LITMIR.BIZ

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      “Something’s happened to Ellie,” I said.

      He nodded. He was a kind-looking man, in his late forties, with a bald head and a sturdy build. His gray eyes said he’d seen it all and didn’t care for most of it.

      “I’m sorry to tell you this. We found a dead woman we believe to be Eleanor Winston, shot in the head on a street in midtown. She had your address in her purse and a message that said you were to take care of her kids if anything happened to her.”

      Chapter Two

      Every word felt like a bullet slamming into my own brain. I sat very still on the swing, staring at my hands, determined not to cry. Not until I was alone. As a doctor, you learn to put your feelings to one side. You don’t help a mother struggling with the serious illness of her child by breaking down in front of her.

      “So she knew she was in danger,” I said.

      “What information do you have about that?”

      “Ellie had some scheme to make money. She said she’d worked for Sandler’s Sodas, and they were going to make her a nice settlement offer. I hadn’t seen Ellie for two years until this afternoon when she asked me to watch the kids. I tried to get her to tell me what she was up to but she wouldn’t.”

      “You knew her well?”

      “We grew up together in Iowa and then lost touch for a few years after high school. I’ve seen her off and on since then, mostly when she had a problem. She always wanted to make it big. First as an actress in Hollywood and later in whatever way she could to get rich.”

      “Did that include drugs or other illegal activities?”

      “No drugs. They killed her brother. As for the illegal part—I can’t say for sure. She liked the good life and could never seem to afford it. Took up with some questionable guys and did some stupid things.”

      “I see.” The detective was jotting notes in a small notebook. “Is there anything more she said to you this afternoon that might help us find her killer?”

      I shook my head. “She asked if the kids could stay with me for a few days. Said she had an errand to run and wouldn’t let me take her where she needed to go. It started to rain, and I made her take my umbrella.”

      “We didn’t find an umbrella near her.”

      I shrugged. “Maybe it stopped raining.”

      “No, not in midtown. A pretty steady rain all evening.”

      “It was an unusual umbrella, sky blue with a carved wooden handle. I’d recognize it if I saw it again.” I didn’t add that it was a gift from my father before I left for college or that it was carved from the branch of a linden tree that shaded our house. “So you won’t forget us, no matter how far you travel,” my father had said. He meant him.

      Even then it was clear the cancer was working its way through his body. His hands shook, but he didn’t stop carving that handle until it fit my grip perfectly. And he wouldn’t hear of my postponing college to stay home with him. My father. As if I ever could forget him.

      The detective must have thought I was still in shock. He waited until I looked up at him. “You never know what might help,” he said, referring to my description of the umbrella. He closed his notebook and looked at me intently. “Are you all right?”

      I nodded.

      “I’m sorry, but I’ll need you to identify the body.”

      “What about the kids?”

      “We can send someone to stay with them.”

      “Some stranger? No. Let me see if a friend can come over. Will the children be allowed to stay with me for now?”

      The detective gave me a concerned look. “As far as I know. That’s what Ms. Winston requested. We’ll check with Family and Protective Services. Do you know about her next of kin and how we can reach them?”

      I went inside, got out my old address book, and jotted down the name and number for Ellie’s mother. I didn’t know if it was still accurate, but it was all I had. I handed the address to the detective and told him the name of the children’s father, John Winston. No address. No phone number.

      Detective Garrett sat on the swing while I called Lurleen. She was at my house in five minutes. She looked shocked, of course, but she didn’t pepper me with questions.

      The detective drove me to the morgue in his Jaguar. It was an old Jaguar, but it was still a Jaguar. Nicely maintained. He saw me examining his mahogany dashboard.

      “I have a thing for old cars,” he said. “It’s how I spend my spare time, when I have any. Life can get pretty hectic with my job. Yours too I’m sure. You’re a physician?”

      I nodded. “A pediatrician.”

      “Where do you work? You have a private practice?”

      I tried to focus on his questions, anything to keep me from thinking about Ellie. “I work in a refugee clinic. For many of the families it’s their first exposure to Western medicine and a doctor who has time for them. What I do feels important, and the parents are always so grateful.”

      “Must be hard when you lose a patient.”

      “It is. Fortunately that doesn’t happen often. We can usually send them to the hospital if that’s where they need to go. Most of these kids are survivors. That’s how they made it to our clinic in the first place.”

      Detective Garrett nodded.

      “Your work must be hard for you too,” I said.

      Again he nodded. “Sometimes it’s very hard.” He looked at me. “I’m sorry about your friend.”

      That was all it took. I could feel the tears coming, and I couldn’t stop them.

      Detective Garrett handed me some tissue as he turned into the parking lot. “It’s okay,” he said. “We can wait as long as you want before I take you into the morgue.”

      Well, that really set me off. A kind cop and the mention of the morgue. I sat in the car and sobbed silently for five minutes. Then I wiped my eyes, blew my nose, and we went inside. We walked through a metal detector operated by a policeman in uniform.

      “Hi, Mason,” he said while he searched through my purse. He gave the bag back to me and nodded.

      The morgue was in the basement. Detective Garrett and I waited for an elevator that took us into the bowels of the building. It was cold and dark with minimal lighting. A city tightening its belt, he informed me. The morgue itself was brightly lit with overhead fluorescent lights that would have given me a headache in five minutes. At a small desk, a young woman checked us both in and walked ahead of us into one of the rooms. She looked at a number on her roster and pulled out a metal gurney. The whole experience was surreal. Not the morgue part. As part of my training, I’d been in morgues, witnessed autopsies. It was the fact that a friend might be lying there, a friend I’d known all my life. A sheet covered the body, and Detective Garrett asked if I was ready to see her. I nodded.

      Maybe it wouldn’t be Ellie.

      The unveiling happened in slow motion. The attendant turned down the sheet inch by inch until I saw the face with a terrible, horrible hole in her left cheek. An exit wound.

      The face was disfigured, but it was Ellie’s. Eyes closed. Hair matted around her head. So dead.

      “Yes,” I said. “That’s her.”

      “I’ll take you home,” Garrett said. He must have thought I was about to faint because he put his hand under my arm and steadied me as we walked out to his car.

      We were at my house in ten minutes. There’s not much traffic on the road at two in the morning.

      “I’m sorry about all this,” he said after walking me to my

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