Robert B. Parker’s The Devil Wins

64

Jesse didn’t usually associate the morgue with friendship, but that was about to change. He didn’t think what he had to say should be said over the phone, nor did he think he should let it wait. And the truth was that he liked the arrangement he had with Tamara Elkin. It kind of reminded him of his relationship with Marcy, but that was a friendship with perks and it had run its course years ago. Not that the perks hadn’t been great. They had been. Marcy certainly seemed to enjoy their intimacy as much or more than he did. It was just that sometimes Jesse got the sense that there was an element of revenge in it for her, a kind of middle finger to her ex-husband and the men who’d done her wrong. Maybe there was an element of revenge in it for him, too. In any case, things had changed since then. He had changed.

Tamara was just coming out of the autopsy room when he ran into her. At first she smiled at him, then the smile evaporated as she remembered what had happened between them the previous evening.

“You didn’t exactly catch me at my best,” she said, gesturing at blood on her scrubs.

“That’s okay. About last night, I wanted to apolo—”

She waved her hand at him. “Don’t. Please, don’t. I’ve got to get cleaned up. Why don’t you go wait in my office for me? I’ll be in as soon as I can. Here.” She handed him a file. “You can save me the trip by putting that on my desk for me.”

“Rough one?” he asked, pointing at the autopsy room behind her.

“Yes and no. An old woman with late-stage Alzheimer’s. She fell at the care facility, so they needed an official COD. The autopsy was pretty routine, but these cases... I don’t know. I’ve seen death in all its various forms, probably some that not even an ex — homicide detective has seen, and there’s just something about Alzheimer’s that scares the hell out of me.”

“Me, not so much,” Jesse said.

“You die of almost anything else and at least you have something to hold on to on the way out. But with Alzheimer’s you’re just lost and confused.”

He thought she might cry and, without thinking, reached out and stroked her cheek. She let him.

“You don’t know who you are coming into the world,” he said. “Why worry about it as you leave it?”

She smiled a weak smile at him. “I’ll see you in my office in a few.”

Jesse sat in Tamara’s office and did what people do alone in offices. He looked around. Looked at the photos on her walls, the diplomas, the knickknacks on her desk. Funny, but Jesse often found a person’s workplace as or more revealing than his or her bedroom. During homicide investigations, he had always made it a point of visiting the victim’s and/or the suspect’s workplace. People who were meticulous and guarded at home could sometimes betray themselves at the office, at their desk, or in their school locker. He didn’t expect to come to any great revelations about Tamara Elkin. She had come to him, armed only with a bottle of Black Label and the truth.

Jesse smiled at the photos of her in her track outfits, the shots of her leaning forward as she came across the finish line ahead of the other runners. He liked seeing her with the ribbons and medals around her neck. There was one photo of Tamara — in high school, he guessed — holding a bouquet of roses and standing in between a man and a woman Jesse thought must be her parents. The pride on her parents’ faces was remarkable to see. And for some reason, at that precise moment, he thought of Suit. Jesse laughed at himself. He decided he needed either to start drinking more heavily again or to begin seeing Dix as often as he could.

“What’s so funny?” Tamara asked, catching Jesse in the act.

“Me.” He pointed at the photo. “These your folks?”

“That’s them. Dad’s a gastroenterologist. Mom’s an English professor.”

“Any smart people in your family?”

She laughed and then saddened. “They’re both from New York and moved us down to Dallas when Dad went to work at Baylor University Medical Center. They were both so proud of me when I got that ME position back home in New York. Wasn’t really my home. I was little when we moved.”

She sat behind her desk and Jesse sat across from her.

“I know you don’t want to hear this,” he said, “but I’m sorry about last night. Jenn and I... we can’t ever seem to totally let go even after we’ve let go.”

“Don’t beat yourself up over it. I acted like a jealous little girl.”

He nodded.

“What I said about us being friends, I meant it, every word, and so far I think we’re really good for each other. But that doesn’t mean that when I’m with you that I don’t want your full attention. No one wants to be treated like a disposable razor.”

“Okay. I hear you.”

“Good.”

He asked, “Are we allowed to go to dinner together?”

“A date?”

“Friends don’t go on dates. They just go eat together and split the check.”

She smiled.

He smiled back.

“Where?” she said.

“Not the Gull.”

She reached for a pen and a pad, wrote something down, and handed him the sheet of paper. “My place. Friends cook for each other sometimes, too. Eight?”

He stood. “See you then.”