Genesis

Chapter 3

May 8th

9:45 A.M.

Madison Bryant watched the three-member Pierson family file out of her small office. Marge Pierson was the last out the door, and she paused briefly to smile back at Bryant and wave before disappearing up the hallway. It was one of those “happy ending” cases that gave Madison the fortitude to soldier on with her career as a social worker at the Hassenfeld Children’s Hospital. After a number of bone marrow transplants, Wayne Pierson, eight, was doing remarkably well, with his leukemia now in complete remission. With everything going so smoothly, including Wayne’s experiences at school and the family dynamics getting back to normal, a session scheduled for an hour and a half had taken only fifteen minutes. As a result, Madison had some free time, especially since her next appointment had been canceled.

Putting the Pierson file on her desk, Madison walked out of her windowless office. As usual at that time of the day, the clinic was jam-packed with people and kids of all ages. Thanks to the acoustic-tiled ceiling, the din was bearable. After skirting the reception desk, Madison walked into the staff lounge and then on to the women’s room. At that time of morning, it was like an oasis of solitude. As she dutifully washed her hands, she eyed herself in the mirror. Recently her hairstylist had talked her into a straight asymmetrical bob, claiming the sleek look was modern glamour at its best. Madison wasn’t so sure, as it was a quantum leap away from her previous short Afro, plus it took a lot more work, but it did frame her face rather nicely.

A tall, light-skinned black woman with a splash of freckles across her nose and cheeks, Madison was from St. Louis but had always dreamed of eventually moving to New York City. She had gotten her wish eight months ago and had been having the time of her life. One of the reasons things had worked out so well was that she had met Kera Jacobsen, who had arrived in the city within days of Madison to work at the same hospital in the same field. As a consequence, they had been introduced and had shared their orientation experience. Being close to the same age, having had similar educational backgrounds, and conveniently free of current romantic involvement with men, the two women bonded. Their friendship thrived, thanks to their similar interests in everything New York, such as theater, ballet, modern art, and bike riding along the Hudson River.

But then, after the holidays, things had changed. With no warning or explanation, Kera suddenly became less available for the numerous activities they had so enjoyed together. When Madison finally built up the courage to question this change, Kera denied it, explaining that starting in January she just preferred to stay in her warm apartment. She said that having lived her whole life in LA made dealing with the NYC winter weather an unpleasant ordeal.

During January and February, Madison accepted this story, especially since on occasion Kera would still be available, particularly on a Friday or Saturday night. The problem was there was little notice, and it had to be Kera calling Madison rather than the other way around. Still, Madison took it all in stride. But things hadn’t changed with the arrival of spring and much warmer weather, which called into question Kera’s original explanation.

Eventually Madison had given up trying to understand and had made it a point to concentrate on developing other friendships, including several new male friends. Over the past several months her social schedule returned to a semblance of normal, and when Kera called, she was less likely to be available. Gradually it was only in the hospital that they saw each other, either between patients or even more frequently for lunch. It was a source of continued amazement for Madison that Kera pretended everything was entirely normal, as if nothing had changed. And then something truly abnormal happened; yesterday Kera failed to show up for work. Madison had found out because all Kera’s patients had to be either canceled or seen by other people, including Madison.

Since Kera had never been so irresponsible as to not show up for work without calling in sick, Madison had become immediately concerned, especially when coupled with the fact that Kera had been acting strangely for months. That was when Madison had started texting Kera to ask if she was okay. When there had been no response to several texts, she tried calling and left several voice messages over the course of the day. Today was the second day and still no Kera.

Madison took her phone from the pocket of the white medical coat that she was encouraged to wear by her department head and placed yet another call. She listened to it ring and intuitively knew that Kera wasn’t going to answer. The moment the ring was interrupted, and Kera’s outgoing voicemail began to play, Madison disconnected. There was no need to leave yet another message. Instead Madison made a snap decision. With the hour and a half she had before her next appointment, she would go to Kera’s building and ring her buzzer. Her hope was that even though Kera wouldn’t answer texts or phone calls, it might be harder for her to avoid responding to an actual visitor. It had suddenly occurred to Madison that maybe Kera had been caught up in a mad, passionate romantic affair these months and that perhaps her lover had dumped her. This scenario seemed to match the facts. In that case, maybe Kera was in dire need of a friend. It also helped that Madison was familiar with Kera’s apartment since she had visited prior to the holidays. Kera liked to cook and had insisted on making dinner on several occasions, so Madison knew exactly where it was.

Exiting the hospital onto First Avenue and still wearing her medical jacket, Madison intended to quickly walk down to the main entrance where she knew she could easily catch a taxi. But it turned out she didn’t need to go that far. Almost immediately she hailed a free cab coming north in moderate traffic, telling the driver to take her to Second Avenue and 23rd Street.

Kera’s building was three in from the corner heading west. It was a nondescript brick structure that mirrored the surrounding buildings. Before entering, Madison looked up to what she thought were Kera’s windows. They were closed, whereas a number of other windows in the façade were open. The weather was particularly mild for an early spring day.

At that moment a well-appointed middle-aged businesswoman emerged from the building. Like all New Yorkers, she seemed in a rush, but Madison called out to her and brought her to a halt. Madison asked if by any chance she knew Kera Jacobsen, who lived on the fourth floor.

“Sorry,” the woman said quickly with a shake of her head. In the next instant she was off toward Second Avenue as if she was a power walker.

Undeterred, Madison went into the building’s foyer, where there was a large group of metal mailboxes that covered the wall to the left, each with a button and a nameplate. There were also three marble steps up to the locked front door. To the right was an ornately framed mirror and a hastily constructed wooden wheelchair ramp.

From her previous visits, Madison had a good idea where Kera’s mailbox was located. When she found it, she pressed the buzzer button for Kera’s apartment, holding it in for five to ten seconds. Above the mailboxes was what looked like a speaker grate that had been painted over multiple times. She stared at it, as if by doing so she could entice it to come to life. But it didn’t. Outside she could hear the distant undulation of a diminishing siren, an omnipresent background sound in New York City. Then there was the brief blaring of a car horn, but not a peep from the speaker.

She tried pressing the buzzer again, this time keeping pressure on it for nearly half a minute. She felt there was no way Kera could avoid hearing it no matter what she was doing. But the speaker above the mailboxes stayed frustratingly silent.

“Come on, girl,” she said as she pressed Kera’s buzzer for the third time. She kept it pressed for more than a minute out of frustration, yet she knew it was hopeless. Just then the inner door opened and a nattily dressed, tall, thin-faced Caucasian man appeared. Like the previous woman, he seemed to be in a hurry, yet when he saw Madison holding down Kera’s buzzer, he stopped short. Behind him the inner door clicked shut.

“Is something wrong?” he asked.

Madison released the button. “Actually, there is,” she said. “By any chance do you know Kera Jacobsen? She lives in 4B. She’s a woman my age.”

“I don’t believe I do,” the man said. “Why do you ask?”

With obvious concern, Madison told the story of Kera’s unexpectedly not showing up for work at the hospital and not answering her phone or responding to multiple texts. “Plain and simple, I’m worried about her,” Madison added. “And she’s not answering her buzzer, either. Of course, I can’t be entirely sure the buzzer is working.”

“Mine’s functioning,” the man said. “But they can be finicky. Do you work at the same hospital as she?”

“Yes. We are both pediatric social workers.”

“Maybe you should go up and knock on her door,” the man said. “Just to be sure.”

“I’d like to do that,” Madison said.

The man got out his keys, unlocked the door, and then pushed it open for her.

“Thank you,” she said. She smiled before walking inside and to the elevator.

Once she’d arrived at 4B, she took a deep breath, then pressed the doorbell. When nothing happened, she pressed it again. When she couldn’t hear any doorbell ringing within the apartment, she raised her hand and knocked on the metal door. Then she listened intently but heard nothing, even after putting her ear against the door. With a disappointed shake of her head, she knocked again even louder. She tried the door, but it was locked, as she suspected it would be. With a sense of frustration, she shook the door. Since it was old, it rattled in its metal jamb and that was when she detected a whiff of a foul odor. It was very slight but disturbingly rank, even nauseating. With some trepidation, Madison rattled the door again and hesitantly put her nose closer to the separation between the door and the jamb. The smell was more intense although still slight, and it keyed off a memory. She had experienced a similar smell when she was a young teen. She and some friends were walking in the woods and came across a dead woodchuck. It was the smell of putrefaction, the smell of death.

Stunned, she backed away from Kera’s door. She wanted to flee, but willed herself to pull out her phone instead. With a trembling finger she punched in three numbers.

“This is nine-one-one,” the call taker said in a practiced monotone. “What is your emergency?”

“I’m at my friend’s apartment door,” Madison began.

“What is the problem, ma’am?” the operator interjected.

“She doesn’t answer when I knock and hasn’t answered her phone for a couple of days. She also hasn’t shown up for work.”

“Do you think she is in need of assistance?”

“There’s a bad smell,” she managed. “When I shook the door, I could smell it.”

“Is the door locked?”

“Yes, of course it is,” Madison said, feeling impatient. “Otherwise I would have gone in.”

“What kind of smell is it?”

“It’s the smell of death,” Madison said. She didn’t quite know how else to describe it. Another mild wave of nausea spread over her as her mind recalled the noxious odor.

“Are there animals on the premises?”

“Not that I know of,” she snapped. “I don’t think so. Listen, I think you’d better send somebody over here.”

“What is the address, ma’am, and your friend’s name?”

Madison struggled with her anxiety as she gave Kera’s full name, the address, and the apartment number. She had never called 911 before and had imagined it would have somehow been easier. She didn’t want to think about what the police may find behind Kera’s door.

“And what is your name, please?”

She gave her name. Then she had to give her address and her phone number. She couldn’t believe it was taking so long. She was worried about Kera — and a smaller, more selfish part of her realized her free time between appointments was rapidly running out.

“The police have already been dispatched,” the operator assured her. “They will be there shortly. When was the last time you saw Miss Jacobsen?”

“Friday at work,” Madison said.

“Did you or anyone else that you know speak with her over the weekend?”

“I didn’t,” she said. “I have no idea about anyone else. Listen, I hate to say this, but I have to get back to work.”

“I’m afraid I have to ask you to stay to talk to the patrol officers,” the operator said. “Your assistance will be needed.”

“I have patients that are scheduled,” Madison said. She was paralyzed by ambivalence about remaining where she was. With the smell of death seeping out of the apartment she was terrified of what was going to be found.

“Perhaps you should call your supervisor and say you’re involved in an emergency. It shouldn’t be much longer. I’m sure the patrolmen are getting close. While we wait, I want to ask you if your friend had any serious medical issues.”

“Not that I know of,” Madison said. She leaned her back up against the hallway wall. She changed hands with her phone since her palms had become sweaty. She felt claustrophobic.

“Does your friend have family in the area?”

“Not that I’m aware of,” she said. “She’s from LA.”

“Does the building have a live-in superintendent?”

“I don’t believe so,” Madison said, but she wasn’t a hundred percent certain.

The operator asked a number of additional questions before interrupting herself by saying: “I’ve just got confirmation that the patrolmen are at the front door of the building, but it’s locked. Can you go down and let them in?”

“Yes, of course,” she said. In truth, she felt relieved to disconnect from the 911 operator and get in the elevator. As soon as she got out on the ground floor, she saw the uniformed police patrolmen peeking through the door’s sidelights. There were two. Both appeared to be rather young. The fact that one of the cops was African American made her a bit more comfortable. She’d never had the opportunity to interact with the New York Police Department, but as a woman of color, she’d heard stories.

The moment Madison opened the door, the taller, black officer asked if she was Miss Bryant. When she said yes, he introduced himself as Officer Kevin Johnson and his partner as Officer Stan Goodhouse. It was Madison’s sense they were rather new to the job but making an attempt to pretend otherwise. She thought they were somewhere around the same age as she.

“We understand that you’re concerned about your friend and a bad smell,” Officer Johnson said. “Let’s go take a look.”

As they rode up in the elevator, the officers quizzed Madison on the information provided by the 911 operator, in particular about Miss Jacobsen not having been seen or heard from since Friday.

“That’s true as far as I know,” Madison said. “And I’ve tried to call and text her multiple times over the last two days.”

On the fourth floor, Madison led the policemen down to Kera’s door. Officer Goodhouse went through all the motions Madison had already tried. He rang the doorbell and then knocked loudly. Next, he tried the doorknob, but it was clear the door was still locked. He even put his shoulder to it to give a hesitant try to force it open, but it held solid.

“Do you smell the bad odor?” Madison asked.

Officer Johnson put his nose close to the crack between the door and the jamb. Quickly he straightened up. “It would be hard to miss that,” he said with a grimace.

The two officers looked at each other.

“What’s the protocol?” Goodhouse asked.

Madison rolled her eyes. It was even more obvious to her these policemen were relatively new to the job.

“I think it best we call ESU,” Johnson said.

Goodhouse nodded and unclipped his handheld radio microphone from his shoulder. As he put in the call Madison asked what ESU was.

“It stands for Emergency Service Unit,” Johnson said as Goodhouse talked in the background. “We can’t go bashing in doors unless we think we’re intervening in an acute emergency. Detecting a bad smell doesn’t qualify. But the ESU guys are used to this kind of situation, and they’re the best.”

“Will they be here soon?” Madison questioned. Every minute they lingered outside the door was a minute when they weren’t helping Kera. And there was still the issue of her looming appointments. She looked at her watch. She’d been gone for well over forty-five minutes.

“Should be,” Johnson said. “ESU has REP vehicles out on patrol twenty-four-seven. REP means Radio Emergency Patrol. There’s probably one in the neighborhood as we speak.”

“I have to get back to work,” Madison said, still feeling conflicted.

“I’m afraid we have to ask you to stay,” Johnson said.

“Okay,” Goodhouse said, interrupting. “A REP car is en route. They’ll be here in five.”

“I want to stay and find out what’s going on with Kera,” Madison said. “But I’ve got patients scheduled.”

“Are you a doctor?” Johnson asked.

“No, I’m a social worker at NYU Medical Center.”

“In a worst-case scenario, we may need you for identification purposes,” Johnson said. “As the nine-one-one caller and a friend of the apartment’s occupant, we have to ask you to stay. Maybe you should make a call to let people know you will be delayed.”

At that moment the door to 4A opened and a middle-aged, frizzy-haired, mildly overweight woman in a housedress appeared. Her expression was one of shocked disdain. “What’s going on?” she demanded.

“We’ve been called to check on your neighbor, ma’am,” Goodhouse said as he hooked his radio microphone back to its shoulder loop. “Have you seen her over the last couple of days?”

“No, not for several days,” the woman said. “I saw her Friday. Is she in trouble?”

“We hope not,” Goodhouse said. “Have you noticed anyone visiting lately, anybody at all?”

“No,” the woman said. “But she does have frequent late-night visitors, or she used to have them. But I don’t pay any attention. I got my own problems.”

“Thank you for your help,” Goodhouse said.

The woman eyed the people in her hall and then shut the door without another word.

“She’s a sweetheart,” Johnson said. “I’ll go down and wait for ESU to let them in the building.”

Madison was beside herself, wondering what to do. She wasn’t even sure who she should call. What made the situation worse was that the department was already in disarray because of Kera’s unexpected absence.

“How well do you know Miss Jacobsen?” Goodhouse asked. “It is ‘Miss,’ is it not?”

“She is unmarried,” Madison said. She thought it best if she called her immediate supervisor rather than the head of the department and took out her phone to make the call.

“I know her reasonably well,” she added as she pulled up the number in her contacts. “But, to be truthful, I hadn’t seen much of her for a few months.”

“Did you two have a falling-out?” he asked.

“Not to my knowledge,” Madison said. “She just became less available as far as I was concerned.”

“Any steady boyfriends that you knew of?”

“No,” she said without hesitation. “At least not here in New York. She had a steady boyfriend in LA, where she grew up, but they broke up before she came to New York.”

“Do you know if she was in contact with this former boyfriend?”

“I don’t think so,” Madison said. “But I don’t know for sure. What I do know is that he was the one to break off the relationship.”

At that moment the elevator door opened, and Johnson stepped out, accompanied by two additional uniformed police officers. Although their uniforms were blue, they were somewhat different from Johnson’s and Goodhouse’s, with less paraphernalia. They also had ESU emblazoned on their backs. Madison pressed against the wall of the hallway as they passed. These two new policemen were more obviously seasoned than Johnson and Goodhouse in both appearance and comport. The first one, a heavyset African American, was carrying a tool that Madison had never seen before. It was a weird-looking crowbar with a right-angled point and a narrow shovel-like extension at one end and a claw at the other.

Without the slightest hesitation, the officer stepped up to the door of 4B and with lightning speed popped the door open. Madison blinked at how easy the man made it seem. In the next instant a whiff of the putrid smell drifted out into the hallway while all four policemen disappeared into Kera’s apartment. She could hear them talking but couldn’t make anything out. She heard a window being opened, followed by an increase in the smell of decomposition. Madison felt a new wave of nausea spread over her, which she struggled to suppress.

A few minutes later the two ESU officers came out of the apartment. Neither spoke as they passed Madison, although they both acknowledged her with a nod. Madison didn’t respond. She felt numb. Although she still didn’t want to admit it, in her heart of hearts she knew what she was facing. Somehow it didn’t seem possible that someone she’d gotten to know and like, who was in the prime of her life, might actually be gone forever. For a time, she felt paralyzed and overwhelmed. She couldn’t even cry.

All at once she became aware of the phone still clutched in her hand. She needed to make the call to her supervisor, but before she could initiate the call, Johnson came out of the apartment. His expression told her what she didn’t want to hear.

“I’m sorry to have to tell you that your friend is deceased,” he said, confirming Madison’s worst suspicions. “Did you know she was a drug user?”

“I had no idea,” Madison said. “Is that... what killed her?”

“Looks like an overdose, which we cops see too much of on a daily basis. It’s an ongoing tragedy.”

“Am I going to have to see her?” she asked, horrified at the idea and dreading it. She didn’t even like seeing dead rabbits on the side of the road, much less a dead human friend.

“We’re going to need identification,” Johnson said. “Normally we call EMS to come and pronounce, to be absolutely sure, but in a case like this where the victim’s been deceased for a couple of days, the lieutenant at the precinct had us call the medical examiner directly. Their investigator will be here shortly. The ME will certainly need an ID, and I understand your friend has no family in the area.”

“So, I will have to see her,” Madison said reluctantly.

“The MEs often use photos, which would be a good idea under the circumstances.”

Madison slapped a hand over her mouth to try to suppress a sudden urge to vomit.