"No." Kit clutched Temple's wrist harder. "For moral support. She's done this before."
"Oh, she has." Ciampi sounded like he was humoring a four-year-old. "All right, ladies, let's get this show on the road."
He headed for the admissions desk, Temple and Kit following like orphans of the storm.
'That's interesting," Temple said. "I assumed visitor's badges would be required, but apparently not."
"We're not really visiting anyone," Kit complained, her voice low but vehement. "Not anyone who can talk back, anyway."
"No, but it is a restricted facility. This will be a new experience."
"I thought you'd done it before?"
"No, I've heard about it, from Matt."
Kit dropped her arm. "What kind of moral support are you, then.'"
For answer, Temple thrust a tube of lip balm at her aunt.
"I don't want a breath mint."
"It's not a breath mint. It's a medicinal lip balm."
"I don't need a lip balm. My knee may be shaking, but my lips aren't aren't chapped."
"Put some on your nose."
"Why should I put smelly Vaseline on my nose? I may be seeing the dead, but I don't wish to look like a kook while doing it."
"The medicinal smell will deaden the . . . dead smell."
"You think we'll be close enough to smell a dead smell?"
"I think it's pretty pervasive around these places, even if they have a viewing room."
"Oh. Is there a ladies' room--?"
"I don't think you want to linger here."
"But I can't sniff anything here."
"Good. Keep up the good work when we go inside and 'downstairs.' "
Kit only had time to give her niece a horrified look before Ciampi came to escort them past the reception room and into the bowels of the ME's office.
Everything was businesslike and sterile. Temple had a feeling their route avoided such areas of prurient interest as autopsy rooms.
The elevator to the basement was nondescript and silent.
Detective Ciampi took the lead as they left it.
"I still don't smell anything," Kit whispered to Temple, having commandeered her wrist again.
"Good. Try not to detect any undertones."
"Undertones. Like with perfume?" Kit defied all advice and sniffed madly, bunny-rabbit-style, until her nose twitched. "Oh!" She reached for the lip balm in Temple's hand and jammed the open tube into her nostrils like an addict sniffing cocaine. "Sorry. Want some?"
"I used it in the cab."
"My. You do know a trick or two. I'm sure the corpse won't care that I reek of Mentholatum, and I don't have a significant other at the moment. . . nor am I likely to if the odor lingers as you say."
The room to which they were led at last was not empty. A stiff figure was waiting for them, but it was upright and reasonably alive.
"You're on duty? I've got an identification to make." Detective Ciampi pulled out a notebook to give the figure clad in the gruesome green baggies of an operating room some numbers.
The trio were led to a row of huge metal file drawers.
"Just like on TV," Kit whispered.
"Open the locker," Ciampi said.
And just like on TV, the attendant pulled one out. The unveiling was an eerie, silent process, revealing a body inch by inch.
Kit knew her role in all this and edged in front of Detective Ciampi's great bulk to see better. Temple did too. The skin was still highly colored; at least they were spared a ghastly pallor. Temple looked carefully. With the beard and accouterments removed, Santa had lost all his inflated good cheer. He was a thin, red-faced man, and the body beneath the fabric was slight.
"Oh, yes," Kit said. "I knew him."
Temple kept waiting for the "Horatio" that should end that line from Hamlet, but for once Kit was unaware of the theatrical antecedents of her words.
Her head tilted to a different angle, as if by altering her perspective, she might alter the inescapable fact. "Rudy Lasko. He was at my apartment only . . . three? . . . nights ago. He was doing Macy's."
"You're sure?" Ciampi's voice was an official monotone.
Kit nodded as bravely as any widow. In the overbearing light, her nostrils gleamed.
"Yes. Oh, yes. I don't know if the redness is from his Santa makeup or . . . what happened, but other than that, it looks just like Rudy."
"You have an address?"
She gave it in a firm, clear voice, adding, "I can refer you to several other people around town who dealt with Rudy recently. He was sort of our cause. We tried to look out for him. I guess we didn't do a good job."
Ciampi nodded at the attendant. The drawer slid shut with the ball-bearing efficiency of a greatly burdened file drawer, gave a final click and stayed shut; the man on the unseen tray stayed dead.
Detective Ciampi took Kit's arm to guide her from the room. "You ladies did all right. The reason most IDs are handled by Polaroid from the reception desk is that we had too many relatives screaming and fainting and the ME's office doesn't have the staff or space to tend to them." He glanced at Temple as they reached the door to the entry area. "Good trick with the VapoRub, or whatever. Tried it myself the first time."
Temple felt a certain undergraduate glow, but Kit was silent as they left She even let Temple--Temple!--hail a cab.
They got the B-movie-variety driver, the veteran Brooklynite who not only spoke English, but spoke it continuously.
"Downtown.' You sure you wanta go downtown? Lucky it's Sunday. And youse ladies know where you were standin' in front of?
City morgue. Back up a few steps and you woulda been right in there with all the stiffs. Not a good place to end up on a Sunday afternoon, huh? All the way down in the Village, you want to go? O-kay. Open a window if this cigar bothers you. Drivin' a hack is a heart-attack special, I get what relaxation I can. You been to any good places in town? The Met? Guggenheim's pretty interestin'. What about the Statue-a-Liberty?"
And so it went. Temple was beginning to regard Cornelia Street as Home, Safe Home. She and Kit sighed in unison when they were back inside her condominium.
Kit spoke first. "I could use ... a better grade of perfume. Quick! Where are the tissues?"
"On the kitchen counter where you keep them."
"Golly, Temple, you look silly with your nose all shiny." Kit slumped against the countertop. "I hate to admit it, but I've never been inside a morgue before. It's a trip."
"This is my first time too, and we barely penetrated the facility."
"You, a newbie? Can't believe it. Where'd you get that lip-balm trick?"
"I read somewhere that police officers use it when they have to visit the morgue."
"Yeah. Even those big, burly pros like Ciampi. I don't feel like such a wimp."
" Those big, burly pros' include Lieutenant Hansen. I wish you could have met her."
"Why should I want to? From what you've said she's Sonja Henie on acid-etching skates."
"You should see Lieutenant C. R. Molina of the Las Vegas Metropolitan Police Department. She's almost six feet tall."
"No! I guess women go to all lengths nowadays when it comes to career choices."
Temple giggled, and leaned against the counter alongside her aunt. "It wasn't as totally horrible as I feared. When Matt did it, he seemed really torn up."
"Men! They can't take the realities of life, like death. We women are tougher. Men don't have menstrual cramps. Speaking of which, I feel a figurative siege coming on. You want some brandy before bedtime?"
Temple nodded, now ready for an early retirement. "So that was Rudy?"
"Unfortunately, yes. Why do you think I need the brandy?" Kit kicked off her ankle boots and hopped atop the counter, and then she stood on it to open the highest cupboard.