She was sitting on a stained mattress, two boys and a girl neatly arranged behind her. They looked like they were sleeping. The detectives touched the little bodies. Each was cool and starting to rigor. Darcy knelt in front of the mother while she pulled at a hangnail.
'What happened?' he asked, his voice soothing.
'I kilt 'em all,' she confessed, matching his solemnity.
Darcy nodded as if he understood.
'How come?'
'I didn't want 'em to suffer no more. They's always hungry. The little one'—she indicated a baby that couldn't have been more than six months old—'she's crying all the time 'cause I didn't have no more milk.'
She assured Darcy, 'It's better this way. This way they can't know no more pain. They're happy now.'
Darcy studied the girl a long time. Frank wondered if he was going to pull a Sandman on her. The girl tugged at the hangnail while he stared. Ripping the offending flesh from her finger, she watched the long tear start to bleed. So low Frank could barely hear him, Darcy asked, 'There's another baby, isn't there?'
The girl looked at him with big, trusting eyes. She nodded.
'Where?'
'The garbage. I wrapped him in a towel. It was too bloody. I couldn't do it that way. I couldn't see him like that no more.'
Diego and Darcy went downstairs to look for the boy. While they were gone, the woman confided, 'He was my oldest. I kilt him first so he wouldn't see what was happenin' and be scared.'
'Very thoughtful,' Frank murmured. Behind the greasy, stringy hair, the teenager smiled at Frank's praise. Jack Handley showed up from the coroner's office. He shook his head and went to work on the tiny corpses. Frank went after her detectives. They were coming back into the tenement as she was going out.
'Find him?'
'Right where she said he'd be,' Darcy said, dusting his slacks off. Two uniforms were taping off a row of dumpsters. Not to protect evidence, but to keep the curious crowd back.
'Handley's upstairs,' she said to Diego. Darcy started to follow, but Frank touched his sleeve. A scraping sound distracted her. She glanced around at the onlookers, sourcing the sound to a bent metal cane sweeping the ground in front of crusted, swollen feet.
'How'd you know there was another kid?' she asked.
The scraping grew louder and Frank jerked her chin, indicating they should back up toward the stairs. Before Darcy could answer, Frank was stunned to feel a hand clamp onto her wrist. She turned to stare into filmy, sightless eyes.
The leering pile of rags held her in a death grip. Frank tried to pull away as its mouth gaped wide. Frank almost gagged. She'd smelled the vilest putrefaction, but nothing compared to the stench reeking from this . . .
Frank was sickeningly fascinated, but still thought to yank her arm free. The hand only tightened on her wrist. She wanted to punch the reeking mass but it wouldn't do to hit a homeless person in a crowd of witnesses.
The thing cackled softly, staring straight into her eyes even though its own were cauled with cataracts.
'You don't recognize me,' it accused in a rough whisper. Frank immediately noticed that the words had no accent, no inflection. It had to be someone she'd sent up, maybe when she was in uniform, coming back now to blame her for how miserable his life turned out. Or hers. Frank scanned the face for a clue to the thing's gender, but it was like studying a strip of rawhide.
The thing laughed again, louder.
'Too long for you to remember. But I remember. I never forget. No,' it crooned. 'I never forget.'
Spit flew into Frank's face. She tumbled back, finally jerking her arm loose. The relic stumbled too. It almost fell against Frank, but she sidestepped the fetid breath and curving, yellow nails. Frank's nemesis recovered itself, rapping its twisted cane on the concrete. The obscene head swiveled toward Frank, the eyes impossibly seeing her. It nodded, acknowledging the ludicrous. Then it turned, leaving as it came, metal rasping against the sidewalk.
'Friend of yours?'
Frank jumped. Darcy's eyes were steady on her. She followed the shuffling bundle until it was well away. Frank wanted a long hot bath to wash the stink off. She shuddered, completely flustered.
'What?' she barked at Darcy, probing her with quiet eyes.
'Nothing.'
He retreated into the building and Frank pulled herself together. The usual onlookers, curious and unconcerned. Another kid in a dumpster. No big. Yellow tape. Coroner's van. Black and whites. The peeling Mercury. Beretta snuggled into her ribs. Sun shining. Everything okay. All as it should be.
Frank followed Darcy. The stairway was invisible after the bright sun and Frank tripped on the steps. Darcy turned at the top. Behind him, a lone bulb burned in its wire basket. Frank couldn't see Darcy's face, only the soft glow around his head. She wondered how long it would be before she could get herself into a tub and open a bottle of Scotch.
Back at the office there was a message from Gail. She'd finished Danny Duncan's autopsy and Frank could page her if she wanted. Frank did; it was a good excuse to hear Gail's voice.
'Hey,' she answered when the doc called back. 'Got your message.'
'Hi. Paul did your Colonel. I was busy counting how many times a man stabbed his wife because she served him cauliflower with dinner.'
'How many?'
'More than I could count,' she yawned. 'At least ten on her head and neck, thirty to her chest. Not to mention defensive cuts. I'm bushed. Thank God he confessed and I can let it go at that. I've still got to type it up, though. Ick.'
'I thought you were gonna be chained to your desk all day.'
'We drew coffee stirrers for this guy. I lost.'
A thin smile eased the strain on Frank's face; she liked a boss that shared in the grunt work.
'What'd you find out about the Colonel?'
'Probably nothing you don't already know. He exsanguinated due to penetration of the carotids and jugulars.'
Frank heard her shuffling papers.
'I don't have his report yet. I'll let you know as soon as I do.'
'Who was at the post?'
'Lewis. She's nice. I like her.'
'How'd she do?'
'Fine, I think. She seemed all right.'
It was common for new detectives to ghost on their first autopsies. The overly ripe, gamey smell of a freshly opened torso; the sound of skin being stretched from fascia; the first glimpse of an exposed brain hunkered like an obscenely large pearl in an oyster— those were only a few of a dozen sensations that could send them spinning from the morgue. If the cutter knew a rookie was watching, they could be excessively gruesome.
'Was Noah there?'
'No. Just Lewis.'
'Alive or dead when he was cut?'
'I'm sorry. I forgot to ask. Does it matter?'
'Probably not. Might give us a little more insight into his last couple minutes.'
'I'll get Paul to finish his prelim first thing tomorrow. How's your day going?'
Frank was determined to forget the incident at the projects.
'From a civilian's perspective—tragic. From a homicide lieutenant's—productive. Four closed cases. The captain'll be a happy man. You should have gotten them by now. Three boys and a girl.'
'Oh, God,' Gail groaned.
'Yeah, Mommy pulled a euthanasia. Stabbed the oldest with a steak knife then decided that was too messy.
