Without remorse - Tom Clancy [63]
A crowd had already gathered. The police officers congregated in small knots, trading quiet comments and barbed attempts at grim humor. A TV news truck arrived from its studio on Television Hill just north of the park, which held the city zoo. It was a place Bob Preis often took his young children, and they especially liked the lion, not so originally named Leo, and the polar bears, and all the other predators that were safely confined behind steel bars and stone walls. Unlike some people, he thought, watching them lift the body and place it in a rubber bag. At least her torment was over. Preis changed rolls one more time to record the process of loading the body into the coroner's station wagon. A Sun reporter was here now. He'd ask the questions while Preis determined how good his new camera really was back at his darkroom on Calvert Street.
'John, they found her,' Rosen said.
'Dead?' Kelly couldn't look up. The tone of Sam's voice had already told him the real news. It wasn't a surprise, but the end of hope never comes easily to anyone.
Sam nodded. 'Yeah.'
'How?'
'I don't know yet. The police called me a few minutes ago, and I came over as quick as I could.'
'Thanks, pal.' If a human voice could sound dead, Sam told himself, Kelly's did.
'I'm sorry, John. I - you know how I felt about her.'
'Yes, sir, I do. It's not your fault, Sam.'
'You're not eating.' Rosen gestured to the food tray.
'I'm not real hungry.'
'If you want to recover, you have to get your strength back.'
'Why?' Kelly asked, staring at the floor.
Rosen came over and grasped Kelly's right hand. There wasn't much to say. The surgeon didn't have the stomach to look at Kelly's face. He'd pieced enough together to know that his friend was blaming himself, and he didn't know enough to talk to him about it, at least not yet. Death was a companion for Sam Rosen, MD, FACS. Neurosurgeons dealt with major injuries to that most delicate part of the human anatomy, and the injuries to which they most often responded were frequently beyond anyone's power to repair. But the unexpected death of a person one knows can be too much for anyone.
'Is there anything I can do?' he asked after a minute or two.
'Not right now, Sam. Thanks.'
'Maybe a priest?'
'No, not now.'
'It wasn't your fault, John.'
'Whose, then? She trusted me, Sam. I blew it.'
'The police want to talk to you some more. I told them tomorrow morning.'
He'd been through his second interview in the morning. Kelly had already told them much of what he knew. Her full name, her hometown, how they'd met. Yes, they had been intimate. Yes, she had been a prostitute, a runaway. Yes, her body had shown signs of abuse. But not everything. Somehow he'd been unable to volunteer information because to have done so would have entailed admitting to other men the dimensions of his failure. And so he had avoided some of their inquiries, claiming pain, which was quite real, but not real enough. He already sensed that the police didn't like him, but that was okay. He didn't much like himself at the moment. '
'Okay.'
'I can - I should do some things with your medications. I've tried to go easy, I don't like overdoing the things, but they'll help you relax, John.'
'Dope me up more?' Kelly's head lifted, and the expression was not something that Rosen ever wanted to see again. 'You think that's really going to make a difference, Sam?'
Rosen looked away, unable to meet his eyes now that it was possible to do so. 'You're ready for