by Merry Jones
For an immeasurable dizzying moment, I clung to Luke and blinked. What I was seeing could not be real. It was unimaginable. First of all, nobody came into our backyard patio. It wasn’t locked, but there was a gate. It was a private, family space where Molly played with the puppy, where Nick grilled burgers. But no matter how I tried to deny it, the gory intruder remained, insisting that she was, in fact, still there. Still filleted, still gutted like a tuna.
A vision flashed to mind, another woman I knew. A patient at the Institute—a psychotic. Bonnie Something-or-other. She’d cut pregnant women open—four or five of them—to steal their unborn babies. But she was irrelevant—she’d been in the Institute for decades. This body had nothing to do with her. The slicing, the gaping abdomen, might resemble her work, but Bonnie hadn’t done it. Someone else had.
Oddly, it didn’t occur to me to run. I stood aghast, mesmerized by the bloody display on my back patio. A blue, blood-drenched sweatshirt draped the woman’s neck, covering one nipple. There was a diamond stud in her nostril. She wore too much blue eye shadow. And her platinum hair had been pulled into a loose pony- tail. Who was she? What had happened here? Suddenly, I felt embarrassed for her, awkwardly aware that I shouldn’t be seeing these intimate, internal parts of her body. Nobody should. But her organs lay out in the open air, like exposed secrets. Oh God. A wave of nausea rose through me, and I turned away. Breathe, I reminded myself. I inhaled and smelled Luke’s diaper, absurdly remembering that I still had to change it. Somehow, that realization snapped me back to reality. Finally, my survival instincts kicked in.
Stumbling over Oliver, I held on to Luke, who was still at lunch, and letting my sweater flop onto his face, I flew.
THREE
MY MEMORY OF THE next few hours is spotty. I recall isolated moments. Like sitting on the front stoop, waiting for the police, feeling the fog creep under my clothing and cling to my skin. The fog had held on, refusing to burn off even as the sun rose high and noon arrived; it lingered, a clammy blanket of gray that clouded my thoughts and blurred the row houses across the street. I remember noticing how still and heavy Luke was in my arms. Sated, indifferent to the world around him, he slept soundly in his sodden diaper. Oliver lay beside us, leashed and finally quiet. I sat, waiting for the police, listening for sirens, thinking that the air was too moist, too warm, for early April, almost sixty degrees. I thought about global warming, wondered if we’d ever have winter again. If Luke would ever see snow. I thought about the blood pooling on my deck, and the dead woman’s nose piercing, how conventional piercing had become.
I don’t know how long I sat there, my mind bouncing from thought to disconnected thought. Probably, it was just a few minutes, but time had clogged like the wet air, become sluggish and stuck. It seemed that the police would never arrive. I remember how grateful I was that Molly wasn’t home, how worried I was about what to say to her. In her six years of life, she had already encountered far too much crime. When Luke was born, I’d promised her that our lives would be more peaceful. But now, just eleven weeks later, a dead woman lay in our backyard. How was I supposed to explain yet another murder to my child when I couldn’t explain it even to myself?
And then I wondered why such grotesque events kept popping into our lives. I wasn’t in the crime business, not a mobster or drug pusher. I was a forty-one-year-old mom, an art therapist. I was about to remarry. Corpses and criminals had no business in my life, yet they kept appearing. Why? Was I doing something wrong? Somehow attracting violence? Was I some kind of murder magnet?
The thought was bizarre, but it shook me nevertheless. I needed to connect with someone familiar who would reassure me. I made frantic phone calls, reaching nobody, leaving messages. I called Nick several times; apparently, he’d turned his phone off. I called all my friends, including the ones I knew weren’t around: Susan, even though she was in the middle of a murder trial. Karen, even though she was at a Pilates class. Davinder, Liz. Nobody answered. And nothing moved on the street. No cars, no pedestrians, passed. I peered through tendrils of mist, searching for another human being, watching for a stranger lurking with a scalpel or maybe a long, sharp hunting knife. But I saw no one. Even the killer had vanished. Absurdly, it occurred to me that everyone—the entire rest of the world—had disappeared into the fog. The police would never arrive; there were no police. There was nothing and no one. I was alone, forever trapped in gray haze with baby Luke and Oliver the puppy. Oh, and the dead woman on the patio.
At some point, though, my cell phone rang, shattering the silence. I pounced on it as if for a life raft, hoping it was Nick. But the caller ID screen said: “Bryce Edmond.” Damn. Bryce? Now? I stared at the phone, debating whether or not to answer. Bryce was at least alive and real, a voice that could link me to the world beyond the fog. Maybe I should take the call and talk to him. But then, maybe I shouldn’t. After all, what could Bryce do about the corpse on my patio? The phone rang three times, four, and then, just as I decided to answer, I thought I heard wailing in the distance. I put down the phone and listened for sirens, watched for headlights emerging from the mist.
And suddenly, with great commotion, help arrived. Four police cars and an ambulance double-parked in front of the house, blocking the street, their lights flashing red and blue haloes into the haze. Officers ran around, in and out the door, talking on radios, asking repeatedly what had happened and whether Luke and I were okay, ushering in detectives who asked the same questions. The press had gathered beyond a barricade up the street, clamoring for details. I could barely see them, but I knew they were there, saw the glow of their lights, heard an officer complain about them.
I have no idea how long I remained on the stoop or how many times I replied, “Fine. I’m fine.” Or, “I don’t know. When we got home, she was just lying outside.” I stayed there, watching the police and holding on to Luke and Oliver, until, finally, a man emerged from the fog, running, shouting my name.
“Nick—” I called to him.
“Zoe? Zoe, what the hell’s going on? Are you okay?”
Oh wait. It wasn’t Nick.
“Tony?”
Tony was Nick’s youngest brother. His body, bursting out of the fog, moved like Nick’s. His face, frowning with concern, looked like Nick’s. And his voice, asking what had happened, why the police were here, sounded like Nick’s. He raced up the steps, lifted me to my feet and wrapped Luke and me up in strong arms that felt safe and warm. Almost like Nick’s.
FOUR
TONY DIDN’T ONLY HUG like Nick. Tony could have been Nick’s clone, only younger. In fact, all the brothers—Sam, Tony and Nick—had basically the same features, except that Nick’s face had been scarred and partly paralyzed by a bullet wound. Standing together, the three looked like different versions of the same man at various ages and weights. Their eyes were all the same disarming shade of ice blue, their jaws cut at the same square angles. Their cheekbones jutted ruggedly; their hair was the color of desert sand, their legs strong, shoulders broad, grins wide and contagious. One by one, they were disarming. Three of them together were overwhelming.
There was a fourth brother, Eli. But he hadn’t shown up. Sam and Nick had e-mailed him about the reunion, but they hadn’t heard back, didn’t know if he’d show. Eli, apparently, was elusive, a freelance photographer, always on the move. Sam had shown me an old photo of the four of them about nine years ago, the last time they’d all been together. Eli seemed to be yet another variation of the others, more muscular than Tony, taller and leaner than Sam. But it wasn’t Eli who’d captured my attention in the picture. I’d been captivated by Nick, by how he’d looked before he’d been shot. His face had been unmarred, confident. Strong. I’d realized then how drastically the shooting had changed Nick’s appearance and wondered how much he felt the loss. I’d studied not the brothers so much as the photo of the man I loved, of a face I’d never see. Eli remained an unknown to me, a name. And while it would have been lovely to meet him, having two of Nick�
�s brothers visiting was enough for now.
Even without Eli, it had been a happy reunion for Nick. With both his parents dead—his mother from stepping on a poisonous sea urchin and his father from a heart attack—Nick’s brothers were his only family. Sam, an investment banker living in Connecticut, newly divorced from his second wife, was three years younger and looked like Nick two inches shorter and sixty pounds beefier. Sam smoked cigars, growled when he spoke, wheezed when he laughed, flashed wads of cash around, told stupid jokes and wore a mammoth diamond pinkie ring. Always on his cell phone or his laptop, finalizing some deal or softening some potential client, he seemed to assess everyone he met according to how much they had to spend, what he might sell them. Except women—he judged us by other standards. When I met Sam, he stood at my front door, visually measuring my body parts, blatantly checking out my legs and postpartum belly and bust. He all but examined my teeth before he reached out, grinning, and pulled me in for a bear-like embrace.
Tony, the baby, was twenty-nine. A perpetual student, he did postgraduate work in computer science at Berkeley. When I asked him what he did, he blanched and answered in terms I only vaguely understood. Gradually, I gathered that he was working on software designs for security systems, but Sam later explained that nobody but Tony really understood what Tony did. Tony, according to his brothers, was a genius. Whether he actually was or not, he definitely looked like one. His features were more delicate, his body more slender than Nick’s. A track star in high school, Tony moved with a weightless, unselfconscious grace, as if floating above the physical world, his mind preoccupied with abstractions. He couldn’t be bothered with the material, leaving laundry wherever it fell and dishes wherever he’d eaten, oblivious to the clutter. And he moved silently, startling me more than once by appearing behind me without making a sound.
Despite Sam’s stinking cigars and Tony’s tendency to float, I was enjoying their visit more than I’d expected. I’d been raised as an only child and was intrigued at having brothers, even if they were only in-laws. Beyond that, through Nick’s siblings I was meeting a new part of him, the big brother part. It was fascinating how he slipped into his old role, how easily he ordered the younger ones around, how mercilessly he razzed them. In fact, Nick glowed in his brothers’ company. And Nick was not alone; Molly worshipped both her uncles, climbing onto one lap or another with neither shyness nor hesitation, as if either were her domain.
But now, our celebration had been disrupted. I stood locked in Tony’s arms, absorbing their affection. When he released me, I began to explain what had happened. But as he stared at me in disbelief, Sam came red faced, huffing, out of the fog, and I had to begin the horrific story all over again.
FIVE
DETECTIVE DONALLY LET ME go upstairs to change Luke’s diaper. The baby stirred and yawned, but having a full tummy, he didn’t completely wake up. I tucked him into his crib, covering him with his dinosaur comforter, my arms suddenly cold and empty without his warmth. I stood by the crib, watching him, stalling, avoiding going back downstairs. But voices rose. Men, agitated.
“Oh yeah? Well, I guess you’re going to have to shoot me. Cuz I’m going in.”
“Step back, sir.”
“Move aside, Detective. I have a right to know what’s—”
“I warned you.”
“—out there.”
“Stop right there, sir!”
There was a scuffle. Footsteps pounded. Furniture scraped the hardwood floors. Something slammed to the floor. Sam yelled, “Tony?” And Tony called, “Sam!”
I ran down the stairs and, following the commotion, found everyone in my living room, suddenly silent and motionless. Donally and another detective stood beside my overturned wing- back, hands at their hips, ready to draw their guns. Two uniformed officers stood near the fireplace, weapons already drawn. And Sam and Tony, like bug-eyed twins, stood side by side, oblivious to the police, staring out the patio door.
“Okay? Happy now? You two seen what you wanted?”
On the patio, forensic workers froze, gaping at the scene in my living room.
“Oh, this is bad.” Sam’s growl was lower than usual. “Zoe said there was a body, but this—I didn’t expect this; did you?” He waited for a response, but Tony didn’t say anything. Tony didn’t move, didn’t blink.
“This is bad.” Sam rubbed his face. “This is— This is bad.”
“Okay? Now, if you will, gentlemen, back away from the door.” Detective Donally stepped forward, arms out, apparently protecting his crime scene.
Ignoring him, I stepped over my wingback and joined the brothers.
“Ma’am.” Donally glowered my way. “That includes you. Step back. Unless you want me to arrest the whole lot of you for interfering with a homicide investigation.”
But we didn’t step back. Sam reached for my hand, shaking his head. “This is bad.” It seemed to be all he could say.
Tony remained dazed, his eyes riveted on the body, his skin the color of a kosher dill. The detectives watched us warily, the officers’ guns still aimed at us as if they thought we might storm the patio.
Gently, I touched Tony’s arm. “Tony?”
Tony blinked, as if suddenly awakened. Without a word, he pivoted and ran from the room. Nobody stopped him as he dashed past police with drawn weapons, heading for the powder room. Slowly, Sam and I moved away from the sliding door and slumped onto my sofa. When the guns were holstered, I made proper introductions and, then, the questioning resumed.
SIX
I TOLD DETECTIVE DONALLY what I knew and what I’d seen, which didn’t amount to much. No, I did not know the woman. I’d never seen her before. I’d heard nothing unusual. I had no idea why she’d come onto our patio. I’d been out all morning with the baby. I hadn’t touched anything.
Sometime during my statement, Nick appeared. At first glance, I thought it was Tony. But then, I saw the scar etched into Nick’s face. Thank God. Nick was here. We would all be all right. I thought he’d embrace me as Tony had, but he didn’t. He turned to Sam, furious.
“Sam, what the hell went down here?” As if Sam, the next eldest, should have taken charge, should have somehow prevented the murder.
Sam hunched slightly, as if dodging blame. “Tony and I came in and this is what we found. We tried to call you.”
“Yo—Stiles?” Detective Donally seemed surprised to see Nick. In the confusion, no one had thought to mention that Nick, a senior homicide detective, lived in the house. “What brings you here?”
“Do I need your permission to be here, Detective?” From Nick’s tone, I guessed he wasn’t a fan of Donally.
Donally eyed Nick. “I took the call, so I repeat my question: What brings—”
“Don’t repeat. I live here.”
“What?” Donally was stunned. “No shit.”
Nick scanned the room, then the patio, coldly, quickly, taking in details.
“We got to talk, Stiles.”
Nick raised a hand, making Donally wait as, finally, he stooped and took my hands, his blue eyes searching me. “Are you all right?”
I nodded. I was, now that he was home. “But I have no idea what happened.”
He touched my face. “Where’s Luke?”
I pointed at the ceiling. “Sleeping.”
Nick looked from me, to Sam, to the body beyond the sliding door. Then he stood. “Okay, then. Jim, Al? A word?” Nick put his arm on Detective Donally’s shoulder and guided him to the far corner of the room where they and the other detective conferred in hushed tones, heads together.
Beside me on the sofa, Sam kept sighing, rubbing his chin. “Never saw a thing like that in my whole life. How can that son of a gun do it?” I thought he meant the killer, but he was watching Nick. “What kind of a frickin’ job is that? Tell me. Isn’t there a better way to make a living? Why does he do it? Dealing with crap like this? Seeing stuff like this? It’s no kind of life. If he’d go into business with me like I tell him, he’d m
ake ten times as much, believe me.” He sighed again. “But that’s Nick. Him and frickin’ Eli. Always was drawn to the dark side. Don’t ask me why.”
We sat silently, watching Nick gather information, working with the small army that had set up in our home. Sam’s cell phone rang repeatedly; repeatedly, he told callers he’d get back to them, a family situation had come up—the darnedest thing—and he’d tell them all about it later. Nick and the other detectives were outside on the patio when Tony finally emerged from the powder room, still pale, and delicately lowered himself onto the sofa between Sam and me.
“You okay?” I knew it was a stupid question even as I asked it; his face looked grayer than the dead woman’s.
He nodded. The three of us sat unmoving as if joined at the hips, waiting.
After a while, Tony cleared his throat. “That woman?” His voice was scratchy. “I’ve seen her before.”
I looked from Tony to Sam, who was looking at me. “Wait. What?”
“You know her?”
Sam and I spoke together.
Tony hunkered down, watching the sliding door. “This morning. I went out to get the newspaper.” His voice sounded raw. “I bent down to pick it up, and she ran right into me. I mean, smack into me. Full force. Bam. I nearly went down.”
“You’re sure it was her?”
“Positive.”
“But why—I mean, how come she’d run into you? Didn’t she see you?”
Tony shrugged. “I don’t know. Maybe she wasn’t looking.”
I didn’t know what to say, and I had no idea what the significance of the collision might be.
“Are you sure it’s the same broad?” Sam used words like broad.
