by Joy Fielding
“Sixteen partners. Forty-eight associates.”
“Wow,” Cindy said without enthusiasm.
“Half a dozen students,” Irena continued.
Cindy wondered if Irena was still sleeping with Tom. She folded her arms across her chest, as if to keep her heart from falling out.
“Are you sure you wouldn’t like a cup of coffee?”
“Quite sure, thank you.”
“Well, I could certainly use one,” Tom said, sweeping into the room, resplendent in a gray suit and red print tie. “If you wouldn’t mind.”
“No problem.” Irena obediently slipped from the room, drawing the door closed behind her, then leaving it open a small crack.
“So, what brings you all the way down here?” Tom asked, examining his ex-wife as if she were an unpleasant document.
Cindy walked to the door, pushed it shut all the way, then turned back to her ex-husband. “You miserable son of a bitch,” she began.
“Okay, ground rules,” Tom stated, retreating behind his heavy oak desk. “No swearing. No name calling. No yelling.”
“No shit,” Cindy said.
Tom shook his head. “You look like crap.”
Tears stung Cindy’s eyes. Seven years after he’d left, and still, his words had the power to wound. “What the hell is wrong with you?”
“What’s wrong with me?” he countered.
“How could you do it?”
“Do what?”
“Don’t play games with me.”
“I take it you’re upset about the pictures in the Sun.”
“Pictures you hand-delivered yourself, you son of a bitch. Don’t try to deny it.”
“Why would I deny it?”
“Why would you do it?”
“Think about it a minute.”
“Think about what? What’s to think about?”
“Think about the best way to keep Julia front and center on everyone’s minds,” Tom said evenly, sitting down and leaning forward, elbows on his desk. “She’s been missing for eleven days.”
“I know exactly how long she’s been missing.”
“Then you also know her disappearance is old news. Another girl’s already taken her place. Not to mention, the city is filled with visiting celebrities and movie stars, eager for a good photo-op. I had to do something to make sure Julia wouldn’t be forgotten. Those pictures will more than accomplish that.”
“So the end still justifies the means,” Cindy said, aware there was a grain of truth to what Tom was saying, not wanting to acknowledge it.
“Cindy, be reasonable. How long do you think the police are going to keep Julia’s case a priority?”
“How seriously do you think they’re going to treat her disappearance after seeing these pictures? They’ll dismiss her as flighty and foolish, maybe even flighty and foolish enough to take off without telling anyone. Or worse—they’ll think she’s a little tramp who got what she deserved.”
“They’ll think they better get off their asses and solve this case before it gets international exposure,” Tom snapped. “I’m already fielding calls from Associated Press and People magazine.”
“Oh God.” Cindy felt her body crumpling like tissue paper, and collapsed into one of the two blue chairs in front of Tom’s desk.
Tom stood up, warily approached his former wife. “Cindy, you have to calm down. You can’t keep flying off half-cocked. It’s not good for you.”
“You mean it’s not good for you,” she said, refusing to look at him.
“Look at you.” He smoothed some hairs away from her face.
Cindy slapped his hand aside. “I know. I look like crap. You already told me.”
“I’m just worried about you.”
Cindy pushed herself out of the chair, and walked to the window, stared toward Lake Ontario. “If you’re so damn worried about me, why didn’t you tell me what you were planning to do with the pictures? Why didn’t you warn me?”
“Because I knew you wouldn’t approve. And I didn’t feel like going through …”
“This?”
“Exactly.”
“Coward.”
Tom shook his head. “Okay, look. I think we’ve said all we have to say.”
“I haven’t.”
“Of course,” he said with an audible sigh. “Okay, I’m ready. Give it your best shot.”
Cindy looked at her former husband, his feet spread shoulder-distance apart, his arms hanging limply at his sides, handsome face void of all expression. She’d once loved this man, she found herself thinking. Loved him from the time she was seventeen. Loved him so much she’d eloped with him at eighteen, had two children with him. Two children, she reminded herself, her lower lip quivering as once again, tears clouded her eyes. “How’s Heather?” she asked, realizing she’d barely thought about Heather since she left.
“She’s fine.”
“Did she tell you what happened?”
“Just that the house was getting a little crowded.” Tom paused. “You know I’m right about the pictures, don’t you?”
Cindy pushed her hair impatiently behind her ears. “I hate it when you’re right.”
“You hate everything about me,” he said softly, going to her side.
“Pretty much,” Cindy acknowledged, allowing him to gather her into his arms and pull her toward him. She cried softly against his chest, his silk tie serving as a blotter for her tears. How had she ever allowed herself to fall in love with someone she’d never really liked?
“Cindy …”
“What?”
“Everything will be all right,” he said, as the door to his office opened, and Irena stepped inside, a coffee mug shaking in her hands, the color drained from her face. “Something the matter?” Tom asked as Detectives Bartolli and Gill strode into the room. “What is it? Has something happened?”
Detective Bartolli stepped forward, his gaze shifting uneasily from Tom to Cindy. “We’ve found a body,” he said slowly. “We’d like you to come with us.”
TWENTY-THREE
THE regional office of the Chief Coroner for the Province of Ontario is located at 26 Grenville Street, at the corner of Yonge, next to the large Credit Union Bank, in the heart of downtown Toronto. It is a squat, two-story structure fashioned in brown stucco and glass that manages to be both bland and ominous. A giant, government-operated funeral parlor, Cindy found herself thinking as the police car pulled to a stop in the adjacent parking lot. Which is exactly what the damn thing is, she thought, suppressing the panic that was bubbling inside her body, like water boiling in a pot.
You have to stay calm, she admonished herself, scratching painfully at her arms, her skin on fire, as if she’d just slipped into a burning sweater. She wanted to jump from the car, strip off all her clothes, accost total strangers, laugh hysterically in their faces, scream at them until she was hoarse, but she couldn’t do any of those things because Tom would tell her she was behaving inappropriately. And he’d be right, of course. He was always right. She did behave inappropriately. She yelled when whispers would suffice, laughed when others might cry, lashed out when what she wanted most was the comfort of someone’s arms.
How was it that Tom managed to stay so focused, so in control? Cindy wondered, glancing over at her ex-husband, who was sitting beside her in the backseat of the police car, staring out the side window. How was it that his feathers never seemed to ruffle? That even faced with the loss of his daughter, he remained stoic and cool?
Was it possible such composure was all an act? That underneath the deceptively placid surface, a smoldering geyser was waiting to erupt? That behind the pat phrases, the condescending nods, the maddening reserve, he was every bit as panicky as she was?
“Do you remember how much Julia used to talk when she was a little girl?” Cindy asked Tom, who either didn’t hear her question or chose to ignore it. “You couldn’t shut her up,” Cindy continued, undeterred. “She’d start talking the minute she opened her eyes in
the morning, and she didn’t stop until she closed them again at night. And sometimes she’d even talk in her sleep. It was so cute. Remember, Tom?”
Tom’s shoulders stiffened. “Cindy.…”
“You’d keep waiting for her to take a breath, so you could get a word in, but it would never come. You’d think, surely she has to come up for air at some point, but she just breezed from one topic into the next. Isn’t that right, Tom?”
Tom’s head turned slowly toward her. “Cindy.…”
“And you didn’t dare interrupt her,” Cindy continued, chuckling at the memory. “If you did, she’d just start all over again from the beginning. And you’d have to listen to the whole thing again until she got to the part where you’d cut her off, and then she’d give you this little look. Remember that look, Tom? You used to say it could cut glass.”
“Cindy.…”
“What?” Cindy snapped, understanding now how Julia must have felt at being interrupted. Why had she always interrupted her? Why couldn’t she just have let her speak?
“I think we should go inside now,” Tom said quietly.
“Why? What’s the rush? Is she going anywhere?” Cindy caught the look of horror on her ex-husband’s face. “Oh, I’m sorry. Was that inappropriate?”
“Mrs. Carver, are you all right?” Detective Gill asked from the front seat.
“I’m fine,” Cindy told him. “I mean, why wouldn’t I be fine? We’re just here to identify my daughter’s body, right? Nothing to get upset about.”
“Mrs. Carver …” Detective Bartolli said.
“She always wanted to be an actress, you know,” Cindy told the two detectives, trying to prolong her time in the car, to postpone the inevitable. “She used to prance around the house in my high heels and nightgowns, like a fairy princess—you should have seen her—and she’d make up these cute little plays, and act out all the parts. She’d sing and dance. She was really very good. Wasn’t she, Tom?”
“Cindy.…”
“I remember one afternoon when Julia was maybe four years old. I was busy with Heather, and Julia was playing with her Barbies—she had at least fifty of them—and I suddenly realized it was awfully quiet in Julia’s room. So I put Heather in her crib and went to see what was going on. And there was Julia standing naked in the middle of her bedroom, in front of all her Barbies, whom she’d arranged in this kind of free-floating semicircle, and she was holding up this pencil, and she was saying, ‘And now, audience, we’re going to operate on my vagina.’ ” Cindy laughed out loud.
“Cindy, for God’s sake,” Tom said.
The smile slid from Cindy’s face, as if rubbed off by a harsh abrasive. “What? Not appropriate?”
“Mrs. Carver,” Detective Bartolli said gently. “Maybe Detective Gill should take you home. Mr. Carver can make the identification.”
“No!” Cindy said quickly. “I’m fine.”
“You’re not fine,” Tom said.
“There is no way you’re going to go into that room without me.”
“Cindy.…”
“She’s my daughter too.”
“Nobody disputes that.”
“We recognize how difficult this is for you,” Detective Gill said.
“Then you also recognize there’s no way you’re keeping me from her.”
“Mrs. Carver,” Detective Bartolli continued, “it’s very important that if you go inside, you stay calm.”
“Why?” Cindy asked, genuinely curious. “Are you afraid I’ll upset the other corpses?”
“Okay, that’s enough,” Tom said. “Clearly my wife is hysterical.”
“I’m not your wife,” Cindy reminded him curtly.
“But you are hysterical.”
“I’m fine,” Cindy assured the two detectives. “I’ll be okay. I promise.” I’ll be a good girl, the child in her protested, pulling back her shoulders, and taking a deep breath, determined to prove she could be as rational, as grown-up, as they were. I’ll be as cool as a cucumber, she decided, puzzling over the origin of that expression. Why a cucumber? Why not “cool as a carrot” Or “cool as a cabbage”? How about “cool as a corpse”?
Now that’s appropriate, she thought, almost laughing as she pushed open the car door and stepped onto the pavement, the unseasonably hot September air descending on her head like a collapsing parachute. Better to keep such musings to herself, she decided. Any more outbursts and they wouldn’t let her into the building, let alone into the viewing room. They wouldn’t let her see her daughter. Or what was left of her. “Oh God,” she said, trying not to picture Julia lying battered and lifeless on a cold, steel slab.
She felt her knees buckle, her legs give way, as if someone had kicked at them from behind, the reality she’d worked so hard to keep at bay pushing itself on top of her, holding her down, tearing through her body, like a rapist.
“Cindy,” Tom said, catching her by the elbow before she could collapse.
“I’m all right,” she told him, regaining her composure, putting one tenuous foot in front of the other.
“Mrs. Carver?”
“I’m fine.”
They walked slowly around to the front of the building, Detective Gill rushing ahead to open the heavy glass door, then stepping back to allow them entry. Cindy crossed into the main lobby, a cold but efficient use of space that was typical of most government buildings. Detective Bartolli checked in with the dispatcher, a middle-aged man whose lush black beard was in stark contrast to his shiny bald head, then quickly ushered the small group toward a room to the right of the lobby.
“What’s in here?” Cindy asked, pulling back as they reached the door.
“It’s just a room,” Detective Gill assured her as they stepped over the threshold.
“This is Mark Evert.” Detective Bartolli introduced the surprisingly robust-looking morgue attendant, who was waiting for them inside.
“Mr. Evert,” Tom said, shaking the man’s hand.
“What is this, some sort of bereavement room?” Cindy asked.
“We call it the comfort room,” Mark Evert replied.
“Really? What kind of comfort are you offering exactly?”
Mark Evert smiled sadly, as if he understood her pain. “If you’d like to sit down.…” He pointed toward a grouping of recently refurbished sofa and chairs. “And there’s a bathroom, if you’d like.…”
“To freshen up?” Cindy asked.
“Cindy.…” Tom’s voice warned from somewhere beside her.
She looked around the small room, its dim lights meant to be soothing, the smell of new carpeting permeating the cool air. “I think I would like to use the bathroom,” she said, disappearing into the tiny room, and locking the door after her. She turned on the tap, splashed several handfuls of cold water at her face. “Stay calm,” she whispered at her reflection in the mirror over the sink. The face in the glass stared back at her through hopelessly dazed eyes. Cindy noted the greenish-yellow of the woman’s cheeks, the dark circles under her eyes, the circles spreading out in ripples, like a still lake disturbed by a stone. You can do this, her reflection admonished silently. You can do this.
“No, I can’t,” Cindy said out loud. “I can’t.”
There was a gentle knock on the bathroom door. “Cindy?” Tom called. “Are you all right in there?”
I’m fine in here, she wanted to answer. It’s out there I have a problem. Instead she said, “I’ll just be half a minute.” She took a deep breath, then reached for the door, stopped, walked back to the toilet and flushed it, watching as the water swirled aimlessly around the bowl before being sucked down the drain. Gone. Just like that. “Okay,” she said, coming back into the so-called comfort room, noting how quiet it was. This is what they mean by the term “deathly quiet,” she thought, knowing it would be inappropriate to voice such an observation out loud. “What happens now?”
“We go inside.” Mark Evert indicated the door directly behind him. “We’ll show you the body of a young
woman. She’s been strangled.”
Cindy drew in a sharp intake of air, automatically reached for Tom’s hand, felt his fingers close around hers.
“I thought you had closed-circuit TVs for this,” Tom said, his body stiffening along with his voice.
The morgue attendant nodded. “We do, and generally speaking, we prefer to make identifications that way, especially in cases where’s there’s been significant trauma to the face.…”
“There’s been trauma to her face?” Cindy repeated, struggling to understand the man’s words.
“There are a few bruises, along with some swelling and discoloration.”
“Oh no.”
“You can’t just show us a photograph?” Tom pressed.
“Unfortunately, in cases of homicide, this isn’t an option. We require a direct identification.”
“But on TV, people usually stand behind a window or something.”
“Procedures vary in every jurisdiction,” Mark Evert explained patiently. “If you need a few more minutes, Mr. Carver.…”
“Are you all right?” Cindy asked her ex-husband, surprised to find their roles suddenly reversed.
“Just tell us what to expect,” Tom said tersely.
“The young woman you’re going to see was strangled some time in the last forty-eight hours. We haven’t done an autopsy yet to determine the exact time of death, but decomposition has started.…”
“Decomposition?” The terrible word assaulted Cindy’s ears like an icepick to the brain.
“We’ll try to spare you as much as we can. I’m afraid we aren’t allowed to clean up the body in any way.”
“Is there a lot of blood?” Tom asked.
“No.”
A prolonged sigh leaked from Cindy’s lungs.
“You’ll be asked to make a formal identification in the presence of these detectives, myself, and the pathologist.”
“What if we’re not sure?” Tom asked.
Cindy moaned, the prospect of not being able to recognize her own child almost too much to bear.
“Then we’ll ask you to supply us with Julia’s dental records, or her hairbrush.…”
