Silent Victim - C. E. Lawrence [62]
He looked down at the phone on his desk, the console blinking red. He sighed and picked up the receiver, but as he did, his eye caught one of the crime-scene photos. He leaned over and flipped it facedown, then cradled the phone to his ear.
“Morton here.”
His wife’s voice stroked his ear like a cool caress.
“Hi there. Will you be home for dinner tonight?”
He glanced at his Rolex, a Christmas present from Susan. He didn’t give a fig about expensive trinkets, but she did. It was after six—he was officially off duty over an hour ago. The meeting had lasted well over two hours.
“I’m on my way,” he said.
“The kids want to wait to have dinner with you.”
“I’m leaving now.”
As he put on his jacket, Chuck thought about the photos of the victims on his desk. No one would be waiting for them to come home ever again, he reflected as he flicked off the lights and closed the door behind him.
CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX
Lee had been promising Kathy he would go with her to a Café Philosoph, an informal monthly meeting of people to talk about philosophy. There were apparently quite a few of them in Europe, especially France, and she had been going to one in Philadelphia. When she found one that met not far from him in New York, she begged Lee to join her, and he agreed.
It was Friday, so she came in by train after work, meeting him at his apartment before heading off for the meeting.
When she saw his bandaged arm, he spoke before she could ask about it.
“I had a run-in with a door.”
“Yeah?” she said, raising an eyebrow. “And wait till I see what the door looks like?” “Very funny.”
“Seriously, how do you have a—”
“I was angry and I punched out a glass door.” He went into the kitchen.
She followed him. “Angry about what?”
“Everything.” He began unloading the dishwasher, just so he didn’t have to look at her.
“I can see you’ve given this some serious thought,” she replied sarcastically as he slid a steak knife into the wooden rack on the counter. He kept unloading dishes as she stood, arms crossed, leaning on the wall next to the Italian spice cabinet he had bought for a song at the Eleventh Street Flea Market.
“Okay, I get the picture—you don’t want to talk about it,” she said, and went back into the living room. This time he followed her.
She sat down on the couch and put her feet up, kicking off her sandals. She had nice feet—small, well-formed, with high arches. Her nail polish was the color of dried blood.
“Was this before or after the lecture?” she said, plucking a grape from the ceramic bowl of fruit on the coffee table.
“Before.”
“You could have mentioned it.”
“I thought you had enough on your hands.”
“Oh.” She had been asked to join the team of specialists identifying the remains found at Ground Zero. There was little left of the victims, so what was left was that much more precious.
“How’s that going?” he said.
She reached down for another grape, but changed her mind and leaned back against the couch. “I guess I have mixed feelings about it. On the one hand, I’m glad to help, but on the other … it’s so hard.”
“Yeah,” he said, feeling the inadequacy of words in this situation.
“The whole thing is so … overwhelming.”
“Are you sure you can handle it?”
“Oh, yeah, you know—I didn’t go into this line of work expecting it to always be easy. It’s just that this feels different, you know? The sheer scale of the disaster … it’s hard not to feel a crushing sadness about it all.”
“Yeah, I know.” In the weeks afterward, he was down near Ground Zero meeting up with some friends—going downtown as often as possible, to spend money in the restaurants and shops, following the mayor’s urging, to try and stave off some of the economic devastation that was just one of the many by-products of the tragedy. Suddenly, without warning,