Afterlife - Douglas Clegg [22]
“And so, they lost his body,” Julie said, grabbing her margarita practically out of the server’s hands.
“They what?”
4
“Apparently, it’s an ordinary screw-up,” Julie said. “Ha.”
“I can just picture you with those cops. Reading them the Riot Act.”
“I don’t know,” Julie’s voice grew faint. She looked out the window and saw a crowd outside the Tea Shop across the street. A lesbian couple walked by, arm in arm, looking as if they were happier than Julie had ever felt in her life. An elderly woman in a mangy fur coat walked an equally mangy little Yorkshire terrier, pausing at the window of the restaurant as if gazing at her reflection. “I don’t know. I think I was too stunned to react. I should probably call Andrew.”
“Hell, yes,” Mel said. “The threat of a lawsuit might just do something. You know, if they don’t find his body in the next twenty-four hours…”
“Maybe it’s what Donati said.”
“Who?”
“One of the officers. She said it happens now and then when bodies get transferred. They think all that happened is that he ended up in another morgue in the city. They’re blaming the driver, who had several pickups and deliveries. It’s all very…complicated.”
“Well they damn well better find him, that’s all I’m saying,” Mel said, biting into a slice of avocado.
“It’s all too much for me. Too, too much.” Julie continued to look over her sister’s shoulder, to the world outside, the world of smart young women parking their cars, a group of men in suits talking excitedly as if they just made some corporate deal that would make them all millionaires, the woman in the ratty fur coat, picking a newspaper out of the trash can on the corner.
Then, she re-focused on Mel’s face. Mel looked at her as if trying to read her thoughts. You can’t get inside me, Melanie. You can’t. I’m not that easy-to-see-through little sister you once had. Not anymore. I am made out of stone. I don’t feel anything anymore. I am impenetrable.
“It may be something else, though, Mel. It may be about the killer. The killer may come back somehow, to collect the bodies. One of the other victims also went missing. It’s just sick. It’s disgusting. I don’t even want to think about it anymore. I don’t. I can’t.”
5
A rundown Volkswagen Jetta was parked on the street in front of her house when they got home that night.
“How does she do it?” Julie asked, shaking her head. “She runs that crafts store in New Hope, gets her master’s in psychology and does crystal therapy…and has that awful boyfriend…and she still manages to get here this fast?”
Mel shrugged, as she turned the car into the driveway. “Toni Marino. AKA mom. What more is there to say?”
6
If she were ever to draw her mother, it would be with nothing but circles and squiggly lines. Her hair was a bird’s nest of jet black with glimmers of gray, her face was round, and round glasses upon her round nose. Even the word “mom” seemed to be a round word. She somehow had lost the angular half-Italian look of her Connie Francis-inspired youth and had transformed into Earth Mother by the age of sixty-four. “I picked up the kids from your sitter,” her mother said, too quickly, as a shadow crossed her face. Her voice still with a strange hybrid of the Jersey shore and Pennsylvania clip, hugging Julie while at the same time glancing around at the living room as if about to give one of her famous critiques. Livy was practically attached to her grandmother, clinging to her skirt like it was a security blanket.
“I am so sorry my baby,” her mother whispered,