Shadowfires Page 4

  She switched on a single lamp and sat in its amber glow, in the corner of a peach-colored sofa. The room was very modern, all in shades of peach and white with dark blue accents, polished bronze lamps, and a bronze-and-glass coffee table. In her blue robe she was in harmony with the decor.

  She put the pistol on the table beside the lamp. Near to hand.

  Ben retrieved her champagne and chocolate from the bathroom and brought them to her. In the kitchen, he got another cold split of champagne and a glass for himself.

  When he joined her on the living-room sofa, she said, “It doesn’t seem right. The champagne and chocolate, I mean. It looks as if I’m celebrating his death.”

  “Considering what a bastard he was to you, perhaps a celebration would be justified.”

  She shook her head adamantly. “No. Death is never a cause for celebration, Benny. No matter what the circumstances. Never.”

  But she unconsciously ran her fingertips back and forth along the pale, pencil-thin, barely visible three-inch scar that followed the edge of her delicate jawline on the right side of her face. A year ago, in one of his nastier moods, Eric had thrown a glass of Scotch at her. It had missed, hitting the wall and shattering, but a sharp fragment had caught her on the rebound, slicing her cheek, requiring fifteen expertly sewn little stitches to avoid a prominent scar. That was the day she finally walked out on him. Eric would never hurt her again. She had to be relieved by his death even if only on a subconscious level.

  Pausing now and then to sip champagne, she told Ben about this morning’s meeting in the attorney’s office and about the subsequent altercation on the sidewalk when Eric took her by the arm and seemed on the verge of violence. She recounted the accident and the hideous condition of the corpse in vivid detail, as if she had to put every terrible, bloody image into words in order to be free of it. She told him about making the funeral arrangements as well, and as she spoke, her shaky hands gradually grew steadier.

  He sat close, turned sideways to face her, with one hand on her shoulder. Sometimes he moved his hand to gently massage her neck or to stroke her copper-brown hair.

  “Thirty million dollars,” he said when she had finished, shaking his head at the irony of her getting everything when she had been willing to settle for so little.

  “I don’t really want it,” she said. “I’ve half a mind to give it away. A large part of it, anyway.”

  “It’s yours to do with as you wish,” he said. “But don’t make any decisions now that you’d regret later.”

  She looked down into the champagne glass that she held in both hands. Frowning worriedly, she said, “Of course, he’d be furious if I gave it away.”

  “Who?”

  “Eric,” she said softly.

  Ben thought it odd that she should be concerned about Eric’s disapproval. Obviously she was still shaken by events and not yet quite herself. “Give yourself time to adjust to the circumstances.”

  She sighed and nodded. “What time is it?”

  He looked at his watch. “Ten minutes till seven.”

  “I called a lot of people earlier this afternoon and told them what happened, let them know about the funeral. But there must be thirty or forty more to get in touch with. He had no close relatives—just a few cousins. And an aunt he loathed. Not many friends, either. He wasn’t a man who cared much for friends, and he didn’t have much talent for making them. But lots of business associates, you know. God, I’m not looking forward to the chore.”

  “I have my cellular phone in the car,” Ben said. “I can help you call them. We’ll get it done fast.”

  She smiled vaguely. “And just how would that look—the wife’s boyfriend helping her contact the bereaved?”

  “They don’t have to know who I am. I’ll just say I’m a friend of the family.”

  “Since I’m all that’s left of the family,” Rachael said, “I guess that wouldn’t be a lie. You’re my best friend in the world, Benny.”

  “More than just a friend.”

  “Oh, yes.”

  “Much more, I hope.”

  “I hope,” she said.

  She kissed him lightly and, for a moment, rested her head upon his shoulder.

  They contacted all of Eric’s friends and business associates by eight-thirty, at which time Rachael expressed surprise that she was hungry. “After a day like this and everything that I saw … isn’t it sort of hard-boiled of me to have an appetite?”

  “Not at all,” Ben said gently. “Life goes on, babe. The living have got to live. Fact is, I read somewhere that witnesses to sudden and violent death usually experience a sharp increase in all their appetites during the days and weeks that follow.”

  “Proving to themselves that they’re alive.”

  “Trumpeting it.”

  She said, “I can’t offer much of a dinner, I’m afraid. I have the makings of a salad. And we could cook up a pot of rigatoni, open a jar of Ragú sauce.”

  “A veritable feast fit for a king.”

  She brought the pistol with her to the kitchen and put it down on the counter near the microwave oven.

  She had closed the Levolor blinds. Tight. Ben liked the view from those rear windows—the lushly planted backyard with its azalea beds and leafy Indian laurels, the property wall that was completely covered by a riotously bright tangle of red and yellow bougainvillea—and he reached for the control rod to open the slats.

  “Please don’t,” she said. “I want … the privacy.”

  “No one can see in from the yard. It’s walled and gated.”

  “Please.”

  He left the blinds as she wanted them.

  “What are you afraid of, Rachael?”

  “Afraid? But I’m not.”

  “The gun?”

  “I told you—I didn’t know who was at the door, and since it’s been such an upsetting day …”

  “Now you know it was me at the door.”

  “Yes.”

  “And you don’t need a gun to deal with me. Just the promise of another kiss or two will keep me in line.”

  She smiled. “I guess I should put it back in the bedroom where it belongs. Does it make you nervous?”

  “No. But I—”

  “I’ll put it away as soon as we’ve got dinner cooking,” she said, but there was a tone in her voice that made her statement seem less like a promise than a delaying tactic.

  Intrigued and somewhat uneasy, he opted for diplomacy and said no more for the moment.

  She put a big pot of water on the stove to boil while he emptied the jar of Ragú into a smaller pot. Together, they chopped lettuce, celery, tomatoes, onions, and black olives for the salad.

  They talked as they worked, primarily about Italian food. Their conversation was not quite as fluid and natural as usual, perhaps because they were trying too hard to be lighthearted and to put all thoughts of death aside.

  Rachael mostly kept her eyes on the vegetables as she prepared them, bringing her characteristically effortless concentration to the task, rendering each rib of celery into slices that were all precisely the same width, as if symmetry were a vital element in a successful salad and would enhance the taste.

  Distracted by her beauty, Ben looked at her as much as at the culinary work before him. She was almost thirty, appeared to be twenty, yet had the elegance and poise of a grande dame who’d had a long lifetime in which to learn the angles and attitudes of perfect gracefulness. He never grew tired of looking at her. It wasn’t just that she excited him. By some magic that he could not understand, the sight of her also relaxed him and made him feel that all was right with the world and that he, for the first time in his often lonely life, was a complete man with a hope of lasting happiness.

  Impulsively he put down the knife with which he had been slicing a tomato, took the knife from her hand and set it aside, turned her toward him, pulled her against him, slipped his arms around her, and kissed her deeply. Now her soft mouth tasted of champagne instead of c
hocolate. She still smelled faintly of jasmine, though beneath that fragrance was her own clean and appealing scent. He moved his hands slowly down her back, tracing the concave arc to her bottom, feeling the firm and exquisitely sculpted contours of her body through the silky robe. She was wearing nothing underneath. His warm hands grew hot—then much hotter—as the heat of her was transmitted through the material to his own flesh.

  She clung to him for a moment with what seemed like desperation, as if she were shipwrecked and he were a raft in a tossing sea. Her body was stiff. Her hands clutched tensely, fingers digging into him. Then, after a moment, she relaxed against him, and her hands began to move over his back and shoulders and upper arms, testing and kneading his muscles. Her mouth opened wider, and their kiss became hungrier. Her breathing quickened.

  He could feel her full breasts pressing against his chest. As if with a will and intention of their own, his hands moved more urgently in exploration of her.

  The phone rang.

  Ben remembered at once that they had forgotten to put it on the answering machine again when they had finished contacting people with the news of Eric’s death and funeral, and in confirmation it rang again, stridently.

  “Damn,” Rachael said, pulling back from him.

  “I’ll get it.”

  “Probably another reporter.”

  He took the call on the wall phone by the refrigerator, and it was not a reporter. It was Everett Kordell, chief medical examiner for the city of Santa Ana, phoning from the morgue. A serious problem had arisen, and he needed to speak to Mrs. Leben.

  “I’m a family friend,” Ben said. “I’m taking all calls for her.”

  “But I’ve got to speak to her personally,” the medical examiner insisted. “It’s urgent.”

  “Surely you can understand that Mrs. Leben has had a difficult day. I’m afraid you’ll simply have to deal with me.”

  “But she’s got to come downtown,” Kordell said plaintively.

  “Downtown? You mean to the morgue? Now?”

  “Yes. Right away.”

  “Why?”

  Kordell hesitated. Then: “This is embarrassing and frustrating, and I assure you that it’ll all be straightened out sooner or later, probably very soon, but … well, Eric Leben’s corpse is missing.”

  Certain that he’d misunderstood, Ben said, “Missing?”

  “Well … perhaps misplaced,” Everett Kordell said nervously.

  “Perhaps?”

  “Or perhaps … stolen.”

  Ben got a few more details, hung up, and turned to Rachael.

  She was hugging herself, as if in the grip of a sudden chill. “The morgue, you said?”

  He nodded. “The damn incompetent bureaucrats have apparently lost the body.”

  Rachael was very pale, and her eyes had a haunted look. But, curiously, she did not appear to be surprised by the startling news.

  Ben had the strange feeling that she had been waiting for this call all evening.

  4

  DOWN WHERE THEY KEEP THE DEAD

  To Rachael, the condition of the medical examiner’s office was evidence that Everett Kordell was an obsessive-compulsive personality. No papers, books, or files cluttered his desk. The blotter was new, crisp, unmarked. The pen-and-pencil set, letter opener, letter tray, and silver-framed pictures of his family were precisely arranged. On the shelves behind his desk were two hundred or three hundred books in such pristine condition and so evenly placed that they almost appeared to be part of a painted backdrop. His diplomas and two anatomy charts were hung on the walls with an exactitude that made Rachael wonder if he checked their alignment every morning with ruler and plumb line.

  Kordell’s preoccupation with neatness and orderliness was also evident in his appearance. He was tall and almost excessively lean, about fifty, with a sharp-featured ascetic face and clear brown eyes. Not a strand of his graying, razor-cut hair was out of place. His long-fingered hands were singularly spare of flesh, almost skeletal. His white shirt looked as if it had been laundered only five minutes ago, and the straight creases in each leg of his dark brown trousers were so sharp they almost glinted in the fluorescent light.

  When Rachael and Benny were settled in a pair of dark pine chairs with forest-green leather cushions, Kordell went around the desk to his own chair. “This is most distressing to me, Mrs. Leben—to add this burden to what you’ve already been through today. It’s quite inexcusable. I apologize again and extend my deepest sympathies, though I know nothing I say can make the matter any less disturbing. Are you all right? Can I get you a glass of water or anything?”

  “I’m okay,” Rachael said, though she could not remember ever feeling worse.

  Benny reached out and squeezed her shoulder reassuringly. Sweet, reliable Benny. She was so glad he was with her. At five eleven and a hundred fifty pounds, he was not physically imposing. With brown hair, brown eyes, and a pleasing but ordinary face, he seemed like a man who would vanish in a crowd and be virtually invisible at a party. But when he spoke in that soft voice of his, or moved with his uncanny grace, or just looked hard at you, his sensitivity and intelligence were instantly discernible. In his own quiet way, he had the impact of a lion’s roar. Everything would be easier with Benny at her side, but she worried about getting him involved in this.

  To the medical examiner, Rachael said, “I just want to understand what’s happened.”

  But she was afraid that she understood more than Kordell.

  “I’ll be entirely candid, Mrs. Leben,” Kordell said. “No point in being otherwise.” He sighed and shook his head as if he still had difficulty believing such a screwup had happened. Then he blinked, frowned, and turned to Benny. “You’re not Mrs. Leben’s attorney, by any chance?”

  “Just an old friend,” Benny said.

  “Really?”

  “I’m here for moral support.”

  “Well, I’m hoping we can avoid attorneys,” Kordell said.

  “I’ve absolutely no intention of retaining legal counsel,” Rachael assured him.

  The medical examiner nodded glumly, clearly unconvinced of her sincerity. He said, “I’m not ordinarily in the office at this hour.” It was nine-thirty Monday night. “When work unexpectedly backs up and it’s necessary to schedule late autopsies, I leave them to one of the assistant medical examiners. The only exceptions are when the deceased is a prominent citizen or the victim of a particularly bizarre and complex homicide. In that case, when there’s certain to be a lot of heat involved—the media and politicians, I mean—then I prefer not to put the burden on my subordinates, and if a night autopsy is unavoidable, I stay after hours. Your husband was, of course, a very prominent citizen.”

  As he seemed to expect a response, she nodded. She didn’t trust herself to speak. Fear had risen and fallen in her ever since she had received the news of the body’s disappearance, and at the moment it was at high tide.

  “The body was delivered to the morgue and logged in at 12:14 this afternoon,” Kordell continued. “Because we were already behind schedule and because I had a speaking engagement this afternoon, I ordered my assistants to proceed with the cadavers in the order of their log entries, and I arranged to handle your husband’s body myself at 6:30 this evening.” He put his fingertips to his temples, massaging lightly and wincing as if merely recounting these events had given him an excruciating headache. “At that time, when I’d prepared the autopsy chamber, I sent an assistant to bring Dr. Leben’s body from the morgue … but the cadaver couldn’t be found.”

  “Misplaced?” Benny asked.

  “That’s rarely happened during my tenure in this office,” Kordell said with a brief flash of pride. “And on those few occasions when a cadaver has been misplaced—sent to a wrong autopsy table, stored in the wrong drawer, or left on a gurney with an improper ID tag—we’ve always located it within five minutes.”

  “But tonight you couldn’t find it,” Benny said.

  “We looked for ne
arly an hour. Everywhere. Everywhere,” Kordell said with evident distress. “It makes no sense. No sense whatsoever. Given our procedures, it’s an impossibility.”

  Rachael realized that she was clutching the purse in her lap so tightly that her knuckles were sharp and white. She tried to relax her hands, folded them. Afraid that either Kordell or Benny would suddenly read a fragment of the monstrous truth in her unguarded eyes, she closed them and lowered her head, hoping the men would think she was simply reacting to the dreadful circumstances that had brought them here.

  From within her private darkness, Rachael heard Benny say, “Dr. Kordell, is it possible that Dr. Leben’s body was released in error to a private mortuary?”

  “We’d been informed earlier today that the Attison Brothers’ firm was handling funeral arrangements, so of course we called them when we couldn’t find the body. We suspected they’d come for Dr. Leben and that a day employee of the morgue had mistakenly released the cadaver without authorization, prior to autopsy. But they tell us they never came to collect, were in fact waiting for a call from us, and don’t have the deceased.”

  “What I meant,” Benny said, “was that perhaps Dr. Leben’s body was released in error to another mortician who had come to collect someone else.”

  “That, of course, was another possibility that we explored with, I assure you, considerable urgency. Subsequent to the arrival of Dr. Leben’s body at 12:14 this afternoon, four other bodies were released to private mortuaries. We sent employees to all of those funeral homes to confirm the identity of the cadavers and to make sure none of them was Dr. Leben. None of them was.”

  “Then what do you suppose has happened to him?” Benny asked.

  Eyes closed, Rachael listened to their macabre conversation in darkness, and gradually it began to seem as if she were asleep and as if their voices were the echoey phantom voices of characters in a nightmare.

  Kordell said, “Insane as it seems, we were forced to conclude the body’s been stolen.”

  In her self-imposed blackness, Rachael tried unsuccessfully to block out the gruesome images that her imagination began to supply.