P. Parrish - South Of Hell

Ward looked as if the question didn’t surprise him at all. “Yes, but be very careful,” he said. “I haven’t had a chance to examine them… examine her yet.”

“Why do you need to do that?” Amy asked.

Ward’s eyes found Louis’s before he spoke. “To determine cause of death,” he said.

“She died because he stabbed her,” Amy said.

Ward again looked to Louis. He was a man who dealt with death through the lens of a microscope. As with a cop, detachment was part of the job. But Louis suspected he had never encountered someone like Amy before, whose self-possession in the face of a loved one’s death was almost unnerving.

Amy picked up a small bone, looked at it for a moment, and placed it carefully back in its place on the table. “When can we take her home?” she asked.

Ward looked at Joe.

Louis knew what she was thinking. Amy had no home, and other than Joe’s court-mandated temporary custody, she had no clear future.

“Amy,” Joe said evenly, “you’re going to be up north with me for a little while. Why don’t we leave her here until we can figure out where… where she’ll be buried?”

Amy considered this for a moment, her face solemn, then nodded slowly. She looked around the large tiled room.

“Is Isabel here, too?” she asked.

Joe was too stunned to speak. Ward looked to Louis in confusion.

“The bones that were found in the barn,” Louis said.

“Ah.” Ward nodded. “Yes, they’re still here.”

“Can I see her?” Amy asked.

Joe started to object, but Amy didn’t even look at her. Her eyes were fixed on Ward. Louis gave a tight nod, and Ward went to a closet in the corner. He came back with a large gray box and set it on a second steel table.

“I was just preparing to ship her to the university,” he said as he took off the lid. “I’m hoping they can narrow down the time period of death so I can see how close I was.”

Louis watched Amy. She was peering into the box with awe.

“It was 1850,” she whispered.

Ward looked at Louis with a confused expression. Louis cleared his throat. “Amy, we probably should get going now.”

“May I take her with me, too?” Amy asked Ward.

Ward blinked. “I’m sorry. We only release the remains to the next of kin.”

“I think that’s me,” Amy said.

Ward put the lid back on the box. “We don’t even know her name,” he said. “And without that, there’s no way to connect any family to her.”

“Her name was Isabel,” Amy said.

Ward let out a sigh and addressed Louis. “Look, I’m not sure what’s going on here, but before these bones can be released to someone, I need some proof that someone is a descendant, and if-”

Joe stepped forward quickly, a hand on Amy’s shoulder. “Amy, we have to get going.”

Amy looked up at the medical examiner. “Will you take good care of my mother until I can come back and get her?” she asked.

“You have my word,” Ward said.

“And Isabel, too?”

“I promise,” Ward said.

“Thank you.” With a last look at the gray box, Amy turned to Joe. “Okay, I’m ready.”

Outside, they paused in the parking lot while Joe helped Amy put on the denim jacket. Louis noticed that Amy was moving gingerly and that she looked tired. Maybe this hadn’t been a good idea. Physically, the girl had survived a knife attack, and emotionally, she had just endured a second bruising.

“Amy, are you okay?” Joe asked.

Amy was silent, looking back at the plain gray brick building.

“Are you upset, I mean, about leaving her here?”

Amy slowly shook her head. “Momma’s not really there anymore,” she said softly. “Those are just bones now.”

Joe looked at Louis and gave a small confused shrug.

“I saw her, you know,” Amy said softly.

“Saw who?” Joe asked.

“Momma,” she said. “In the hospital. I saw her when I left.”

Louis met Joe’s eye over Amy’s head. The doctor had told them that Amy had been clinically dead for three minutes before they had been able to restart her heart.

“She looked beautiful and happy, and I knew she was safe. I wanted to stay there with her,” Amy said. “But she told me I had to go back and take care of Mr. Shockey.”

Amy looked at Louis.

“I think we should go see him,” she said.

Joe put a hand on Amy’s back and gently urged her into Shockey’s hospital room. Despite Amy’s anxiousness to see Shockey, her hesitation now was obvious.

In all ways but one, this was simply a visit with a man Amy had already met a dozen times, during lunches and in discussions about Jean, as an escort to Dr. Sher’s office, and even that night he showed up drunk at the hotel room.

In all the times Joe had seen them together, she had never felt either of them had made a connection to the other. Shockey had called her “the girl.” And Amy still called him “Mr. Shockey.”

What was Amy feeling now? Joe wondered. What did it feel like to look into the eyes of a stranger and know that you were tied to him in a way you could never have imagined and a way that could never be completely severed?

Joe stopped Amy just inside the door. There wasn’t much time left. She and Amy were leaving for Echo Bay right from the hospital, and there were many things Joe still needed to discuss with Shockey.

“Amy, would you stay here for a minute?” Joe said, nodding to a chair by the door.

Amy slid into the chair.

Joe went to the bed. Shockey was lying flat on his back. His size was minimized by the cluster of machines and the patchwork of bandages on his body. Most of the gauze had been removed from his face, leaving spidery stitches of knotted black thread. The pull of death had left a chalky gray pallor on his skin.

The nurse had told Joe that Shockey was conscious, but his eyes were closed, and it didn’t appear as if he had heard the door open.

“Jake?” she said.

His eyes opened with a drugged flutter.

“Jake, it’s me, Joe.”

“Joe…”

“How you feeling?” she asked.

“Like shit,” he said.

Joe glanced back at Amy. She had a small smile on her face.

“Did you get the bastard?” Shockey whispered through cracked lips.

“Yes,” she said. “He’s dead. I had to shoot him.”

Shockey closed his eyes, his lips forming a small grimace of a smile. “Wish I could’ve been there.”

“There’s something else,” Joe said. “We found Jean’s remains.”

Shockey’s smile vanished. His eyes were still closed, and he was very still, but Joe knew he hadn’t gone back to sleep. The moment was for the grieving, a kind he had not allowed himself for almost ten years.

“She was on the farm,” Joe said softly. “Just like you thought.”

Still, nothing. Then he opened his eyes and lifted a finger to motion that he wanted the bed raised. Joe picked up the cord, and the whir of the bed motor filled the next few seconds.

Angled upright, Shockey’s glazed eyes went beyond her.

“Hey, peeper…”

Joe looked to the door. She hadn’t heard Louis come in. He had gone to rent a car so he could drive to Ypsilanti later and say goodbye to Lily. His flight back to Florida left at six tonight.

“Hey, Jake,” Louis said.

Then Shockey saw Amy sitting in the chair. Amy looked to Joe for permission to come forward, and Joe gave her a nod. Amy clutched her backpack a little tighter and came to Shockey’s left side.

“Miss Joe told me you are my father,” she said.

Shockey’s eyes cut to Joe with questions.

“We thought you were going to die,” Joe said. “We wanted her to know.”