“if you have a drug test today you’ll come up positive for morphine.”
“And don’t give me any of that nonfat stuff. It I s like eating paste.” I
“No, it’s not,” I said. But what I could not get away from was where he had died. I could still see his body suspended in that murky river, tethered by a useless hose caught on a rusting screw. I could feel his stiffness as I held him in my arms and swam him up with me. I had known before I had ever reached the surface that he had been dead many hours.
At three A.M. I sat up in bed and stared at the darkness.
The house was quiet except for its usual shifting sounds, and I simply could not turn off my conscious mind. Reluctantly, I put my feet on the floor, my heart beating hard, as if it were startled that I should stir at such an hour. In my office I shut the door and wrote the following brief letter:
TO WHOM IT MAY CONCERN:
I realize this is a fax number, otherwise I would call in person. I need to know your identification, if possible, as your number has shown up on the printout of a recently deceased individual’s fax machine. Please contact me at your earliest convenience, If you need verification of the authenticity of this communication, contact Captain Pete Marino of the Richmond Police Department.
I gave telephone numbers and signed my title and my name, and I faxed the letter to every speed dial listing in Eddings’ journal, except, of course, the Associated Press.
For a while I sat at my desk, staring rather glazed, as if my fax machine were going to solve this case immediately. But it remained silent as I read and waited. At the reasonable hour Of Six A.M., I called Marino.
“I take it there was no riot,” I said after the phone banged and dropped and his voice mumbled over the line.
“Good, you’re awake,” I added.
“What time is it?” He sounded as if he were in a stupor.
“It’s time for you to rise and shine.”
“We locked up maybe five people. The rest got quiet after that and went back inside. What are you doing awake?”
“I’m always awake. And by the way, I could use a ride to work today and I need groceries.”
“Well, put on some coffee,” he said. “I guess I’m coming over.”
CHAPTER 9
WHEN HE ARRIVED, LUCY WAS STILL IN BED AND I was making coffee. I let him in, dismayed again when I looked out at my street. Overnight, Richmond had turned to glass, and I had heard on the news that falling branches and trees had knocked down power lines in several sections of the city.
“Did you have any trouble?” I asked, shuttinmeone shot us in our sleep. Nine-millimeter to the back of the head. They made it look like a robbery.”
“Oh really?” Marino asked, pulling on rabbit fur-lined gloves. “And where was yours truly?. “Cause that ain’t going to happen if I’m in the house.”
“You weren’t here.”
He gave her an odd look as he realized she was serious.
“What the hell’d you eat last night?”
“It was like a movie. It must have gone on for hours.”
She looked at me, and her eyes were puffy and exhausted.
“Would you like to come to the office with me?” I asked.
“No, no. I’ll be fine. The last thing I feel like being around right now is a bunch of dead bodies.”
“You’re going to get together with some of the agents you know in town?” I uneasily said.
“I don’t know. We were going to work with closed-cycle oxygen respiration, but I just don’t think I feel up to putting on a wet suit and getting in some indoor pool that stinks like chlorine. I think I’ll just wait around for my car, then leave.”
Marino and I didn’t talk much as we drove downtown, his mighty tires gouging glazed streets with clanking teeth.
I knew he was worried about Lucy. As much as he abused her, if anyone else tried to do the same Marino would destroy that person with his big bare hands. He had known her since she was ten. It was Marino who had taught her to drive a five-speed pickup truck and shoot a gun.