Evelyn was back. “I know she’s here.” She knocked on the kitchen door this time. “I don’t know why she isn’t answering.”
Amanda looked at her watch, praying she could think of a good excuse to leave. Standing next to Evelyn Mitchell only heightened her sense of mortification. She felt like an old maid. The clothes Amanda was wearing—a black skirt, short-sleeved white cotton shirt, heels and pantyhose—exemplified the difference. Evelyn looked like a carefree flower child. Kenny must have taken one look at Amanda and pegged her for exactly what she was: a square.
“Hello?” Evelyn knocked on the door again.
From inside the house, a voice called, “Hold your horses, for God’s sakes.”
Evelyn grinned at Amanda. “Don’t let her get to you. She can be nasty.”
The door swung open. An older woman dressed in a brown housecoat and slippers glared at them. Her face was a mess: broken lip, blackened eye. “Why’d you knock on the front door, then run around to the side?”
Evelyn ignored her question. “Roz Levy, this is my friend Amanda Wagner. Amanda, this is Roz.”
Roz narrowed her eyes at Amanda. “Duke Wagner’s girl, right?”
Normally, people said this with respect. There was something close to hate in the woman’s voice.
Evelyn said, “She’s a good gal, Roz. Give her a break.”
Roz was unmoved. She asked Amanda, “You know they call you Wag, right? Always waggin’ your tail, tryin’ to please.”
Amanda felt sucker-punched. Her stomach dropped.
“Oh, hush up, Roz.” Evelyn grabbed Amanda’s arm and pulled her inside the house. “I want Amanda to see the photos you showed me.”
“Doubt she can handle it.”
“Well, I think you’ll be surprised. Our gal can handle more than you think.” She squeezed Amanda’s arm as she dragged her through the kitchen.
The house was nothing like Evelyn’s. There was no coolness from a running air conditioner. As a matter of fact, it felt as if all the air had been pulled out. Heavy brown curtains lined all the windows, blocking the sun. The living room was sunken, three steps down, and decorated in more dark browns. Evelyn pulled Amanda past a large couch that stank of body odor. Beer cans were on the floor beside a reclining chair. Cigarette butts spilled from the ashtray. Three steps back up. Evelyn forced Amanda to walk down the hallway. She only let go when they were in Roz Levy’s spare bedroom.
As with the rest of the house, the room was dark and airless. The closet door hung open. A red lightbulb hung from a cord over various trays and chemicals. A rumpled daybed held cameras of all shapes and sizes. The desk was overflowing with paperwork. There were tennis rackets and roller skates in small piles around the room.
“She does yard sales,” Evelyn explained. “The first time Bill met her, he said she reminded him of the guy who works for Baroness Bomburst in Chitty Chitty Bang Bang.” She saw Amanda’s expression and said, “Sweetie. Don’t be upset. She says awful things sometimes. That’s just her way.”
Amanda crossed her arms, feeling exposed. Wag. She’d never heard the nickname before. She knew that people around the station considered her a goody-two-shoes. Amanda had come to terms with the reputation. There were worse things they could call her. She wasn’t trim. She wasn’t bad at her job. She was helpful. Courteous.
They called her Wag because she was always trying to please people.
Amanda’s throat worked as she tried to swallow back tears. She did try to please people. Please her father by doing everything he told her to. Please Butch by typing his reports. Please Rick Landry by taking Evelyn away from Techwood. Why had Amanda done that? Why hadn’t she told Landry to stop? He had practically assaulted Evelyn with her own flashlight. She was bruised on her chest and God only knew where else. And Amanda’s response had been to grab her and run away like a puppy with its tail between its legs.
Wagging her tail.
Roz Levy finally deigned to join them. Amanda saw the reason for her delay when she entered the room. She’d stopped to get a Tab.
“So.” Roz pulled the ring from the can. She dropped it into a mason jar on the desk. “You gals playing cops and robbers today?”
“I told you we’re working a case.” Evelyn’s voice was surprisingly terse.
“Look at this one,” Roz told Amanda. “Thinks they’re gonna let her work homicide one day.”
Amanda said, “Maybe they will.”
“Ha.” She didn’t really laugh. “Women’s lib, right? You can do anything you want so long as you do exactly as you’re told.”
Evelyn snapped, “We’re out there on the streets every day just the same as they are.”
“You gals just watch. Think you’re hot shit because they let you go to the academy, gave you a badge and a gun. Mark my word. They only let you climb high enough so it breaks your back when you fall.” She took a sip of her Tab. Her next words were addressed to Amanda. “You think your old man’s gonna win his case?”
Amanda said, “If you’re curious, you should ask him yourself.”
“I already got one black eye, thank you very much.” She put the Tab to her forehead. The can was cold. Sweat dripped down the sides. She glared at Amanda. “What’s your problem?”
“Nothing. I’m just starting to understand why your husband beats you.”
Evelyn gasped.
Roz glared at her. “That so?”
Amanda bit her tongue to stop the apology that wanted to come. She forced herself to stare the woman straight in the eye.
Roz gave a sharp laugh. “Ev’s right. You’re tougher than you look.” She drank from the can, wincing as the liquid went down. There were yellowed bruises around her neck. “Sorry about before. I’ve been having hot flashes all morning. Turns my bitch on.”
Amanda looked at Evelyn, who shrugged.
“The change. You’ll find out for yourselves soon enough.” Roz went inside the closet and started going through a stack of photos. “Shit. I left them in the kitchen.”
Amanda waited until she left the room. “Tell me what she’s talking about?”
“I think it’s something old Jewish women get.”
“Not that. Have you heard other people calling me that name? Wag?”
Evelyn had the grace not to look away. It was Amanda who couldn’t hold her gaze. She stared into the closet, the stacks of photographs showing gory scenes in sharp Kodachrome.
“Photos,” Amanda mumbled. Now it made sense. That’s why Evelyn had brought her here. “Roz was the crime scene photographer at Techwood yesterday.”
“The pictures are bad. Really bad. Jane—I mean Lucy—jumped from the top floor.”
“The roof,” Amanda provided. She had all the details from Butch’s report. “There’s an access ladder at the end of the hall. It goes up to a trapdoor in the roof. Lucy managed to bust off the padlock. Butch thinks she used a hammer. They found one on the floor at the bottom of the ladder. Lucy went to the roof and jumped.”
“Where would she get a hammer?”
“There weren’t any tools lying around the apartment,” Amanda remembered. “Maybe the repairmen used it for the broken skylight?”
“I suppose you’d need a hammer for that.” Evelyn sounded dubious. “Can a hammer bust a padlock?”
“Hammer?” Roz Levy was back. She held a manila envelope in her hand. “Those jackasses think she banged open the roof access with a hammer? Why not just jump out the window? She’s on the top floor. They think she’s so stoned she doesn’t take the easy way out?” She started to open the envelope, but stopped. Her eyes drilled into Amanda. “If you throw up on my carpet, you’re going to have to clean every inch. I don’t care if you have to use a toothpick.”
Amanda nodded, even as she felt a wave of nausea building. Her stomach was already sour. She dreaded to think what the beer would taste like coming back up.
“Are you sure?” Roz asked. “Because I’m not cleaning up after you. It’s bad enough I have to
clean up after that jackass I married.”
Amanda nodded again, and the older woman pulled out the photographs. They were image side down.
Roz said, “A fall that high, you land on your feet, your intestines squirt out your ass like icing from a pastry bag.”
Amanda pressed her lips together.
“Your ears bleed. Your face rips off your skull like a mask. Your nose and mouth and eyes—”
“Oh, for goodness sakes.” Evelyn snatched the photos from Roz’s hand. She showed them to Amanda one by one. “Breathe through your mouth,” she coached. “Nice and easy. In and out.”
Amanda did just that, taking in gulps of stale air. She expected to faint. Honestly, she expected to end the afternoon on her hands and knees with a toothpick cleaning Roz Levy’s shag carpet. But neither of those things happened. The photos were unreal. What had happened to Lucy Bennett was too horrific for Amanda’s brain to accept that she was still looking at an actual human being.
Amanda took the photos from Evelyn. They were in vivid color, the flash so bright that every single detail was on display. The girl was fully clothed. The material of her red-checkered cotton shirt was stiff, glued to her skin. Her skirt was hanging down, the waistband broken. Amanda assumed this was subsequent to the fall, as was the girl’s missing left shoe.
She studied Lucy Bennett’s face. Roz had been right about a lot of things, but none more so than what jumping from a five-story building did to the skin on your skull. Lucy’s flesh looked to be dripping from the bone. Her eyes bulged from their sockets. Blood poured from every opening.
It looked fake, like something out of a horror movie.
Evelyn asked, “You okay?”
Amanda said, “Now I see why you thought this was Jane Delray.” Except for the bleached blonde hair, the Halloween mask of her face could’ve belonged to any girl walking the street. The track marks up her arms were the same. The open wounds on her feet. The red pricks along her inner thigh.
Evelyn said, “I wonder if she has family.”
Roz stated the obvious. “Everyone has family. Whether they admit it or not is an entirely different question.”
Amanda ran through the pictures again. There were only five of them. Three were of the girl’s face—left, right, center. One showed a close-up of her mangled body, probably taken from a ladder. The last was a more widely framed shot with the Coca-Cola building on the horizon. Lucy’s hand was turned out, her wrists exposed.
Amanda asked Roz, “Do you have any more photos?”
The older woman smiled. One of her upper teeth was missing. “Look at the bloodlust. Who would’ve guessed it?”
Amanda made her request more specific. “Do you have any close-ups of her wrists?”
“No. Why?”
“Does that look like a scar to you? There, along her wrist?” She showed Evelyn the photo.
Evelyn squinted, then shook her head. “I can’t tell. What are you getting at?”
“Jane had scars on her wrist.”
“I remember.” Evelyn studied the photo more carefully. “If this is Lucy Bennett, why would she have scars on her wrists like Jane Delray?”
“Whoring’s not exactly something to live for.” Still, Roz opened one of her desk drawers and found a magnifying glass. Each woman took turns holding the glass to the picture.
Finally, Evelyn said, “I still can’t tell. It looks like a scar, but maybe it’s the light?”
“That’s my fault.” Roz sounded uncharacteristically apologetic. “My flash was acting up and Landry was pushing me to hurry so he could clock in to his other job.”
Amanda supplied, “Butch didn’t say anything in his notes about scars.”
“That idiot wouldn’t.” Contrary to her words, Roz Levy seemed delighted. “All right, Wag. Time to see what you’re really made of.”
Another wave of dread washed over Amanda. She felt as if she was on a roller coaster.
Evelyn said, “Roz, there’s no need to—”
“Shut your pie hole, blondie.” Roz cackled like a witch. “Pete’s cutting up your dead whore this afternoon. You hotshot lady dicks want, I can make a call and get you a ringside seat to the autopsy.”
Amanda knew some of the patrolmen used the morgue as their crack, or on-duty hiding place, especially during the summer. It was easier to sleep in an air-conditioned building, so long as you didn’t mind laying up next to a dead body.
She’d been to the Decatur Street building many times to pick up reports and drop off evidence, but she’d never before been into the back. Just the thought of what went on there gave Amanda the heebie-jeebies. Still, she kept her mouth closed as Evelyn led her deep inside the building, even though every step felt as if it was ratcheting down a clamp around her rib cage.
The two beers Amanda drank on the drive over were not helping matters. Instead of relaxed, she felt both lightheaded and extremely focused. It was a miracle she hadn’t driven her Plymouth up a telephone pole.
“Do you know Deena?” Evelyn asked, pushing open a swinging door. They were in a small lab. Two tables were shoved into opposite corners in the back of the room. There was a microscope on each. Various medical tools were laid out beside them. A large window took up the back wall. The hospital-green curtains were pulled back to show what must be the autopsy room. Yellow tile ran along the floor and up to the ceiling. There were two metal sinks. Two scales that seemed more appropriate for a grocer’s produce section.
And a body. A green drape covered the figure. A large light like a dentist used was overhead. One hand dropped down beside the table. The fingernails were bright red. The hand was turned inward. The wrist did not show.
Evelyn said, “I hate autopsies.”
“How many have you seen?”
“I don’t actually look at them,” she confessed. “You know how you can blur your eyes on purpose?”
Amanda nodded.
“That’s what I do. I just blur my eyes and say ‘mm’ and ‘yes’ when they ask questions or point out something interesting, and then I go to the bathroom afterward and throw up.”
That seemed like as good a plan as any. They heard footsteps in the hallway behind them.
Evelyn said, “Deena’s got a bad scar on her neck. Try not to stare.”
“A what?” Evelyn’s words got jumbled up in Amanda’s brain, so they didn’t make sense until a striking black woman came through the door. She was wearing a white lab coat over blue jeans and a flowing orange blouse. Her hair was in full Afro. Blue eye shadow adorned her eyelids. The skin around her neck was marred as if by a noose.
“Hey, Miss Lady,” Deena said, setting down a tray on one of the tables. There were slides laid out, splatters of white and red sandwiched between the glass. “What are you doing here?”
Evelyn said, “Roz called in a favor for me.”
“Why you still talkin’ to that nasty old Jew?” She smiled warmly at Amanda. “Who’s your pretty friend?”
Evelyn looped her arm through Amanda’s. “This is Amanda Wagner. She’s my partner now.”
The smile dropped. “Any relation to Duke?”
For the first time in her life, Amanda felt the compulsion to lie about her father. Maybe if they’d been alone, she would have, but she confessed, “Yes. I’m his daughter.”
“Hm.” She shot Evelyn a look and turned back around to her slides.
“She’s all right,” Evelyn said. “Come on, Dee. Do you think I’d bring someone here who’d—”
The woman spun back around. Her lip trembled with rage. “You know how I got this?” She pointed to the ugly scar on her neck. “Working at the cleaners down on Ponce, pressing Klan robes nice and stiff for people like your daddy.”
Evelyn tried, “That’s hardly her fault. You can’t blame her for her father’s—”
Deena held up a hand to stop her. “One day, my mama got her arm caught in one’a the machines. Ain’t no way to turn ’em off. Mr. Guntherson’s too cheap to pay for an el
ectrician. I grab the cord and it swings back on my neck. Live wires. Boom, there’s an explosion—one’a them transformers gives out. Shut down the whole block for two days. Saved my life, but not my mama’s.”
Amanda didn’t know what to say. She’d been to that same dry cleaners many times, had never given a thought to the black women working in the back. “I’m sorry.”
Evelyn said, “She can’t control what her father does.”
Deena leaned back against the table. She crossed her arms. “You remember what I told you about my scar, Ev? I said I’d cover it up the day it don’t matter anymore.” She glared at Amanda. “It still matters.”
Evelyn stroked Amanda’s back. “This is my friend, Deena. We’re working a case together, trying to find some missing women.” Her words were rushed. “Kitty Treadwell. Someone named Mary. They might be connected to Lucy Bennett.”
“You check the dead nigger file?” She was talking to Amanda. “That’s what y’all call it, right? The DNF? Got one at every station house. Ain’t that right, Wag?”
Amanda was too embarrassed to look at her. She told Deena, “I think you probably know that I lost my mother, too.” What had happened to Miriam Wagner was common knowledge around the force. With enough whiskey in him, Duke relayed the story with a heady machismo. Amanda said, “You’re not the only one here with scars.”
Deena tapped her fingers on the table. The staccato started strong, then died down to nothing. “Look at me.”
Amanda forced herself to look up. It had been so easy with Roz, but with the old Jew, there had been a sense of righteousness. Now, there was only guilt.
Deena studied her for a bit longer. The anger that had burned so hotly in her eyes started to fade. Finally, she nodded. “All right,” she said. “All right.”
Evelyn slowly exhaled. She had a tight smile on her face. As usual, she tried to smooth things over. “Dee, did I tell you what Zeke did the other day?”
Deena turned back to the trays. “No, what’d he do?”
Amanda didn’t listen to the story. She stared back into the morgue. Her mind was still clouded from the beer, or maybe just the traumas of the day. She felt as if something was shifting inside of her. The last few days had called into question the previous twenty-five years of her life. Amanda wasn’t sure whether or not this was a good thing. Truthfully, she wasn’t sure about anything anymore.
The Will Trent Series 7-Book Bundle Page 222
