Faye Kellerman - Sacred and Profane

Marge placed her hand on his shoulder. “You may be a horny old slob, but you’ve got a heart, Mike.”

Hollander threw her a dirty look.

“Burnt hands at seven,” Decker said. “Aha! Enuresis at nine. That’s bed-wetting. The doctor prescribed To…Tofin…I can’t read this.”

“Tofranil,” Marge said.

“Yeah, that’s it. Okay, okay. Here we go. He upped the dosage at age eleven.” Decker looked up. “The kid was still pissing in his pants at age eleven. The first time the Fire Department was called over to the Podes’ house was a year before. I think little Earl was a pyrophile. Let’s hear it for the headshrinkers.”

He read on, frowned, then began flipping back to the beginning pages.

“What’s wrong,” Marge wanted to know.

“Hmmm.”

“What is it?”

“You know, the burnt hands at seven were the last recorded abuses,” Decker noted. “Dustin’s chart had physical abuse into his teens.”

“You’re talking about the old lady like she was rational or something,” Mike said.

Decker smiled. “You’re right.” He folded up the chart and tucked it under his arm. “I’ll double-check the records over lunch.”

Hennon stood in front of the viewing monitor, compared the sets of radiographs, and shook her head in amazement.

“I want you to promise me one thing, Pete.”

“What’s that, Annie?”

“If I’m ever found dead under mysterious circumstances, you’ll be the detective on the case.”

“A promise I hope I never have to keep,” he chuckled. “Which one belongs to the bones?”

“Earl…” She stared at the screen. “His teeth had shifted and changed a bit over time-a few new amalgams-but there’s enough similarity to some of the older restorations and a very distinctive old hairline fracture of the mid-mandible for me to say a definite match.”

She turned off the light switch and picked up a plaster replica of Earl’s skull. “Alas, poor Pode. I didn’t know him, Pete. Nor did I want to.”

The detective smiled.

“Got time for some coffee?” she asked.

“Thanks, but I’ve got to get these back to Bachman before he closes up shop.”

She nodded.

“How’s it going with your lady?” She made a face. “I don’t mean to be nosy-”

“It’s okay. I’d say it’s going…” He searched for the right word. “Well, let’s just say we have an understanding-a very nice understanding. She’s moving away to New York.”

“For good?” Hennon asked, surprised.

“For the time being.”

“What are you going to do in the meantime?”

“I don’t know. We’ve left it open. But some chains are permanent even if they are invisible.”

He shrugged, and she broke into a warm, wide smile. “You’ve got my number. A beer with a pal doesn’t seem like a bad way to spend an evening. Give us a call sometimes.”

“I will,” said Decker.

Hennon handed him the packet of X rays. “Good luck, Pete.”

They shook hands. Hers was firm and confident.

“Peter!” the boys cried simultaneously.

He hugged them both, smiled at Rina’s parents, and looked around.

“Where’s your eema?” he asked.

“Buying some books and junk at the gift shop,” Jake answered.

The airport wasn’t busy, but their flight was going to be crowded. The area around the departure gate was full. The adjacent plane was going to Madison, Wisconsin, and the passengers were mostly blonde and blue-eyed. The travelers to New York were a salad of ethnicities-a little black, a little Italian, a little Puerto Rican, some Irish or German, several Jews including some wearing knitted yarmulkes and dressed in ordinary street clothes and others with side curls, wearing long black coats and black hats and speaking Yiddish. Decker sat down and the boys took seats on either side.

“You know any of those men?” Decker asked pointing to the black-garbed Jews.

Jacob shook his head.

“They’re Chasidim,” Sammy said. “Fanatics!”

Decker laughed, but stopped quickly when he realized the boy was serious.

“I’ve got something for you guys,” he said, reaching into a paper bag.

“What?” Jake asked.

“A couple of Go-Bots. I didn’t have time to wrap them. One’s a bad guy, the other’s a good one. You boys decide who wants who.”

“We can switch off,” Jacob said, tearing the plastic bubble over the toy. He started pulling on the die-cast metal pieces, changing the figure from a bulldozer into a pocket-sized robot.

“Excited about going?” Decker asked.

“Yeah!” Sammy exclaimed, holding his unopened toy in his hand. “I love my bubbe and zaydah.”

Decker glanced at Rina’s parents. They pretended not to hear, but the wounded look shone in their eyes.

“You have lots of relatives in New York, don’t you?” Decker said quietly.

“Tons!” said Sammy. “My abba’s two sisters live there. Tante Esther has five kids; the oldest one just turned eighteen and got her driver’s license! Tante Shayna has four kids, and my cousin Reuven and I are only two days apart.”

“And Shimon and I are only two months apart,” Jake said.

“I look exactly like Reuven,” Sammy continued. “People used to always mistake us for twins ’cause I look like my abba and he looks like Tante Shayna, and my abba and she looked alike. And you know what else?”

“What?”

“I have great-grandparents there! They are so old-like seventy-three or four.”

“That’s great,” said Decker.

“And they’re not even senile or anything.”

Decker laughed. His own parents were close to that age. “You should have a good time.”

“Eema said we’re going to go to a big school,” Jake said. “And there’ll be lots of people, so we won’t have to worry about bad guys dumping bodies and Eema being alone.”

The younger boy quieted suddenly and leaned his head on Decker’s shoulder.

“I’ll miss you, Peter. I’ll miss the horses. I don’t think they have horses in Borough Park.”

The thought of horses roaming the wilds of Brooklyn made Decker smile.

“I’ll miss you, too,” said Sammy in a small voice.

“I’ll miss you guys like anything. More than you could know. But I’m also very happy ’cause I know you’ll be having lots of fun being with your abba’s family.”

Decker hugged them and gave them each a big kiss.

“Take care of yourselves.”

They hugged and kissed him back.

“Aren’t you gonna wait for Eema?” Jake asked.

“I’ll meet her at the newsstand.” Decker got up and nodded to Rina’s parents.

“It was nice that you came down,” Mr. Elias said.

“Couldn’t let the kids leave without saying goodbye.”

Her mother looked at him, then turned away.

“Good-bye, Mrs. Elias.”

“Good-bye,” she said formally.

Decker trousled the boys’ hair and headed toward the gift shop, saddened. He knew he’d miss the boys tremendously, but at least they seemed excited about the move. It was some consolation.

He found Rina paging through a paperback with a lurid cover. She was wearing a muted pink cable-knit sweater, a full, pleated gray wool skirt, and gray suede boots. Her hair was tucked into a knitted angora tam. Her face was soft and serene even under the harsh fluorescent lighting.

He walked over to her and took the book out of her hand. She jumped.

“Peter! What are you doing here? I told you not to come!”

“I wanted to see the boys off.” He looked at the cover of the paperback. “The Jackknife Slasher-The True Account of a Woman’s Plunge into Terror. Sure you want to read this?”

She began to cry uncontrollably. Decker put the book back, escorted her out of the airport gift shop and into an isolated corner. He hugged her fiercely.