“Now then . . .” She shook her head over the shallow dents that marred the inner curve of the insulated lid. “You just lie quiet and I’ll open this up the moment your dialysis is over.”
The box closed with a sigh of airtight seals and the metallic snick of an automatic latch.
Frowning slightly, Catherine adjusted the amount of pure oxygen flowing through the air intake. Although he’d moved past the point where he needed it and he could have managed on just regular filtered air, she wanted him to have every opportunity to succeed. Later, when the muscle diagnostics were running, she’d give him a full body massage with the estrogen cream. His skin wasn’t looking good. In the meantime, she flicked the switch that would start the transmission through his net and moved to check on the other two boxes.
Number eight had begun to fail. Not only were the joints becoming less responsive but the extremities had darkened and she suspected the liver had begun to putrefy, a sure sign that the bacteria had started to die.
“Billions of them multiplying all over the world,” she said sadly, stroking the top of number eight’s box. “Why can’t we keep these alive long enough to do some good?”
At the third box, recently vacated by the dissected number seven, she scanned one of a trio of computer monitors. Marjory Nelson’s brain wave patterns, recorded over the months just previous to her death, were being transmitted in a continuous loop through the newly installed neural net. They’d never had actual brain wave patterns before. All previous experiments, including numbers eight and nine, had only ever received generic alpha waves recorded from herself and Donald.
“I’ve got great hopes for you, number ten. There’s no reason you . . .” A yawn split the thought in two and Catherine stumbled toward the door, suddenly exhausted. Donald had headed for his bed once the major surgery had been completed and Dr. Burke had left just before dawn. She didn’t mind finishing up on her own—she liked having the lab to herself, it gave her a chance to see that all the little extras got done—but if she wasn’t mistaken, she was rapidly approaching a day and a half on her feet and she needed to catch a nap. A couple of hours lying down and she should be good as new.
Fingers on the light switch, she paused in the doorway, looked back over the lab, and called softly, “Pleasant dreams.”
They weren’t dreams, nor were they quite memories but, outside the influence of the net, images stirred. A young woman’s face in close proximity, pale hair, pale eyes. Her voice was soothing in a world where too many lights were too bright and too many sounds only noise. Her smile was . . .
Her smile was . . .
Organic impulses moved turgidly along tattered neural pathways searching for the connection that would complete the thought.
Her smile was . . .
Kind.
Number nine stirred under the restraints.
Her smile was kind.
“Ms. Nelson?”
Vicki turned toward the voice, trying very hard not to scowl. Relatives and friends of her mother’s were milling about the reception room, all expecting her to be showing their definition of grief. If it hadn’t been for Celluci’s bulk at her back, she might have bolted—if it hadn’t been for his quick grip around her wrist she’d have definitely belted the cousin who, having driven in from Gananoque, remarked that earlier or later would have been a better time and he certainly hoped there’d be refreshments afterward. She didn’t know the heavyset man who’d called her name.
He held out a beefy hand. “Ms. Nelson, I’m Reverend Crosbie. The Anglican minister who usually works with Hutchinson’s is a bit under the weather today, so they asked me to fill in.” His voice was a rough burr that rose and fell with an east coast cadence.
A double chin almost hid the clerical collar but, given the firmness of his handshake, Vicki doubted that all of the bulk was fat. “My mother wasn’t a churchgoer,” she said.
“That’s between her and God, Ms. Nelson.” His tone managed to be both matter-of-fact and sympathetic at the same time. “She wanted an Anglican service read to set her soul at peace and I’m here to do it for her. But,” bushy white brows drew slightly in, “as I didn’t know your mother, I’ve no intention of speaking as if I did. Are you going to be doing your own eulogy?”
Was she going to get up in front of all these people and tell them about her mother? Was she going tell them how her mother had given up the life a young woman was entitled to in order to support them both? Tell them how her mother had tried to stop her from getting her first job because she thought childhood should last a little longer? Tell them about her mother, a visible beacon of pride, watching as she graduated from high school, then university, then the police college? Tell them how after her promotion her mother had peppered the phrase, “My daughter, the detective,” into every conversation? Tell them how, when she first got the diagnosis about her eyes, her mother had taken a train to Toronto and refused to hear the lies about being all right and not needing her there? Tell them about the nagging and the worrying and the way she always called during a shower? Tell them how her mother had needed to talk to her and she hadn’t answered the phone?
Tell them her mother was dead?
“No.” Vicki felt Celluci’s hand close over her shoulder and realized her voice had been less than clear. She coughed and scanned the room in a near panic. “There. The short woman in the khaki trench coat.” To point would expose the trembling. “That’s Dr. Burke. Mother worked for her for the last five years. Maybe she’ll say something.”
Bright blue eyes focused just behind her for a second. Whatever Reverend Crosbie saw on Celluci’s face seemed to reassure him because he nodded and said quietly, “I’ll talk to Dr. Burke, then.” His warm hand engulfed hers again. “Maybe you and I’ll have a chance to talk later, eh?”
“Maybe.”
Celluci’s grip on her shoulder tightened as the minister walked away. “You all right?”
“Sure. I’m fine.” But she didn’t expect him to believe her, so she supposed it wasn’t exactly a lie.
“Vicki?”
This was a voice she recognized and she turned almost eagerly to meet it. “Aunt Esther.” The tall, sparse woman opened her arms and Vicki allowed herself to be folded into them. Esther Thomas had been her mother’s closest friend. They’d grown up together, gone to school together, had been bride and bridesmaid, bridesmaid and bride. Esther had been teaching school in Ottawa for as long as Vicki could remember, but living in different cities hadn’t dimmed the friendship.
Esther’s cheeks were wet when they pulled apart. “I thought I wasn’t going to make it.” She sniffed and dug for a tissue. “I’m driving Richard’s six-cylinder tank, but they’re doing construction on highway fifteen. Can you believe it? It’s only April. They’re still likely to get snow. Damn, I . . . Thank you. You’re Mike Celluci, aren’t you? We met once, about three years ago, just after Christmas when you drove to Kingston to pick Vicki up.”
“I remember.”
“Vicki . . .” She blew her nose and started again. “Vicki, I have a favor to ask you. I’d . . . I’d like to see her one last time.”
Vicki stepped back, trod on Celluci’s foot, and didn’t notice. “See her?”
“Yes. To say good-bye.” Tears welled and ran and she swiped at them without making much impact. “I don’t think I’ll be able to believe Marjory’s actually dead unless I see her.”
“But . . .”
“I know it’s a closed coffin, but I thought you and I might be able to slip in now. Before things start.”
Vicki had never understood the need to look at the dead. A corpse was a corpse and over the years she’d seen enough of them to know that they were all fundamentally alike. She didn’t want to remember her mother the way she’d been, stretched out on the table in the morgue, and she certainly didn’t want to remember her prepared like a manikin to go into the earth. But it was obviously something Esther needed.
“I’ll have a word with Mr. Hutchinson,” she heard herself saying.
A few moments later, the three of them were making their way down the center aisle of the chapel, shoes making no sound on the thick red carpet.
“We did prepare for this eventuality,” Mr. Hutchinson said as they approached the coffin. “Very often when the casket is closed, friends and relatives still want to say one last good-bye to the deceased. I’m sure you’ll find your mother much as you remember her, Ms. Nelson.”
Vicki closed her teeth on her reply.
“The service is due to start momentarily,” he said as he released the latch and began to raise the upper half of the lid, “so I’m afraid you’ll have to . . . have to . . .”
Her fingers dug deep into satin cushioning as Vicki’s hands closed over the padded edge of the coffin. In the center of the quilted pillow lay the upper end of a large sandbag. A quick glance toward the foot of the casket determined that a second sandbag made up the rest of the necessary weight.
She straightened and in a voice that ripped civilization off the words asked, “What have you done with my mother?”
Four
“This would probably go a lot easier if you’d get Ms. Nelson to go home.” Detective Fergusson of the Kingston Police lowered his voice a little further. “It’s not like we don’t appreciate your input, Sergeant, but Ms. Nelson, she hasn’t been a cop for a couple of years. She really shouldn’t be here. Besides, you know, she’s a woman. They get emotional at times like these.”
“Get a lot of body snatching, do you?” Celluci asked dryly.
“No!” The detective’s indignant gaze jerked up to meet Celluci’s. “Never had one before. Ever.”
“Ah. Then which times like these were you referring to?”
“Well, you know. Her mother dying. The body being lifted. This whole funeral home thing. I hate ’em. Too damn quiet. Anyway, this’ll probably turn out to be some stupid prank by some of those university medical school geeks. I could tell you stories about that lot. The last thing we need scrambling things up is a hysterical woman—and she certainly has a right to be hysterical under the circumstances, don’t get me wrong.”
“Does Ms. Nelson look hysterical to you, Detective?”
Fergusson swept a heavy hand back over his thinning hair and glanced across the room where his partner had just finished taking statements. A few months before, he’d been given the opportunity to handle one of the new high-tech assault rifles recently issued to the special weapons and tactics boys. Ex-Detective Nelson reminded him a whole lot of that rifle. “Well, no. Not precisely hysterical.”
While he wasn’t exactly warming to the man, Celluci wasn’t entirely unsympathetic. “Look at it this way. She was one of the best police officers I ever served with—probably ever will serve with. If she stays, think of her as an added resource you can tap into and recognize that because of her background she will in no way disrupt your handling of the case. If she goes,” he clapped the older man lightly on the shoulder, “you’re telling her. Because I’m not.”
“Like that, eh?”
“Like that. It’d be convenient that you’re already in a funeral home. Trust me. Things will probably go a lot easier if she stays.”
Fergusson sighed, then shrugged. “I guess she’ll feel better if she thinks she’s doing something. But if she goes off, you get her out of here.”
“Believe me,
she
is my first concern.” Watching Vicki cross the chapel toward him, Celluci was struck by how completely under control she appeared. Every muscle moved with a rigid precision, and the intensity of suppressed emotion that moved with her made her frighteningly remote. He recognized the expression; she’d worn it in the past when a case touched her deeply, when the body became more than just another statistic, when it became personal. Superiors and psychologists warned cops about that kind of involvement, afraid it would lead to burnout or vigilantism, but everyone fell victim to it sooner or later. It was the feeling that kept an investigation going long after logic said give it up, the feeling that fueled the long and seemingly pointless hours of drudge work that actually led to charges being laid. When “Victory” Nelson wore that expression, people got out of her way.
At this point, under these circumstances, it was the last expression Celluci wanted to see. Grief, anger, even hysterics—“. . .
and she certainly has a right to be hysterical under the circumstances
—” would be preferable to the way she’d closed in on herself. This wasn’t, couldn’t be, just another case.
“Hey.” He reached out and touched her arm. The muscles under the sleeve of her navy blue suit jacket felt like stone. “You okay?”
“I’m fine.”
Yeah. Right.
It was, however, the expected response.
“Now then.” The elder Mr. Hutchinson sat forward, placing his forearms precisely on the charcoal gray blotter that protected his desk and linking his fingers. “I assure you all that you will have our complete cooperation in clearing up this unfortunate affair. Never in all the years that Hutchinson’s Funeral Parlour has served the needs of the people of Kingston has such a horrible thing occurred. Ms. Nelson, please believe you have our complete sympathy and that we will do everything in our power to rectify this situation.”
Vicki limited herself to a single tight nod of acknowledgment, well aware that if she opened her mouth she wouldn’t be able to close it again. She wanted to rip this case away from the Kingston police, to ask the questions, to build out of all the minute details the identity of the scum who dared to violate her mother’s body. And once identified . . .
She knew Celluci was watching her, knew he feared she’d start demanding answers, running roughshod over the local forces. She had no intention of doing anything so blatantly stupid. Two years without a badge had taught her the value of subtlety. Working with Henry had taught her that justice was often easier to find outside the law.
“All right, Mr. Hutchinson.” Detective Fergusson checked his notes and shifted his bulk into a more comfortable position in the chair. “We already spoke to your driver and to your nephew, the other Mr. Hutchinson, so let’s just take it from when the body arrived.”