I quickly ran to the back of the house and returned with a five-gallon plastic bucket. Placing it upside down beside the tree, I climbed atop and again turned to the window.
Mrs. Carter’s back was to me, watching Mother as she dug through her closet with the ferocity of a dog creating a hole for its favorite bone. When Mother emerged, she held three dresses. Words were exchanged, but I was unable to make them out, as Mother’s window was closed. She wasn’t one to open her bedroom window, even at the peak of summer heat.
Mrs. Carter reached behind her head and untied the bow that held the back of her dress together. My breath caught in my throat as the thin material fell away. Aside from thin white cotton panties, she was naked. Mother handed her one of the dresses, and she slipped it over her head. Mother then stepped back and appraised the other woman. She produced the small green bottle with the yellow label and drank directly from it. She shivered, grinned, and handed the bottle to Mrs. Carter, who hesitated only for a moment before bringing the bottle to her own lips and taking a drink.
I knew what alcohol was, but I couldn’t recall ever seeing Mother drink, only Father. It was commonplace for him to pour a drink or two after a long day at work, but not Mother. This was new. This was different.
Our neighbor handed the bottle back to Mother, who drank again, then passed it back, the two of them laughing silently behind the glass.
Mother held up one of the other dresses, and Mrs. Carter nodded with enthusiasm. She removed her dress and walked over to Mother’s large mirror, holding the second dress against her chest.
My heart quickened.
Mother stepped up behind her and brushed her hair to the side, revealing the curve of her neck. I peered in as Mother kissed her ever so tenderly on that spot where neck meets shoulder. Mrs. Carter closed her eyes and leaned back slightly, pressing against her. She dropped the dress to the floor. In the mirror’s reflection, I watched as Mother’s hand inched up the other woman’s stomach and found her right breast.
Unlike Mrs. Carter’s, Mother’s eyes were open. I know this because I could see them. I could see them staring back at me in the mirror’s reflection as her hands drifted down the length of the other woman’s body and disappeared within her panties.
15
Porter
Day 1 ? 10:31 a.m.
The Cook County Medical Examiner’s Office was on West Harrison Street in downtown Chicago. Porter and Nash made good time from Flair Tower and parked in one of the spaces out front reserved for law enforcement. Eisley had instructed them to meet him in the morgue.
Porter had never been a fan of the morgue. Formaldehyde and bleach seemed to be the air freshener of choice, but there was no disguising the fact that the morgue smelled like feet, stale cheese, and cheap perfume. Whenever he stepped through the doorway, he was reminded of the fetal pig Mr. Scarletto had forced him to dissect in high school. He just wanted to get out as quickly as possible. The walls were painted a cheerful light blue, which did little to help one forget one was surrounded by dead people. The employees all seemed to wear the same nonchalant expression, one that made Porter wonder what he’d find if he took a gander inside their home refrigerators. Nash didn’t seem to mind, though. He had stopped halfway down the hallway and was peering into a vending machine.
“How could they run out of Snickers bars? Who’s in charge of this shit show?” he grumbled to nobody in particular. “Hey, Sam, can I borrow a quarter?”
Porter ignored him and pushed through the double swinging stainless steel doors opposite a green leather sofa that might have been new around the time JFK took office.
“Come on, man. I’m hungry!” Nash shouted from behind him.
Tom Eisley sat at a metal desk in the far corner of the room, typing feverishly at a computer. He glanced up and frowned. “Did you walk here?”
Porter considered telling him that they did, in fact, drive quite fast, lights and all, but thought better of it. “We were over at Flair Tower. We tracked down the victim’s apartment.”
Most people would have asked him what they found, but not Eisley; his interest in people started when their pulse stopped.
Nash came through the double doors, the remnants of a Kit Kat on his fingers.
“Feel better?” Porter asked him.
“Cut me some slack. I’m running on fumes.”
Eisley stood from the desk. “Put on gloves, both of you. Follow me.”
He led them past the desk and through another set of double doors at the back of the space into a large examination room. As they stepped inside, the temperature felt as if it dropped twenty degrees. Low enough for Porter to see his breath. Goose flesh crawled across his arms.
A large round surgical light with handles on either side swung over the exam table at the center of the room, a naked male body lying atop. The face had been covered with a white cloth. The chest had been splayed open with a large Y incision that started at his navel and branched at the pectoral muscles.
He should have brought gum—gum helped with the smell.
“Is that our boy?” Nash asked.
“It is,” Eisley said.
The dirt and grime from the road had been washed away, but there was no cleansing the road rash, which covered his skin in patches. Porter took a closer look. “I didn’t catch that this morning.”
Eisley pointed at a large purple and black bruise on the right arm and leg. “The bus hit him here. See these lines? That’s from the grill. Based on the measurements we took at the scene, the impact threw him a little over twenty feet, then he slid on the pavement for another twelve. I found tremendous internal damage. More than half his ribs cracked. Four of them punctured his right lung, two punctured the left. His spleen ruptured. So did one kidney. The head trauma appears to be the actual cause of death, although any one of the other injuries would have proved fatal. His death was near instantaneous. Nothing to be done.”
“That’s your big news?” Nash balked. “I thought you found something.”
Eisley’s brow creased. “Oh, there’s something.”
“I’m not big on suspense, Tom. What’d you find?” Porter said.
Eisley walked over to a stainless steel table and pointed at what appeared to be a brown ziplock bag filled with— “Is that his stomach?” Nash asked.
Eisley nodded. “Notice anything odd?”
“Yeah. It’s not in him anymore,” said Porter.
“Anything else?”
“No time for this, Doc.”
Eisley let out a sigh. “See these spots? Here and here?”
Porter leaned in a little closer. “What are they?”
“Stomach cancer,” Eisley told them.
“He was dying? Did he know?”