French Kiss

Chapter 28

“This way, Luc,” K. Burke says. Both Burke and Nick Elliott guide me by the elbows down a corridor-painted cement blocks, an occasional bulletin board, a fire-alarm box, a fire-extinguisher case.

The usual cast of characters is standing nearby: police officers, forensics, the coroner’s people, two firemen, some young people-probably students-carrying laptops and water bottles. A very large sign is taped to a wall at the end of the corridor. It is a photograph of four people: a white male officer, an Asian female officer, a black male officer, a white female officer. Above the big grainy photo are big grainy blue letters:

SERVE WITH DIGNITY. SERVE WITH COURAGE.

THE NEW YORK CITY POLICE DEPARTMENT

Burke and Elliott steer me into a large old-fashioned lecture hall. The stadium seating ends at the bottom with a large table at which a lecturer usually stands. Behind it are a video screen and a green chalkboard. In this teaching pit also stand two officers and two doctors from the chief medical examiner’s office. On the side aisles are other officers, other detectives, and, as we descend closer to the bottom of that aisle, a gurney on which a body rests.

K. Burke speaks to me as we reach the gurney. She is saying something to me, but I can’t hear her. I am not hearing anything. I am just staring straight ahead as a doctor pulls back the gauzy sheet from Dalia’s head and shoulders.

“The wound was in the stomach, sir,” she says.

She knows I need no further details at the moment.

Need I say that Dalia looks exquisite? Perfect hair. Perfect eyelashes. A touch of perfect makeup. Perfect. Just perfect. Just fucking unbelievably perfect.

How can she be so beautiful and yet dead?

In my mind I am still screaming “No!” but I say nothing.

I look away from her, and I see the others in the room backing away, looking away, trying to give me privacy in a very public situation.

I must touch Dalia. I should do it gently, of course. I take Dalia’s face in both my hands. Her cheeks feel cold, hard. I lean in and brush my lips against her forehead. I pull back a tiny bit to look at her. Then I lean in again to kiss her on the lips.

The room is silent. Deadly silent. I have heard silence before. But the world has never been this quiet.

I will stand here for the rest of my life just looking at her. Yes, that’s what I’ll do. I’ll never move from this spot. I stroke her hair. I touch her shoulders. I stand erect, then turn around.

Nick Elliott is looking at the ground. K. Burke’s chin is quivering. Her eyes are wet. I speak, perhaps to Nick or K. Burke or everyone in the room or perhaps I am simply talking to myself.

“Dalia is dead.”