Beneath the Cracks

by LS Sygnet

  Unless he hated me for abandoning him even half as much as I hated myself for that selfish failing.

  While I drifted off to dilemmas best left for private reflection, Briscoe and Conall continued to chat. I was aware that lips moved, body language whispered underlying messages, and eventually, saw the concern on Briscoe's face.

  "You ain't with us anymore. What's wrong with you?"

  "Hmm?"

  "Earth to Helen. Where'd you go just now?"

  "I'm right here."

  "I just told you Winslow wants us over at the morgue. Are you comin' or not?"

  So I missed a bit more of what was really happening than I realized. The plates were cleared away from the table. Conall looked half panic stricken. "I'm fine. It was only a little daydream. Don't you ever have that happen to you, Detective Conall?"

  Briscoe snorted. "Puppy here's got too much reality bashing him about the head to indulge in fantasy. Ain't that right?"

  Crevan flushed. "I hope wherever you went, the journey was pleasant."

  "When you say shit like that, I wonder how it is you can't hang onto that wife of yours," Briscoe shook his head and rubbed his goatee. "I never met a woman in my life that didn't go ape shit over that poetic crap you're always spouting."

  "You're getting divorced? I didn't even know you were married, Crevan." Not that I'd asked. Maybe Maya was right about stretching out an olive branch to people around me.

  "You don't know about it 'cause they been separated damn near a year," Briscoe butted into the conversation with his deeply rooted and somewhat dated opinions. "She just sent the papers over to Downey on Friday. How's that for a heartless bitch thing to do? Can't even give the man a little respect at the end. No, old Belle had to make sure the whole division was around for the event."

  "I'm so sorry, Crevan. I know that even when the end is inevitable, it's still a difficult thing to experience."

  "I been divorced three times," Briscoe said.

  I watched the silent play of emotion on Crevan's face – first embarrassment, then inexplicable discomfort, followed by amusement at his partner's running commentary on his personal life.

  Briscoe wasn't finished. "You didn't find me out cryin' in my beer or joinin' the local single's group at the Catholic church. Nosiree bob. I put my nose to the grindstone and solved me some murder cases."

  In Briscoe's brusque and crusty way, I realized he offered Crevan very welcome emotional support and guidance – from someone who'd been there three times. I locked one arm with Crevan's. "You'd think with the divorce rates in law enforcement we'd know better than to get married in the first place, wouldn't you?"

  "You're divorced too, I mean more recently than Tony?"

  "Two years and change."

  "Maybe you could give me some pointers about surviving the division of marital assets. It looks like you made out all right here," Crevan said.

  Why hadn't anybody dug into my history? Why hadn't Danny Datello screamed it from the top of Scabbard Mountain? Put an ad in the local papers? Darkwater Bay's newest heroine is a cold blooded bitch.

  Pointers for Crevan from me? Now that was so sad it was almost comical. What could I say? Make sure you're still the beneficiary of her life insurance before she meets a tragic end? You're a cop that should know how to cover your tracks well enough to get away with murder?

  Instead, "I'm afraid it's a little too raw for me, Crevan. That aside, my lawyer assured me that I had the most amicable divorce in the history of man."

  "You must be Irish," Briscoe chuckled.

  "Eriksson is Swedish, Tony," Crevan said softly.

  "Ain't that the ex's name?"

  I shook my head and grinned at the old goat before Crevan's certainty of my surname's origin sunk in. "Welcome to the twenty-first century, Briscoe. Not all women take their husband's names anymore. Now if we're done talking divorce and relationship woes, do you think we could go to the morgue now?"

  "God almighty yes," Briscoe muttered. "Winslow sounded like she's still got a bee up her butt. Wouldn't wanna make the little woman wait and piss her off more."

  Chapter 6

  Security at the morgue weren't the helpful folks I remembered when I used Maya's office a few short months ago. The personnel hadn't changed. The mood in the building weighed heavily, a wet blanket over coals that still hissed and smoldered.

  "Oh boy," Tony said. He pushed the heavy fire doors open that would reveal the long corridor to the autopsy bays. We could hear the shouting the second the crack between the heavy metal barriers separated. "Guess that explains why Howdy Doody and his partner out there look like they could spit glass."

  The voice was Maya's, louder than I imagined she could muster from her petite stature. While the words were too muffled to distinguish, the tone was unmistakable. She was enraged.

  "Should we wait, or knock?" Crevan asked.

  "For God's sake. This is Maya. Even on her worst day, she's still my friend." I reached for the door, but Briscoe gripped my wrist.

  "You might think that estrogen gives you some sorta armor against that woman, Eriksson, but I know better. You ain't seen her this way. I guarantee."

  The door to the bay flew open and almost smacked me in the shoulder. Red-faced, Billy Withers flew out the door punctuating muttered words with unmistakable statements like resignation and bullshit and abusive all the way to the locker room.

  "See what I'm sayin'? She ain't been here all that long, but I can tell you this much. Winslow looks after Billy like he's some sorta stray cat that wandered into her house. No way does she rip him like that."

  I pushed the door open and stepped inside. It hadn't occurred to me that the yelling hadn't stopped until I saw her standing by the autopsy table. Maya keeps a wide step stool handy because her stature makes it difficult to clearly visualize bodies on a table that is hip high for me. She was still standing on her stool, precariously close to the edge while one finger stabbed into Ken Forsythe's chest. Still, it was the angry words doing the most damage, battering him past the point of no return.

  "Maya!"

  Her finger froze mid-stab. "What are you doing here?" she snarled.

  Forsythe, to his credit, didn't back away when I gave him the golden opportunity. Instead, he took advantage of the valley in her tirade. "When you can discuss this like a rational professional, give me a call. Until then, I've had enough. And if you can't reach that point on your own, perhaps I'll have to call the county supervisor about this, Dr. Winslow."

  He nodded and muttered, "Morning, Eriksson," on his way out the door.

  My cowardly compatriots hadn't followed me into the room. It was a good thing. Maya crumpled before my eyes. She sank to sit on the stool her feet vacated and sobbed into her hands.

  "Maya, what on earth is going on here?"

  Her shoulders shook with the effort she made not to wail loudly. "Are you alone?"

  "Briscoe and Conall are out in the hall." I walked briskly across the room and squatted in front of her. "Honey, what's wrong?"

  Maya peeked over the tips of her fingers.

  "Did someone screw up the evidence?"

  "No."

  "Are you frustrated because this case hasn't progressed at all?"

  "No. Yes. But…"

  "That's not what's wrong right now?"

  "Don't," she rasped.

  "Don't what?"

  "Psychoanalyze me."

  Bravely, I rubbed her arm with one hand. "I'm not here to analyze anything. I thought we were friends, Maya. Something obviously happened between the bubbly woman I know and love leaving my house last night to make you this upset this morning. If you don't want to talk about it, that's okay, but I want you to know that I'm here if you need a friend."

  More tears dripped silently from behind her hands.

  "Maya, c'mon. Talk to me. Is it this case?"

  She sniffled and wiped her tears. Maya did what all women do when faced with the unpleasantries of life. She stiffened her spine and forced
the sickest smile I'd ever seen. "Of course I care about the case, but it has nothing to do with my…situation today."

  "Do you want to go find Billy and Forsythe and straighten this out before we talk about the case?"

  "They can get over it. Right now, I need a friend."

  "Can we do this conversation standing before I get stuck down here?"

  Maya grinned through the tears. "This has been the shittiest day of my life, but I'm glad you're here, even if it didn't sound that way when you walked in here."

  I rose and reached for her hand. It should be said that I've never been what people would call a hugger. Maybe it's the psychology thing, keeping people at a distance. Or it probably has more to do with all of Dad's subtle urging to keep friends and enemies as far away as possible. But the pain in Maya's eyes touched me in a way I'm not sure I felt before. Whatever caused this shitty day made her behave so completely out of character for the woman I'd come to know, it couldn't be anything blown out of proportion. So I hugged her.

  "What happened?"

  She sniffled, trembled a little bit more, probably dumped some tears onto my shirt. "Remember that doctor's appointment I had the other day?"

  Vaguely. "Yeah."

  "My doctor's office called yesterday afternoon while we were getting ready for your party."

  "Why didn't you say something last night?" I braced for bad news. Doctors don't call on Saturday to tell you your good and bad lipid levels are in the target range.

  "Because I didn't hear the message until I got here this morning with our latest victim."

  I pulled back far enough to peer down at her. "Maya, what did he say?"

  "There was an…an anomaly on the mammogram."

  My heart sank, which I would not show. "All right. What's he going to do? A biopsy? Do you want me to go with you for the procedure?"

  More tears fell. "I'm checking in to Metro State tomorrow morning at six."

  "For a biopsy?"

  She nodded. "They're going to send a frozen section for examination and decide if I need a…"

  "A mastectomy?" I couldn't keep the horror out of my voice. I don't care what men say about their prostates. Women fear breast cancer. We fear being marred by a grisly surgery. We fear that we'll never see our bodies the same way again. Women don't have a slick little blood test that measures whether or not we have breast cancer. Instead, we get the aforementioned anatomical parts mashed in a machine and perhaps bad news and offers of reconstructive surgery if there's any hope at all. Don't get me wrong. It's better than the alternative, but men don't look at women without breasts the same way. And God forbid you have the reconstruction and some asshole decides that it was elective.

  "I'm a medical doctor," Maya wept. "I shouldn't be this upset."

  "You're upset because you know too much."

  "Helen, what am I gonna do?"

  "You're coming home with me. We're getting rip roaring drunk, and in the morning, I'm taking you to the hospital and staying with you for the duration."

  "I love you for offering, but…"

  "You need some alone time?"

  She nodded. "But I'd appreciate it so much if you could be with me tomorrow."

  "I wouldn't have accepted rejection. We'll get through this, Maya. It's probably nothing more than a precaution. The doctor is being thorough and making sure that nothing gets missed. He probably realizes the cry of outrage that would rise up if anything happened to you."

  Maya stepped away and turned her back toward me. "I'm too young for this."

  "Life isn't fair, honey. It's particularly unfair to women."

  "I yelled at Billy. He said he's gonna quit."

  "I'll talk to him."

  "Please don't tell anyone what's happening. I…I need this job. Especially now, Helen. If it's cancer and I get fired because of chemo and surgery and radiation or whatever, I'm totally screwed."

  "They can't fire you for that."

  "They can if Forsythe files the complaint he suggested is in order."

  "I'll talk to Forsythe. He's a reasonable man, Maya. I'm sure, like Billy, he knows deep down that what happened here this morning is not normal behavior from you. Good God, you're the most irreverent, wise-cracking medical examiner I've ever known."

  "What if I made one too many jokes? What if God is punishing me for –"

  "Magical thinking," I cut off the guilty confession before the idea could fester in her brain. "Even if a person devoutly believes in God, how could she ever accept punishment for maintaining sanity while doing one of the most difficult jobs there is? You help people, Maya. You provide answers that lead to justice for people who would otherwise spend the rest of their lives wondering – what if."

  "Are you sure?"

  "Positive." Now was not the time for a dialog on the absurdity of religion. If Maya needed faith to get her through what could happen, so be it. "When something happens to us beyond our control, the human response is typically two-fold. Either we try to get control again, or we try to find a reason, something to blame for the bad thing that sent the world spinning off its axis. In reality, the universe is filled with randomness. Statistically speaking, it hits all of us eventually."

  "For six years I've demanded an annual mammogram. Thank God for that."

  She needed to laugh. "What, you started getting mammograms when you were twenty-five?"

  Maya giggled and turned around. Tears spiked her eyelashes. Her pain still overwhelmed me. "What will I tell people? How am I supposed to look Billy in the eye and say, it's not you. I look at this body on my table and I don't see him right now. All I can see is me lying there, ravaged by cancer, bald, with no breasts."

  "Maya…" I opened my arms again. This time, she came to me and held on for dear life. She didn't notice the whoosh of air at the door, but I did. We'd have to do damage control with Briscoe and Conall too, apparently. I'd do it for her. It was the least I could offer.

  "You're gonna get through this. No matter what happens tomorrow, you will survive. We've got endless summers of margaritas on my patio ahead of us, remember? Not so much fog in my neighborhood at night."

  "Briscoe and Conall will be here soon. I should clean up and pull myself together before they get here. God forbid Briscoe sees me like this. The man is an insufferable snoop. I suppose that's what makes him such a good detective."

  "They're here," I said. "In the hall like the lily-livered boys they are. I'll talk to them while you collect your thoughts on the case. Ten minutes?"

  "Thank you, Helen. You're a good friend."

  It was a new compliment, not to mention new development in my life. I nodded. "Be back in a few."

  Briscoe and Conall were in the hall whispering conspiratorially. The veins in Tony's neck were leaping out as he hissed his argument. All I heard was, "…tellin' you, Johnny would know if she played…"

  "Gentlemen?"

  Guilty faces snapped to attention.

  "Maya is having a bit of a personal crisis. We're going to give her a little space, and then we'll get her report on the victim found in Downey last night. I think you both should find a coffee machine and take a short break."

  "Where are you goin'?"

  "Tony, it's none of your business," my voice was stern, and brooked no argument. "I need to talk to someone while we respect Maya's need for privacy right now, and when I come back and we talk to her, you are limiting questions to the case you're investigating and nothing more. I'm aware that men are worse gossips than women, so I believe you'll understand when I tell you this. You really don't want to throw down with me."

  I was certain that Orion had shared our little episode of hand to hand combat in the parking garage at the Montcliff Hotel last spring. No way were Briscoe and Conall unaware of my training in jujitsu. My suspicions were confirmed when Briscoe merely saluted, kept his mouth shut and headed off toward the small room filled with vending machines.

  Crevan was on his heels a second later.

  Finding Billy Withers
wasn't difficult. All I had to do was listen for the occasional ping of his tennis shoe against the metal trash can in one of the rooms along the corridor. He was in the hematology lab, running blood samples and cursing under his breath.

  "Billy?"

  "Oh, hey Eriksson. This isn't a good time right now. I'm –"

  "I saw you leave the autopsy bay. You nearly knocked me over at the door."

  "Uh…sorry about that."

  "I know that Maya is having a bad day."

  He snorted. Silent I'll say radiated from his posture.

  "You've known her what, ten months?"

  He nodded.

  "I've known her for at least six years. Do you know how many times I've seen her lose her temper?"

  His eyebrows stitched together. "How many?"

  "Once. Today, about fifteen minutes ago. How many times have you seen her like that in the last ten months?"

  "Never," muttered somewhat unhappily. I was making my point.

  "I can't tell you what's wrong, but I can promise you that this has nothing to do with you, how she feels about you personally or professionally or what she thinks of her job in Bay County. Do you trust her Billy?"

  "I did."

  "Do you trust her?"

  "Yeah," his chin dipped to his chest in a gesture most often seen in boys under the age of six who are being scolded by a favorite aunt.

  "She'll tell you what's wrong soon, but in the meantime, she really needs support and understanding. Don't avoid her. Don't be pissy when you have to be in the same room. And most of all, don't you dare resign. She adores you, and you know it."

  Remorse was eroded by suspicion which quickly evolved into genuine concern. "Something is seriously wrong, isn't it? She's not leaving us, is she? Oh God. I shouldn't have threatened to quit. I should go back right now –"

  "She needs a little space right now. Don't push, okay? She'll talk to you about this eventually. Right now, she's a little blind sided, that's all. That trust thing? It's a two-way street, Billy. Maya trusts you too."

  "She told you what's wrong."