When Rad spoke again, his voice was hesitant.
“So, I was wondering . . . How are you doing with all this shit? How you holding up?”
Rad had never talked about emotional issues before, but different New York, different NYPD. And now Rad Garcia, one of the toughest guys he’d ever met, wanted to talk about feelings.
Jenner, despite himself, was touched. “I’m okay. It felt strange at first, but I’m remembering that this is something I know how to do, something I used to be good at.” He paused Precious Blood
185
for a second. “And I guess I’m not surprised Whittaker’s screwed me. He’s playing the game, making his move for the chief’s job. He wants credit, so he took mine.”
“Maybe so, Jenner. But the guy is an asshole.”
Jenner grinned back at him. “Yeah. He’s an asswipe.”
“He’s an ass clown.”
Steve Miller’s “Rockin’ Me” came on the radio, and Rad cranked it up.
She sat on the bed and watched Pyke pack, then she made coffee in the kitchen as they waited for the car service to take him to Newark.
“Where is Bhutan? You really have the best job ever.”
“It’s just work,” Pyke said. “You know I’d stay here if I could, but the photo editor has been setting up this project for years now, and I can’t suddenly pull the plug.”
She shook her head and told him she was fine. “I’ve got Jenner and half of the New York Police Department guarding me. There’s nothing to worry about.”
Pyke muttered, “Well, it’s the ‘Jenner and half of the New York Police Department’ part that’s worrying me . . .”
Smiling, she put a hand on his shoulder and said, “He’s a decent guy. I know you don’t believe it, but I think he really wants what’s best for me.”
Pyke said, “No, I believe that’s what he wants . . . but the guy’s a mess. I don’t want him to take you down as collateral damage.” He was quiet for a second, then said, “He really is a good person. And you need someone to be with you right now, and I’m running off and deserting you. Just be careful with him—for both of your sakes.”
“Well, first off, I think I’ve been good for Jenner. I think he’s doing better. And second: you’re deserting me to work so that I can have this great place to stay in!”
The intercom sounded. They hugged, and she waited at his window and watched as he walked out onto Crosby. Pyke’s 186
j o n at h a n h ay e s
assistant was waiting there, a tall young black guy with thin arms who fitted Pyke’s bags neatly into the grid of aluminum camera equipment cases. Pyke did a quick inventory, then turned and looked up. He saw her, smiled and waved, then got into the car and was gone.
She turned to face the loft. It was so clinical, with its white walls and stacked white enamel filing cabinets, and techno-fetish-y stuff. Jenner’s apartment was warm and soft by comparison, with wood and fabric and pale, natural colors.
She’d go up there and hang out, maybe draw.
She opened a cabinet and pulled out a bottle of wine, then put it back and took the last of the whisky instead. She lifted the bottle to eye level and sloshed the whisky around.
It wasn’t enough. It was never enough anymore.
The Smith farm sat in its own shadowy little valley. Though the sun was still bright on the surrounding high ground, the valley was a good ten degrees colder, and snow drifted deep in the sloping hollows behind the farmhouse.
The driveway dipped steeply down to the house, and hadn’t been plowed since the last snowfall. As Rad inched the car slowly down the drive, a thin young man in a white short-sleeved dress shirt and a green hunting cap with earflaps came out of the house and watched from the porch.
They stepped through the snow to the house; Rad, his hand outstretched, said, “Mr. Smith? I’m Lieutenant Garcia, this is Dr. Jenner. I hope this isn’t a bad time for you.”
The boy shook his head. “Not really doing much of anything. My parents left this morning; I’m staying behind to close up the house and sort out the rest of Katie’s stuff before I go on to meet up with my folks.”
His eyes were pale blue, his skin dark tan. He wore a black name tag, elder james smith. Jenner had seen the Mormons in the countryside in Thailand; he imagined the boy ped-Precious Blood
187
aling his bicycle through villages and rice paddies on his mission, a satchelful of tracts tucked under the neatly folded black jacket strapped to the rear mudguard rack.
He was about twenty. Standing straight, he seemed crumpled and careworn beyond his years. Beneath the tan, he was drawn, and, though he stood in front of his own home, he looked more than a little lost.
“Must be hard, all this,” said Garcia.
The boy nodded, then turned and walked into the house.
They followed him into the living room. The furniture was cheap and battered, and the floor was covered with thick shag carpeting; there was a faint smell of mold. In front of the cold fireplace was an old rocking chair draped with an ugly crocheted blanket; on the floor by the chair, Jenner saw a near-empty half-pint bottle of Mr. Boston vodka.
“So ask me your questions. Me, my mom, and my dad have been near Ban Long, Cambodia, since last November; my dad’s mission president. We were away when Katie died.
Sarah probably knows more than I do.”
He gestured toward a small alcove with a table, where a girl with pale, waxy skin and lank blond hair sat, hands folded, shoulders hunched. Even with her head down, Jenner could see her eyes were swollen and red behind her glasses.
“That’s Sarah. She was my intended up until about a week ago.”
Rad suggested they talk in another room.
Elder Smith smiled thinly and said, “Well, sir, we got the living room, the hallway, the breakfast nook, and then we got the kitchen. I mean, we could go in the kitchen if that’s what you want. I mean, if that’s what you really want; Sarah and her family cleaned up in there, cleaned it up so nice you can barely even tell.”
He looked at the girl balefully. “They washed it real good, but you can still smell it. You can’t get the smell of blood out . . .”
188
j o n at h a n h ay e s
He was tilting slowly backward, and Jenner saw he was drunk. Rad quickly stepped behind him, bracing for a fall, but the kid listed forward again and kept talking.
He was mumbling now. “Swear to God, I can smell it in my bed. The whole damned house. My sister’s blood.”
The girl was sobbing, listening to him. He looked at her, angry and confused.
Rad put a hand on the boy’s shoulder. “Son? You been drinking?”
“Yep. I have. First time ever! And you know what? It takes the edge off. It really does.”
Rad turned to the girl. “Miss, maybe you could take the doctor into the kitchen while I talk with your friend.”
She nodded and stood, then stepped past him, avoiding looking at the boy. Rad steered him toward the alcove table.
“Come on, son. We’re going to sit down and talk.”
In the hallway with Jenner, Sarah said firmly, “I’m not going in the kitchen. We can talk here, or upstairs, but, mister, there’s no way I’m going in there.”
Jenner nodded. “Upstairs.”
She hugged her arms across her bony chest as she led him briskly up the stairs.
“This is Kate’s room, here—” She pointed to the left at the top of the landing. “That’s the parents’ room, and over there is Jimmy’s.” Her voice softened as she looked at his door.
“Did you know Kate well?”
“We were the only two LDS kids in our class at high school, so we kind of ended up hanging out all the time. We were different. She said all the right things, and she dressed modest, but she got on better with non-Mormons than me. I didn’t see it coming, though—all along she was planning to leave the church and move to New York for college. I think maybe her uncle helped her out. Her mo
ther’s brother—Mrs.
Smith used to be a Lutheran, she joined the church when she met Mr. Smith.”
“Did you stay in touch when she moved to New York?”
Precious Blood
189
“No. When she got in to Hutchins, she started acting different, like a gentile. Changed her name, started wearing different clothes, not so modest. After she got her tongue pierced, my folks wouldn’t let me hang out with her. Which was hard, because that was the only way I could see Jimmy.”
She started to sniffle again, her narrow chest shuddering under the thin cardigan.
“It’s really hard. I love him, but he’s been gone a year, and soon he’s going to be gone for another year. You know I only spoke with him one time while he was away? I know it’s not his fault—you only get to call home twice a year when you’re on mission. It’s supposed to be to their folks, but President Smith let him use his Christmas call to call me. He writes a lot, too. But then I met a good man in Provo when I was at the Missionary Training Center, and I fell in love with him. I prayed on it, and I had to be true to my heart.”
She wiped her face with her arm.
“I was going to tell Jimmy, but I couldn’t do it in a letter or an e-mail. And then Kate died. It took them forever to reach the Smiths. The sheriff let my dad and my cousins clean up before they came home and saw it. They wouldn’t tell me about it.”
She began weeping convulsively. Jenner heard movement below, and the boy’s head poked into the stairwell.
“Sarah . . . you all right?” His tone was protective, almost belligerent.
She pulled herself together and told him she was just sad.
Rad appeared behind the boy. Behind the girl’s back, Jenner nodded at his raised eyebrow.
“I think I’ve asked enough questions for now. Thank you both. Miss, if you’d like to come down here, Dr. Jenner and I need to have a look in Ms. Smith’s room.”
It was a plain room. The powder pink walls seemed the only concession to girlish whimsy: no riding trophies, or photographs of friends, or stuffed animals, or posters of 190
j o n at h a n h ay e s
movie stars or boy bands. Two portraits of Jesus looked down on the bed from the wall above.
“Okay, Doc, what am I looking for?”
“Vials or packaging are really what we want—anything with a label. The hormone course lasts a few weeks, so she pretty much had to have injected herself at home at some point.”
Rad opened the closet and began to go through the clothes heaped on the shelf. Jenner searched the bulky white chest of drawers; the top drawer had stickers of hearts and rain-bows haphazardly stuck on its front. There was nothing to find in the underwear drawer, just plain undergarments. The middle and lower drawers held simple tops and pants, with a wadded-up stack of love letters pressed into the back of the bottom drawer. They were more than ten years old, probably a crush from Mormon camp or summer school or wherever it was that Latter-Day Saints kids developed their crushes.
Rad was going through the pockets of the coats and jackets in the closet. He called over to Jenner, “Hey, pull the lowest drawer all the way out and see if there’s anything underneath.”
There was; she’d kept her secrets in the well below the bottom drawer.
To Jenner’s eye, the traces of her hidden life seemed more sweet than shaming; he could imagine how exhilarated and terrified of discovery they must have made her. There was a letter on yellowed paper, apparently from high school: a boy named Tom dreamed of undressing her and touching her breasts, and “between your beautiful legs.” There was a half-smoked Marlboro and a ball of lacy black lingerie.
Jenner reached back into the recesses as far as he could, sweeping his arm from side to side in the dust. There was nothing at the back, but as he was pulling his arm out, he felt something cylindrical roll underneath it. His fingers scooped up a small glass vial.
He produced it with a flourish.
Precious Blood
191
“Rad.”
It was a couple of inches tall, and empty, with a metal cap, the center of which had a punctured gray rubber membrane.
She’d peeled off most of the label: there was no way to confirm the contents, or the prescribing physician, but one torn edge still clung to the glass, and it had a legible logo.
He showed it to Rad. “This look familiar to you? APPDRx?
I could swear I’ve seen it before.”
“Is it the manufacturer?”
Jenner squinted at it. “No, this is the pharmacy’s, I think.”
“Local?”
“I doubt it—she wouldn’t have risked filling it around here.
Besides, drugs like Lupron and Pergonal are pretty special-ized—they don’t carry them in every corner drugstore.”
Rad nodded in agreement. “Particularly out here in May-berry. Okay, we need to get back to the city and go through a phone book. Should be pretty easy to find them. We’ll talk to the pharmacist tomorrow morning—we won’t make it back in time tonight.”
“Will we need a subpoena?”
“Yeah, I guess. He’d probably give up the prescribing physician’s name, but if this thing’s going to stand up and walk in court . . .”
Jenner looked around the room again. It felt small and empty and unlived-in. Solid bed from the 1950s, ugly white dresser onto which she’d stuck heart stickers as a little girl.
He wondered if she’d been punished for that.
How could people choose a life like that, choose a life like that for their children? Did little girls like being ascetic? Perhaps she didn’t even realize how bare it was. Perhaps all the LDS girls lived like that. Perhaps she didn’t see the room as cold and plain, but as warm and suffused with God’s love.
He thought of his own loft, which was almost as bare. But his sparse was the stylized, materialist sparse, and the objects he owned, while few, were beautiful and luxurious. He felt vulgarly affluent and shallow.
192
j o n at h a n h ay e s
Then again, she hadn’t been happy with this. She’d re-belled. Stopped dressing modestly, pierced her ears and tongue, moved to Manhattan, been close enough to a boy that she’d bought sexy lingerie. Or close enough to another girl, maybe.
It sounded as if she’d blossomed in New York, with her tongue piercing and her new name. At least until the old name had caught up with her.
In the living room, Elder Smith sat in the rocking chair, his head in his hands. The former intended, now calm, stood next to him, her pale hand resting limply on his shoulder.
Her attitude was maternal, controlled, and slightly possessive.
Rad and Jenner went into the kitchen. The room faced west, into the open valley. The late-afternoon sun was now rushing across the frozen fields, flooding the room with a nostalgic, golden light, making the linoleum surfaces and aluminum trim glow.
They knew the room from the crime scene photographs, but the photographs couldn’t have shown what was now obvious to them as they stood there: the kitchen had been the heart of the house, this had been where they had lived.
With its warm, buttery yellows and whites, it looked like the sort of kitchen where Mom baked pies in a housedress and frilly apron, leaving them to cool by an open window.
The appliances, with the exception of a KitchenAid stand mixer, all looked a good forty or fifty years old. The mixer’s dough hook was attached; Jenner imagined the smell of fresh baked bread drifting from the kitchen, warming and redeeming the rest of the barren house.
That kitchen, he thought, might never smell of warm bread again; murder poisons a house, turns it toxic as a con-taminated well. Mrs. Smith would never bake there again without seeing her little girl sitting on a yellow chair at the yellow table, coloring as she waited for the hot loaves to come out of the oven. He couldn’t understand how President Precious Blood
193
and Mrs. Smith, in their gadarene rush to escape, could have been
cruel enough to leave their son behind in this charnel house.
Perhaps this was a religious thing; perhaps they really did believe that the girl was in a better place. Perhaps they’d achieved some kind of complete emotional separation from her death. But the boy was a mess, anyone could see it.
Jenner just didn’t understand.
The kid was right about the blood, too. The smell of bleach, intense and corrosive, shimmered from the warming countertops and table and floor, searing his nostrils and catching in his throat. Beneath it, Jenner smelled her blood as a sharp wave of rust, choking and primal.
He thought the room through.
The head had been on the island in front of him; her trunk would have been at his feet. There had been arcs of blood spatter low on the cabinets, arterial spray. He would have plugged the saw or hedge trimmer or whatever he’d used into the socket by the toaster on the counter.
Knife probably his own, probably did her pretty quickly after she took him into the kitchen. She’d probably offered him coffee. She’d have walked in first, he’d have followed her, and bam! hit her before she knew what was happening.
Cut her throat, held her as she went down to the floor—if she were over his knee, that would explain the low height of the arterial spatter.
Probably pulled her clothes off her once she’d stopped moving, and then got down to work. Stripping her in that narrow space would have caused the broad smears on the low cabinet by the hallway door.
He walked to the island, then paced back to the hall door.
Five feet, give or take—less than two long strides. God, he must have moved quickly.
There were pencil markings going up both sides of the door frame that he hadn’t noticed in the crime scene photos.
They’d strung for blood spatter! The criminalists—probably 194
j o n at h a n h ay e s
hicks who’d seen a few too many episodes of CSI—had taken the time to figure the angle of each blood droplet, then used lengths of string to determine the point of origin. Amateur hour—even the quickest reading of the scene made the killing sequence obvious.
Precious Blood Page 17
