Cody McFadyen - The Darker Side

Giving up our child for professional ambition?"

I think about this. This woman deserves a real answer, not something trite and clever.

"I think," I say, cautious, "that anything else would have hurt Dexter. He felt that he had to do what he was doing, but he was worried about how it would affect your husband's career. I mean, he said 'publicly disown.' Did he ever seem to expect that either of you would actually disown him?"

She's startled by this concept. "No. No, I don't think so."

"So he was secure in being loved by you. I'm not saying it excuses everything, but it's certainly not nothing, Rosario."

Grief is sometimes simple, but often complex. It encompasses self-doubts, what-ifs, if-onlys. It resembles regret, but is more powerful than that. It can disappear in an instant or settle in till death. I see versions of all these things run across Rosario's features, and I'm happy for it, because it means I've given her a truth. Lies can hurt, but nothing moves us like truth.

It takes her a moment to get herself under control. Still no tears.

"So, Dexter got through that year, and that year was the end of Dexter. A son died, a daughter was reborn. Such a beautiful daughter too. Lisa blossomed, both inside and out. She'd always been a happy child, but now she seemed to glow. She was. . content. Contentment is hard to come by, Smoky."

I notice how easily she's slipped into using "Lisa," "she," and

"her." Dexter became Lisa, not just to himself, but to his mother.

"How did the congressman adjust?"

"He was never really comfortable with it. But I don't want to paint a picture of him as a stereotypical intolerant, Smoky. Dillon loved Dexter and he was trying very, very hard to love Lisa. He considered any difficulty in doing so to be his failing, not Lisa's."

"I'm sure Lisa saw that too."

Rosario nods and smiles. "She did. She was-happy. The hormones took very well, and she was wise with her breast augmentation, fitting it to her frame, not going too big or too small. She took to makeup like a fish to water, walked like a woman without any real effort, had a good sense of style. Even her voice lessons, which can be the most difficult for some, went easy for her."

Men have lower voices because their vocal cords elongate during puberty. This elongation is not reversible, requiring that men who transition to women learn how to pitch their voices higher.

"Was she planning on. . going all the way with it?"

Not all transsexuals elect to change their genitalia.

"She hadn't decided."

"Why was Lisa in Texas?" I ask. "I understand she lived here, in Virginia. Was she visiting you?"

"She came down for her grandmother's funeral. This was Dillon's mother."

"Did you and the congressman attend the funeral?"

"Yes. It was small and private. We're not in the middle of a campaign right now, so there was no media. We held the service and Lisa left the next day to go back home. She was supposed to be working tomorrow."

"What did she do?"

"She ran her own travel agency. A one-woman show, but she did fine. She had a very profitable niche, coming up with vacations designed for the gay, lesbian, and transgendered community."

"Are you aware of any enemies she had? Anyone she might have mentioned bothering her?"

"No." Emphatic. "I'm not brushing off the question or operating in denial, Smoky. It's the first thing I considered, and nothing came to mind."

But you might be surprised, I think.

All those late night secrets, the big and the small, the ones that come knocking when the moon goes behind a cloud-children have them too, and the parents are usually the last to know.

"What about you or the congressman? I realize you both have enemies, all high-profile people do, but is there anything specific, anything recent or in the recent past that stands out?"

"I wish I could say so. Dillon gets the occasional crazy letter, and I read them all before passing them on to the Secret Service. The last one like that came in six or seven months ago. Some kook threatened to kill Dillon with his mind or some nonsense. We're not straddling any contentious issues on the moral front at the moment. Rarely are, truth be told. Avoiding that type of confrontation is how Dillon's managed to hold a Democratic seat in Texas."

I search for more to ask her, but can't think of anything at the moment.

I choose my next words with care. "Rosario, I want you to know that I'm going to do everything I can to find the person responsible for this. I can't promise I'll catch them-I learned not to make promises like that a long time ago-but my team and I are very, very good. We are going to need access in order to do our jobs. I'll bow to a certain amount of political decorum, but in the end, I'm not working for you or for your husband, I'm working for Lisa."

"Lisa is all that matters."

"I'm not trying to be insensitive. I just want to ensure I make it clear what my priorities are."

"Your priorities are reassuring." She reaches into her jacket pocket and hands me a slip of paper. "All of my numbers. Contact me any time of the day or night for the smallest thing."

I take the paper from her. She knocks on the partition again, a signal to return us to the morgue. The sun is setting and the blood in the sky mingles with the fire-trees of fall.

Winter is coming. Winter here is still, like death.

"Can I ask you a question, Smoky?" Rosario says.

"You can ask me anything you want."

She looks at me, and I see, finally, the tears. Not a sobbing grief, no hysteria here, just a stream from the corner of each eye, evidence of the deepest ache.

"Do you ever get over it?"

Truth, truth, nothing but truth, that's what this woman deserves. I give it to her.

"Not ever."

"CALLIE, ALAN, AND JAMES ARE ON THEIR WAY HERE," ADJones tells me. "They should arrive in a few hours."

We're outside the autopsy room, watching through a pane of glass as the medical examiner disassembles the body of Lisa Reid in order to help us catch her killer. It's the final outrage. There's no soul to an autopsy, just the reduction of a human being to their lowest common denominator: meat.

It's now after seven o'clock and I am beginning to feel the disconnection from home.

"Pretty weird to be here," I remark.

"Yeah," AD Jones replies. He's silent for a moment. "My second wife and I actually talked about moving out here once."

"Really?"

"You saw those trees? They have four real seasons here. White Christmas, things coming to life in the spring." He shrugs. "I was into it. Then the marriage went south and I forgot about it."

He goes quiet again. This is the story of our relationship. He doles out personal information at unexpected times in little dollops. They're often bittersweet, as now. He'd loved a woman and they'd talked about moving someplace where they could rake fallen leaves and build snowmen. Now he is here because of a corpse. Dreams evolve, not always for the better.

"Dr. Johnston is a strange one," I mutter, changing the subject.

"Yeah."

Dr. Johnston, the ME, is in his mid-forties and he is huge . Not fat-muscular. He's got biceps it would take both of my hands to fit around. His legs are so big he probably has to get his pants tailored. His hair is bleach blond and shaved close to his head. His face is square jawed and brutal looking, with a big nose that's bent from past breaks and a vein that throbs away in his forehead like a living metronome, mesmerizing. He could be a professional bodybuilder or a mob knee-breaker.

He's all business with Lisa, putting those muscular arms to good use as he cuts through her rib cage. Even through the window, the sound is unsettling, like someone stepping on a series of Styrofoam cups. I can't hear what he's saying, but his lips are moving as he dictates his findings into the microphone that hangs above the table.