“Gimme the name.”
“Lillian Smith.” I make it over to the cart and pull out a small notepad. Withdrawing a pen from my front pocket, I flip over the top cardboard of the pad and stare at the empty notebook page. I carried a pad like this for seventeen years, and now it feels foreign. I click the pen into action.
“Let me see who has it.” There is a clatter of keys. Computers, which were my Achilles’ heel from the start, have probably taken over by now. “Okay, looks like Detective Gersh. Just from looking ... looks like she OD’d, but ... suspicious.” More clicks and clatters. “I can’t open the file, but I can get Gersh to call you. He’s, uh, you know. He’s a baby.”
Meaning he doesn’t understand or respect the old way. The “take his keys and drive a fellow officer home if they’ve been drinking” way. The “using fists and force has its time and place, especially when kids or women are involved” way. And most applicably: “Once a badge, always a badge.” Gersh probably won’t share shit with me.
“Well, just get me what you can. You said an overdose?”
“That’s what it says. Autopsy isn’t complete yet—the ME is backed up like the 405. The vic was having an affair, so the husband and boyfriend are being looked at.”
An affair. That’s interesting. I write the word down and add a question mark to the end. I wouldn’t have pegged Lillian for that.
“Okay, thanks. How are Rose and the kids?”
“Rose’s on a different husband now. Got tired of the job.”
Yes, the job. The job that pulled me away from Marcella on hundreds of nights when I could have been reading her bedtime stories, or fixing her ice cream, or watching her play and cataloging memories to keep for the rest of my life.
“But the kids are good. You know teenagers. They care more about their phones than us.”
No, I don’t know. Marcella should be twelve, but she isn’t.I let his careless comment slide. “Thanks for the info. Call me if you hear anything?”
“Yeah, definitely. I’ll do some snooping.”
“Appreciate it.” I hang up the phone and think, my gaze settling on the empty, half-dug grave.
CHAPTER 51
LILLIAN
I’m in a white room and can smell bleach and another chemical that I can’t place, but it makes me dizzy. A dark-skinned man with a shaved head and a lab coat is standing beside a body and talking to Mike.
The body is covered in a white sheet, and I know—without them pulling back the cover—that it’s me. I move to stand beside Mike, and I can feel his discomfort at being here, at having to listen to the instructions from the coroner. He asks Mike if he’s ready, then folds the sheet back to reveal my face.
I lean forward, shocked. I’ve never seen my eyes closed before. It’s an odd thing to realize, that you don’t know what you look like, dead—but here I am, face slack, eyes closed, my mouth slightly open. I gotta say, it’s not my best look.
“That’s her.”
My husband doesn’t budge from his spot at the head of the table, his voice calm and, as always, in perfect control. I glance at him, annoyed that he can’t manage to shed a single tear, for appearance’s sake, at least.
I return my focus to my body. My hair has clumps of sand in it, and it’s all over my skin, as if I were rolled in it before being carried here.
As if sensing my critique, the doctor speaks. “Her body will be washed prior to the autopsy. We’re still collecting evidence from it.”
Evidence. That’s interesting. I move to the other side of the table and crouch, wanting to see my profile.
“Are you suspecting foul play?” Mike seems to be following my thoughts.
“I’ll have to let the detectives answer that question. You’re speaking to them, correct?”
“Yes, later today.” Mike’s phone rings, and he reaches for his front shirt pocket and withdraws his cell and checks it. “Do you need me for anything else? I need to take this call.”
“No, that’s it.” The doctor’s tone is mild, but I can feel the judgment toward Mike. I’m right there with him. His wife is dead, and he has to interrupt the viewing of her body for a phone call?
Strike one, Mike.
Empowered by my new ability and unfettered access, I follow him out the door to see who he’s so anxious to talk to.