From Potter`s Field

'Who is it?' I demanded.

Wesley said, after a pause, 'Kay?'

I let him in. A baseball cap and the shoulders of his overcoat were wet from snow. He pulled off leather gloves and stuffed them in pockets, and removed his coat without taking his eyes off me.

'What is it?' he asked.

'I'll tell you exactly what it is.' My voice shook. 'Come right over here and look.' I grabbed his hand and pulled him to the window. 'Just look! Do you think those poor, pathetic horses ever get a day off? Do you think they are properly cared for? Do you think they're ever groomed or adequately shod? You know what happens when they stumble - when it's icy and they're old as hell and almost fall?'

'Kay…'

'They're just beaten harder.'

'Kay…'

'So why don't you do something about it?' I railed on.

'What would you like me to do?'

'Just do something. The world is full of people who don't do anything and I'm goddam tired of it.'

'Would you like me to file a complaint with the SPCA?' he asked.

'Yes, I would,' I said. 'And I will, too.'

'Would it be okay if we did that tomorrow since I don't think anything's open today?'

I continued looking out the window as the driver beat his horse again. 'That's it,' I snapped.

'Where are you going?' He followed me out of the room.

He hurried after me as I headed to the elevator. I strode across the lobby and out the hotel's front door without a coat. By now, snow was falling hard, and the icy street was smooth with it. The object of my wrath was an old man in a hat hunched over in the driver's seat. He sat up straighter when he saw this middle-aged lady coming with a tall man in her wake.

'You like nice carriage ride?' he asked in a heavy accent.

The mare strained her neck toward me and cocked her ears as if she knew what was coming. She was scarred skin and bones with overgrown hoofs, her eyes dull and rimmed in pink.

'What is your horse's name?' I inquired.

'Snow White.' He looked as miserable as his pitiful mare as he started to cite his fares.

'I'm not interested in your fares,' I said as he looked wearily down at me.

He shrugged. 'So how long you want ride?'

'I don't know,' I said curtly. 'How long do I need to ride before you start beating Snow White again? And do you beat the shit out of her more or less when it's Christmas?'

'I am good to my horse,' he said stupidly.

'You are cruel to this horse and probably to everything alive and breathing,' I said.

'I have job to do,' he said as his eyes narrowed.

'I am a doctor and I am reporting you,' I said as my voice got tighter.

'What?' he chortled. 'You horse doctor?'

I stepped closer to the driver's box until I was inches from his blanket-covered legs. 'You whip this mare one more time, and I will see it,' I said with the iron calm I reserved for people I hated. 'And this man behind me will see it. From that window right up there-' I pointed. 'And one day you will wake up and find I have bought your company and fired you.'

'You do not buy company.' He glanced up curiously at the New York Athletic Club.

'You do not understand reality,' I said.

He tucked his chin into his collar and ignored me.

I was silent as I returned to my room, and Wesley did not speak, either. I took a deep breath and my hands would not stop shaking. He went to the minibar and poured us each a whiskey, then sat me on the bed, propped several pillows behind me, and took off his coat and spread it over my legs.

He turned lights off and sat next to me. For a while he rubbed my neck while I stared out the window. The snow-sky looked gray and wet, but not dreary as when it rained. I wondered about the difference, why snow seemed soft while rain felt hard and somehow colder.

It had been bitterly cold and raining in Richmond the Christmas when police discovered Eddie Heath's frail, naked body. He was propped against a Dumpster behind an abandoned building with windows boarded up, and though he would never regain consciousness, he was not yet dead. Gault had abducted him from a convenience store where Eddie had been sent by his mother to pick up a can of soup.

I would never forget the desolation of that filthy spot where the boy had been found or Gault's gratuitous cruelty of placing near the body the small bag containing the can of soup and candy bar Eddie had purchased before his death. The details made him so real that even the Henrico County officer wept. I envisioned Eddie's wounds and remembered the warm pressure of his hand when I examined him in pediatric intensive care before he was disconnected from life support.

'Oh God,' I muttered in this dim room. 'Oh God, I'm so tired of all this.'

Wesley did not reply. He had gotten up and was standing before the window, drink in hand.

'I'm so tired of cruelty. I'm so tired of people beating horses and killing little boys and head-injured women.'

Wesley did not turn around. He said, 'It's Christmas. You should call your family.'

'You're right. That's just what I need to cheer me up.' I blew my nose and reached for the phone.

At my sister's house in Miami, no one answered. I dug an address book out of my purse and called the hospital where my mother had been for weeks. A nurse in the intensive care unit said Dorothy was with my mother and she would get her.

'Hello?'

'Merry Christmas,' I said to my only sibling.

'I guess that's an irony when you consider where I am. There's certainly nothing merry about this place, not that you would know since you aren't here.'

'I'm quite familiar with intensive care,' I said. 'Where is Lucy and how is she?'

'She's out running errands with her friend. They dropped me off and will be back in an hour or so. Then we're going to Mass. Well, I don't know if the friend will since she's not Catholic.'

'Lucy's friend has a name. Her name is Janet, and she is very nice.'

'I'm not going to get into that.'

'How is Mother?'

'The same.'

'The same as what, Dorothy,' I said, and she was beginning to get to me.

'They've had to suction her a lot today. I don't know what the problem is, but you can't imagine what it's like to watch her try to cough and not make a sound because of that awful tube in her throat. She only made it five minutes off the ventilator today.'

'Does she know what day it is?'

'Oh yes,' Dorothy said ominously. 'Oh yes indeed. I put a little tree on her table. She's been crying a lot.'

A dull ache welled in my chest.

'When are you getting here?' she went on.

'I don't know. We can't leave New York right now.'

'Does it ever strike you, Katie, that you've spent most of your life worrying about dead people?' Her voice was getting sharp. 'I think all your relationships are with dead-'

'Dorothy, you tell Mother I love her and that I called. Please tell Lucy and Janet that I'll try again later tonight or tomorrow.'

I hung up.

Wesley was still standing before the window with his back to me. He was quite familiar with my family difficulties.

'I'm sorry,' he said kindly.

'She would be like that even if I were there.'

'I know. But the point is, you should be there and I should be home.'

When he talked about home I got uncomfortable, because his home and mine were different. I thought again about this case, and when I closed my eyes I saw the woman who looked like a manikin without clothing or wig. I envisioned her awful wounds.

I said, 'Benton, who is he really killing when he kills these people?'

'Himself,' he said. 'Gault is killing himself.'

'That can't be all of it.'

'No, but it is part of it.'

'It's a sport to him,' I said.