Cemetery Lake

CHAPTER THIRTY-NINE

On the way to the morgue I stop in at the store where I bought my last cell phone. It feels like a long time ago. Much longer than eight weeks. I spend a hundred and fifty bucks on a cell phone that has more features than even Gene Roddenberry could have dreamed of. I ask to get my number transferred over and am told it’ll take an hour or two.

There’s a security officer sitting behind a desk at the entrance to the morgue. I give him my details and he checks my name on the list. He gives me a visitor’s pass and I attach it to the front of my shirt. He seems friendly enough, which I suppose must mean he hasn’t spent any time reading the papers or watching the news. The guy probably gets a big enough dose of reality working the morgue.

As I head down the corridor the temperature drops with every footstep. I go through the large, plastic doors that separate the corridor and offices from the freezer, where all the work is done. It’s been two months since I was last here. Before that it was two years. It means my visits are becoming more frequent.

“Hi, Tate,” Tracey says, moving over toward me from the large sets of drawers in which are stored the other people unlucky enough to be here at six o’clock on a Friday night. “You just caught me.”

She looks different. Her hair is a little frazzled. She looks paler and tired, more worn down, as though both life and death are starting to get on top of her.

“It’s been a rough week,” she says, as if acknowledging my thoughts.

“Yeah. Tell me about it.”

There are empty metal tables with sheets and tools, but no bodies.

“I could really use a drink,” she says, then pauses, recognizing her mistake. “Sorry, Tate, that was a bit insensitive.”

“Yeah, so is drinking and driving. How is she?”

“She’s doing okay. She’s pretty banged up, but she’s out of the woods. The head trauma was the problem-there was some internal swelling, but the pressure’s been relieved. She’s going to have some tough months ahead of her, but it could have been worse, right? You know that more than anybody.”

You know that more than anybody. How many people have said that to me over the last twenty-four hours? “So. . she’ll get back to a hundred percent?”

“That’s what they’re saying.”

I move from foot to foot, trying to get some warmth back into them. My finger with the missing nail is throbbing. The bandage is dark gray and filthy-looking, and hasn’t been changed.

“Does it hurt?” she asks.

“It’s okay.”

“Let me re-dress it for you while we’re talking.”

I follow her through to the office and sit down. She drags her chair around, pulls on some latex gloves, and takes the old bandage off my finger. The gauze has caught a little, blood and pus having set on the outside of it.

“Have you worked on the priest yet?” I ask.

“Come on, Theo, you know I can’t share any of that with you.”

“It’s important.”

“I think you’re forgetting that I’m still pissed at you for stealing Rachel Tyler’s ring.”

“I’m sorry about that.”

“Oh, well that covers everything then, doesn’t it? As long as you’re sorry.” She pulls the gauze away, ripping off the scab.

“Aw, Tracey.” I pull my hand back.

She drops the gauze into a bin. “I go to bat for you by never mentioning it, and suddenly Landry’s down here this morning asking me about it. Now I’m the one who’s gonna get crapped on.”

“Let me make it up to you,” I say.

“Give me your hand.”

“No.”

“Come on, Theo, grow up. Give me your damn hand.”

I reach back over and she starts to clean the wound.

“Look,” I say, “I think I’m entitled to some information here. After all, I’m the one they accused of killing him.”

“If anything, that entitles you to absolutely no information at all. When was the last time you let a suspect walk down here and ask whatever he wanted about the crime?”

“This is different.”

“Not to me,” she says. “Not to anybody. You shouldn’t even be here.” She cuts off some fresh gauze and places it over my fingertip. Then she adds some padding. “Goddamn it, Tate, if there was somebody as qualified to take over, I’d probably already have been suspended.”

“They know I didn’t do it. Did Landry tell you that?”

“Yeah. He did. But that still doesn’t change anything.”

I look over my shoulder at the drawers through the office window. One of them contains Father Julian. Two nights ago I came close to occupying another one. The throbbing in my finger grows stronger, and Tracey starts to bandage it.

“It changes it for me, right? Think of it from my perspective. The cops know and I know that somebody killed Father Julian and tried to pin that on me. I think that means I have a stake in this investigation. I think that it means I deserve to be told as much as possible so I can try to defend myself.”

“Defend yourself against what? They already know you’re innocent.”

“Come on, Tracey. You know the score. You know three of those girls would still be alive if I’d done my job properly two years ago. I want this guy off the street.”

She tapes off the bandage and leans back. “People who you want off the street are never heard from again, Theo. I’m sorry, but I can’t give you anything.”

“Was the hammer the cause of death?”

“It’s getting late. I’ve got a family to get home to.”

“Come on, give me something here. Bruce Alderman, his father, now the priest-they’re dead for a reason. And this person who planted the hammer in my house is probably the same person who killed all those girls.”

“Sidney Alderman is dead? How do you know that?” she asks.

“I’m guessing, but it makes sense, right? Everything is related.”

“Not everything,” Tracey says.

“What do you mean?”

She sighs, and her shoulders slump as if she’s sick and tired of talking to a ten-year-old.

“Please, just drop it,” she says.

“Would you? Come on, Tracey, name me one detective you know who wouldn’t be trying to do the same thing.”

“The problem is you’re not a detective, Theo. Not anymore.”

“I know, but-”

“Look, one thing, okay? I’m going to tell you one thing, then I want you to leave.”

“Okay.”

“And you can’t come back. You promise?”

I’ve heard that line before. “What is it?”

She sighs. “Okay, Theo, I tell you this and then you leave. Sidney and Bruce Alderman. They’re not related. Sidney Alderman is not Bruce Alderman’s father.”