Patricia Cornwell - Postmortem

"Yes. Because I love you very much, Lucy," I said, and I think it was the first time I'd ever told her that so clearly. "I didn't intend to hurt your feelings any more than you intended to hurt mine. I'm sorry."

"It's okay."

The spoon clacked the side of the glass as she stirred her milk shake and cheerfully exclaimed, "Besides, I knew you hid it. You can't hide things from me, Auntie Kay. I saw it in your closet. I looked while Bertha was making lunch. I found it on the shelf right next to your.38."

"How did you know it's a.38?"

I blurted without thinking.

" 'Cause Andy has a.38. He was before Ralph. Andy has a.38 on his belt, right here," pointing to the small of her back. "He owns a pawnshop and that's why he always wears a.38. He used to show it to me and how it works. He'd take all the bullets out and let me shoot it at the TV. Bang! Bang! It's really neat! Bang! Bang!"

Shooting her finger at the refrigerator. "I like him better than Ralph but Mom got tired of him, I guess."

This was what I was sending her home to tomorrow? I started lecturing her on handguns, reciting all the lines about how they aren't toys and can hurt people, when the telephone rang.

"Oh, yeah," Lucy remembered as I got out of the chair. "Grans called before you got home. Twice."

She was the last person I wanted to talk to right now. No matter how well I disguised my moods she always managed to sense them and wouldn't let them alone.

"You sound depressed," my mother said two sentences into the conversation.

"I'm just tired."

That shopworn line again.

I could see her as if she were before me. No doubt she was sitting up in bed, several pillows behind her back, the television softly playing. I have my father's coloring. My mother is dark, her black hair white now and softly framing her round, full face, her brown eyes large behind her thick glasses.

"Of course you're tired," she started in. "All you do is work. And those horrible cases in Richmond. There was a story about them in the Herald yesterday, Kay. I've never been so surprised in my life. I didn't even see it until this afternoon when Mrs. Martinez dropped by with it. I stopped getting the Sunday paper. All those inserts and coupons and ads. It's so fat I can't be bothered. Mrs. Martinez came by with it because your picture's in it."

I groaned.

"Can't say I would have recognized you. It's not very good, taken at night, but your name's under it, sure enough. And wearing no hat, Kay. Looked like it was raining or wet and nasty out and here you are not wearing a hat. All those hats I've crocheted for you and you can't even bother to wear one of your mother's hats so you don't catch pneumonia…"

"Mother…"

She went on.

"Mother!"

I couldn't stand it, not tonight. I could be Maggie Thatcher and my mother would persist in treating me like a five-year old who doesn't have sense enough to come out of the rain.

Next came the run of questions about my diet and whether I was getting enough sleep.

I abruptly derailed her. "How's Dorothy?"

She hesitated. "Well, that's why I'm calling."

I scooted over a chair and sat down as my mother's voice went up an octave and she proceeded to tell me Dorothy had flown to Nevada - to get married.

"Why Nevada?" I stupidly asked.

"You tell me! You tell me why your only sister meets with some book person she's only talked to over the phone in the past, and suddenly calls her mother from the airport to say she's on her' way to Nevada to get married. You tell me how my daughter could do something like that. You think she has macaroni for brains…"

"What sort of book person?"

I glanced at Lucy. She was watching me, her face stricken.

"I don't know. Some illustrator she called him, I guess he draws the pictures for her books, was in Miami a few days ago for some convention and got with Dorothy to discuss her current project or something. Don't ask me. His name's Jacob Blank. Jewish, I just know it. Though Dorothy certainly couldn't tell me. Why should she tell her mother she's marrying a Jew I've never met who's twice her age and draws kiddy pictures, for crummy sake?"

I didn't even ask.

To send Lucy home in the midst of yet another family crisis was unthinkable. Her absences from her mother had been prolonged before, whenever Dorothy had to dash out of town for an editorial meeting or a research trip or one of her numerous "book talks" that always seemed to detain her longer than anyone had supposed. Lucy would remain with her grandmother until the wandering writer eventually made it back home. Maybe we had learned to accept these lapses into blatant irresponsibility. Maybe even Lucy had. But eloping? Good God.

"She didn't say when she'd be back?"

I turned away from Lucy and lowered my voice.

"What?" my mother said loudly. "Tell me such a thing? Why should she tell her mother that? Oh! How could she do this again, Kay! He's twice her age! Armando was twice her age and look what happened to him! He drops dead by the pool before Lucy's even old enough to ride a bicycle…"

It took me a while to ease her out of hysteria. After I hung up, I was left with the fallout.

I couldn't think of a way to cushion the news. "Your mother's gone out of town for a little while, Lucy. She's gotten married to Mr. Blank, who illustrates her books for her…"

She was as still as a statue. I reached out my arms to pull her into an embrace.

"They're in Nevada at the moment-"

The chair jerked back and fell against the wall as she wrenched away from me and fled to her room.

How could my sister do this to Lucy? I was sure I would never forgive her, not this time. It was bad enough when she married Armando. She was barely eighteen. We warned her. We did everything to talk her out of it. He hardly spoke English, was old enough to be her father, and we were uneasily suspicious of his wealth, of his Mercedes, his gold Rolex and his posh waterfront apartment. Like a lot of people who appear mysteriously in Miami, he enjoyed a high rolling life-style that couldn't be explained logically.

Damn Dorothy. She knew about my work, knew how demanding and relentless it was. She knew I'd been hesitant about Lucy's coming at all right now because of these cases! But it was planned, and Dorothy cajoled and convinced with her charms.

"If it gets too inconvenient, Kay, you can just send her back and we'll reschedule," she had said sweetly. "Really. She's so desperately looking forward to it. It's all she talks about these days. She simply adores you. A genuine case of hero worship if I ever saw it."

Lucy was sitting stiffly on the edge of her bed, staring at the floor.

"I hope they get killed in a plane crash" was the only thing she said to me as I helped her into her pajamas.

"You don't mean that, Lucy."

I smoothed the daisy-spangled spread beneath her chin. "You can stay with me for a while. That will be nice, won't it?"

She squeezed her eyes shut and turned her face to the wall.

My tongue felt thick and slow. There were no words that would ease her pain, so I sat looking helplessly at her for a while. Hesitantly, I moved closer to her and began to rub her back. Gradually her misery seemed to fade, and eventually she began breathing the deep, regular breaths of sleep. I kissed the top of her head and softly shut her door.

Halfway back to the kitchen, I heard Bill pull in.

I got to the door before he had a chance to ring the bell.

"Lucy's asleep," I whispered.

"Oh," he playfully whispered back. "Too bad - so I wasn't worth waiting up for-"

He suddenly turned, following my startled eyes out to the street. Headlights cut around the bend and were instantly extinguished at the same time a car I could not make out came to an abrupt stop. Now it was accelerating in reverse, the engine loudly straining.