Honeymoon - James Patterson [16]
There, that ought to do it.
Nora was ready for the next act.
Chapter 20
KIND OF EXCITING, actually. A rush. The all-important third act of the drama.
Flashing lights and the ascending scream of a siren filled the driveway. Nora ran out the front door, hysterical, screaming, “Hurry! Please, hurry! Oh, please!”
The paramedics—two young men with short-cropped hair—quickly grabbed their bags and hustled into the big house.
Nora rushed them to the hallway bathroom, where Connor’s large frame was sprawled out on the floor.
Suddenly she fell to her knees, weeping uncontrollably, her face flush against Connor’s chest. One of the paramedics, the shorter of the two, had to drag her back out to the hallway to make room for himself and his partner. “Please, ma’am. Let us work in here. He might still be alive.”
For the next five minutes, every effort was made to bring Connor Brown back to life, and every one of those efforts failed. Ultimately, the two paramedics exchanged that knowing glance, the silent recognition that there was nothing more they could do.
The older of the two turned and looked back over his shoulder at Nora, who stood by the doorway in a seemingly shock-induced haze. His face said it all, no words were required, but he uttered the redundant “I’m sorry.”
She took her cue and burst into more tears. “No!” she yelled. “No, no, no! Oh, Connor, Connor!”
Minutes later the Briarcliff Manor police arrived. It was routine procedure, Nora knew. Connor being pronounced dead at the scene meant they got the call. Another screaming siren and more flashing lights in the driveway.
A few of the neighbors had gathered to look on. It seemed that Nora and Connor had just been joking about their watching them have sex only moments ago.
The police officer who did most of the talking was named Nate Pingry. He was older than his partner, Officer Joe Barreiro, and clearly the more experienced of the two. Their purpose was simple: prepare a report detailing the events leading up to, and the circumstances surrounding, the death of Connor Brown. In other words, the necessary paperwork.
“I know how hard this must be for you, Mrs. Brown, so we’ll try to do this as quick as possible,” said Pingry.
Nora had her head buried in her hands. She was sitting on the ottoman in the living room, where the paramedics had practically carried her. She looked up at the policemen, Pingry and Barreiro.
“We weren’t married,” she said through a sob. She saw both officers glance at her left hand and the four-carat diamond ring Connor had given her. “We were just . . .” She paused and dropped her head back into her hands. “We were just recently engaged.”
Officer Pingry trod lightly. As much as he hated this part of his job, he knew it had to be done. Of all the skills it required, there was none more important than the right amount of patience.
Slowly, Nora took him and his partner through everything that happened. Her arrival at dusk, to the omelet she made for Connor, to the moment he said he was feeling sick. She described helping him to the bathroom, and the trauma his body seemed to suffer.
Nora rambled and, a few times, corrected herself. Other times she spoke with great clarity. As she’d read in books on forensic psychology, the major similarity among “grief-stricken” people was their ever-shifting cognitive and emotional states.
Nora even admitted to the officers that she and Connor had just made love. In fact, she was sure to mention it. The county medical examiner wouldn’t have a report for a day or so, but she already knew what the autopsy would show. Connor died from cardiac arrest.
Maybe the sex, even at the age of forty, had triggered it. That would be one theory. Stress from his job would be another. Perhaps