by Sibs (v2. 1)
She shut her eyes.
Why am I here? I don't want to be here. I don't have to be here.
Which was true. Her presence here today would not speed Kelly's body back to Pennsylvania by a single minute. But she had to do this, had to make this trip. For Kelly. Kara had left her sister here, and now the least she could do was see her home.
She ignored the schools of cabs cruising the area and decided to walk. It would put off having to see Kelly.
She jumped as a hand squeezed her left buttock through her coat. She whirled and glared into the press of people around her but couldn't tell who'd done it.
God, she hated New York.
▼
Detective Third Grade Rob Harris leaned against the wall in Bellevue's lobby, smoking a cigarette and listening to the couple over by the phones. Amazing. Somebody was in the middle of pulling a variation on the old Spanish handkerchief scam in the middle of a hospital. He'd become suspicious when he saw the pencil case, so he'd sidled over to listen.
"You got da money? Da fi' thousan'? Lemme see. Good! Here. Put it in this pencil case."
"Why?" the woman said. Sheathed in a shapeless old coat, she was chunky, fiftyish, with mocha skin.
"For safekeeping. No one wants a pencil case. An' you hoi' onto it. I don' wan' even touch it."
The^ woman shoved the bills inside the case and then clutched it between her ample breasts with both hands.
"What do we do now?"
"We wait for Chico to call and say it's okay for you to go down to da main Lotto office and collect my money."
Rob shook his head in wonder. The gullibility of people never ceased to amaze him. This grifter was using the latest wrinkle on the Spanish handkerchief—a phony lottery ticket. It worked like this: The grifter has a state lottery ticket dated for, say, January 3 that has the correct lottery numbers for that date. Except that it's a ticket from January 31 with the "1" scraped off. The scam artist poses as an illegal alien who can't cash the ticket for fear of deportation. He corners some poor sucker, usually of similar roots, and pleads for help, promising to share the prize if the mark can prove that he or she is "a person of substance" whom the grifter can trust with his "winning" ticket. The mark checks with a local Lotto stand and confirms that, yes, the ticket does indeed have all the winning numbers. To prove her 'substance,' this particular mark had withdrawn five thousand in cash and shown it to the grifter. It was now in the pencil case.
Rob was sure that when "Chico" called, the scam artist would have to go meet him immediately due to some unexpected development. But to show his good faith, the grifter would offer to leave his lucky lottery ticket with the mark. He'd stick it in the pencil pouch with the cash. That was when the switch would be made, leaving the mark holding an identical pencil case stuffed with dollar-sized strips of newspaper.
Rob ambled over the phone where the pair hovered and reached for the receiver. The man knocked his hand away.
"We're waitin' for a call, man. Use dat phone over dere."
"Oh, okay," Rob said, smiling shyly. "Sure."
Rob moved four phones away and dropped a quarter into the slot. The encounter seconds before had enabled him to read the number on the other phone. He punched it in.
Down the line to his right, the phone rang.
"Tha' mus' be Chico," the grifter said, and lifted the receiver. "Si? Chico?"
"Heeeyyyy, man! Que pasa?" Rob said in his best imitation of Cheech Marin. "Like what's happenin', man?"
"Chico?"
"Chico's dead, asshole," he said in his own voice. "And you'll wish you were too if you don't hang up the phone and walk your ass out of here pronto. And don't try to take that pencil case along because I'll be all over you like flies on shit before you reach the door. Vamoose, dirt bag!"
Rob had pulled his badge from his pocket and now he held it up over the sound baffle of his booth. He noticed that the grifter's face was pale as he hung up his receiver. The guy scanned the lobby and froze as his eyes fixed on the gold detective badge. He locked eyes with Rob for a second, then, without a word, hurried from the lobby. Rob strolled over to the confused mark.
"The money still in there, ma'am?"
She looked at him in bewilderment, then unzipped the case. A sheaf of hundred dollar bills sat cozily within.
"Good. Put it back in the bank and leave it there. And next time don't be so trusting."
Rob lit another cigarette and returned to his station by the front entrance. He checked his watch. Kara was late. Normally he didn't mind waiting. He was used to it. Waiting was an integral part of the job for a NYPD detective. He'd spent entire shifts and more sitting in a cold, cramped car with his eyes trained on a single doorway. This morning he was warm and comfortable. Why should he be antsy?
She fooled him. Rob had expected her to arrive by cab, so he hadn't been paying much attention to the sidewalk. He was surprised when he spotted her half a block away, walking down from Thirty-first. He picked up the blond hair first, then the easy, long-legged gait. Kara had never learned to walk like a New Yorker.
He studied her as she neared, feeling a strange tingle spread across his chest and arms as more details of her appearance came into view. Her hair was blond as ever, longer than before, chin length now, curved slightly inward, with bangs in front. She was wearing a long, dark red cloth coat, with matching stockings, and matching shoes with a low heel; beneath the coat she appeared to be as slim as ever. She still looked painfully young. Her skin was still fair and smooth, her eyes were as clear and blue as before, her lips were still a perfect bow. As she came up the front steps, he noticed that she wore little make-up. She'd never needed much. He searched her face for wrinkles, crows feet, worry lines. Not a one. Her face was leaner, and slightly drawn, but that could be explained by grief. Otherwise, she looked trim and fit, as if she'd aged maybe five years in the ten since she'd left.
Could that be disappointment he was feeling? Had he been hoping that she'd have gone to seed since she left him? So he could tell himself it was probably for the best that they'd broken up? Or was he looking for proof that she wasn't as self-sufficient as she thought she was? That she really needed him and couldn't get along well without him?
Maybe.
From the look of things, though, Kara Wade was doing just fine.
As she reached the top of the steps, Rob stubbed out his cigarette and moved toward the glass doors. After their brief conversation last night, he'd been anticipating this reunion with both eagerness and dread. Well, the wait was over. When he determined which door she was heading for, he reached it first and pushed on the bar to open it. She glanced up at him.
"Thank—" she began, then looked at him more closely. "Rob! It's you!"
They embraced briefly. He was surprised how good it was to hold her again, even if only for a few seconds. They backed off to arm's length. His mouth was dry and his heart was thumping. After all these years?
"Yeah. It's me. I told you I'd meet you here."
"Yes, but I didn't expect you to open the door for me. Where's your uniform?"
"I made detective. Midtown North."
"Congratulations."
"It never hurts to have an old man who's an ex-cop."
"He retired?"
For an instant he was surprised she didn't know. But then, how could she?
"He had a couple of heart attacks. He gets chest pains walking across the living room, but he won't agree to a bypass."
"I'm sorry to hear that."
Sorry. Here they were talking about his father when Kelly…
"And I'm sorry about Kelly. It's… it's tragic."
Rob watched her throat work as she nodded.
"Yes." It was barely a whisper. "Which way is…?"
"I'll take you."
He guided her toward the elevators. He could feel the tension in her, could almost feel her body trying to run away. He'd told her yesterday that this trip was unnecessary, but she'd insisted. Same old Kara. Stubborn as ev
er. He looked at her grim, frightened face and decided he had to give her one more chance to back out of this. As they stepped out of the elevator into the hallway of the bottom floor, the City Morgue floor, he took her arm.
▼
"You don't have to do this."
Kara stared at Rob. He had changed considerably since she'd last seen him a decade ago. His mustache was gone, but that was minor. He was slightly heavier, and he looked older, but his face wasn't aged so much as lined. He looked worn. Like someone steering along the edge of burn-out. Maybe that was what a dozen years as a New York City cop did to you. At least that was what it seemed to have done to Rob.
But his brown eyes were still bright and clear, and even here in the City Morgue he still exuded the same physical presence that had attracted her way back when.
At first she'd been hesitant about his coming here, feeling it was an intrusion on her grief. But when he'd opened the lobby door for her, some of the old feelings had rushed back. It was good to see him. And it was a comfort to find a familiar face in these indifferent surroundings, especially when it belonged to someone who knew his way around and could cut through much of the red tape.
"Don't you usually have to have someone identify the body?" Kara said.
"Kelly's supervisor from St. Vincent's did that yesterday. Plus we've got a perfect print match." He glanced away. "Besides… it's not pretty."
A burst of resentment shot through her.
"I didn't expect it to be pretty," she said coldly.
Rob didn't back down.
"She's a mess, Kara. And she's been posted."
"Posted?"
"Autopsied."
I know! I know! Stop reminding me!
"I. Want. To. See. Her." Kara said slowly. She was not going to back down either. "She's my sister."
She realized she'd used the present tense. She'd probably continue doing that until she'd actually seen Kelly's dead face. She didn't want to see a dead Kelly. Oh, God, she'd give anything not to have to do this. It had taken every ounce of courage she possessed just to come here. Part of her wanted to run screaming from the building, from this awful city, and take the next train back to Pennsylvania. But she knew that another larger part of her would never accept her sister's death without actually seeing her lifeless body.
Rob's mouth settled into a tight thin line.
"Okay. But I warned you."
Kara held her breath as she followed him down the fluorescent-lit hall, lined with gurneys, some empty, some not. White sheets covered the latter. She kept her eyes down and counted the drains evenly placed in the concrete floor. He led her through a set of steel double doors into a room where a gaunt young black man who couldn't have been much older than twenty sat at a small desk with a styrofoam cup full of coffee in one hand and a cigarette in the other. The sports section of the Post was open on the desk in front of him. Rob handed him a yellow slip of paper.
"Already been identified," the young man said after looking at the slip. "She's waiting for pick-up."
Rob's voice was flat. "She's going to be identified again."
The attendant shrugged and ran his finger down a list. He stopped near the bottom.
"Seventeen-B," he said as he rose from his chair.
He led them through another set of double doors, heavier than the first, into a larger room where the temperature was a good twenty degrees cooler. She saw a coarse concrete floor, white tiled walls, and latched drawers. The far wall was a giant mosaic of latched drawers, three high and too many in width to count. Big drawers. People-sized drawers.
Kara hung back as the attendant headed for row seventeen. He reached for the handle on the second drawer down, and pulled.
A seismic shudder ran through her.
I can't do this!
As the drawer slid out with a harsh grating noise that echoed off the bare floor and tiled walls, she forced herself forward. She had to do this. There was no one else.
A body bag lay on the tray within the drawer. Kara looked past it as stomach acid began to well up into her throat.
This can't be real. This isn't really happening.
She willed herself not to feel anything. She would feel later. Now she would only look.
She stared at the attendant as he pulled down the zipper and pushed back the plastic. Out of the corner of her eye she saw Rob turn away. Fists clenched, jaw tight, she forced herself to look down.
It wasn't Kelly. The caved-in cheek, the skewed nose, the swollen forehead, the misshapen skull, the bulging eye, the matted blond hair, the glass-slashed skin on her face and shoulders, the huge, crudely sutured incision running from the base of her throat down between her breasts and on downward, no, that couldn't be Kelly, it couldn't be Kelly, but it was, oh dear God it was!
Kara turned away, reeling as the floor began to tilt beneath her feet.
"You gonna be sick, lady?" the attendant said.
Kara waved her hand back at him. Shut up! Just shut up!
" 'Cause if you are," he continued, "there's a bathroom right over there."
She couldn't focus her eyes so she didn't know where "over there" was. The icy room had somehow become very hot and her skin was drenched with perspiration. She felt her knees turning to liquid, sagging.
Suddenly an arm was around her waist, lifting her.
"I've got you," Rob's voice said at her side.
He guided her through a door into a smelly little room lit by a naked 60-watt bulb and outfitted with a dirty sink, a dirtier toilet, and a mop in a bucket. He steadied her as she leaned over the bowl and lost the weak Penn Station coffee she'd had for breakfast. When the retching finally stopped, he handed her a paper towel. She wiped her face and mouth and then sagged against the wall.
Kelly is dead. My dear, dear Kelly is dead!
She felt Rob's arm go around her shoulders but she shrugged him off. She could handle this. She could have used someone to hold on to now, just for a moment, but she had to be strong, had to stand on her own. She searched for her voice and finally found it.
"Could you give me a couple of minutes, Rob?"
"Sure. I'll be right outside."
Once she was alone, the sobs began, echoing up from an empty pit that had opened inside her, quaking through her chest, making her whole body heave.
▼
11:22 A.M.
"Want another coffee?" Rob said. "No thanks."
"Corn muffin? They're really good here."
They were seated by the front window of a tiny luncheonette on East Thirty-third. The noontime rush was still half an hour away so they had the place almost to themselves. The rich, heavy aroma of chicken soup filled the air; the peppery tang of hot pastrami wafted across their table.
"No. Thank you." A sudden thought broke through the haze that enveloped her. "They're 'good here'? You recommend them?"
"Yeah. Could use a touch more sugar, but they're almost as good as mine."
A fond memory forced its way through the gloom— Friday nights in Rob's apartment as he buzzed around the kitchen, heedless of how his amateur chef act clashed with his tough cop image, watching him follow a recipe just so far and then deciding he could improve on it, usually with disastrous results.
"You really ought to have something to eat."
"You sound like my mother."
"Fine. Listen to your mother: Eat something."
Kara allowed herself to smile. "Buzz off, Mom."
"Okay. You still smoke?"
"No. I quit years ago."
"Mind if I do?"
"Yes. I'm surprised you're still puffing those things. They're poison."
"Buzz off, Mom," he said.
Kara smiled and surrendered to the memory of how she had fallen for Rob soon after she'd arrived in the city. They met in a room full of men, in McSorley's Old Ale House, a formerly men-only tavern that had recently been forced by the courts to serve both sexes. Kara had been braver and less wise then—the Central park incident was a long way off.
She'd led Kelly down to one of the toughest parts of the Bowery just so she could have a beer in that old bastion of male exclusivity. After a long wait they each were served two mugs of porter—McSorley's sold them only in pairs. Some of the men present made some rude comments, but most just stared, as if she and her sister had crawled out from under a rock. One of the starers was Rob.
Even amid all those other men, Rob stood out. He wasn't in uniform, and it had nothing to do with size, although his six-two, tightly muscled frame didn't exactly blend in with the paunches around him. It was something else. Even when there were bigger, more physically imposing men present, something about Rob subtly but undeniably announced to any room he entered that a man was on the premises. He maneuvered himself to their table and, despite the catcalls from his friends at the bar, sat with them.