by John Moss
1
Morning Light
When Miranda Quin woke up after sleeping alone, her mind often swarmed with languorous images. She would lie very still, hoping they’d gather into coherent memories, which they seldom did. On the rare occasions when she was not by herself, residual images would dissolve into gnawing sensations of dread or confusion, or, more infrequently, into feelings of comfort and warmth. But on this particular morning, there was nothing. It was still dark. She was drenched in sweat and lying close to the edge of the bed, with an arm draped over the side to counter being drawn into the centre. She stretched carefully and tried to differentiate one part of her body from another. She suspected she had had a bad night, but there was no rush of anxiety, there were no symptoms of excess. Just clammy flesh and a void deep inside.
Opening one eye, she tried to see the illuminated clock face. It was obscured. She sensed it must be about five. As she drifted back toward sleep the shape obstructing her view of the clock unexpectedly resolved in her mind. She raised her head, eyes wide open. Her semi-automatic lay poised in the dull luminescence. Settling back on the pillow, she tried to remember why she had put it there. She always kept her scaled-down 9mm Glock in the locked drawer of her desk on the other side of the room.
She remembered yesterday but not how it ended. Philip, beside her, was dead to the world. She reached for him under the thin cotton sheet. When her fingers encountered a slick dampness she quickly withdrew her hand. She slid naked from between the sheets and trudged through the darkness into the bathroom. Rubbing her sticky right hand against her thigh, she smelled the vague odour of almonds and rust. She switched on the overhead heat lamp and fan, which filled the room with a dull red glow and a low rumble.
Beside the shower she flicked another switch and the stall flooded with light. She swung the glass door open and reached in, turning on a full blast of water, then danced her hands into the stream, waiting for the temperature to rise as her eyes adjusted to the glare. Only then, with her disembodied arms in dazzling light while the rest of her, outside the stall, was bathed in red from the heat lamp, did she see that her right hand was smeared with blood.
We must have really been out of it, she thought.
She stepped into the shower and cleaned off the blood, then lathered her hair before reaching with the soap between her legs. She tried to focus. Her gut didn’t feel menstrual; she was never early. She bent forward within the confined space of the stall as streaming lather seared her eyes. She grimaced, shook her head sharply, blinked clear, reached between her legs again, examined her fingers more carefully. There was no blood.
Miranda stood straight, rubbing her eyes with the backs of her hands.
“Philip?” she called.
The blood wasn’t hers.
She called again. Silence.
And again, this time his name rising to a muffled shriek.
No answer.
Frantically rinsing shampoo from her hair, she stepped out of the shower and grabbed a huge towel, drying herself as she rushed out of the red glow into the bedroom, which had brightened with the first light of dawn. Even before she flicked on the overhead, she knew. She stopped halfway to the bed. She had seen too many corpses at crime scenes not to recognize the unnatural stillness of death.
There was no blood on the covering sheet. Only the top of his head showed on the pillow, his black hair too long for a lawyer.
She walked slowly to his side of the bed.
“Philip?” she whispered, hoping it was a stranger.
Her voice carrying his name reverberated against the walls. In her mind. In the room. Miranda pushed back the semi-sheer drapes as if natural light would help to make sense of what was happening.
Bending over, she carefully pulled the sheet away from the face of the corpse. Some of what she had taken to be Philip’s black hair fanned across the pillow was congealing blood. She had to squat down to see the point of entry, where the bullet had penetrated his temple just above the right eye. She assumed there was an abdominal wound as well, to account for the blood pooled on the mattress between them.
When she leaned out of her shadow, the glazed surface of his eyes caught a flash of the morning. She reeled back. The bath towel fell and for a moment she stood naked in the middle of her bedroom, feeling unspeakably vulnerable.
Retrieving the towel, she wrapped it around her, methodically, urgently, as if it were armour, then stepped over to close Philip’s eyes, hesitated, and withdrew her hand. She had tampered enough with the crime scene.
For a fluttering moment she felt disengaged, as if she were looking down through the ceiling of a film noir set, and the enormity and absurdity of the scenario were an aesthetic display. This was the way people who reluctantly returned from the dead described their own passing.
Then she felt a rushing collapse inside and from the maelstrom’s rim she realized she was slipping into shock.
Clutching the towel, she moved into the living room and warily eyed the telephone, then picked up and pushed the first button on automatic dial.
“Morgan,” she said when the clattering at the other end of the line subsided into a groggy expletive. “Morgan,” she repeated. “There’s a body in my bed.”
Before he had finished speaking he knew he was on the wrong track, but it was too late to stop. “Anyone I know?”
There was a thick hum on the line.
“Miranda?”
“Yes?”
“You awake?”
“Yes.”
“You’re sure?”
Silence.
“Dead?”
“Yes.”
David Morgan wanted to make a joke, to make it unreal. He could feel tremulations of fear and confusion in the emptiness between them. He wanted to say something funny, to move back in time to that moment just before he picked up, when he was awake enough to realize it could only be her and still half asleep, so her call seemed a welcome intrusion.
“Is it your friend Carter?” The line filled with the sounds of their breathing. “Are you okay?”
“He’s been shot.”
“You’re sure?”
She said nothing.
“Miranda?”
“Yes?”
“You’re not hurt?
“I don’t know what happened.”
“I’m on my way. I’ll phone it in.”
“I can do that.”
“No, don’t.”
There was silence on the line, air rushing between them.
When the phone clicked off, Miranda set it down gently and walked to the bedroom door. Time slowed to a drawl. The corpse in her bed. Her lover, her paramour. In her boudoir. She liked those words. She liked the word courtesan. Gallic, sensual. She could never have been a courtesan. Sex was too complicated.
Time stopped; the scene, freeze-framed. Grand Guignol.
Then she felt a surge of panic. She rushed through the bedroom, now flooded with white morning light, into the red glow of the bathroom, and threw up in the toilet. Her vomit was material evidence. She flushed.
David Morgan had been up most of the night reading about antique tribal carpets. When Miranda woke him he was slumped across his blue sofa with a large book splayed open on his chest and several more on the floor beside him. Morgan was fascinated by the astonishing and whimsical beauty of weaving done by nomadic women in Persia more than a century ago, rugs that had survived practical usage on desert sand and mountain shale and now graced the walls of expensive galleries and the pages of erudite and extravagant books. Such rugs were beyond his capacity to buy, but that only made them more thrilling to study. And that is what he did. Morgan seldom read for amusement. He studied.
He was not a scholar. His obsessive enthusiasm for arcane pursuits offered a
refuge from the business of homicide and helped to distract his personal demons or to keep them at bay.
Not until he clicked off the phone did he realize he was on his feet. The book had tumbled to the floor. He stood still for a moment, struggling for clarity. Then with a long sigh he strode into the bathroom, brushed his teeth while peeing, doing a sloppy job of both, and started to strip before realizing he was already dressed. He tucked himself in as he clattered through the front door to the police car outside.
He seldom drove and never brought cars home. Last night his superintendent, Alex Rufalo, had dropped in for a few drinks and Morgan sent him home in a cab, keeping the keys.
The drive from the Annex over to Isabella Street took less than ten minutes; it was too early for traffic. Morgan ran a light crossing Yonge Street. Not until he pulled up in front of Miranda’s building on Isabella did he make the call to Headquarters. He was surprised to connect with Rufalo, who had obviously decided to sleep it off in his office rather than offend his wife with boozy apologies.
Morgan asked for an ID check on Philip Carter. Miranda never said, but Morgan assumed he was married.
Slogging up three flights after she buzzed him in, he thought it was time she moved. She had the resources. She owned a house in Waterloo County left by her mother to Miranda and her sister in Vancouver, but the sister signed off. Miranda was a single cop; her sister and husband were flourishing professionals. Although Miranda seldom visited the house, she refused to sell it.
She could afford better than this.
On the other hand, the stair-treads were worn Vermont marble, the wood trim was ancient black walnut, the fixtures were bronze. The place had an air of decadent longevity. It was not an unpleasant place to live, better than a high-rise. Especially since the apartments had been sold off as condos. Down-at-heels rental units, once privately owned, became shabby genteel.
Before he could knock, Miranda swung the door open and slumped against him.
Then she stood back, almost fiercely, and stared into his eyes.
He saw something in her he had never seen before; she was frightened.
He kissed her on the forehead — she would flinch or she would relax. But she seemed not to notice. He quietly turned her back into the living room, where they sat on the sofa.
“Tell me?”
She nodded. “In there.”
He got up and walked into the bedroom, where the corpse had been carefully covered again. He pulled the sheet back, and as his eyes made contact with the victim’s the cellphone he seldom carried beeped a shrill admonition. He let the sheet drop and turned away.
“You sure about the name?” said a voice on the other end.
“Yeah, Philip Carter. Lawyer. Just a minute.…”
He walked out into the living room.
“Miranda, where did he work?” The guy was already past tense.
“Ogilthorpe and Blackthorne, Blackburn, something like that. In one of the bank towers on King Street.”
Morgan repeated the information, then returning again to Miranda he asked, “Where’d he live?”
“Oakville. He commutes.” Present tense.
“You got that?” said Morgan into the phone. “See what you come up with.” He clicked off.
“Oakville?” he said.
“Yes,” said Miranda, “and yes.”
“Yes?”
“Yes, he’s married. His wife is a widow. Two daughters. Oh Jesus, Jesus Lord Christ.”
“Swearing or praying?”
“Both.”
“Did you ever run a check on him?”
“God no! He was my lover, not my investment broker.”
“So what happened?”
“I don’t know. My head’s swarming. We went out, I’m not sure, probably downtown for dinner, maybe just drinks, what time did I leave?”
“Headquarters? Six, six thirty.”
“So we must have gone out for dinner. I can’t remember.”
“Where’d you usually meet?”
“Never the same place twice.”
“You’re kidding.”
“No.”
“Didn’t that set off alarms?”
“It was just a game we played. It was just something we did. It wasn’t a big deal.”
“Well, it is now. That’s your Glock by the bed?”
“Yes.”
He walked into the bedroom, leaned down over the bedside table, sniffed the gun without touching it.
“You’re sure it’s yours?” he called to her.
She came forward and stood in the doorway. Boldly. She was playing a part. Or being played by another, an actress concealing her art from the character she plays. It’s all quite illusory, she observed to herself.
“Of course,” she said in a normal tone. “Check the desk drawer.”
“It’s been fired,” he said. “Where’s the key?”
“Centre, under the stamp-box.”
He opened the locked drawer. It was empty.
“Where’s the holster?” she said. “It should be there.”
“You lock up your holster?”
“A lady doesn’t wish to remind gentlemen callers of guns in her bedroom.”
She slumped against the doorframe, depleted. She wanted Morgan to hold her.
Morgan glanced through the open bathroom door, where the heat lamp was still on and emitting a soft red glow, then he turned and eased her back into the living room.
When she was settled on the sofa he squatted in front of her. “You’re going to be okay,” he said.
The security buzzer sounded and Morgan pressed the release button. “They’re here,” he said, as if she might not have heard.
“Morgan.”
“Yeah.”
She started to rise, then sank back against the sofa. Squatting in front of her again, he held both her hands in his.
“Morgan, thanks.”
“Hey, it’s only begun. Wait till you really owe me.”
“I mean thanks, you know …”
“I know.”
“I didn’t …”
“It never crossed my mind.”
David, she thought. She never called him by his first name. No one did. He was Morgan, like she was Miranda. It’s not about gender, she thought. It’s a personality thing. David.
The door rattled against knuckles. She stiffened and turned pale.
Morgan opened the door.
“Hello there,” said a woman of Miranda’s age, poised to enter with a black satchel in one hand. She gazed into Morgan’s eyes as if assessing an extravagant purchase, then past him at Miranda and back to Morgan.
“I’m looking for a murder.”
Morgan stepped to the side.
“This is it, then? Sorry, love.”
She moved around him and addressed Miranda.
“I was told there was a body in a detective’s bed. Never dreamed it was yours. Nice place.”
She smiled at Morgan, leaned forward to kiss him on the cheek, hesitated and held out her hand, which he took momentarily before releasing his grip. Miranda did not look up; it was almost as if she were embarrassed.
“Ellen,” said Morgan, his tone formal. She was not here as Miranda’s friend — if she was Miranda’s friend. He wasn’t sure.
Ellen Ravenscroft kneeled down to place herself in Miranda’s line of vision. She reached out and touched Miranda’s cheek. “You’re cold, love.” Their eyes briefly connected. “Don’t you worry. We’ll get this all sorted out.”
She stood up and turned to Morgan. “Now where is the body? No, you stay with your partner. I’ll look in myself.”
As Ellen Ravenscroft disappeared into the bedroom, a file of men and women came trooping through from the corridor. Miranda watched, and Morgan watched her watching them. Most were familiar, but each was now a stranger.
He assumed a position in front of her, a little to the side, slightly in everyone’s way.
Miranda shut her eyes and it was like
she was dreaming. She could hear the forensics team, medical examiners, and police personnel, but with her eyes closed they seemed a great distance away. She suppressed a rush of vertigo but refused to open her eyes, convinced that the jumble of images inside her head would reveal something, if only she could hold on. She was not trying to make a nightmare go away, she was struggling to bring it back. She wanted to be there again — inside whatever went on that she could not remember.
Morgan moved to the bedroom, but he was uncomfortable with his role as observer. The medical examiner, to the accompaniment of a photographer’s flashing, in conjunction with the careful ministrations of a forensic specialist, meticulously raised the sheet covering the corpse and drew it aside, where it was folded and bagged. Even from Morgan’s perspective near the door, he could see the gaping wound in the victim’s gut, his innards extruding onto the bed.
“Nasty business,” said Ellen Ravenscroft as she stood up and moved close to him. “Nothing showed through the top sheet. He was over on his side. The disembowelling was done in the bed after he was dead.”
“Disembowelling? And the head wound.”
“Executed on the spot. Bullet’s in the pillow. Another pillow kicked under the bed was used as a silencer. There was a kitchen knife under the bed as well, with blood on the blade. He wiped the handle clean.”
“He?”
“Whoever did this.”
“Ellen Ravenscroft …”
“Yes, love.”
“You’re a good person.”
“And whatever makes you say that, Detective? I’m a regular bitch.”
“I’m sure you are. But you assume Miranda is innocent, even though she’s the most logical suspect.”
“Hardly. I mean, who’s innocent these days? But a suspect, no. Look, Detective, if you wanted to kill your lover, would you nail him, eviscerate him, and crawl in beside him? I can think of better ways to spend the night.”
“Yeah,” said a rumbling voice from just behind them. “That is exactly what you might do if you’re a homicide detective and think sleeping in sludge will throw off the dogs.”
“Spivak,” said Morgan. “Welcome to the crime scene. This is Ellen Ravenscroft, she’s the M.E.”
“Yeah,” said Spivak. “We’ve met.” He was a burly man with the parched eyes of an inveterate smoker.