Michael Baden - Remains Silent

“Actually, I don’t know that he adored me, but I sure adored him.” Elizabeth paused and jabbed at her eyes with a handkerchief. “You know how your friends say, ‘Let me know if there’s anything I can do?’ Well, there’s something you can do- if you don’t mind.”

The request came as a relief. “Name it.”

“I can’t face the cottage now. But somebody’s got to go there. Dad’s housekeeper, Mrs. Alessis, said vandals broke in over the weekend.”

Rage made him light-headed. What scum would do that? “Anything missing?”

“Some of the liquor and pipe tobacco. Kids, probably.”

“Still, what an awful thing to do.” He was struck by his last image of Harrigan, glass in one hand, pipe in the other. Happy.

“The furniture’s going to charity. The housekeeper said she’d stay on long enough to take care of it. But his study”- she shuddered-“he’d want you to have everything in it. His books, the bones and skulls, all those autopsy photos, God knows what else. You could take what you want when you go up there and leave the rest for a university or museum. Will you do it?”

He had no desire to see the place ever again. “Sure,” he said. “I’d be glad to.”

Jake knew he couldn’t handle the job alone, and he needed Wally in the office to cover for him, so he conscripted his brother. Sam, Jake’s only sibling, was seven years younger, but psychologically he remained a hippie; he lived in Greenwich Village, went to gallery openings and performance pieces, drank latte in cafйs. He managed to hold on to a rent-stabilized apartment and a gaggle of artistic friends, though he was no artist himself. Unlike his friends, he didn’t drink, smoke, or take dope, and he exercised religiously. On Saturday nights, a woman with a body by Dow Chemical slept by his side; Jake had never met the same one twice.

Sam had long prematurely gray hair and a body kept slender by years of yoga and tai chi. For a while, he’d returned to his Jewish roots, wearing a yarmulke and refusing to watch TV on the sabbath, but that had only lasted a matter of weeks. According to Jake, he never met a guru he didn’t like. Whatever philosophy he had most recently latched on to was, he was convinced, the One True Way.

“What does he do?” people asked. This remained a mystery: Jake had no answer and Sam never told him. When Jake asked if they could drive upstate together, Sam was of course free. “It’ll be centering,” he said enthusiastically.

They got to the cottage around ten in the morning. There was a FOR SALE sign out front, the front door was open, and the curtains and much of the furniture were gone. “Mrs. Alessis,” Jake called, “it’s Jake Rosen. We spoke on the phone.”

She came out of the bedroom, a woman in her sixties wearing a kerchief on her head and forty unnecessary pounds around the middle. Sam smiled at her as if she were a hot fudge sundae and he was the spoon. He looked at every female like that, Jake knew, whether she was nineteen or ninety-two.

“It’s nice to meet you in person,” Jake said. “I’m Jake Rosen, and this is my brother, Sam.”

Sam tossed his ponytail. “Enchanted.”

She smiled. “Can I get you boys some coffee?”

“We should get right to work,” Jake said.

“Love some,” said Sam. He was wearing a Diesel T-shirt and cargo pants.

Sam and Mrs. Alessis disappeared into the kitchen, and Jake retreated to the study. Melancholy overtook him as soon as he entered. Pete loved this room. Nothing seemed changed since the night he had found Pete’s body; there were no telltale signs of the break-in. He swore Pete’s spirit was there.

Shaking off gloom, Jake decided to tackle the books first, separating them into piles for himself, a university, the medical examiner’s library, and the dump. His own pile grew rapidly. He had no idea where he was going to put everything.

“Sam,” he called after an hour’s work, “what are you doing out there?”

“Helping Theresa clean out the kitchen.”

Theresa? “You’re supposed to be helping me.”

Sam stuck his head in the study door. “Chivalry is good karma.”

Jake squinted at him. The dust from the books was starting to bother his eyes. “Do you ever listen to yourself talk?”

“All day long. What is it you want me to do?”

“You can start by getting me some boxes. As many as you can find.”

Sam shrugged. “I’ll go down to the liquor store. They always have boxes, right? We can treat Theresa to a glass of wine.”

“You don’t know where it is.”

He looked hurt. “I’ll figure it out.”

Jake went back to work, feeling increasingly depressed. It wasn’t just that it was hard to be surrounded by Harrigan’s things, but he had barely made a dent in the books- he had found texts stretching back to Pete’s high school science classes- much less the rest of the study. There had to be a dozen boxes filled with autopsy Kodachrome slides alone- and one, also containing jars and containers, had his name on it; he figured it dated back to the time the two had worked together- and there were the bones, the antique lab glass, the biological specimens in jars of formaldehyde. He’d just have to pile everything into boxes and go through it at home.

His own study in New York wasn’t as cluttered as Pete’s, but only because Jake had allowed it to spill over into the rest of the brownstone. Even his own bedroom was filled with books and files. If something happened to him, the job of clearing it would go to Sam. The thought terrified him.

Be careful you don’t wake up in the morning, alone at the age of sixty, and regret the choices you made.

Harrigan’s words. Did he have regrets when he died? Jake wondered. Probably.

There was a knock on the front door. “Mrs. Alessis? Can you get that?” No answer. He heard her vacuuming in one of the bedrooms.

Grumpily, he went to the door and opened it. Facing him was a woman in her fifties wearing black stretch pants and an embroidered floral sweater. She was painfully thin. Her timid smile revealed yellowed teeth; her hand, when she extended it, reminded him of a cat’s claw. Fatigue lay deep in her sunken eyes, and her brunette hair was dyed and disheveled.

“Dr. Harrigan?”

“I’m sorry,” Jake said. “I’m Dr. Rosen.”

“Is Dr. Harrigan in?”

“No.”

“I guess I should have called first. I’ll wait. It’s urgent.”

“Was Dr. Harrigan a friend of yours?”

The question seemed to startle her. “No. I never met him before in my life.”

A mystery. “I’m afraid he died recently.”

She blinked at him. Jake thought she was going to cry. “Oh, no!” she wailed. “I need to talk to him about my father!”

Mystery no longer. “I see. Your father passed away. Dr. Harrigan did the postmortem?”

“I don’t know what you call it,” the woman said sullenly, as though blaming Jake for Harrigan’s absence.

“Dr. Harrigan and I used to work together.”

Her eyes lit up. “Then maybe you know what happened to my father. All I know is Dr. Harrigan found him- found his body.”

“Found him?”

“Buried,” she said, “in an unmarked grave.”

“I’m Patrice Perez. My maiden name was Patrice Lyons. Daughter of James Albert Lyons.”

With a shock, Jake remembered: Skeleton Three. Patient number 631217. Pete had located her. “Yes,” he said, “I was with Dr. Harrigan when he found the remains.” He led her to the kitchen and poured her a cup of coffee. “You hadn’t seen your father, then, for several decades.”

“I didn’t know where he was. Dr. Harrigan’s call was a thunderbolt. He told me I could stop by anytime and talk… about my dad… here or at the hospital. I came here first.” She fiddled with the handle of her coffee mug. “I don’t like hospitals.”