glimpse of Richard’s face, pale, lifeless, and Kate’s legs felt like those dangling hoses. Brown must have felt it, or intuited it, seasoned cop that he was. He tightened his grip on her arm, asked, “You okay?”
Okay? No! I’m dying! But Kate had only nodded, taking deep breaths behind the surgical mask, quickly shifting her glance away, eyes focusing on the Dictaphone beside the table, which she knew from experience the medical examiners spoke into, recording details as they worked.
What would this ME say?
White male. Age forty-five. Good physical condition. Six feet, two inches tall.
Kate’s eyes crawled along the sheet, the relief map of a beloved and familiar body.
But, my God, he looked so much smaller, so diminished in death, this man, this body that was supposed to be her husband, but couldn’t possibly be. No, it just wasn’t possible. She refused to believe it.
She squeezed her eyes shut and pictured the beachfront below the dunes of their Hamptons home, the blue blue ocean that stretched out forever, and Richard, backlit by a blazing midday sun, tall and fit, collapsing playfully at her feet, tickling her until she begged him to stop, the sand scratching at her elbows as she pushed him away, the two of them laughing and laughing and laughing as if they were kidsand though she did not feel them, there were tears streaking mascara down her cheeks.
Had she kissed him good-bye before he’d left for Boston?
No, she was asleep.
And he’d never made it to Boston, never made it to the airport.
Had he been killed in his office? The alley was only a block away. He had to have been attacked on his way to or from the office or at the office, and if that was the case, then someone had dragged his body for a block and set it up in that alleyway.
Jesus, what was happening to herthinking like a cop, now, at a time like this.
Kate stared at Richard’s hand, his gold wedding band catching the cool fluorescent light, shocking next to alabaster fingers. A chill rippled through her own fingers, up her arms, snaked its way into her heart, and for a moment the porcelain-and-steel room began to spin until Kate forced herself to study the hand coolly, detached, as though it were nothing more than a perfect anatomical replica of Richard’s hand, a piece of art worthy of Michelangelo.
The medical examiner, a youngish man with a sallow complexion and thick glasses, followed her line of vision. “The ring, uh, you can get it later, unless, like, uh, some people prefer them to be buried with it.”
Buried with it…buried with it…buried with it…
The words echoed in Kate’s brain and somehow kicked off one of those idiotic teen tragedy songs from her youth, a car stuck on the railroad tracks, a girl going back in to find her boyfriend’s ring, and dying, “Teen Angel”which she could not stop, the refrain, teen angel, teen angel, playing over and over, absurdly, in her head.
“Can’t I have it now?” Kate managed to say, and watched as the ME tugged the ring from her dead husband’s finger and placed it in her hand, the precious metal cold, yet burning in her palm.
She looked up at the medical examiner’s name tag clipped slightly askew to the lapel of his white lab coat, anything to distract herself: Daniel Markowitz.
“Oh, I’m sorry,” Markowitz said. “But, uh, you haven’t actually said, I mean, he is, uh, was, uh, your husband, correct?”
“Of course,” Floyd Brown barked.
“Yes,” Kate whispered, and for the first time allowed herself to take in Richard’s face, which was miraculously unscathed, skin smooth, colorless lips slightly parted.
She had devoted the last minutesor was it hours?to willing away the truth. But now she looked at her husband’s eyes and waited for him to blink, and when he did not she forced herself to stare at the pearly gray-white skin of a face at once so familiar and yet totally alien, closer to a wax-museum dummy than the
Okay? No! I’m dying! But Kate had only nodded, taking deep breaths behind the surgical mask, quickly shifting her glance away, eyes focusing on the Dictaphone beside the table, which she knew from experience the medical examiners spoke into, recording details as they worked.
What would this ME say?
White male. Age forty-five. Good physical condition. Six feet, two inches tall.
Kate’s eyes crawled along the sheet, the relief map of a beloved and familiar body.
But, my God, he looked so much smaller, so diminished in death, this man, this body that was supposed to be her husband, but couldn’t possibly be. No, it just wasn’t possible. She refused to believe it.
She squeezed her eyes shut and pictured the beachfront below the dunes of their Hamptons home, the blue blue ocean that stretched out forever, and Richard, backlit by a blazing midday sun, tall and fit, collapsing playfully at her feet, tickling her until she begged him to stop, the sand scratching at her elbows as she pushed him away, the two of them laughing and laughing and laughing as if they were kidsand though she did not feel them, there were tears streaking mascara down her cheeks.
Had she kissed him good-bye before he’d left for Boston?
No, she was asleep.
And he’d never made it to Boston, never made it to the airport.
Had he been killed in his office? The alley was only a block away. He had to have been attacked on his way to or from the office or at the office, and if that was the case, then someone had dragged his body for a block and set it up in that alleyway.
Jesus, what was happening to herthinking like a cop, now, at a time like this.
Kate stared at Richard’s hand, his gold wedding band catching the cool fluorescent light, shocking next to alabaster fingers. A chill rippled through her own fingers, up her arms, snaked its way into her heart, and for a moment the porcelain-and-steel room began to spin until Kate forced herself to study the hand coolly, detached, as though it were nothing more than a perfect anatomical replica of Richard’s hand, a piece of art worthy of Michelangelo.
The medical examiner, a youngish man with a sallow complexion and thick glasses, followed her line of vision. “The ring, uh, you can get it later, unless, like, uh, some people prefer them to be buried with it.”
Buried with it…buried with it…buried with it…
The words echoed in Kate’s brain and somehow kicked off one of those idiotic teen tragedy songs from her youth, a car stuck on the railroad tracks, a girl going back in to find her boyfriend’s ring, and dying, “Teen Angel”which she could not stop, the refrain, teen angel, teen angel, playing over and over, absurdly, in her head.
“Can’t I have it now?” Kate managed to say, and watched as the ME tugged the ring from her dead husband’s finger and placed it in her hand, the precious metal cold, yet burning in her palm.
She looked up at the medical examiner’s name tag clipped slightly askew to the lapel of his white lab coat, anything to distract herself: Daniel Markowitz.
“Oh, I’m sorry,” Markowitz said. “But, uh, you haven’t actually said, I mean, he is, uh, was, uh, your husband, correct?”
“Of course,” Floyd Brown barked.
“Yes,” Kate whispered, and for the first time allowed herself to take in Richard’s face, which was miraculously unscathed, skin smooth, colorless lips slightly parted.
She had devoted the last minutesor was it hours?to willing away the truth. But now she looked at her husband’s eyes and waited for him to blink, and when he did not she forced herself to stare at the pearly gray-white skin of a face at once so familiar and yet totally alien, closer to a wax-museum dummy than the
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