by Nora Roberts
“Yeah?” He sat down to pull on his boots but continued to watch her. “You think you know how I feel? Well, let me tell you anyway. There’s a dead woman a few miles from here. Somebody put a scarf around her neck and pulled until she couldn’t breathe anymore. She’d have kicked and pulled at the scarf with her hands and tried to scream, but she wouldn’t have been able to. So she’s dead, but she’s not a name on a list yet. She’s still a person. For a little while longer she’s still a person.”
She would have reached out to him if she’d thought there was a chance he’d accept it. Instead she fastened her belt and kept her voice neutral. “Don’t you think I understand that?”
“I’m not sure you do.”
They studied each other a moment longer, each dedicated, each frustrated, each coming from different backgrounds and beliefs. It was Tess who accepted it first. “I either go with you now or I call the mayor and end up five minutes behind you. Sooner or later you’ve got to start working with me.”
He’d just spent the night with her. He’d poured himself into her three times during the night. He’d felt her body rock and buck and shudder. Now they were talking murder and politics. The femininity, the softness, even the shyness he’d taken to bed were still there, but beneath was a core of toughness, a self-possession he’d recognized from the first. Studying her, he saw she would go no matter what he said, what he did.
“All right. You go with me and get an up-close look. Maybe after you see her, you’ll stop letting your heart bleed for the man who did her.”
She bent for her shoes. The bed was between them, but it was as if they’d never shared it. “I suppose it’s no use reminding you I’m on your side.” He was reaching for his wallet and shield, and said nothing. Tess saw her earrings on his nightstand, a little thing of great intimacy. She scooped them up and dropped them in her pocket. “Where are we going?”
“An alley near Twenty-third and M.”
“Twenty-third and M? That’s only a couple of blocks from my place.”
He didn’t bother to look at her. “I know.”
The streets were deserted. The bars would have closed at one. Most private parties would have waned by three. Washington was a political town, and though its night spots ranged from the elite to the sleazy, it didn’t have the energy of a New York or Chicago. Drug deals around Fourteenth and U were a life-style away. Even the hookers would have called it a night.
Now and then the leaves that had fallen rushed along the sidewalk then stopped, victims of the sporadic wind. They drove past blank storefronts and boutiques with neon sweaters in the windows. Ben lit a cigarette and let the familiar taste of Virginia tobacco ease some of the tension.
He didn’t want her there. Doctor or no doctor, he didn’t want her to be a part of the hopeless ugliness of this part of his job. She could share in the paperwork, the fitting together of the puzzle, the step-by-step logic of an investigation, but she shouldn’t be here.
She had to be here, Tess thought. It was time to face the results, and maybe, just maybe, get a better understanding of the motivation. She was a doctor. It was irrelevant that she wasn’t the kind of doctor who prodded fingers in the human body. She was trained, she was capable, and she understood death.
Tess saw the blue and red lights of the first police car and began to school her breathing to long inhales, slow exhales.
The alley and several feet on all sides were roped off, though there was no one on the predawn streets. Cruisers sat with their lights blinking and their radios on. A community of workers was already inside the official area.
Ben pulled up to the curb. “You stay with me,” he told Tess, but still didn’t look at her. “We have a policy against civilians wandering around homicide scenes.”
“I don’t intend to get in your way. I intend to do my job. You’ll find I’m as good at it as you are at yours.” She pushed open her door and nearly collided with Ed.
“Sorry, Dr. Court.” Her hands were icy. He patted them without thinking. “You’re going to want your gloves.” He stuck his own in his pockets as he looked at Ben.
“What have we got?”
“Lab boys are in there now. Sly’s getting pictures. Coroner’s en route.” His breath came out in a white puffy steam. The tips of his ears were already red from the cold, but he’d forgotten to button his coat. “Some kid stumbled across her about four-thirty. Uniforms haven’t got much out of him yet. He’s been pretty busy whooshing up about a half case of beer.” He glanced at Tess again. “Sorry.”
“Don’t apologize,” Ben said briefly. “She’ll remind you she’s a doctor.”
“Captain’s coming in on this.”
“Terrific.” Ben shot the butt of his cigarette into the street. “Let’s get to work.”
They started toward the alley, passed a cruiser where someone sat in the backseat sobbing. Tess glanced over, pulled toward the sound of despair. Then her arm brushed Ben’s and she continued toward the alley. A small man with horn-rimmed glasses and a camera stepped out. He took out a blue bandanna and rubbed it over his nose.
“It’s all yours. Get him, for Christ’s sake. I don’t want to photograph any more dead blondes. A man’s got to have a little variety in his work.”
“You’re a riot, Sly.” Ben brushed by him, leaving the photographer sneezing into the bandanna.
They’d taken only a few steps into the alley when the scent of death rose up. They all recognized it, that bitter, fetid stench which was both offensive and eerily compelling to the living.
Her body had emptied itself. Her blood had settled. Her arms had been folded neatly across her body, but she didn’t look at peace. Sightless, her eyes were locked open. There was a smear of dried blood on her chin. Her own, Tess thought. Sometime during the struggle to live, she had sawed her teeth through her bottom lip.
She’d worn a long, serviceable wool coat in olive drab. The white silk amice stood out starkly against it. It had been taken from around her neck, where bruises had already formed, and smoothed over her breasts.
The note was pinned there, the message the same.
Her sins are forgiven her.
But this time the letters weren’t printed neatly. They were wavery, and the paper was crumpled a bit, as though his hands had mashed it. The word sins was printed larger than the rest, the markings darker, almost going through the paper. Tess crouched down beside the body for a closer look.
A cry for help? she wondered. Was it a plea for someone to stop him from sinning again? The shaky handwriting was a deviation, however slight, from his routine. It meant, to Tess, that he was losing his hold, perhaps doubting himself even as he fulfilled his mission.
He hadn’t been so sure this time, she decided. His mind was becoming a logjam of thoughts, memories, and voices. He must be terrified, she thought, and almost certainly physically ill by now.
Her coat had been left open rather than neatly arranged. There wasn’t enough of a breeze in the alley to have flapped it open. So he hadn’t tidied it as he had the clothing of the others. Perhaps he hadn’t been able to.
Then she saw the lapel pin against the green wool, a gold heart with the name Anne scrolled inside. She had been Anne. A wave of pity washed over her, for Anne, and for the man who had been driven to kill her.
Ben saw the way she studied the body, clinically, dispassionately, without revulsion. He’d wanted to shield her from the reality of death, but also wanted to press her face into it until she’d wept and run the other way.
“If you’ve gotten yourself a good look, Dr. Court, why don’t you back off and let us do our job?”
She looked up at Ben, then rose slowly to her feet. “He’s nearly finished. I don’t think he’s going to be able to take much more.”
“Tell that to her.”
“Kid puked all over the place,” Ed said lightly, and breathed through his mouth to try to combat the stench. With a pencil he flipped open the woman’s wallet, which had spilled out of
her purse. “Anne Reasoner,” he said, reading her driver’s license. “Twenty-seven. Lives about a block up on M.”
A block up, Tess thought. A block closer to her own apartment. She pressed her lips together and looked out of the alley until the fear passed. “It’s a ritual,” she said clearly enough. “From everything I’ve read, ritual, rites, traditions, are an intricate part of the Catholic Church. He’s performing his own ritual here, saving them then absolving them and leaving them with this.” She indicated the amice. “The symbol of that salvation and absolution. He folds the amice exactly the same way each time. He positions their bodies exactly the same way. But this time he didn’t tidy her clothes.”
“Playing detective?”
Tess balled her hands in her pockets, fighting to overlook Ben’s sarcasm. “This is devotion, blind devotion to the Church, obsession with ritual. But the handwriting shows that he’s beginning to question what he’s doing, what he’s driven to do.”
“That’s fine.” Unreasonable anger rushed into him at her lack of emotional response. Ben turned his back to her and bent over the body. “Why don’t you go out to the car and write that up? We’ll be sure to pass on your professional opinion to her family.”
He didn’t see her face, the quick hurt then the slow anger that came into her eyes. But he heard her walk away.
“Little rough on her, weren’t you?”
Ben didn’t look at his partner either, but at the woman who had been Anne. She stared back at him. Serve and protect. No one had protected Anne Reasoner.
“She doesn’t belong here,” he murmured, and thought as much of Anne Reasoner as of Tess. He shook his head, still studying the almost saintlike pose of the body. “What was she doing in an alley in the middle of the night?” An alley that was close, too damn close, to Tess’s apartment.
“Maybe she wasn’t.”
Drawing his brows together, Ben lifted up one of her feet. She’d worn loafers. The kind that last through college, your first marriage and divorce. The leather fit her feet like gloves and was well polished. The back of the heel was freshly scraped and scarred.
“So he killed her on the street and dragged her in.” Ben looked over at Ed as his partner crouched and examined the other shoe. “He strangled her out on the fucking street. We got streetlights about every ten god-damn feet in this neighborhood. We got black and whites cruising every thirty minutes, and he kills her on the street.” He looked at her hands. Her nails were medium length and well shaped. Only three of them were broken. The coral-colored polish was unchipped. “Doesn’t look like she put up much of a fight.”
The light was turning gray, a washed-out, milky gray that promised overcast skies and cold autumn rain. Dawn floated over the city without any beauty. Sunday morning. People were sleeping in. Hangovers were brewing. The first church services would begin soon with raw-eyed, weekend-dazed congregations.
Tess leaned against the hood of Ben’s car. The suede jacket wasn’t warm enough in the chilled dawn, but she was too restless to get inside the car. She watched a round man with a medical bag and blue-paisley pajama bottoms under a flapping overcoat go into the alley. The coroner’s day had started early.
From somewhere blocks away came the grinding metallic sound of a truck changing gears. A single cab rode by without slowing down. One of the uniformed cops brought a big Styrofoam cup with steam and the scent of coffee rising off the top, and handed it to the figure in back of the cruiser.
Tess looked toward the alley again. She’d held up, she told herself, though her stomach was roiling now in reaction. She’d been professional, as she’d promised herself she would be. But she wouldn’t forget Anne Reasoner for a long time. Death wasn’t a neatly printed statistic when you looked it in the face.
She would have kicked and pulled at the scarf with her hands and tried to scream.
Tess took a long gulp of air that hurt her throat, raw from swallowing nausea. She was a doctor. She repeated it over and over until the cramp in her stomach eased. She’d been trained to deal with death. And she had dealt with it.
Turning away from the alley, she faced the empty street. Who was she trying to fool? She dealt with despair, with phobias, neuroses, even violence, but she’d never been face-to-face with the victim of a murder. Her life was ordered, protected because she’d made certain of it. Pastel walls and questions and answers. Even her hours at the clinic were tame compared to the day-to-day violence on the streets of the city where she lived.
She knew about ugliness, violence, and perversion, but she’d always been neatly separated from all of it by her own background. The senator’s granddaughter, the bright young student, the cool-headed doctor. She had her degree, her successful practice, and three published papers. She’d treated the helpless, the hopeless, and the pitiful, but she’d never knelt down beside murder.
“Dr. Court?”
She turned back and saw Ed. Instinctively she looked past him and spotted Ben talking to the coroner.
“I wrangled you some coffee.”
“Thanks.” She took the cup and sipped slowly.
“Want a bagel?”
“No.” She laid a hand on her stomach. “No.”
“You did okay in there.”
The coffee settled and seemed content to stay down. Looking over the cup, she met his eyes. He understood, she realized, and neither condemned nor pitied. “I hope I never have to do it again.”
A black plastic bag was carried out of the alley. Tess found herself able to watch as it was loaded into the morgue van.
“It never gets any easier,” Ed murmured. “I used to wish it would.”
“Not anymore?”
“No. I figure if it gets easier, it means you’ve lost the edge that makes you want to find out why.”
She nodded. Common sense and common compassion in his quiet voice were soothing. “How long have you and Ben been partners?”
“Five, almost six years.”
“You suit each other.”
“Funny, I was just thinking the same thing about you.”
She gave a low, humorless laugh. “There’s a difference between attraction and suitability.”
“Maybe. There’s also a difference between stubbornness and stupidity.” His look remained bland as her head came around. “Anyway, Dr. Court,” he went on before she had a chance to react. “I was hoping you might talk to the witness for a couple of minutes. He’s pretty shook up, and we’re not getting anywhere.”
“All right.” She nodded at the cruiser. “That’s him in the car, isn’t it?”
“Yeah. Name’s Gil Norton.”
Tess walked to the car and crouched at the open door. He was hardly more than a boy, she thought. Twenty, maybe twenty-two. While he shivered and gulped coffee, his face was pale, with a high flush of color over the cheekbones. His eyes were puffed and red from weeping, and his teeth clattered. He’d put dents with his thumbs in the sides of the Styrofoam cup. He smelt of beer and vomit and terror.
“Gil?”
After a jolt, he turned his head. She hadn’t any doubt he was stone sober now, but she could see a bit too much white around his irises. His pupils were dilated.
“I’m Dr. Court. How are you feeling?”
“I want to go home. I’ve been sick. My stomach hurts.” There was a trace of the whining self-pity of a drunk who’d had cold water dumped in his face. Under it was plain fear.
“Finding her must have been pretty dreadful.”
“I don’t want to talk about it.” His mouth contracted into a thin white line. “I want to go home.”
“I’ll call someone for you if you like. Your mother?”
Tears began to squeeze out of his eyes again. His hands trembled until the coffee sloshed in his cup.
“Gil, why don’t you step out of the car? You might feel better if you stood up in the fresh air.”
“I want a cigarette. I smoked all of mine.”
“We’ll get some.” She held out a hand
. After a moment’s hesitation, he took it. His fingers closed over hers like a vise. “I don’t want to talk to the cops.”
“Why?”
“I should have a lawyer. Shouldn’t I have a lawyer?”
“I’m sure you can if you like, but you’re not in trouble, Gil.”
“I found her.”
“Yes. Here, let me take that for you.” Gently she took the half-empty cup before he could spill the remaining coffee over his pants. “Gil, we need you to tell us whatever you know so we can find out who killed her.”
He looked around and saw the blue uniforms and impassive faces. “They’re going to dump it on me.”
“No.” She spoke calmly, having anticipated him. Keeping close to his side, she began to lead him toward Ben. “They don’t think you killed her.”
“I got a record.” He said it in a shaky whisper. “Drug bust last year. Just petty shit, a little grass, but the cops’ll figure I got a record, I found her, I killed her.”
“It’s natural to be scared. That’s not going to go away until you talk about what happened. Try to be logical, Gil. Has anyone arrested you?”
“No.”
“Has anyone asked you if you killed that woman?”
“No. But I was there.” He focused on the alley with blank, fascinated horror. “And she was …”
“That’s what you need to get out. Gil, this is Detective Paris.” She stopped in front of Ben but kept her hand on Gil’s arm. “He’s with Homicide, and too smart to think you killed anyone.”
Beneath the words the message was clear. Go easy. Ben’s resentment communicated itself just as lucidly. He didn’t have to be told how to handle a witness.
“Ben, Gil could use a cigarette.”
“Sure.” Ben reached for his pack and shook one out. “Rough morning,” he commented as he struck a match.
Gil’s hands still shook, but he drew greedily on the cigarette. “Yeah.” His eyes darted over and up as Ed approached.
“This is Detective Jackson,” Tess continued in a soothing, introductory voice. “They need you to tell them what you saw.”