Michael Baden - Remains Silent

“Dr. Harrigan’s housekeeper,” he said soberly, gazing at the wall.

“Dinner’s on me,” Manny said, reaching for her credit card. “Patrice is my client; protocol dictates I pay.”

His own card materialized. “My mother taught me never to let a lady pay for dinner. She dictates who pays.”

Charming. Fashion-challenged, but a courtier. “My turn next time,” she said feebly, not sure that, after the Vuitton bag, there was room for another hundred-dollar charge on her account. If there is a next time. He paid. They stood.

“I’ll escort you home,” he said, “then head out to Turner.”

“Now?”

“Her family sounded desperate.” His voice was weary. “Corpses don’t seem to care about time. And the sooner you get to them, the more you can find.”

I don’t want him to leave. The thought, unbidden and unexpected, stunned her. “I’ll drive,” she said.

He struggled to put on his jacket. One hand seemed to be stuck in the sleeve. He stared at her. “What are you talking about?”

“Turner. I’m coming with you.”

“Impossible.”

“Really? Try to get rid of me.”

He thought for some moments. She waited for his answer, surprised by her own anxiousness. “Okay.”

Is he humoring me or does he actually want me with him? No matter. “Good. We’ll take my car.”

“A Porsche! For a woman who lost the Carramia case, isn’t it a bit extravagant?” They were in the parking garage near the restaurant. She didn’t tell him the car was “previously owned.”

“I bought it before Carramia. I do win, and sometimes win big, from time to time,” she said. “And besides, clothes and cars aren’t extravagances.” She decided not to explain her mother’s philosophy.

He held out his hand for the keys. She looked at it. “You’ve got to be kidding.”

“I should drive.”

“You may have failed to notice,” she said, “but this is my car. Besides, you’re in no condition to drive. You had two glasses of wine.”

He rubbed his temple; she was giving him a headache. “Two hours ago. I’m a male weighing a hundred and ninety-five pounds who just ate a full meal. Would you like me to explain the metabolism rate of alcohol in the human body?”

“God, no!”

“Fine. Then give me the keys. We’ve got to drive up there, do the post, then come back to the city. There’s no sticking to the speed limit.”

She gave him the keys. He slid into the driver’s seat. “Where’s the damn ignition?”

She held back a laugh. “To the left of the steering wheel, exactly where it belongs in a Porsche Cabriolet, in homage to its racing-car roots.”

He looked down. “Shit. It’s got three pedals.”

The laugh exploded. “Of course. It’s a Porsche.”

He got out of the car and handed her the keys. “I don’t drive a stick,” he said.

She thought of a dozen nasty comebacks but didn’t share them. What man under eighty can only drive an automatic?

They zoomed out of the garage, crosstown, then stopped in front of a building. “What’s the matter?” he asked. “Don’t know how to drive a stick?”

She glared at him. “I can’t leave my baby alone all night. Watch the car.”

“Baby?” he yelled after her, but she was already gone.

He waited in the car while she went up to her apartment. Had she ever mentioned a baby? He pictured himself trying to help a crazy woman buckle a child’s car seat into the Porsche. Was she seriously intending to bring an infant to a postmortem? Why did I agree to let her come? he asked himself, but he did not attempt an analysis.

She returned, carrying a bundle and a tote bag. “What took you so long?” he asked.

“Mycroft needed a walk around the block.” She took her place at the wheel and deposited the bundle in his lap.

It moved. “A poodle!” She’s certifiable.

“Just one year old. I can’t leave him for most of the night. He likes to be held.”

“You’ve got to be-”

“And could you roll down your window? Mycroft likes fresh air.”

She passed him the tote- Prada- filled to bursting. He tried to find space on the floor for both it and his feet, knowing which she’d insist had preference.

“What the hell have you got in here?”

“Some catch-up reading to do while you hack up the body. Most of it is for Mycroft: his security blanket, toys, bowl, Evian, and bully stick; his fleece, in case it gets cold; his favorite little red pillow. You know- the basics.”

“You carry a bottle of spring water for your dog?” Jake and Mycroft eyed each other. The animal’s coat was shiny and neatly clipped, but his lower jaw jutted out oddly, a tooth skewing to one side. “Hell of an underbite,” he said. “And the hair around his mouth makes him look like he just ate a doughnut.”

“He’s too young for an orthodontist. But I’ll have you know Mycroft’s an entrepreneur. His groomer named a perfume after him: Mycroft Millefleurs, Parfum for the Precious Pooch.” She looked directly at him. “All men should be so lucky.”

They reached Baxter Community Hospital in under two hours, which Jake filled by telling her about Pete Harrigan and the cancer that took his life. When they arrived, Jake went right to the morgue, leaving Mycroft in the car with his favorite chew toy and a bowl of spring water and depositing Manny in the adjacent waiting room, intended for families brought to identify their loved ones. It was a depressing little room, with flickering fluorescent lights and no windows. Manny felt her excitement disappear, replaced by the grim reality of death and sorrow. She wondered how a man like Jake could spend his life facing it. What tragedies had he seen? How did he defend himself against them? Death from old age usually requires no autopsy, she knew. So the deaths Jake contemplated were homicides, suicides, accidents- lives cut short. She had seen a few dead bodies in her work and often felt she was their champion. But to handle them, to dwell on them? Unthinkable.

“Manny?”

She nearly jumped from her couch. “Jake! You scared me. Finished so soon?”

“Haven’t started. There’s no diener.”

“Diener?”

“Autopsy assistant. Moves the body, sews it up when the ME’s finished, helps with the stuff in between.” The skin under his eyes was gray with fatigue. “I just got off the phone with the coroner in the next county over. He’s running things here since Pete… since there’s no Baxter County ME. He said the regular diener’s out of town and they can’t track down the backup man.”

“How long till they find him?”

He gave her a small smile. She hoped it was meant to be charming.

“Actually-”

She knew what was coming next.

MANNY HAD NEVER been to a live autopsy. It was the fitting end for a day in which she was dressed to kill. She was head-to-toe Chanel, even her scarf. The outfit was so chic Coco herself would die for it- again. She had never considered herself a “girlie” girl. Since her parents had only one child, her Italian father had raised her like a son. She had learned to fish, throw dice and a football, and fix her own electrical outlets. She liked martial arts, James Bond, and Saturday afternoon monster flicks. When she was little, her father had taught her to play in the sandbox with the boys; now she competed in a rather larger arena.

“Theresa Alessis’s daughter found Theresa lying dead on the kitchen floor and called an ambulance,” Jake explained. “The paramedics tried CPR. Useless. They telecommunicated with the emergency-room doctor, who pronounced her dead, and brought the body here. Nobody’s touched her since. If this were the city, the diener would’ve taken her out of the body bag, removed her clothes, and prepared her for autopsy. Here, she’s still in the body bag. Since we don’t know what happened to her, we have to do the examination carefully.”