The snow had almost spent itself by the time the eleven o'clock news came on, and Marino was in his recliner, barely interested in what an anchorwoman was saying about a shooting in one of Richmond's numerous housing projects. It wasn't his problem. His jurisdiction was the police academy. He was in charge of training rookie cops and got involved in heinous, violent cases only when he was called out on an ATF or FBI response team.

"…the thus-far unidentified man was found face down on the street in a pool of blood…"

"Drugs," Marino muttered.

"…and is believed to be drug related…"

"See?" Marino said to Jimmy. "You know what that kind of homicide's called?"

The boy was stretched out on the brown vinyl couch, a blanket pulled up to his chin. Marino had given him a Richmond police academy T-shirt to sleep in, and the sleeves came down to Jimmy's hands, the hem over his feet.

"No, sir," Jimmy sleepily said.

"It's called urban renewal."

"What does that mean?" Jimmy yawned.

"You'll figure it out when you get older. Sometimes we call them misdemeanor murders, too."

Jimmy was clueless.

"Oh," he said.

Marino took one last swallow of beer. That was his quota for the night. His guest had devoured two helpings of chili topped by melted mozzarella that had been stringy on Jimmy's spoon and had gotten on his face and sleeves, and everywhere, really. Marino had put out a plate of saltine crackers and had shown Jimmy how to crumble them into his bowl. For dessert, Marino had spread Chunky Monkey ice cream between two large sugar cookies, making a sandwich that Jimmy had dripped on his jeans. "What are we having for breakfast?" Jimmy asked.

"Snow with maple syrup on it," Marino replied, switching to NBC.

"No way."

"It's okay as long as you stay away from yellow snow."

Jimmy Simpson guffawed.

7

Dessert was on Lucy's mind, and the longer she and her friends sat before the fire telling war stories about law enforcement and the cruelty of former lovers, the more it seemed a good idea for them to have one last forage before bed.

"Milk and cookies before bed," Lucy announced, getting up from the floor, where she had been lazily leaning against her aunt's handsome blue-and-maroon striped couch.

"Forget the milk part."

"Really."

"We'll figure out something," Lucy assured them. "You guys don't do anything fun without me. I'll be in the kitchen. And talk loud so I can hear everything you're saying."

Lucy's Felonious Cookies

She set a deep Pyrex dish on the counter and hunted down brown and white sugar, all-purpose flour, vanilla extract, eggs, salt, and baking soda. When she was ten, her aunt had taught her to make these special, lawless cookies. By now, it was instinctive. Lucy never measured or timed anything. She had learned long ago to speed up the process and dirty as few dishes as possible. An important start was to melt a cup of Breakstone butter in the Pyrex dish, making sure the butter was warm but not hot.

Next, she stirred in dark brown and white sugar, forming a thick paste. Eggs followed, and her experience guided her to use two before mixing in enough flour to reach a moist, crumbly consistency that was neither too wet nor dry. Baking soda must not be overlooked, and she sprinkled in maybe a teaspoon of it before adding salt and vanilla to taste. By now, the dough was cool, and, with clean hands, Lucy kneaded in chopped pecans and semi-sweet chocolate and butterscotch chips. Although her aunt did not agree with her, Lucy believed in erring on the side of too much.

She turned on the oven to 350 degrees and lightly coated cookie sheets with a cholesterol-free vegetable oil that made Lucy smile. Her aunt was fastidious about good health.

"That's because you've seen so many dead people," Lucy frequently chided her, when Scarpetta would not buy her soft drinks or bubble gum or take her to fast-food restaurants except in an emergency.

During Lucy's many visits while she was growing up, there had always been fresh fruit juice in the refrigerator, and apples, bananas, tangerines, and white grapes. Popcorn at the movies was not a problem, but Scarpetta would not buy Lucy sweets, especially hard candies such as lemon drops or Fire Balls that potentially could choke. Suckers were out of the question, especially the sort from the bank or the doctor's office that were impaled on a hard stick.

"Imagine if you had that in your mouth and fell or ran into something," Scarpetta used to say.

"Why can't I just bite it off the stick?"

"Bad for your teeth. Actually, there's nothing about a lollypop that's of any benefit to you, Lucy. They don't even taste very good, if you think about it."

Perhaps it wasn't the lollypop as much as it was the fact that Lucy had been rewarded with it for enduring a tongue depressor halfway down her throat or waiting forever in line while her aunt deposited her state paycheck. The list of verboten foods and safety concerns got longer with time as her aunt discovered yet one more way someone could die. But Lucy's life with Scarpetta was not so severe as it might seem. Scarpetta had always given Lucy her time; Aunt Kay had enlightened and educated her with books, computers, and, now and then, church.

She had taught Lucy about good and evil, and had not tolerated selfishness, for it was, in Scarpetta's words, the root of all that was heartless and bad in the world.