“Do you recognize the man in this photograph?”
It was Trent Sullivan, serial murderer. “I thought it was a woman who shot me?” I said.
The officer’s heavy eyebrow raised at either end. He pulled out another, recently familiar photograph. “The shooter’s name is Maryann West. His girlfriend.” My eyes widened in surprise, mostly real. I had believed Dev, but this truth was still quietly upending my existence.
“Why would she shoot me?” I asked, because I knew very well—her screams, her fingers tearing at the door.
“This man was killed about a decade ago. Unsolved case. But the knife work is distinctive. We’ve found several bodies like this over the years. We’re sure to catch the perp eventually. Closing in, I’ve heard.”
I frowned at him, wondering who Victor had forgotten to pay, and why some pissant rookie cop felt comfortable threatening me with prosecution.
And then I remembered that Dev was an informant, and since the precinct cops were in Victor’s pay, he had to be working for the higher-ups: vice squad, or even Commissioner Valentine himself. Which meant Victor—and his angel—could go down tomorrow, if they wanted.
I lifted my left hand with some effort and pushed away the photograph. The cop flinched at my touch, and spilled the rest of his file over my blankets. He squatted to retrieve the ones that slid onto the floor, mumbling apologies thick with unease. Even like this, I intimidated him. This pleased me. I was still enough of my old self for that. I picked up the papers nearest my hand, and was surprised to recognize them: corpses, crudely photographed (none of Walter’s unsung artistry here), each twisted body missing its hands. So many. I’d never guessed that there could be so many.
“What are these?” I asked.
“Unsolved murders,” he said, snatching them. “These are just the ones from the last decade.” He frowned. “And if you know anything, Miss LeBlanc, you should know the law is prepared to offer leniency for information. The individual who kills with knives has committed at least two dozen murders that we know about. More than enough for the hot squat.”
“Well, I’m sure that’s got nothing to do with me.”
He smiled, the effect ruined by his dilated pupils and shaking hands. “I’ll be seeing you, ma’am.”
He’d get corrupted soon enough, but for now the policeman had a new-penny shine, ruddy with self-righteousness and purpose. I saw myself in him, as I had once been. And I understood how he saw me—a woman past her prime, washed in blood, better off dead.
Alone, I closed my eyes and considered my new, clamoring questions. Victor had lied to me for a long time, that much was clear. Maybe Maryann West had killed that man for his hands, maybe she used to do it alongside her boyfriend, but I wondered about those other photographs, that morgue of bodies stretching back a decade. Trent was already dead and I didn’t see how Maryann could have killed them all by herself—maybe she hadn’t killed them at all. If Victor had used me to settle some other vendetta, if he had brought down the killing wrath of his angel of justice for some petty territorial dispute but told her it was for murder—
It’s Victor, Trent Sullivan had said, when he had finally recognized me in the dim light of his bedroom.
We know about the hands, I had said.
But I didn’t do nothing to them—
I’m here to make sure you never do it again.
And then Maryann started screaming and Trent managed to toss me against the headboard and there were no more words between us, only a great deal of blood.
I hadn’t believed Trent’s denial. Even when I’d wanted to drown myself in Dev’s bloody bathtub, I’d trusted Victor implicitly—that he’d never send me after someone who didn’t deserve it. Only his angel could bring justice, after all.
Except that he had.
“Darling? Are you crying?”
I wiped my eyes roughly. The dentist paced at the foot of my bed. He had a look I recognized.
“I just called my wife,” he said. I waited. He bit his lip. “Darling, you know how much I love you, but … well, she’s pregnant again, that’s all there is to it. I can’t be with you, no matter how much I want to. This might seem difficult now, but you know Victor will take the best care of you…”
I tried not to listen to him, and nearly managed the trick by staring at a mold stain spreading like dried blood along the ceiling tiles.
I needed to talk to Dev. All of the lies I had told myself about him ripped me every time I took a breath—an informant, a motherfucking stoolie, all those lonely years—but he might still help. At the least, he wouldn’t betray me to Victor.
“Marty,” I told the dentist, “congratulations to you and your wife. Can you do me one last favor?”
He cleared his throat. “A-anything, Phyllis.”
“Tell Dev I’d like to see him?”
I saw him consider the propriety of telling me that the hospital was segregated, decide against it, and then just nod.
He left.
I tried to sleep, and cried instead. My tears burned like vinegar; they made me cough. I cried for a long time, until the nurse came in. She took one look and shot me full of mother morphine, lit my veins like a carousel and spun me like soft candy, round and round.
I dreamed of Dev’s hand on my forehead. I dreamed of him whispering my name. I dreamed I couldn’t answer.
My dream tried to speak to me. He started, “I was just a rookie—” and choked to a stop. He tried again. “You killed our key witness—how did Victor find out?—I made a deal—I made a deal to save you.”
I lost his words for a while, after that.
I could only hold on to the tone of them, sandstone crumbling against granite, scraping and fragile.
“You remember—it was the last—it was the first—I’ve never hated the way I hated that night.”
I had seen it in his eyes,
