Suddenly Carrie was everywhere. She was the thin woman in sunglasses and baseball cap walking along my street, or the driver pulling up close behind me at the toll plaza, or the homeless woman in a shapeless coat who stared at me as I crossed Broad Street. She was anyone white with punk hair and body piercing, or anyone androgynous or oddly dressed, and all the while I kept telling myself I had not seen Carrie in more than five years. I had no idea what she looked like now and quite possibly would not recognize her until it was too late.
The bay door was open when I parked behind my office, and Bliley’s Funeral Home was loading a body into the back of a shiny black hearse, as the rhythm continued of bringing and taking away.
‘Pretty weather,’ I said to the attendant in his neat dark suit.
‘Fine, how are you?’ came the reply of someone who no longer listened.
Another well-dressed man climbed out to help, and stretcher legs clacked and the tailgate slammed shut. I waited for them to drive off, and I rolled down the big door after them.
My first stop was Fielding’s office. It was not quite quarter after eight.
‘How are we doing?’ I asked as I knocked on his door. ‘Come in,’ he said.
He was scanning books on his shelves, his lab coat straining around his powerful shoulders. Life was difficult for my deputy chief, who rarely could find clothes that fit, since he basically had no waist or hips. I remembered our first company picnic at my house, when he had lounged in the sun with nothing but cut-offs on. I had been amazed and slightly embarrassed that I could scarcely take my eyes off him, not because I had any thoughts of bed, but rather his raw physical beauty had briefly held me hostage. I could not comprehend how anyone could find time to look like that.
‘I guess you’ve seen the paper,’ he said.
‘The letter,’ I said as my mood sunk.
‘Yes.’
He slid out an outdated PDR and set it on the floor.
‘Front page with a photo of you and an old mug shot of her. I’m sorry you have to put up with shit like this,’ he said, hunting for other books. ‘The phones up front are going crazy.’
‘What have we got this morning?’ I changed the subject.
‘Last night’s car wreck from Midlothian Turnpike, passenger and driver killed. They’re views, and DeMaio’s already started on them. Other than that, nothing else.’
‘That’s enough,’ I said. ‘I’ve got court.’
‘Thought you were on vacation.’
‘So did I.’
‘Seriously. Didn’t get it continued. What? You were gonna have to come back from Hilton Head?’
‘Judge Bowls.’
‘Huh,’ Fielding said with disgust. ‘He’s done this to you how many times now? I think he waits to find out your void dates so he can decide on a court date that will totally screw you. Then what? You bust your butt to get back here and half the time he continues the case.’
‘I’m on the pager,’ I said.
‘And you can guess what I’ll be doing.’
He pointed at the paperwork cascading from piles on his desk.
‘I’m so behind I need a rearview mirror,’ he quipped.
‘There’s no point in nagging you,’ I said.
The John Marshall Courts Building was but a ten-minute walk from our new location, and I thought the exercise would do me good. The morning was bright, the air cool and clean as I followed the sidewalk along Leigh Street and turned south on Ninth, passing police headquarters, my pocketbook over my shoulder and an accordion file tucked under an arm.
This morning’s case was the mundane result of one drug dealer killing another, and I was surprised to see at least a dozen reporters on the third floor, outside the courtroom door. At first I thought Rose had made a mistake on my schedule, for it never occurred to me that the media might have been there for me.
But the minute I was spotted, they hurried my way with television cameras shouldered, microphones pointed, and flashguns going off. At first I was startled, then I was angry.