“That was nice,” I said.
“Nice? At my age? With no sleep? I’m wondering how I pulled that off at all.”
He got me laughing. I said, “It was the best ever, Joe. God. You’re amazing.”
“Want to go another round?”
“Save something for tonight,” I said, laughing again.
I dressed, took Martha for a run along Lake Street, stretched my legs, and watched sunrise and early-morning traffic and other people out for a run with their dogs.
When doggy and I returned, Julie was in her high chair and I smelled pancakes. I went to my sweet girl and kissed and squeezed her a little bit.
“You’re sooo cute,” I told her. “Did you tell Daddy thank you for the pancakes?”
“Nooooo,” she said, slapping her hands on the tray.
“Oh, you like that word too much,” I said. So she said it again, laughing and burbling at the same time.
“OK, I’ll tell him,” I said.
I put my arms around my husband’s waist and hugged him tight. “I love you so much,” I said. “And thank you for making breakfast.”
“Uh-huh. Please, sit yourself down.”
I pulled up a seat at the table, which was positioned to get a nice bright beam of morning light. Joe dished up the pancakes and crispy bacon, and between bites, I fed cereal to Julie.
It was idyllic. Picture-perfect and framed in gold. We didn’t have breakfast table perfection when I was growing up, so I cherished every bit of this. Gloried in it.
Joe said, “I checked my phone and you were phoning me at three this morning.”
“I’d just gotten home after working some terrible business at the Four Seasons. The fourteenth floor was like an abattoir.”
I told Joe the details, availing myself of his excellent crime-solving mind.
“Among the many mysteries was this woman we saw going into the dead man’s room,” Lindsay said. I described her in full. “She may have been his lover, or lover-by-the-hour, or even his wife. Or I don’t know, Joe. All we know is that she’s the only living person who can answer our questions.”
“The bangs down to her glasses,” Joe said. “Not a bad disguise. Even talking on the phone distorts the shape of the mouth. All of that will outwit facial recognition. More coffee?”
“No thanks, honey. I’m going to hit the shower.”
I stood under the water and thought about the blond woman with the wraparound shades and how finding her could kick the doors down on all of it.
But in lieu of that, the dead man in 1420 was the beginning of the story.
CHAPTER 9
I FOUND CLAIRE hard at work in her autopsy suite, gowned and gloved up and halfway through the internal exam of the unknown male killed in room 1420. His face had been reflected down over his chin and a Y incision had opened his body down to the pubic bone.
“How’s it going?” I asked.
“You know how long I’ve been ME?” Claire asked me.
“Since I was this tall,” I said, putting my hand on top of my head. Actually, we’d been rookies together, back about a dozen years ago.
“And you know how many autopsies I do a year?”
“Why don’t you tell me?” I said.
She put a bloody liver on a scale. Bunny Ellis, one of Claire’s morgue techs, waggled her fingers hello at me and took Claire’s notes.
“One thousand, two hundred bodies more or less pass through these doors annually,” Claire said.
“I hear you.”
Claire was grumpy. Rare for her.
“What I hate the most—”
“Dead kids. I know.”
“And what I hate the second most? Healthy murder victims who could have had full and productive lives. Like Mr. Doe or Wang or whatever his real name is. He was perfect. All his organs are A-plus. He has bones and joints of steel. I don’t think this man even got heartburn,” she said.
“Tell me more,” I said, since this was why I had stopped by this morning.
Claire continued to cut and slice as she talked.
“He has a scar on his knee, probably from falling off a bike when he was six, and that’s it.”
“What about his stomach contents?”
“BLT on rye with mayo. Green tea.”
“You ran his blood?”
“It’s waiting to go out. With these.”
She showed me a stainless steel bowl with three slugs rattling inside.
“Medium-caliber, like nine-millimeter. Based on that squeaky-clean crime scene, keep your expectations in check,” said Claire. “I’ll bet you a burger and fries there won’t be a record of the murder weapon.”
I said, “Who’s up next?”
“I only have two hands, Lindsay. Two. I’m not finished with Mr. Wang.”
“I’ll get out of your way, Butterfly,” I said, calling her by her nickname.
As if she hadn’t barked at me, she said, “I’ll do young Ms. Doe next. That is a clean-looking girl, Lindsay. Skin like milk. She could just barely drive and vote. I’ll need backup to get this work done today. Meanwhile…”