I Know a Secret

Thirty-two

So this is how it ends, thought Maura, as she watched morgue attendants wheel the pair of stretchers out of Bonnie Sandridge’s home. Two final deaths, two last bodies. Frigid air swept through the open front door, but that rush of fresh air was not powerful enough to cleanse the stench of violence from the house. Murder leaves a scent of its own. Blood and fear and aggression release their chemical traces into the air, and Maura could smell it now, in this room where Martin Stanek and Earl Devine had died. She stood silent, inhaling the scent, reading the room. Police radios chattered and she heard the voices of CSRU personnel moving through the various rooms of the house, but it was the blood that spoke to Maura. She scanned the spatters and overlying drips on the wall, studied the two puddles on the wood floor where the bodies had fallen. The police might call this bloody conclusion to the case justice well served, but Maura felt unsettled as she regarded the twin pools of blood. The larger one came from Martin Stanek, whose heart had briefly continued to beat and pump blood from the mortal wound in his skull. Earl Devine had not lived or bled as long. All three of Detective Crowe’s bullets had hit what would be the mid-chest bull’s-eye on a firing-range target. Gold stars for Crowe’s marksmanship. But after every fatal police shooting, questions followed, and the autopsy would have to address those questions.

“Trust me, it was a good shooting. We’ll all swear to that.”

Maura turned to Jane. “Good shooting is an oxymoron, if ever I heard one.”

“You know what I mean. You also know that I’d be happy to throw Darren Crowe under the bus if I could, but this was definitely justified. Earl Devine killed Stanek. He confessed to it. Then he pointed his weapon at me.”

“But you didn’t fire at him. You hesitated.”

“Yeah, and maybe Crowe saved my life.”

“Or maybe your instincts told you Earl Devine wasn’t really going to shoot you. Maybe you were better at reading his true intent.”

“And if I was wrong? I might be dead now.” She shook her head and snorted. “God, now I owe a debt to that jerk Crowe. I’d almost prefer getting shot.”

Maura looked down again at the mingled blood, which was now congealed and drying. “Why did Earl Devine do this?”

“He said he was protecting his daughter. Said it was the last gift he could give her.”

“Why did he then point his gun at you? He knew what would happen next. This is a clear case of suicide by cop.”

“Which spares everyone the ordeal of a trial. Think about it, Maura. If he lived and this ended up in court, his defense would be that he was protecting his daughter. That would dredge up the old Apple Tree case, and the whole world would learn that Holly was molested as a child. Maybe this was Earl’s ultimate gift to his daughter. He kept her safe. And he protected her privacy.”

“There’s no privacy in murder. Those details will probably become public anyway.” Maura peeled off her exam gloves. “Who has custody of Crowe’s weapon?”

“He surrendered it.”

“Please keep him away from the morgue tomorrow. I don’t want any questions raised about my autopsy of Earl Devine. When The Boston Globe reports that a sixty-seven-year-old Navy veteran was gunned down by a cop, it’s not going to go down well with the public.”

“But that Navy veteran pointed a gun at me.”

“A detail that won’t show up until the second paragraph. Half the public doesn’t read past the first.” Maura turned to leave. “I’ll see you tomorrow at the autopsy.”

“Do I really need to be there? I know how these two men died, so there won’t be any surprises.”

Maura paused and looked back at the room. At the blood-spattered wall. “You never know what will turn up on an autopsy. I feel like this was all wrapped up too neatly, and there are still a lot of questions with no answers.”

“Bonnie Sandridge can fill in the gaps. We just have to get her to talk.”

“You have no proof she helped Stanek kill anyone.”

“The proof has to be here in this house, or in her car. Hairs, fibers from the victims. A stash of ketamine. We’ll find something.”

Jane sounded certain of herself, but Maura felt far less confident as she walked outside and climbed into her car. There she sat, staring at the brightly lit house. Silhouettes of crime-scene personnel moved past windows, searching for evidence to support what they already believed: that Bonnie Sandridge was the killer’s accomplice. Confirmation bias had tripped many a scientist, and no doubt many a cop as well. You find only what you’re looking for, which makes it far too easy to overlook everything else.

Her cell phone pinged with a text message and she glanced at the sender’s number. At once she dropped the phone back into her purse, but that one glimpse made her stomach churn. Not now, she thought. I’m not ready to think about you.

On the drive home, that unanswered text message felt like a ticking time bomb in her purse. She forced herself to keep both hands on the steering wheel, to fix her gaze on the road. She should not have reopened the door between them, not even a crack. Now that they were speaking again, she wanted nothing more than to welcome Daniel back into her life, into her bed. Bad move, Maura. Be strong, Maura. You must be your own woman.

At home she poured herself a much-needed glass of zinfandel and served the Beast his belated dinner. The cat ate without so much as a glance her way, and when he’d licked up the last morsel of chicken, he simply walked out of the kitchen. So much for the joys of companionship, she thought. She received more love from this bottle of wine.

She sipped her zinfandel, trying not to look at the cell phone lying on the kitchen counter. It called to her the way opium calls to a junkie, tempting her back into a spiral of heartbreak. Daniel’s text had been short: Call if you need me. There were only five words in that message, yet they had the power to paralyze her in this chair while she mulled over its true intent. What did those words — if you need me — really mean? Was he referring to the murder investigation and offering more expert advice?

Or is this about us?

She drained her glass of wine and poured a second. Pulled out the handwritten notes she’d jotted down at tonight’s death scene and opened her laptop. Now was the time to organize her thoughts, while her memories were still fresh.

Her cell phone rang. Daniel.

She hesitated only a second before picking it up, only to see an unfamiliar number on the display. It was not Daniel’s voice but a woman’s on the phone, a woman who delivered the news that she’d both expected and dreaded. She left her laptop glowing on the kitchen table and ran to the closet to get her coat.

“They found Mrs. Lank collapsed and unconscious in her cell,” said Dr. Wang. “The prison nurse immediately began CPR and they managed to restore a pulse. But as you can see from the cardiac monitor, she’s having frequent periods of ventricular tachycardia.”

Maura stared through the ICU window at Amalthea, who was now deeply comatose. “Why?” she asked softly.

“The arrhythmia could be a complication of her chemotherapy. The drugs can be cardiotoxic.”

“No, I meant, why did they even resuscitate her? They know she’s dying of pancreatic cancer.”

“But she’s still listed as a full code.” He looked at her. “Perhaps you don’t know this, but Mrs. Lank signed a medical power of attorney document last week. She named you as her representative.”

“I had no idea.”

“You’re her only relative. You have the authority. Do you want to change her status to do not resuscitate?”

Maura watched Amalthea’s chest rise and fall with every whoosh of the ventilator. “Is she responsive to stimuli?”

He shook his head. “And she’s not breathing on her own. No one knows how long she was unconscious, so there’s a good chance she has anoxic brain damage. There may also be something else going on, neurologically. I haven’t ordered a brain scan yet, but that would be the next diagnostic step, unless you decide...” He paused, watching her. Waiting for her answer.

“Do not resuscitate,” she said quietly.

He nodded. “I think that’s the right decision.” He hesitated before giving her a pat on the arm, as if touching another human being did not come naturally to him, just as it did not come naturally to Maura. It was far easier to understand the mechanics of the human body than to know what one should say and do in times of grief.

Maura stepped into the cubicle and stood at Amalthea’s bedside, surveying all the beeping and whooshing machinery. With a clinical eye she noted the scant urine in the collection bag, the flurry of premature beats on the screen, the lack of spontaneous breathing. These were all the signs of a body shutting down, a brain no longer functioning. Whoever Amalthea Lank had once been, all her thoughts and feelings and memories were now extinguished. Only this flesh-and-bone container remained.

An alarm on the monitor sounded. Maura looked up at the cardiac rhythm and saw a succession of jagged peaks. Ventricular tachycardia. The blood-pressure line plummeted. Through the window, she saw two nurses scrambling toward the cubicle, but Dr. Wang stopped them at the doorway.

“She’s a DNR,” he told them. “I just wrote the order.”

Maura reached up and shut off the alarm.

On the monitor, she watched the rhythm deteriorate to ventricular fibrillation, the final electrical twitches of Amalthea’s dying heart. The blood pressure cratered to zero, starving the last surviving brain cells of oxygen. You gave birth to me, thought Maura. In every cell of my body I carry your DNA, but in every other way we are strangers. She thought of the mother and father who had adopted and cherished her, both of them dead now. They were her real parents, because one’s true family is defined not by DNA but by love. In that regard, this woman was no relation of Maura’s, and as she watched Amalthea’s final moments, she did not feel even the slightest twinge of grief.

The heart at last ceased its final twitches. A flat line traced across the screen.

A nurse stepped in and shut off the ventilator. “I’m sorry,” she murmured.

Maura took a deep breath. “Thank you,” she said, and walked out of the cubicle. She kept walking, out of the ICU, out of the hospital, into a wind so frigid that by the time she crossed the parking lot to her car, she could not feel her hands or face. A physical numbness to match what she felt inside. Amalthea is dead, my parents are dead, and I will probably never have a child, she thought. She had long felt alone in the world and had accepted it, but tonight, standing beside her car in the windswept parking lot, she realized she did not want to accept it. Did not have to accept it. She was alone only by choice.

I can change that. Tonight.

She slid into her car, pulled out the cell phone, and once again read Daniel’s text message. Call if you need me.

She called.

Daniel made it to her house before she did.

When she arrived home, she saw him sitting in his parked car in her driveway, where the whole world could see him. Last year they’d been careful to conceal his visits, but tonight he’d cast aside all caution. Even before she shut off her engine, he was out of his car and opening her door.

She stepped out, into his arms.

There was no need to explain why she’d called him, no need for words of any kind. The first touch of his lips stripped away her last shreds of resistance. I’m right back in the trap, she thought, as they kissed their way into her house and down the hallway.

To her bedroom.

There, she stopped thinking at all, because she no longer cared about the consequences. All that mattered was that she felt alive again, whole again, reunited with the missing part of her soul. Loving Daniel might be foolish and ultimately star-crossed, but not loving him had been impossible. All these months she had tried to live without him, had swallowed the bitter pill of self-control and been rewarded with lonely nights and far too many glasses of wine. She’d convinced herself that walking away from him was sensible, because she could never claim him as her own, not when her rival was God Himself. But being sensible had not warmed her bed or made her happy or quelled the longing that she would always feel for this man.

In the bedroom they did not turn on the lights; they didn’t need to. Their bodies were already familiar territory to each other, and she knew every inch of his skin. She could tell that he had lost weight, just as she had, as though their hunger for each other had been a true starvation. One night would not be enough to satisfy that hunger, and she did not know when they would have another, so she took what she could now, greedy for the pleasure that his Church had forbidden them. Here is what you’ve missed, Daniel, she thought. How petty your God must be, how cruel, to deny us this joy.

But later, as they lay together with the sweat cooling on their skin, she felt the old sadness creeping in. Here is our punishment, she thought. Not hell and brimstone but the inevitable pain of goodbye. Always a goodbye.

“Tell me why,” he whispered. He didn’t need to say more; she understood what he was asking. Months after she had unequivocally broken off their affair, why had she invited him back into her bed?

“She’s dead,” said Maura. “Amalthea Lank.”

“When did this happen?”

“Tonight. I was there, at the hospital. I watched her last heartbeats on the monitor. She had cancer, so I knew she was dying, and I’ve known it for months. But still, when it happened...”

“I should have been there with you,” he murmured, and she savored the warmth of his breath in her hair. “All you ever have to do is call me and I’ll be here. You know that.”

“It’s strange. A few years ago, I didn’t know Amalthea existed. But now that she’s gone, my last living relative, I realize how alone I am.”

“Only if you choose to be.”

As if loneliness were a choice, she thought. She hadn’t chosen the road to both joy and misery. She hadn’t chosen to love a man who would always be torn between her and his promise to God. That choice had been made for them, by the killer who’d brought them together four years ago, a killer who’d turned his sights on Maura. Daniel had risked his life to save Maura’s; what greater proof could he offer that he loved her?

“You’re not alone, Maura,” he said. “You have me.” He turned her face toward his, and in the darkness she saw the gleam of his eyes, steadily focused on her. “You’ll always have me.”

Tonight, she believed him.

In the morning, Daniel was gone.

She got dressed alone, ate her breakfast alone, read the newspaper alone. Well, not entirely alone: The cat sat nearby, licking his paws after a breakfast of fancy canned tuna.

“No comment, I take it?” Maura said to him.

The Beast didn’t deign to look up at her.

As she rinsed her dishes and packed up her laptop, she thought of Daniel, who at this moment would be preparing for a new day of tending to the needy souls in his congregation. This was how their feverish nights together always concluded: with the mundane tasks of daily life, performed separately. In this way they were no different from married couples. They made love, they slept together, and in the morning off they both went to their jobs.

Today, she thought, this counts as happiness.

From a night of love to a day of death.

This morning it was the body of Earl Devine that waited to greet her when she walked into the autopsy room. Yoshima had already performed the X-rays, and the images were now displayed on the computer screen. As she tied on her gown, she studied the chest films and noted the position of the bullet that had lodged against the spine. Based on the exit wounds, which she’d examined at the death scene, two bullets had passed through the chest and out of the body. This was the sole bullet that remained, its trajectory halted by Devine’s vertebral bone.

Jane walked into the autopsy room and joined Maura at the computer screen. “Let me guess. Cause of death is gunshot wounds. Can I be an ME too?”

“There’s a bullet lodged in his sixth thoracic vertebra,” said Maura.

“And we recovered the other two bullets at the scene. Backs up what I said last night. Crowe fired three times.”

“An appropriate response to an imminent threat. I think he has nothing to worry about.”

“Still, he’s pretty rattled. We had to take him out for drinks last night, just to talk him down.”

Maura shot her an amused look. “What is this I’m hearing? A note of sympathy for your old nemesis?”

“Yeah, can you believe it? It’s like the world’s turned upside down.” Jane paused, studying Maura’s face. “What’d you do to yourself?”

“Excuse me?”

“You’re all bright and shiny this morning. Like you’ve been to a health spa or something.”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about.” But of course Maura did know; bright and shiny was exactly how the world looked to her today. Happiness left its telltale glow, and Jane was too observant to miss it. If I tell her about last night, she’ll certainly disapprove, but I don’t give a damn. I choose not to care what Jane thinks, or what anyone thinks. Today I choose to be happy. With a defiant click of the mouse, she pulled up the next X-ray, and a lateral view of the chest appeared onscreen. Maura frowned at a coin-shaped lucency in the vertebral body, just above where the bullet had lodged. A lesion that should not be there.

“New makeup? Vitamin pills?” Jane asked.

“What?”

“Something’s different about you.”

Maura ignored her. She clicked back to the frontal view of the chest and zoomed in to study the fifth and sixth vertebrae. But the bullet-shredded lung had spilled air and blood into the chest cavity and forced the thoracic organs out of their usual positions. In this distorted landscape, she could not find what she was searching for.

“You see something interesting?” said Jane.

Maura clicked back to the lateral view and pointed to the lesion in the vertebral body. “I’m not sure what this is.”

“I’m no doctor, but that doesn’t look like a bullet to me.”

“No, it’s something else. Something in the bone. I need to confirm what I think it is.” Maura turned to the autopsy table where Earl Devine was stretched out, awaiting her scalpel. “Let’s open him up,” she said, and tied on her mask.

As Maura started the Y incision, Jane said, “I hope you’re not having doubts about how the shooting went down.”

“No.”

“So what are you looking for?”

“An explanation, Jane. The reason why this man chose suicide by cop.”

“Isn’t that a job for a psychiatrist?”

“In this case, the autopsy may give us the answer.”

Maura cut swiftly and efficiently, moving with an urgency she hadn’t felt before she’d viewed the X-rays. The cause of death and manner of death were both apparent, and she’d assumed this autopsy would merely confirm what she’d already been told about the shooting. But the lateral chest X-ray had added a possible twist to the tale, a tantalizing glimpse of Earl Devine’s motives and his state of mind. A cadaver could reveal more than merely physical secrets; sometimes it offered insights into the personality once inhabiting the flesh. Whether clues were old slash marks on the wrists or needle tracks or cosmetic-surgery scars, every corpse told tales on its owner.

As Maura snapped through the ribs, she felt she was about to open the book containing Earl Devine’s secrets, but when she lifted the breastplate and exposed the thoracic cavity, she found those secrets obscured by a chest full of blood. The three bullets fired by Detective Crowe had devastated their target, puncturing lung and slicing through the aorta. The explosion of blood and leaked air had collapsed the right lung, deforming the usual landmarks. She plunged gloved hands into that cold pudding of blood and blindly ran her fingers across the surface of the left lung.

It did not take long to find what she was searching for.

“How can you see anything in there?” asked Jane.

“I can’t. But I can already tell you this lung is not normal.”

“Maybe because a bullet went through it?”

“A bullet had nothing to do with this.” Maura reached again for the scalpel. It was tempting to take shortcuts and focus immediately on the lung, but that was how mistakes were made, vital details missed. Instead, she proceeded as she always did, first dissecting the tongue and neck, freeing the pharynx and esophagus from the cervical vertebrae. She saw no foreign bodies, nothing to distinguish Earl Devine’s throat structures from those of any other sixty-seven-year-old man. Slow down. Make no mistakes. She felt Jane watching her with growing puzzlement. Yoshima set forceps on the tray, and the clang was as sharp as gunfire. Maura stayed on task, her scalpel slicing through the soft tissue and vessels of the thoracic inlet. With both hands deep in chilled blood, she freed the parietal pleura to separate the lungs from the chest wall.

“Basin,” she requested.

Yoshima held out a stainless-steel basin, waiting for what she was about to drop into it.

She lifted the heart and lungs in a single organ bloc from the chest cavity, and the viscera plopped into the basin with a splash. The smell of cold blood and meat rose with the dripping offal. She carried the bowl to the sink and rinsed a slimy veil of blood from the organs, revealing what she had earlier felt on the surface of the left lung: a lesion that had been obscured on the X-ray by trauma.

Maura sliced out a wedge of lung. Staring at the gray-white specimen glistening in her gloved hand, she knew how this tissue would almost certainly look under the microscope. She imagined dense whorls of keratin and strange, misshapen cells. And she thought of Earl Devine’s house, where the smell of nicotine clung to the drapes, the furniture.

She looked at Jane. “I need a list of his medications. Find out who his doctor was.”

“Why?”

Maura held up the wedge of tissue. “Because this explains his suicide.”