Ilene Goldfarb took off the glasses. She put one of the earpieces in her mouth and chewed on it. “How well do you know the family?”
“They live next door.”
“You close?”
“No. Why, what’s that got to do with anything?”
“We may have,” Ilene said, “something of an ethical dilemma.”
“How so?”
“Dilemma might be the wrong word.” Ilene looked off, talking more to herself than Mike right now. “More like a blurry ethical line.”
“Ilene?”
“Hmm.”
“What are you talking about?”
“Lucas Loriman’s mother will be here in half an hour,” she said.
“I saw her yesterday.”
“Where?”
“In her yard. She’s doing a lot of pretend gardening.”
“I bet.”
“Why do you say that?”
“Do you know her husband?”
“Dante? Yes.”
“And?”
Mike shrugged. “What’s going on, Ilene?”
“It’s about Dante,” she said.
“What about him?”
“He’s not the boy’s biological father.”
Just like that. Mike sat there for a moment.
“You’re kidding me.”
“Yeah, that’s what I’m doing. You know me-Dr. Kidder. Good one, right?”
Mike let it sink in. He didn’t ask if she was sure or wanted to take more tests. She would have thought of all those angles. Ilene was right too-the bigger surprise was that they hadn’t run into this before. Two floors below them were the geneticists. One of them told Mike that in random population tests, more than ten percent of men were raising children that, unbeknownst to them, weren’t biologically theirs.
“Any reaction to this news?” Ilene said.
“Wow?”
Ilene nodded. “I wanted you to be my medical partner,” she said, “because I love your way with words.”
“Dante Loriman is not a nice man, Ilene.”
“That was my vibe.”
“This is bad,” Mike said.
“So is his son’s condition.”
They sat there and let that sit in the room, heavy.
The intercom buzzed. “Dr. Goldfarb?”
“Yes.”
“Susan Loriman is here. She’s early.”
“Is she here with her son?”
“No,” the nurse said. “Oh, but her husband is with her.”
“ WHAT the hell are you doing here?”
County Chief Investigator Loren Muse ignored him and headed over to the corpse.
“Sweet Lord,” one of the uniforms said in a hushed voice, “look what he did to her face.”
The four of them stood now in silence. Two were first-on-the-scene uniforms. The third was the homicide detective who’d technically be in charge of the case, a lazy lifer with a potbelly and world-weary manner named Frank Tremont. Loren Muse, the lead investigator for Essex County and the lone woman, was the shortest of the group by nearly a foot.
“DH,” Tremont pronounced. “And I’m not talking baseball terminology.”
Muse looked a question at him.
“DH, as in Dead Hooker.”
She frowned at his chuckle. Flies buzzed about the pulpy mess that at one time had been a human face. There was no nose or eye sockets or even much of a mouth anymore.
One of the uniforms said, “It’s like someone shoved her face into a meat grinder.”
Loren Muse looked down at the body. She let the two uniforms jabber. Some people jabber to ward off the nerves. Muse wasn’t one of them. They ignored her. So did Tremont. She was his immediate superior, all their superiors really, and she could feel the resentment coming off them like humidity from the sidewalk.
“Yo, Muse.”
It was Tremont. She looked at him in that brown suit with the belly from too many nights of beer and too many days of doughnuts. He was trouble. There had been complaints leaked to the media since she’d been promoted to chief investigator of Essex County. Most came from a reporter named Tom Gaughan, who just so happened to be married to Tremont’s sister.
“What is it, Frank?”
“Like I asked you before-what the hell are you doing here?”
“I need to explain myself to you?”
“I caught this one.”
“So you did.”
“And I don’t need you looking over my shoulder.”
Frank Tremont was an incompetent ass but because of his personal connections and years of “service,” fairly untouchable. Muse ignored him. She bent down, still staring at the raw meat that had once been a face.
“You get an ID yet?” she asked.
“No. No wallet, no purse.”
“Probably stolen,” one of the uniforms volunteered.
Lots of male head-nodding.
“Gang got her,” Tremont said. “Look at that.”
He pointed to a green bandana still clutched in her hand. “Could be that new gang, bunch of black guys who call themselves Al Qaeda,” one of the uniforms said. “They wear green.”
Muse stood and started circling the corpse. The ME van arrived. Someone had police-taped the scene. A dozen hookers, maybe more, stood behind the line, each stretching her neck for a better view.
“Have the uniforms start talking to the working girls,” Muse said. “Get a street name at least.”
“Gee, really?” Frank Tremont sighed dramatically. “You don’t think I already thought of that?”
Loren Muse said nothing.
'Hey, Muse.”
“What, Frank?”
“I don’t like you being here.”
“And I don’t like that brown belt with black shoes. But we both have to live with it.”
“This isn’t right.”
Muse knew that he had a point. The truth is, she loved her prestigious new position as chief investigator. Muse, still in her thirties, was the first female to hold that title. She was proud. But she missed the actual work. She missed homicide. So she got involved when she could, especially when a seasoned jackass like Frank Tremont was on the job.
The medical examiner, Tara O’Neill, came over and shooed the uniforms away.
“Holy crap,” O’Neill whispered.
“Nice reaction, Doc,” Tremont said. “I need prints right away so I can run her through the system.”
The ME nodded.
“I’m going to help question the hookers, round up some of the leading gang scumbags,” Tremont said. “If that’s okay with you, boss.”
Muse didn’t respond.
“Dead hooker, Muse. There isn’t really enough of a headline for you here. Hardly a priority.”
“Why isn’t she a priority?”
“Huh?”
“You said not a headline for me here. I get that. And then you added, ‘hardly a priority.’ Why not?”
Tremont smirked. “Oh, right, my bad. A dead hooker is priority number one. We treat her like the governor’s wife was just whacked.”
