I was on the verge of hanging up in his ear when I thought of his mother. I owed it to Lucas and to her to keep my mouth shut. I only half-listened as he spouted off a mixture of anger and abuse; it occurred to me that a lot of it was predicated on the assumption that I must have misidentified the body. If my sister, Barbara, had been lying in a faraway morgue, I probably would have held on to a similar thought-as fiercely, if not in quite the same way.
When it looked as if he would not wind down any time soon, I said, “I can give you directions, or I can let you figure it out on your own. But while you sit here giving me a hard time, your mother is alone. Either way, I’m off this phone in about another thirty seconds.”
He used about five of those seconds to brood, then said, “Give me the damned directions.”
WHENIEMERGED from the bedroom, Lisa was at the door, just waiting to wish me a final good night before going home. I apologized for being tied up on the phone so long.
“Was that Lucas Monroe’s mother?” she asked.
“Yes,” I said, surprised.
“I saw Roberta today. She told me Lucas had died of a heart attack, and that she didn’t even know how to contact his family. That seemed so awful; I’m so glad you were able to help. Hard on you, though, isn’t it?”
Her face was full of sympathetic concern. “I didn’t know you knew Lucas,” I said.
“He worked with my father. He was an unforgettable person. Very bright, always concerned with others. He was always very kind of me-used to stick up for me with Andre. No matter what has happened since, that’s how I’ll choose to remember him.”
If only the rest of the world would be so kind to his memory, I thought. She secured a promise to get together again soon and left.
“HOW WILL YOUrecognize them?” Rachel asked as we waited outside of the county morgue.
“I don’t think I’ll have much trouble figuring out who they are,” I replied, twisting a tissue to shreds. “Won’t be too many people coming down here this late.”
Rachel had insisted on keeping her promise to Frank to keep an eye on me, and wouldn’t let me meander through town on my own. She asked me to page Frank to let him know where we would be. This set off an electronic chain reaction: Frank called back, called the morgue, and then paged Reed Collins, who then asked the coroner’s office to page him when the Monroes arrived.
As it turned out, we needed Frank’s help anyway. Even though the morgue is open twenty-four hours a day for receiving bodies, the normal “viewing” hours were 8:00A.M. to 5:00P.M. If Frank hadn’t pulled some strings, I would have been the one to tell the Monroes they’d made the drive for nothing. I’m sure that would have gone over big with Lucas’s brother.
We were almost twenty minutes early. I decided to wait outside; a vain attempt to not think about what went on inside of the building.
I looked up to see a woman quietly and resolutely making her way toward us on a younger man’s arm. She was a fine-looking woman, a woman who took care with her appearance without becoming a lacquered mannequin. Not afraid of a few wrinkles or the gray in her short-cropped salt-and-pepper hair. Something both old-fashioned and yet lively about her.
When the man walked into the light as they drew nearer, I felt a moment of unsettling recognition. Had Lucas Monroe never lived on the streets, I thought, he would look very much like the man standing before me. I quickly amended the thought-had he stayed off the streets and grown to hate me, he would look like this man.
The woman looked at me, then glanced at Rachel, but quickly let her gaze come back to me. “You’re more upset than this other one,” she said. “I think you must be Irene.”
CHARLES LOST THE VERY BRIEFargument that would have allowed me to wait with Rachel while they went in to see the body. I wish he had won.
I do not ever again want to be in the county morgue, not unless I am dead. I do not want to stand at the side of a mother who must say of a video image of a body pulled out of a drawer, “Yes, that’s my son.” June Monroe did not carry on loudly, did not sob or wail. She swayed a little, and so ferociously bit the hand that flew to her mouth in a balled fist, that she drew blood from it. Charles folded her to him, setting aside the glare to make a silent request. I acknowledged it and excused myself. Reed followed me out of the room, and asked me to wait for the Monroes in a small conference room across the hall. He kept the door open, and watched for June and Charles Monroe. I spent some time dodging his questions about how I had located Lucas’s mother. He wasn’t very happy with me.
After a while the Monroes came out into the hallway. Reed asked her a few questions about when she had last seen Lucas. She told him that he had come to Riverside a little over two weeks ago for a brief visit. It was the first time she had seen Lucas in several years.
Reed carefully worked his way toward asking, “What did he talk about on that visit?”
She caught him at it anyway. “Nothing that would concern the police,” she said, then seemed to change her mind. “He asked my forgiveness and he got it. He had it before he arrived.”
“Just working his twelve steps, that’s all,” Charles said.
“My son Charles thinks that the fact that his brother went to AA somehow made that apology less sincere. I don’t. Lucas wanted and received my forgiveness.” She folded her arms across her chest in a gesture that said that would be that.
“When was the last time you saw your brother?” Reed asked Charles.
Charles didn’t answer.
“He hasn’t seen his brother since Christmas,” June said, ignoring Charles’s glare. “Charles came down to Las Piernas every year, as a favor to me.” She paused, then added, “Not to speak to Lucas, just to let me know if he was still alive.”
“Guess I ought to be grateful,” Charles said. “Lucas has gone and saved me from making that trip again.”
I saw June Monroe stiffen in her chair. She pursed her lips together, as though to hold back a retort. She pointedly turned her back to Charles and began to ask questions of Reed Collins. Her son was a young man, too young to have a heart attack. What did the police know about his death?
Reed was straightforward in his answers, if not detailed. He told her that although Lucas’s college ring was missing, so far there was no evidence that he had died anything other than a natural death. He told her again that tests were being done just to make sure. I wondered if all of this was going right past her; she seemed numb. But she merely thanked Reed and then drew a breath and asked for time alone with me. After protests from Charles, they left us alone in the small conference room.
“Mrs. Monroe,” I began, but she waved my sympathy aside before I could offer it.
“Nothing can hurt him now. I have faith, Irene Kelly. Faith. My faith sustains me. I know my son was a good man, a good, good man. I know the Lord will take care of him. Charles, he doesn’t believe. He tells me he lost his faith in Vietnam, but I don’t know if that’s so. This will be much harder for him, I’m afraid.” She closed her eyes for a moment, drawing another deep breath. When she opened her eyes again, she gave me a look that was so no-nonsense, she could have X-rayed me with it.
“Are we going to work together, Irene Kelly?”
20
YOU CAN HELPmy son,” she said when I hesitated. “He wanted your help before he died, and you can still give it to him.”
“You know what he wanted to talk to me about?”
“Yes. His reputation.”
“Oh,” I said.
Her mouth set into a thin, tight line. “Don’t tell me I was mistaken. I told you I would trust you. Don’t tell me that you’re no better than that detective-Collings? Was that his name?”
