Loving Time

eight

It was a routine call, but April’s heart beat faster as the elevator door slid open on the fifth floor. It was always that way. Her mouth parched up dry as a desert, and a strange metallic taste materialized as if she’d been chewing on a bullet. Her hands became clammy. Her heart raced. Her heart was always racing. Somewhere up there in her neck, or even higher, at the back of her throat. Or else her heart beat in her mouth, and her head throbbed as if with a migraine.

Every time it was exactly the same. The brain charged up the electrical circuits with a power surge that jolted the whole system into a state of alert. A thousand signals transmitted at the same time. Warning signals. Memory bank activation. Pictures of a dead child hidden under a pile of garbage in a backyard, shooting flames, explosions, flying debris, choking smoke, guns going off, a suspect hit, a cop shot, a huge mirror crashing to the ground crushing the woman under it. Burning clothes, skin. Blood. Suspects’ voices, and those of the dead.

As each new case began, ghosts from the old ones kept whispering in April’s brain, telling their cautionary tales over and over. Never take anything for granted. Never! Never accept only what you see in front of you. Never automatically believe the things people tell you. Never just open a door. Never! Behind it could be something. Could also be nothing, too. But you never knew …

It was a well-known fact cops keeled over and dropped dead sometimes on nice quiet days when nothing at all was coming down. Their hearts just stopped after too many power-surges to the system. Some had post-traumatic stress symptoms, too, like soldiers after a war. And a lot of cops had problems with normalcy. They took charge on the job but couldn’t stand gearing down to daily life. Breakfast and lunch, and families who didn’t understand what being hit by jolts of adrenaline—two, three times a day—was like.

April had a weird feeling about this one. She glanced at Mike and swallowed. It was very quiet in the hall. Mike’s mustache bristled with the tension. He must be feeling the same thing she was. The thing was, you never knew whose nightmare behind the door was about to be yours.

It was a small building, six apartments to a floor. Here, on the fifth floor, the New York Times still lay on the faded blue carpet by two apartment doors. One was at the end of the hall on the right. The ancient wallpaper was stylized, spiky bamboo, in metallic blue and silver. It was supposed to be exotic and Oriental, but evoked no Orient April knew. The paper was scarred and peeling in places, and so was the matching carpet. The aroma of toast lingered in the stale air.

Leaning against the wall and staring down at the newspaper in front of 5E was a thirty-something, wispy blond woman in a shapeless beige coat. Her fine, even features should have manifested a pretty woman, but they didn’t. Anxiety was so deeply etched on her thin pale face, attractiveness had been all but erased.

As April and Mike headed down the hall toward her, the woman looked up and uneasily watched them approach. Finally, when they were only a few feet away, she opened her mouth tentatively. “Are you with the police?”

“Yes, ma’am. Sergeant Sanchez, Detective Woo.” Mike flipped open his badge.

The woman waved it away without looking at it. “That’s all right, I believe you.” Her hands fluttered around the drawstring of a wellworn shoulder bag. “I’m sorry,” she added immediately. “About the trouble, I mean. I didn’t know what else to do. They wouldn’t let me in. They said to call the police.” She pointed toward the elevator, meaning those in the building, then looked down again at the newspaper. “Strange.”

April nodded. It usually was. “You’re …?”

“Lorna Cowles. His office called when he didn’t come to work. I guess Ray didn’t tell them we’re separated.”

“I see.” April could smell the woman’s fear. It filled the space around her like an aura. She looked bleak and far more frightened than anyone in such a situation should be.

“They said he was working on something that was due today. A report for some meeting. It’s not like Ray to be late.” Lorna Cowles glanced nervously at the door, then away.

“Do you have the keys?” Mike asked her.

“Me?” The question seemed to amaze her. “No. I already told you—he moved out. He didn’t even want me to see it. I—I’ve never been here.” She dragged a hand through her fine shoulder-length hair. It was very pale all the way to the roots. A natural blond without makeup. She seemed bloodless, bleached and hopeless all the way to the bone.

Mike rang the bell a few times. There was no sound from within, none at all. “Police,” he said. “Open the door.”

“I told you, I did that already. Ray’s responsible. He wouldn’t be in there and not answer—”

Mike produced the thin strip of plastic that worked only when doors weren’t double-locked. April touched the woman’s arm to get her to step back and give him some room.

At the unexpected contact, Lorna Cowles shivered, then reached down to pick up the newspaper before moving away. “This is so intrusive.… Ray really won’t like this.… ”

Mike’s hands moved quickly with the plastic strip, angling it around the tongue of the lock just right. There were lock picks in his pocket, but he didn’t need them this time. The Medeco wasn’t locked. After only two tries, the door popped open.

Mike turned to April, cocking an eyebrow. Ready? She nodded. He pushed the door open and went in.

“He’s probably away.” Lorna Cowles hung back. “I’m sure that’s what it is.”

“Do you want to wait here?” April asked her gently.

“I—I don’t … Well, what’s … I mean what do people—”

“It’s your call.” April left her to her choice and followed Mike into the apartment.

The living room and dining area made a quick, precise statement. They were spare, unfinished. In the living room were a sofa, a glass coffee table with two empty wineglasses on it. A stereo component system and compact discs were laid out on the floor at the edge of a colorful area rug. A standing halogen lamp still burned brightly in the corner by the un-curtained windows. Under the lamp were two unopened cardboard mover’s boxes. In the dining area were a round café-style table and two wicker café chairs. The only thing on the table was a bowl of wrapped Halloween candy, the kind you passed out to trick-or-treaters. The bowl was about a quarter full.

It looked as if Cowles had only recently moved in, and he and a friend had just finished dinner. April took it in instantly and would not forget her first impression. Out the windows she could see the back of the museum and the leafless trees in the park. Mike had stopped at the bedroom door. The total stillness of his attitude, the stiffness of his back told her the man they were looking for was in there.

“Looks like a suicide,” he said softly, going in.

April followed him to the door, then stopped as Mike had so that she, too, could form an impression. They worked the same way. Later, they would ask each other the same questions, shake the answers around like a dog with a sock, follow the same thoughts to their conclusions. But for now they just looked.

Raymond Cowles lay on one side of his queen-size bed, the side with the bedside table next to it. He was lying on the rumpled beige sheets, wearing suede loafers without socks, faded jeans, and a blue shirt buttoned only halfway. He was on his back, his arms at his sides. He was beautifully dressed and looked like an actor in a movie.

The way the room appeared only half-lived in, with no reading light by the bed, no clothes on the floor, no paraphernalia of a life scattered about, it almost seemed as if someone could shout “Action” and Raymond Cowles the actor would get up to finish the scene.

Raymond Cowles the man wasn’t getting up, though. He’d finished his last action when he put the plastic bag over his head and taped it with masking tape around his neck. His life had gone with the air in the bag. He was the color of putty.

“Oh, God. No!” Lorna Cowles had finally made it into the apartment. Her fist flew to her mouth, and she screamed, “Oh, God. Oh, God. Take it off! Quick, take it off.”

April took her arm. “Come on, let’s—”

“Take it off,” she screamed. “Don’t let him—”

“It’s too late. There’s nothing we can do.” April guided her out of the room.

“Is he—?” Suddenly Lorna wanted to go back.

“He died hours ago. Long time ago.” April led her into the kitchen. Here Raymond had taken an interest. Pots hung from a pot rack. Rows of glass jars filled with beans and dried pasta, a shelf of spices. A bowl of fruit, ripe. Two used cloth napkins and matching placemats lay on the counter along with some crumbs and an empty bottle of wine. White wine, a California chardonnay.

“Oh, my God.” Lorna Cowles was horrified, stunned. The fist went to her mouth again. “He cooked for someone.”

Apparently he had. April found a clean glass in the cupboard, filled it with water, and handed it to Lorna.

Lorna took a sip, then turned and vomited in the sink.

April swallowed. This was the way it happened. Mike hit the redial on the phone to find out if the deceased had called anyone before he died. Then he went into the victim’s bathroom looking for the sedatives Cowles would have needed to take to get drowsy enough not to fight asphyxiation, and she was in the kitchen with the vomiting wife.

When the vomiting wife was finished, April handed her paper towels and some ice water.

“Oh, God … Who would do something like that to him?” Lorna slumped against the counter. “Who would do that?”

“What makes you think someone else did it?” April murmured.

“Well, he wouldn’t. Ray wouldn’t do such a thing. He believed in God. He believed in eternal Heaven and Hell. He would not have done this to himself.” Lorna fixed her light blue eyes on April. “Don’t even consider suicide. I’m sure it wasn’t. Please, don’t cover it up like that. Find out who did it.”

“Sure,” April said. Of course they would investigate. It was their job to investigate. But it looked like suicide to her. In the other room April could hear Mike calling for Crime Scene and an ambulance. Maybe he’d found something that made him suspect Cowles’s death wasn’t a suicide. That changed things.

Lorna Cowles reached out, as if somehow to connect with the last bottle of wine her husband had drunk. “Poor Ray,” she murmured.

“Don’t touch,” April said quickly. “Don’t touch anything else.”

The woman’s hand jerked back. “Don’t touch,” Lorna Cowles told herself. “Don’t touch.”