Part 6 (2/2)
At first no one picked up. Then, a man's voice. ”Yes?”
”Mr. Hutchinson. This is Julie.”
He said nothing in response.
”I'm sorry,” she said. She could not help her tears.
”It's all right, it's all right,” Hut's father said. His voice had a slightly Midwestern inflection. She imagined a husky man of seventy-one with salt-and-pepper hair. ”We heard from the authorities. How are you doing?”
She didn't want to lie. She wiped at her eyes with her free hand. ”I don't know.”
”How's Matty and Livy?”
”Sad. Quiet. I can't imagine what they're thinking.”
”The shock has just hit us both in the gut,” he said. ”I'm glad you called. We needed to get in touch. At some point. Even if it would be against his wishes.”
”I know.”
”Joanne's sleeping. She's been sleeping since we heard.”
”We can talk another time. Would that be all right?”
”Of course,” he said. ”And Julie, it's good to hear from you. Even under these circ.u.mstances. We want to try and keep up now, if possible. Would that be all right?”
Julie tried to erase the words her husband had used over the years about his parents, about how horrible they'd been to him, about how they could not come to the wedding, about how they had treated him like a piece of trash since the moment they'd adopted him, about horrible verbal and mental abuse at their hands, about how he had to use college scholars.h.i.+ps to escape them, and get beyond their cold darkness.
It didn't seem to matter anymore. She wanted to know them. She wanted to know more about Hut.
”Of course,” she said. ”I want my daughter to know her grandparents. And Matt.”
”Thank you,” the man said. ”He never thought of us as his parents. Not really. But we loved him, despite everything. We really loved our son.”
It struck her as normal for him to say that, even though Hut had all but convinced her that his father was a monster and his mother was an overly pa.s.sive contributor to his father's moods. Hut was dead now, after all. It was easy for his parents to remember their love for him. She had always a.s.sumed that Hut would deeply regret the rift he'd created with his folks when one of them died. She had never antic.i.p.ated that Hut would die first, and that she might finally get to know his adoptive mother and father, two people she had only briefly met, during a trip when Hut had just blown up with anger at them and he and Julie had to retreat back to a hotel ”rather than spend ten more seconds with those awful people!” as Hut had yelled at the time.
7.
She woke up late, and couldn't pull herself out of bed until eleven. She had the vague memory of a dirty dream-something about a man pressing his fingers into her and licking her thighs. It made her feel a little guilty to have such a dream so soon after Hut's death.
When she finally rose, she made some calls to the sheriff. Julie learned from the sheriff's office that Detective McGuane had gotten some kind of ridiculous permission to transfer Hut's body to a morgue in Manhattan.
”It's necessary,” the sheriff told her on the phone, and she had first called Andrew Money, a lawyer she knew from work at the hospital, to see what her legal rights were in this-she'd left an overly detailed message for the lawyer, which she wished she could've erased right after she'd finished with it.
By noon, she had tried to reach McGuane by phone, furious that she could not plan a funeral and have her husband's body safe from the dissectors of the autopsy room.
Finally, McGuane tracked her down, via cell phone. ”Mrs. Hutchinson, we need to talk again. As soon as possible.”
8.
”I can drive you,” Mel said.
”I can do it. I need the drive. I'll be fine.”
”No, I'm going to drive you. Laura can stay with the kids. You should not be behind the wheel of a car right now. Not with all this,” Mel said. ”I can go shopping- where's this guy? Hey, he's right around the corner from Bed, Bath & Beyond. I need to get a few things. So, you just call me when you're done. I can shop 'til midnight if I have to.”
It took them nearly two hours to get to the city, so she was at McGuane's office just before three.
McGuane's office was full of maps and pictures of what might've been forensics snapshots. A gallery of the dead in pictures.
A young woman sat opposite McGuane. She glanced back at Julie, as if startled from a private conversation.
”Mrs. Hutchinson, this is Officer Donati. She's our point person in forensics.”
Donati nodded in her direction, a warm but silent greeting.
”Coffee?” McGuane asked, pointed toward a Mr. Coffee machine that looked filthy at the edge of his desk.
She shook her head slightly. ”What is it you wouldn't tell me on the phone?”
”Please, sit down,” McGuane said, overly polite, gesturing to an empty chair near the other officer.
Donati spoke up. ”This happens from time to time with transfers between morgues and paperwork foulups, although in this case, it's somewhat unique. It's...”
McGuane cut her off. ”Mrs. Hutchinson, your husband's body is missing.”
Chapter Six.
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