Brad Parks - Faces of the Gone

“Wow, that’s tough,” I said, slumping against the other wall.

“That’s why I told her to wait,” Mrs. Bricker said. “But I could tell she was going to be a stubborn one.”

I nodded, as if I, too, knew Miss B was going to be a stubborn one.

“You get any of the other bodies from down on Ludlow Street?” I asked.

“No, just this one.”

“You get used to stuff like that?”

“I’m around death all the time,” she said. “Sometimes it agitates me our society has so many superstitions about it. It’s really just a natural thing. It happens to everyone eventually.”

“No, I mean do you get used to what happened to Wanda?” I said. “I mean, what did happen to her? You heard that in there. Her own best friend barely recognized her. I’m sure you did what you could, but. .”

It was among the less articulate questions of my journalism career. Mrs. Bricker took it in stride. I suppose it was a nice change for her to talk with someone who wasn’t near-hysterical with grief.

“I’ve seen worse, but that was a pretty difficult reconstruction,” she said. “You have to understand, when that girl came here, she only had half a face.”

“I thought she had been shot in the back of the head,” I said.

“She was. And there was an entrance wound in the back of the head. It was pretty small. That was about a ten-minute patch job. It was the exit wound that was the problem. That bullet took a lot of the forehead with it.”

I cringed a little but tried to hide my reaction. There was no room for sentimentality in a discussion like this.

“Any idea what kind of gun it was?” I asked.

“Forty caliber,” she said without hesitation.

“That’s odd,” I said. “Are you sure it wasn’t a.38?”

I’m no gun nut, but it was my understanding.40 caliber was used mostly by law enforcement-local, state, and, primarily, federal. The thug or thugs responsible for this must have somehow gotten their hands on some cop’s gun.

“We serve the neighborhoods,” Mrs. Bricker said. “Trust me when I tell you I’ve seen enough bullet wounds to tell the difference. It was a.40 caliber. A.38 wouldn’t have done nearly as much damage.”

“Well, then explain something to me,” I said. “You said the bullet took out the forehead. I thought it would have come out lower.”

“Why?”

“Well, the cops told us the killing was done execution style. To me, execution style means the victim is kneeling and the perp is standing, meaning the shot goes downward.” I pantomimed a gun, putting a finger to the back of my head, tilting it at the appropriate angle. “Shouldn’t it have blown off the nose or jaw or something?”

“Well, in this case, she was standing, not kneeling,” Mrs. Bricker said definitively.

“Oh?”

“The entrance and exit wounds are parallel. That tells me she and the shooter were at the same level. You’re probably looking for a gunman who is tall, six three to six five.”

“I didn’t realize you doubled as a forensics expert,” I said, smiling despite the subject matter.

She smiled, too. It was her first one. “I’m not,” she said. “But in this case the math is pretty simple. Wanda was tall, right? Let’s say five nine or five ten?”

Tynesha had talked about what long legs Wanda had. “Sounds right,” I said.

“Okay, so we know the perp was holding the gun straight, because the entrance and exit wounds are the same height,” Mrs. Bricker said, now pantomiming her own gun. “Since he’s able to hold the gun straight and still be pointing near the top of her head, the shooter must be roughly a head taller, call it six or seven inches. That’s how you get six three to six five.”

“You’re good,” I said.

She smiled again but stamped it out the moment Miss B and Tynesha emerged from the examining room, sniffling and leaning on each other for support. Miss B’s limp looked even worse than before.

“Thank you for trying to patch her up,” Miss B said. “I think we’ll keep the lid closed for the viewing.”

“Of course,” Mrs. Bricker said, having immediately resumed her former ramrod straightness. “We’ll still want to get some clothes from you to put her in. If you don’t have anything suitable, we work with a charity that provides burial outfits for needy families. And of course we’ll bring someone in to do her hair. That’s part of the package.”

Miss B murmured something indistinct. Seeing her daughter laid out on a metal gurney in that cold room had taken all the starch out of her. It required some effort to get her back up the stairs and out into the street, where I feared even the smallest gust of wind was going to knock her over. Tynesha had her by one arm. I couldn’t grab the other because of Miss B’s cane, but I stayed close in case she toppled.

After a silent car ride back to Miss B’s building, we got her back out of the car and I resumed spotting. The Nextel guys paid us little mind as we slowly hobbled up the steps. We were just a couple of people escorting a crippled old woman home.

Miss B went straight into her bedroom and Tynesha gave me a little wave as she followed. I took one last glance at Wanda’s high school portrait, then departed.

Ireturned to the newsroom and to a desk that had been transformed into a veritable legalize-marijuana showcase. Someone had printed out twenty copies of a marijuana-leaf picture and taped them all around my computer. Another creative genius had twisted some used newsprint into a two-foot-long joint and left it next to the keyboard along with half a dozen smaller joints, a lighter, and a homemade bong that had been fashioned from a two-liter soda bottle.

Sitting on my chair was a brochure with a picture of a morose-looking guy and the headline “Seeking Help for Your Marijuana Problem?”

I had been hoping to surreptitiously slip the four pilfered heroin bags out of my pocket and into an envelope, which I would then hide in my desk for safekeeping. But that suddenly seemed like a very bad idea, what with half the newsroom wondering if I was developing a drug habit.

“Nice going, Ivy,” Buster Hays hollered at me. “Let me guess: you didn’t inhale, right?”

It was a tired joke, but some of Hays’s cronies laughed. I began clearing away enough drug paraphernalia so I had some workspace.

“Ha ha,” I said, with intentionally flat inflection. As usual, Hays had caught me completely without comeback.

Tommy sauntered over from his desk to snicker up close.

“So I guess I have you to thank for this lovely display?” I asked.

“Don’t look at me,” Tommy said. “Brodie made an announcement at the morning editor’s meeting and then sent out an e-mail to everyone at the paper, saying you were an example for all of us to follow. What you see before you is a collaborative effort.”

“I’m never going to live this down, am I?”

“By the time the night copy desk makes it in, you’ll be the most famous stoner this side of Cheech and Chong,” Tommy confirmed.

“Just what I always wanted.”

“C’mon, you’re a hero,” Tommy said. “The hippies over in the features department are thrilled because now they think they’re allowed to get high at work. I think they’re out behind the building getting stoned as we speak.”

“They do that all the time anyway.”

“True, but now they feel justified. You might want to negotiate with the vending machine guy about getting a cut. Newsroom snack food sales are going to skyrocket.”

I was just starting to enjoy our banter when the abominable Vowelless Monster became aware of my presence.

“Crrrrttrrrss!” Sal Szanto hollered, taking the trouble to lift his hairy girth from behind his desk so I could see him gesturing for me.