Paul Cleave - Cemetery Lake

“It’s hard to pinpoint a time of death, but it’s around two years ago,” she says, “which falls in with when Henry Martins was buried. I would have guessed that she was buried in his place, but the shovel marks on the coffin suggest he was in the ground first. However, I’d say she went into the coffin not long after he went into the ground. We’re close to ID’ing her. Landry has a name; we’re just waiting to confirm with dental records.”

There’s no point in telling Tracey I already know who it is. It’ll only lead to awkward questions, and I’m going to be getting them as soon as Schroder makes a positive ID on the girl and speaks to her family. Yesterday Rachel Tyler’s mother opened the door to hope. Today she’ll be closing it.

“You know something, don’t you,” she says, her lips forming a thin scar as she stares at me.

“How did she die?”

“Who is she, Theo?”

“Somebody who was too young to die.”

“Aren’t they always?”

“I don’t know. Maybe.” I glance over at another table where a guy who looks as though he was around when those buildings started getting built a hundred years ago is lying. I wonder if he thought he was too young to die, or if he couldn’t wait to get it over with. “But I’m going to help her. Can you tell me how she died?”

“Badly. But I’m guessing you knew that from the moment we opened up the coffin. Her hyoid bone was broken. She was strangled.”

“Sexual assault?”

“Impossible to tell after such time.”

“She was re-dressed after she died, right? What does that tell you?”

“It doesn’t tell me anything. It only suggests.”

“Dignity.”

“What?”

“Something Bruce Alderman said to me last night. I’m still trying to figure it out.”

Tracey shrugs. “That’s beyond my scope, Theo.”

I look down at Rachel Tyler with the huge Y-incision cut across her mummified body. She hasn’t been stitched back together because what is left is mostly skeletal. She doesn’t even look like a person anymore. Just a shell. A husk. Something you’d kick to the curb and throw out with the trash. If Bruce did this to her, then he got off lightly last night. I’d have done more than put a bullet in his head.

“Nothing else?” I ask.

“What else are you expecting?”

“I don’t know,” I admit. “Something helpful, I guess.”

Tracey offers a small laugh and covers Rachel up. “Maybe we’d have had more luck if she had been found with something. I don’t know-a piece of jewelry maybe. Perhaps even a ring.”

She stares at me and I don’t take the bait. “What about the other girl? Schroder said you’ve got another one.”

“I’m not at liberty to say.”

“She was strangled too, right?”

“Good luck, Theo. Part of me hopes you find who did this to her before the police do. Part of me wishes you wouldn’t even try.”

I pass the body of Bruce Alderman on the way out. It’s lying naked on a slab of steel. There’s a hole in the bottom of his chin and another in the top of his head. Once again I wonder where he got the gun from.

I hit the button on the elevator, and when the doors open Landry is standing there. His suit is ruffled up as if he slept in it, and he hasn’t shaved since I saw him last night. Next to him is Sidney Alderman. Alderman looks pale; his eyes are darting back and forth as if he’s searching for something, looking past me. But then he seems to focus, to figure out who he’s looking at. He lunges forward, bringing with him the stench of alcohol.

“You fucker,” he yells, jumping out of the elevator and taking a swing at my jaw, but I step back, and Landry grabs the back of Alderman’s shirt and pulls him off balance. Alderman’s fist crashes into the wall, and a moment later so does his face. “You killed my son!”

“That’s enough,” Landry shouts.

“He killed my boy!” Alderman pushes himself away from the wall, but only as far as Landry allows him. His knuckles are bleeding. “Why isn’t he in jail? I saw the news, you son of a bitch, I saw what you did.”

“I didn’t kill your-”

“Tate, why don’t you do us all a favor and get in the Goddamn elevator,” Landry says.

“You murderer!” Alderman yells. Then, much more quietly, “Why do you keep letting him get away with it?”

The shouting has brought both of the medical examiners into the corridor. Sheldon looks bothered, as if the violence is about to escalate and include him in it. Tracey looks disappointed.

“Get in the elevator, Tate,” Landry repeats.

“You’re a dead man,” Alderman yells again as the doors start to close. “You hear me? A dead-”

I’m not sure whether I actually hear the rest, or whether my mind just fills in the blank.

The drive to my office I spend in Alderman’s shoes, and I have a bad feeling that I’d be coming to the same conclusions he has. I told him things were going to be hard for his son. That same night his boy ends up dead. And the following morning I’m all over the news, looking like a damn killer. I’m going to have to keep looking over my shoulder. I’m sure of it.

Back at the office, I’m greeted by the onlookers who missed out on last night’s show and try to supplement their lack of daily drama by staring at me as I walk up the corridor. They ask me questions. They look deflated that I’m not still covered in blood. There is police-scene tape across my door. I screw it up into a ball, carry it inside, and shut the door on my audience. All I can think about is how many of these people have seen the news and, thanks to a desperate reporter using desperate tactics to be noticed, now believe I pulled the trigger.

The office stinks and makes me feel a little ill. I lay a bathroom towel and some newspapers over my chair before sitting down. I tear up a tissue, wad it up, and stuff it into my nose. I plug in my cell phone, but it’s still not connected, so I wipe down the office phone with some wet tissues until it’s clean enough to use. I phone my insurance company. It turns out I have life insurance, house insurance, contents and car insurance, but not the kind of insurance that allows for this. If a pipe had busted or the carpet caught fire, the insurance company would play ball. But when it comes to messy suicide, they don’t want to know. When I hang up I look through the phone book for a number for a company I’ve never had to call, but that I’ve seen perform over the years. The cleaning crew promise to come out today. They’ll replace what they can’t clean, which will include the office chairs.

When I get off the phone I look over the chair Bruce Alderman was sitting on, then slowly I stand up and peer over the desk, as if I’m still expecting to see him lying there. All that’s there is a lot of blood. I sit back down and go through the phone book. The first number I dial is for the wrong Martinses, but the second one I get right and Laura Martins answers the phone.

I explain who I am, and Henry Martins’s daughter remembers me.

“So now you think differently,” she says, “and another man is dead. That witch killed them,” she says, referring to her stepmother. “And the only thing on the news is these people who floated up in the water and the dead caretaker. What about my father? Why doesn’t he get a mention?”

“They’re keeping the names out of the media for the moment,” I say. “They have to, until they identify everybody.”

“Why my dad?” she asks. “Why choose him to take out and throw in the water? Why not somebody else?”

“It was just a random choice. The day the girl was murdered probably coincided with your father’s burial.”

“So it’s random? Just one of those things? Like a bad statistic?”