Peggy Sue Got Murdered

4

The morgue elevator slid open. Here we go again, she thought.

The basement seemed calm tonight. The only noise was the morgue attendant's radio, playing in a side office. Something mean and gritty and tuneless. She and Adam passed the open door, where they could see the attendant sitting with his feet propped up on the desk, his gaze focused on a Naked Babes Magazine.

"Hey, Willie," said M. J.

"Hey, Doc," he said, grinning at her over the cover. "Not much action coming down tonight."

"I can tell."

"Y'mean this?" He waved the magazine and laughed. "Man, I get tired of lookin' at dead chicks. I like mine live and sassy."

"We're going into the cold room, okay?"

"Need any help?"

"No. You just stay with your sassy chicks."

She and Adam walked on down the hall, beneath the bank of fluorescent lights. The bulb that had been flickering earlier that day was now dead; it left a patch of shadow on the linoleum floor.

They entered the storage room. She flicked on the wall switch and blinked at the painful blast of light on her retinas. The refrigerated drawers faced them from the opposite wall.

She moved to the drawer labeled Vargas, Xenia, and slid it open. Covered by the shroud, the body seemed shapeless, like a lump of clay still to be molded. She glanced up at Adam in silent inquiry.

He nodded.

She removed the shroud.

The corpse looked like a mannequin, not real at all, but plastic. Adam took one good look at Xenia Vargas, and all the tension seemed to escape his body in a single sigh.

"You don't know her?" said M. J.

"No." He swallowed. "I've never seen her."

She replaced the shroud and slid the drawer shut. Then she turned and looked at him. "Okay, Quantrell, I think it's time for you to fess up. Who, exactly, are you looking for?"

He paused. "A woman."

"I know that. I also know she's got hazel eyes. And the chances are, she's either a blond or a redhead. Now I want to know her name."

"Maeve," he said softly.

"Now we're getting somewhere. Maeve who?"

"Quantrell."

She frowned. "Wife? Sister?"

"Daughter. I mean, stepdaughter. She's twenty-three. And you're right. She's blond. Hazel eyes. Five foot five, a hundred fifteen pounds. At least, that's what she was when I saw her last."

"And when was that?"

"Six months ago."

"She's missing?"

He shrugged one tuxedoed shoulder. "Missing, hiding. Whatever you want to call it. She drops out of sight whenever she feels like it. Whenever she can't face up to life. It's her way of coping."

"Coping with what?"

"Everything. Bad grades. Love affairs. Her mother's death. Her lousy stepfather."

"So you two didn't get along."

"No." Wearily he raked his fingers through his hair. "I couldn't handle her. I thought I could shape her up. You know, a firm hand, some good old-fashioned discipline. The way my father raised me. I even got her a job, thinking that all she needed was some responsibility. That at a minimum she could show up on time, do the job right, and pay for her own damn groceries." He shook his head. "She went to work one day, two hours late, her hair dyed purple. She had a screaming match with her supervisor. Then she walked off the job." He let out a breath. "She was fired."

"And that was the last time she was seen?"

"No. I took her out to lunch. To try to patch things up. Instead, we had an argument. Naturally."

"Let me guess," said M. J. "You took her to L'Etoile, on Hilton Avenue."

He nodded. "Maeve showed up in black leather and green hair. She insulted the maitre d'. Lit up a joint in the nonsmoking section. And proceeded to tell me I had sick values. I told her she was sick, period. I also told her I was withdrawing all financial support. That if she shaped up, behaved like a responsible human being, she was welcome to come back to the house. I'd just changed my phone number-I was getting crank calls-so I wrote my new number in a matchbook and gave it to her. Just in case she wanted to get in touch with me. She never did."

"And the matchbook?"

He shrugged. "Maybe she passed it around to a friend, and somehow Jane Doe got it. I don't know."

"You haven't seen her since the restaurant?"

"No."

She paused. "Where does Lou Beamis come in?"

"A private detective I hired told me Maeve was hanging around South Lexington. That's Lieutenant Beamis's beat. I simply asked him to keep an eye out for her. As a favor to me. He thought he spotted her once, but that was it."

It sounded believable enough, M. J. thought, studying his pose, the elegant cut of his tuxedo. So why do I get the feeling he's still hiding something?

His gaze was focused elsewhere, as though he was afraid to let her see his eyes.

"What you're telling me, Mr. Quantrell, isn't exactly earth-shattering. Lots of families have problems with their kids. Why were you afraid to tell me about her? Why hide it from me?"

"It's a rather… embarrassing state of affairs."

"Is that all?"

"Isn't that enough?" He swung around to look at her, the challenge plain in his aristocratic face. She felt trapped by the spell of that gaze. What was it about this guy?

She gave her head a shake, as though to clear it. "No," she said. "It's not enough. So what if you had told me the truth this morning? I'm just a public servant. You don't get embarrassed in front of your servants, do you?"

He gave her a tight smile. "You, Dr. Novak, I hardly consider a servant."

"Is there something else about Maeve you don't want to tell me? Some minor detail you haven't mentioned?"

"Nothing of any relevance to your job." He turned away, a sure sign that he wasn't telling the whole truth. His gaze focused on one of the body drawers.

"Then I'd say our business here is finished," she said. "Go on home to your guests. If you hurry, you might be able to make it back in time for brandy."

"Who is this?" he asked sharply.

"What?"

"This drawer here. It says Jane Doe."

M. J. took a closer look at the label: #372-3-27-6. "Another one. Dated seven days ago. Ratchet must have processed this one."

"Who's Ratchet?"

"The other assistant ME. He's on vacation right now."

Adam took a breath. "May I…" He looked up mutely at M. J.

She nodded. Without a word, she pulled open the drawer.

Wisps of cold vapor swirled out. M. J. felt her old reluctance to lift the shroud, to reveal the body. This Jane Doe she hadn't laid eyes on. She steeled herself against the worst and slid off the shroud.

The woman was beautiful. Seven days of stainless steel imprisonment couldn't dull the glow of her hair. It was a rich red, thick and tumbling about her shoulders. Her skin had the luster of white marble, and in life must have seemed flawless. Her eyes, revealed by partly opened, heavily lashed lids, were gray. No injuries marred the upper torso, only a puncture mark in the skin under the clavicle-probably made by Ratchet collecting his blood specimens.

M. J. looked across at Adam.

He shook his head. "You can close the drawer," he murmured. "It's not her."

"I wonder who she is?" said M. J., sliding the drawer shut. "She looks like the kind of woman who'd be missed. Not our usual Jane Doe type."

"Would you know how she died?" The question was asked softly, but its significance at once struck M. J.

"Let's pull the file," she said.

They found it in Ratchet's office. It was buried in a stack on his desk, waiting to be completed. On top were clipped a few loose pages, recent correspondence from the central identification lab.

"Looks like she's no longer a Jane Doe," said M. J. "They found a fingerprint match. Her name's Peggy Sue Barnett. I guess Ratchet never got around to relabeling the drawer."

"Why does she have fingerprints on file?"

M. J. flipped to the next page. "Because she has a police record. Shoplifting. Prostitution. Public drunkenness." M. J. glanced up at Adam. "Guess she wasn't as sweet as she looked."

"What was the cause of death?"

M. J. opened the folder and squinted at Ratchet's notes. He must have been in a rush when he wrote it; it was a typical doctor's scrawl, the is undotted, the ts uncrossed. "Subject found 3/27 at 02:35 in public restroom at Gilly's bar, off Flashner Avenue." M. J. looked up. "That's in Bellemeade. I live there." She turned to the next page. "No injuries noted… tox screens pending. Police report empty bottle of Fiorinal pills found near body. Conclusion: cardiopulmonary arrest, most likely due to barbiturate overdose. Awaiting tox screen from state lab."

"Is the report back yet?"

M. J. went to the courier box and riffled through the stack of pages. "I don't see it here. It's probably still pending." She closed the file. "This case doesn't really fit with the others. Bellemeade's a different neighborhood, with a different class of drug users. Higher priced."

"The others were all in South Lexington?"

"Within blocks of each other. Jane Doe was smack in the Projects. So was Xenia Vargas. Nicos Biagi was a little further out, on Richmond Street. Let's see, that'd make it somewhere near the old railroad tracks. But it's still the same neighborhood."

"You seem to know the area well."

"Too well." She tossed Peggy Sue Barnett's file on Ratchet's desk. "I grew up there."

He looked at her in surprise. "You?"

"Me."

"How did you…" He paused, as though not certain how to phrase the question with any delicacy.

"How did I happen to grow up there? Simple. That's where my mom lived. Right up until she died."

"So you would know the people there."

"Some of them. But the neighborhood's always changing. People who can get out, get out. It's like this giant pond. Either you float up and crawl out or you sink deeper into the mud."

"And you floated."

She shrugged. "I got lucky."

He studied her with new appreciation, as though he was really seeing her for the first time. "In your case, Novak," he said, "I think luck had nothing to do with it."

"Not like some of us," she said, looking at his tuxedo and his immaculate shirt.

He laughed. "Yes, some of us do seem to be rolling in it."

They rode back up the elevator and walked out of the building. It was chilly outside. The wind blew an empty can down the street; they could trace its progress by the tinny echoes in the darkness.

He had driven in his car, and she in hers. Now they paused beside their respective vehicles, as though reluctant to part.

He turned to her. "What I was trying to say earlier- about your knowing people in South Lexington…" He paused. She waited, feeling strangely breathless. Eager. "I was trying to ask for your help," he finished.

"My help?"

"I want to find Maeve."

So it's my help he wants , she thought. Not me in particular . She wondered why that fact should leave her feeling so disappointed. She said, "Lou Beamis is a good cop. If he can't find her-"

"That's just it. He's a cop. No one out there trusts cops. Certainly Maeve wouldn't trust him. She'd think he was out to arrest her. Or reel her in for me."

"Is that what you're trying to do?"

"I just want to know she's alive and well."

"She's an adult, Adam. She can make her own choices."

"What if her choices are insane?"

"Then she lives with them."

"You don't understand. I made a promise to her mother. I promised that Maeve would be taken care of. So far I've done a pretty deplorable job." He sighed. "At the very least, I should look for her."

"What if she doesn't want to be found?"

"Then she should tell me that, face to face. But I have to find her first. And you're the only one I know who's familiar with South Lexington."

M. J. laughed. "Yeah, I guess it's not the sort of neighborhood your dinner guests would frequent."

"I would appreciate it. I really would. Just show me the place. Put me in touch with some of the people. I'd reimburse you for your time, of course. You only have to say how much-"

"Wait a minute." She moved closer to him, her chin tilted up in astonishment. "You were going to pay me?"

"I mean, it's only appropriate-"

"Forget it. Forget it. I'm a doctor, Quantrell, okay? I'm not the butler. I'm not the cook. I'm a doctor, and I already get paid for what I do."

"So?"

"Which means I don't need a moonlighting job. When I do a favor for a friend-and I'm not necessarily putting you in the category-I do it as a friend. Gratis. Purely for warm fuzzies."

"So… you just want warm fuzzies?"

She turned away. "You don't get it."

"I do get it. You want to do it out of the kindness of your heart. You want me to feel grateful. And I do, I really do." He paused, then added softly: "I also really need your help."

M. J. wasn't philosophically opposed to helping her fellow man. And a devoted dad in search of his daughter, well, that was an appeal she could hardly refuse. But this particular dad was no charity case. And instinct told her that the sight of those blue-gray eyes, the dazzle of that smile, could prove addictive-dangerously so.

Still…

She walked over to her car and flung open the door. "Get in, Quantrell."

"Excuse me?"

"We're not taking your car, because a nice new Volvo's an invitation to a chop job. So let's go in mine."

"To South Lexington?"

"You want an intro to the place, I know some people you can talk to. People who'd know what's going on in the neighborhood."

"But-it's dark."

"Listen," she said. "You want to live dangerously or not?"

He regarded her battered Subaru. Then he shrugged. "Why not?" he said, and climbed into her car.

South Lexington was a different place at night. What by day had seemed merely drab and depressing had, by night, assumed new menace. Alleys seemed to snake away into nowhere, and in that darkness lurked all the terrible unknowns a mind could conjure.

M. J. parked beneath a streetlamp, and for a moment she studied the sidewalk, the buildings. A block away, a dozen or so teenagers had gathered on the corner. They looked harmless enough, just a bunch of kids engaged in the adolescent rites of spring.

"It looks okay," she said. "Let's go."

"I hope you know what you're doing."

They got out of the car and walked up the sidewalk, toward Building Five. The teenagers, at once alerted to intruders in their territory, turned and stared. Automatically, Adam moved close beside M. J. and tightly grasped her arm.

"Keep your cool, Quantrell," she whispered, pulling away. "Don't let 'em smell your fear."

"I was only trying to be protective," he hissed.

"Oh. I thought you were just scared."

"That, too."

The building was unlocked, so they went inside. The lobby was as she'd remembered it: dingy walls, nutmeg-colored carpet to hide the stains, half the hall lights burned out. The graffiti was a little more graphic, and less poetic than she remembered; the artwork had definitely taken a slide for the worse.

The elevator, as always, was out of commission.

"I don't think it ever worked," she muttered, noting the faded Out of Order sign. "It's four flights up. We'll have to walk."

They went up the stairs, stepping over broken toys and cigarette butts. The handrail, once smoothly burnished, was now scarred by a series of initials carved in the wood. Noises filtered out from the various apartments: crying babies, blaring TV sets and radios, a woman yelling at her kids. Floating above it all were the pure and crystalline tones of a girl singing "Amazing Grace." The sound soared like a cathedral above the ruins. As they ascended the stairs to the fourth floor, the girl's voice grew louder, until they knew it was coming from behind the very door where they stopped.

M. J. knocked.

The singing stopped. Footsteps approached, and the door opened a crack. A girl with a silky face the color of mocha gazed out over the security chain with doe eyes.

"Bella?" said M. J.

The smile that appeared on the girl's face was like a brilliant wash of sunshine. "Auntie M!" she cried, unlatching the door chain. She turned and called out: "Papa Earl! It's Auntie M!"

"Auntie M?" whispered Adam, flashing M. J. a look of amusement.

"One of my many aliases," M. J. muttered as they stepped into the apartment.

"Papa Earl," Bella called again. "You coming?"

"Don't rush me," grumbled a voice from the next room. "I don't go runnin' for no one."

Bella gave M. J. an embarrassed look. "Those bones of his," she murmured. "Ache him real bad in this weather. He's in a foul mood…"

"Who's in a foul mood?" snapped Papa Earl, shuffling into the room. He moved slowly, his head tipped forward, his once-jet black hair now a grizzled white. How old he had gotten, thought M. J. sadly. Somehow, she had never thought this man would be touched by the years.

M. J. went forward to give him a hug. It was almost like hugging a stranger; he seemed so small, so frail, shrunken by time. "Hi, Papa Earl," she said.

"You got your nerve, girl," he grumbled. "Go two years, three, not even droppin' by."

"Papa Earl!" Bella said. "She's here now, isn't she?"

"Yeah, got good 'n' guilty, did she?"

M. J. laughed and took his hand. It felt like bones wrapped in parchment. "How you been, Papa Earl?"

"What you care?"

"Did you get the coat I sent?"

"What coat?"

"You know," sighed Bella. "The down jacket, Papa Earl. You wore it all winter."

"Oh. That coat."

Bella gave M. J. a weary you know how he is look and said, "He loves that coat."

"Papa Earl," said M. J. "I brought someone with me."

"Who?"

"His name is Adam. He's standing right over here."

Gently she turned the old man to face Adam. Papa Earl extended his arm, held it out in midair for the expected handshake. Only then, as the two men faced each other, did Adam notice the snowy cataracts clouding the old man's eyes.

Adam took the offered hand and grasped it firmly. "Hello… Papa Earl," he said.

Papa Earl let out a hoot. "Makes you feel dumb, don't it? Big fella like you callin' a shrimp like me Papa."

Adam laughed. "Not at all, sir."

"So what you got going with our Mariana here?"

"He's just a friend, Papa Earl," said M. J.

There was a pause. "Oh," the old man said. "It's like that."

"I wanted you to meet him, talk to him. See, he's looking for someone. A woman."

Papa Earl's grizzled head lifted with sudden interest. The blind eyes seemed to focus on her. "Why you askin' me? What do I know?"

"You know everything that goes on in the Projects."

"Let's sit down," the old man said. "My bones is killing me."

They went into the kitchen. Like the rest of the apartment, the room was on the far side of used. Linoleum tiles had worked loose below the sink. The formica counters were chipped. The stove and refrigerator were straight from the Leave It to Beaver era. Papa Earl's other grandchild, Anthony, sat hunched at the table, shovelling SpaghettiOs into his mouth. He scarcely looked up as the others came in.

"Hey, Anthony!" barked Papa Earl. "Ain't you gonna say hello to your old baby-sitter?"

"Hello." Anthony grunted and stuffed in another spoonful of SpaghettiOs.

Their personalities hadn't changed a bit, M. J. realized, watching Anthony and Bella, remembering all those evenings she had looked after them while Papa Earl worked. Back in the days when the old man still had his "vision." These two might be twins, they might have the same mocha coloring, the same high, sculpted cheekbones, but their personalities were like darkness and light. Bella could warm a room with her smile; Anthony could chill it with a single glance.

Papa Earl shuffled about the familiar kitchen with all the sureness of a sighted man. "You hungry?" he asked. "You want something to eat?"

M. J. and Adam watched Anthony noisily lap tomato sauce and they said, in the same breath, "Nothing, thanks."

They all sat down at the table, Papa Earl across from them, his snowy cataracts staring at them eerily. "So who's this woman you looking for?" he asked.

"Her name is Maeve Quantrell," said M. J. "We think she's living in the Projects."

"You have a picture?"

M. J. glanced at Adam.

"Yes. As a matter of fact, I do," he said, and reached for his wallet. He placed a snapshot on the table.

M. J. had been expecting to see a version of what he'd described to her, a hellion in black leather and technicolor hair. What she saw instead was a fragile blond girl, the sort you'd find shrinking in the corner at a school dance.

"Bella?" said Papa Earl.

Bella reached for the photo. "Oh, she's real pretty. Blond hair. Sort of shy looking."

"How old?"

"She's twenty-three," said Adam. "She looks different now. Probably dyed her hair some crazy color. Wears more makeup."

"Anthony? You seen this girl around?" asked Papa Earl.

Anthony glanced at the photo and shrugged. Then he rose, tossed his empty bowl in the sink, and stalked out of the kitchen. A moment later, they heard the apartment door slam shut.

"Like a wild animal, that boy," Papa Earl said with a sigh. "Comes and goes when he wants. Don't know what to do 'bout him."

Bella was still studying Maeve's photo. Softly she asked, "Who is she?"

"My daughter," said Adam.

Papa Earl sat back, nodding with instant understanding. "So you lookin' for your girl."

"Yes."

"Why?"

Adam shook his head, puzzled by the question. "Because she's my daughter."

"But she run away. She don't want to be found. Girl like that, you ain't never gonna find her 'less she comes to you."

"Then I suppose…" Adam looked down wearily. "I suppose I'd settle for just knowing she's all right."

Papa Earl was silent a moment. It was hard to tell what thoughts were going on behind those clouded eyes of his. At last he said, "You'll want to talk to Jonah."

"Jonah?" asked M. J.

"He's the big man now."

"Since when?"

"Year ago. Took over when Berto went down. Anything you want round here, gotta go through Jonah."

"Thanks," said M. J. "We'll follow up on that." She was about to stand up when another question occurred to her. "Papa Earl," she said, "Did you know a boy named Nicos Biagi?"

The old man paused. "I heard of him, yeah."

"Xenia Vargas?"

"Maybe."

"Did you hear she died?"

He sighed. "Lotta people die 'round here. Don't stick in your mind much anymore, people dying."

"They both took the same drug, Papa Earl. This drug, it's moved into the Projects and it's killing people."

He said nothing. He just sat there, his sightless eyes staring at her.

"If you hear anything, anything at all about it, will you call me?" She took out her business card and laid it on the table. "I need help on this."

He touched the card, his bony fingers moving across "M. J. Novak, M.D." printed in black. "You still workin' for the city?" he asked.

"Yes. The medical examiner."

"Don't understand you, Mariana. You a doctor now, and you takin' care of dead people."

"I find out why they die."

"But then it's too late. Don't do 'em no good. You should be in a hospital. Or open your own place out here. It's what your mama wanted."

M. J. was suddenly aware of Adam's gaze on her. Damn it, Papa Earl, she thought. Save the lecture for another time.

"I like my job," she said. "I couldn't stand it in a hospital."

Papa Earl gazed at her with sad understanding. "Those were bad times for you, weren't they? All those months with your mama…"

M. J. rose to her feet. "Thanks for your help, Papa Earl. But we have to leave."

Bella and her grandfather escorted them through the living room. It never changed, this room. The chairs were set in precisely the same places they'd always been, and Papa Earl navigated past them like a bat with radar.

"Next time," he grumbled as Adam and M. J. left the apartment, "don't you wait so long before visits."

"I won't," said M. J. But it sounded hollow, that promise. I don't believe it myself, she thought. Why should he?

She and Adam headed back down the four flights of stairs, stepping over the same broken toys, the same cigarette butts. The smells of the building, the echoes of TV sets and babies' squalls, funnelled up the stairwell and unleashed a barrage of memories of how she used to play on these steps, used to sit outside her apartment door, her knees bunched up against her chest. Waiting, waiting for her mother to calm down. Listening to the crying inside the apartment, the sounds of her mother's anguish, her mother's despair. The memories all rushed at her as she walked down the stairwell, and she knew exactly why she'd waited three long years to come back.

On the third floor landing, she paused outside apartment 3H. The door was a different color than she'd remembered, no longer green. Now it was a weirdly bright orange, and it had a built-in peephole. It would be different inside as well, she realized. Different people. A different world.

She felt Adam's hand gently touch her arm. "What is it?" he asked.

"It's just-" She gave a tired little laugh. "Nothing stays the same, does it? Thank God." She turned and continued down the stairs.

He was close beside her. Too close, she thought. Too personal. Threatening to invade my space, my life.

"So your name's Mariana," he said.

"I go by M. J."

"What's it stand for?"

"Why?"

"Look, I'm not trying to be nosy. I just wondered what the M. J. stood for."

She stopped on the steps and sighed. "Mariana Josefina."

"That's lovely. But it doesn't quite fit with Novak."

"Novak's my married name."

"Oh. I didn't know you were married."

"Was. My divorce became final six months ago."

"And you kept your ex-husband's name?" He looked surprised.

"Not out of affection, believe me. It just felt like a better fit than Ortiz. See, I don't look like an Ortiz."

"Are you referring to your green eyes? Or the freckles on your nose?"

Again, M. J. paused on the steps and looked at him. "Do you always notice the color of women's eyes?"

"No." He smiled gallantly. What a lot of practice that smile must have had, she thought. I could almost believe it's for real. "But I did notice yours."

"Lucky me," she said, and continued down the stairs to the ground floor.

"Could you explain something?" he asked. "Who is this Jonah person you were talking about in there? And what's a 'big man'?"

"The big man," said M. J., "is like a-a head honcho. The guy in charge of this territory. For years it was Berto, but I guess he's gone. So now it's a guy named Jonah. He watches over things, keeps out rival gangs. If you want any favors, have any questions to ask, you have to go through the big man."

"Oh. A sort of unofficial mayor of the neighborhood."

"You got it."

They went outside, into a night that smelled of wind and rain. She glanced up at the sky, saw clouds hurtling past the moon. "It's getting late," she said. "Let's get out of here."

They hurried down the steps. Two paces was all they managed to take before they both halted, staring in shock at the empty stretch of road beneath the street-lamp.

M. J. let fly an oath that would have made a sailor cringe.

Her car had vanished.