Part 5 (1/2)

She opened the yellow envelope and poured the watch and the keys out on her bedspread. The watch was from her, on their first anniversary. It had cost too much money-just under four hundred dollars at Saks, but she felt he needed a really good watch for his work. She wondered if she were still paying on her Visa for it. He had loved the watch, and told her that it was the best gift he'd ever received next to Livy, who had arrived a scant six months after they married. His gargantuan key set-for the house, the clinic, his car, and even keys he'd told her he'd had since he was a kid. She'd joked with him sometimes, asking him if those were keys in his pocket or if he was just happy to see her. His wallet had the normal things she knew would be in there: his credit cards, his social security card, the pictures of the kids, the pictures of her, seventy dollars cash, and a few wadded up receipts.

All I have left of you, Hut. This is it.

She switched on the little color TV above the dresser, clicking the remote to surf channels, and was afraid for a moment that the news would come on detailing the murder. But no matter what channel she went to, no one mentioned Hut's murder. We're not the news. We're not what people want to hear about. We're not the news. We're not what people want to hear about.

A gentle tapping at her bedroom door. The door slid open slightly. Mel. Mel. Her sister's face was ashen, but brightened a bit as if she had just remembered some piece of good news. ”You're awake.” Her voice was smooth and soft. Her sister's face was ashen, but brightened a bit as if she had just remembered some piece of good news. ”You're awake.” Her voice was smooth and soft.

Julie nodded, stretching. No headache. It would be back, but not just yet. She swung her feet over the edge of the bed, but was not ready to stand up.

”Can I get you some tea? Maybe some decaf chai?”

”I'm fine. Really,” Julie said. She glanced over at the wide mirror that she and Hut had picked out at Pottery Barn two years before. Her face was all in brambles, to her. Not her face at all, just as the dead man on the table had not had Hut's face. ”I'm fine,” she repeated.

8.

She managed a shower, and while the steamy water cascaded over her, she didn't close her eyes. Didn't want to see inside her own head. Behind the opaque shower curtain, she could see the shadow coming into the bathroom.

Hut. It would be Hut. He would grin as he pulled back the curtain. Naked and happy as a puppy. In their first days. His grin infectious, his way of touching her so new and so right. Alive. Alive and fresh and younger than he should've been in his mid-thirties then. Not in a house with a mortgage too high for an in-debt doctor to the poor and an ER nurse. But in her little apartment in the city, her c.r.a.ppy little place where they'd made a nest, briefly, before her pregnancy, where they'd made love too many times and for too many hours to count. How was she to know that making love was something more than pleasure? More than making a baby? It had been a bonding between them, a clasping of hands that reminded her not of s.e.x, but of absolute love, and how he had been everything to her. Everything.

The shower beating down on her face washed the tears from her.

When she emerged from the shower, and dressed, she wasn't sure why she even cared if she was clean. She wanted to go to Livy, and to Matt, she wanted her children. She wanted them in her arms and she wanted them now.

9.

The detective showed up at six-thirty that evening.

Chapter Five.

1.

They sat in the living room. Although all the lamps were turned up, even the overly bright halogen one near the fireplace, Julie felt as if it were shadowy.

She had unb.u.t.tered whole-wheat toast and some tea with a little honey. It was all she had eaten that day, and all she had wanted to eat.

”I don't really understand,” she said, after the first few questions.

”It's a pattern,” McGuane said. He drank a Diet c.o.ke and refused the cookies offered by Mel, who sat near the upright piano but said nothing. Julie noticed his wedding band, and a ring that looked like a college signet ring. She didn't want to look back up at his face.

”Why haven't you gotten him yet?” she asked.

2.

McGuane took a sip from his soda, and then glanced over at Mel. Then, out the window. He nodded as if talking to himself. ”I wish I had an answer for you. Can you think of anything that would connect your husband to this?”

”I don't know. I can't imagine...” Julie looked down at her teacup. Keep your fingers from trembling. Just keep the teacup still. Keep your fingers from trembling. Just keep the teacup still.

”We're hoping you might have records here. Not much to go over at the clinic.”

She glanced up at his face. ”He didn't bring his work home. That was important to him.”

After the detective had pa.s.sed her the beige folder with the photographs, she set her cup down on the red table beside her. She opened the folder.

”You know,” McGuane said, more to Mel than to her. ”I live across the Hudson all my life, and I had no idea Jersey is anything but an industrial tract and you know, The Sopranos The Sopranos. Then I come out here and there are all these lakes and trees and it's like, I don't know, Pennsylvania.”

”Except without the Amish,” Mel said. She offered up a weak grin. Julie wished she'd had the presence of mind to thank her out loud for adding some humor to the somber atmosphere.

Death is everywhere. Death is all around, all the time, she thought. At work, and now here. In my living room. In my house. Uninvited. I don't want it. At work, and now here. In my living room. In my house. Uninvited. I don't want it.

Julie turned each photograph over.

More dead people. Just faces. Pale. Not really human anymore. Like white masks. Hollow.

”I'm sorry to do this to you,” he said, his voice barely more than a mumble. ”I'd rather catch this guy before he does it again.”

”I've never seen these people before,” she said. The sound of her own voice, weary and flat, made her feel heavier.

The pictures: two women and a man. Eyes closed. Empty sh.e.l.ls of human beings. Gone.

Her half-Catholic, half-Episcopalian upbringing reared up in her. Their spirits have flown. They are in G.o.d's hands. They are in heaven. Or some other finer place. Beyond trouble. Beyond this world. Their spirits have flown. They are in G.o.d's hands. They are in heaven. Or some other finer place. Beyond trouble. Beyond this world.

Beyond the grasp of the one who killed them.

”There's another picture,” McGuane said. ”Inside.”

She checked the folder. Under a thin piece of onionskin paper, one last photograph.

It was a man's back. Perhaps it was Hut's. Nothing reminded her of him, but she had barely recognized him in the morgue, so she didn't expect to identify him without seeing his face. That was why pictures like this were safe. They could be of anyone and no one at the same time.

All kinds of circles and drawings were carved into the man's back, from the shoulder blades down to the small of the back, just above the b.u.t.tocks.

”Do you have any idea what this might be?”

Julie shook her head.