“Great,” Ruby said. “Where can I get one?”
“Right here. I assisted Dr. Levitt on this one and I saw it myself firsthand. It was an aneurysm. Case closed. You know, an aneurysm is one of those things anybody can have without even knowing it. You could have one, or I could. We just go along living our lives day in, day out, everything’s swell, and suddenly—boom. Your head blows up and you’re history. Or I am. Or we both are. Most people have no idea how thin that membrane between life and death can be. But then, isn’t it really better that way? Better living though denial. Who’d want to go around in a constant state of dread?”
Ruby glared at her but she was turning away to put the clipboard down on a metal table nearby. “At least it isn’t all bad news,” she said, holding up a small plastic bag between two fingers. There was a retainer in it. “We did manage to identify the girl from her dental records.”
“I didn’t see that on that report!” Ruby snapped. “Why wasn’t it on there? Who is she? When were you going to fucking tell me?”
Sheila St. Pierre tossed the bag with the retainer in it back on the table. “Which question would like me to fucking answer first?”
Ruby hesitated and then looked at the retainer. “Where did that come from, anyway? I didn’t see one at the scene.”
“Well, it was there. Nobody looked close enough till we got her on the table. Her name is Betty Mura—”
“What’s her address?” Ruby demanded. “And why didn’t you call me?”
“I did call you,” Sheila St. Pierre said with exaggerated patience. “You weren’t at your desk so I left a message.”
Ruby had to force herself not to lunge forward and shake the woman. “When was that?”
“As near as I can tell, it was while you were on your way over here.”
“Give me that information now!” Ruby ordered her but she was already picking up the clipboard. She slid a piece of paper out from under the form on top and handed it over.
“Thank you,” she prompted politely as Ruby snatched it from her.
“You’re welcome,” Ruby growled over her shoulder, already out of the room.
There was a ticket on her windshield; another skirmish in the struggle to keep the area in front of the municipal complex a strict no-parking zone, this means you, no exceptions, especially cops. Ruby crumpled it up and tossed it in the backseat as she slid behind the wheel. She clipped Betty Mura’s home address to her visor. A West Side address, no surprise there considering the girl’s clothes. But what had she been doing on a roof in east midtown? What had she been doing anywhere in east midtown, and how had she gotten there? She might have died of natural causes but there had definitely been something unusual going on in the last hours of her life.
She went to start the car and then paused. First she should call Rafe Pasco, tell him she had the girl’s name and address and she would pick him up.
The image of his head resting on the pillow beside her flashed in her mind; irritation surged and was immediately overwhelmed by the Dread in a renewed assault. She had a sudden strong urge to close her eyes and let her head fall forward on the steering wheel and stay that way until the next Ice Age or the heat death of the universe, which ever came second.
She took a steadying breath, popped her cell phone into the cradle on the dashboard, put it on speaker and dialled the squad room. Tommy DiCenzo answered; she asked him to put her through to Pasco.
“Can’t, Ruby. He’s not here, he left.”
“Where’d he go?” she asked, but as soon as the words were out of her mouth, she knew the answer.
“Coroner’s office called—they identified your rooftop girl from her dental records. He took the name and address and left.”
“Did he say anything about coming to get me first?” Knowing that he hadn’t.
Tommy hesitated. “Not to me. But I got the impression he thought you already knew, since you were on your way over to the coroner’s anyway.”
“Shit,” she muttered and started the car. “Hey, you wouldn’t happen to know Pasco’s cell phone number, would you? I don’t have it with me.”
“Hang on—”
“Tommy—” But he had already put the phone down. She could hear the tanky background noise of the squad room: footsteps, a phone ringing, and Tommy’s voice, distant and indistinct, asking a question. A few seconds later he picked up the phone again.
“OK, ready?”
“Wait—” she found a pen, looked around hurriedly and then held the point over the back of her other hand. “Go.”
He dictated the number to her carefully, saying it twice.
“Thanks, Tommy,” she said, disconnecting before he could say anything else. She dialled the number he’d given her, then pulled away from the curb as it began to ring.
To her immense frustration, it kept on ringing for what seemed like a hundred times before she finally heard the click of someone picking up.
“Rafe Pasco speaking—”
“Goddamit, Rafe, why didn’t you call me before—”
“I’m in the Bahamas for two weeks,” his voice went on cheerfully, cutting into her tirade, “and as you can see, I didn’t pack my cell phone. Sorry about that. But you can phone my house-sitter and talk to her if you want. It’s your call.” There was another click followed by a mechanical female voice inviting her to leave a message after the beep.
Ruby stabbed the disconnect button and redialled. The same thing happened and she disconnected again, furious. Was Pasco playing some kind of mind-game or had he really just forgotten to change his voicemail message after his last vacation? Either way, she was going to have a hard time not punching him. Weaving in and out of the traffic, she headed for the freeway.
She was merging into traffic from the entrance ramp when all at once she found herself wondering what she was so frantic about. Pasco had been inconsiderate, even rude, but he must have figured she’d get the same information from the coroner. Possibly he had assumed she would head over to the Mura house directly from the coroner. He was her partner, after all—why should she be concerned about him going to the girl’s house without her?
The Dread clutched her stomach like a fist and she swerved halfway into the breakdown lane. Behind her, a horn blared long and hard. She slowed down, pulling all the way into the breakdown lane to let the car pass; it whizzed by a fraction of a second later. The Dread maintained its grip on her, flooding her system and leaving no room for even a flash of fear at her close call. She slowed down intending to stop, but the Dread wouldn’t let her step on the brake.
“What the fuck,” she whispered as the car rumbled along. The Dread seemed to have come to life in her with an intensity beyond anything she had felt in the past. The maddening, horrible thing about it, however, was that it had not tipped over into terror or panic, which she realized finally was what she had been waiting for it to do. She had been expecting that as a logical progression—apprehension turned to dread, dread became fear. But it hadn’t. She had never suspected it was possible to feel so much dread—Dread—without end. It shouldn’t have been. Because it wasn’t a steady-state universe.
So what kind of universe was it, then?
This was it, she thought suddenly; this was the crack-up and it was happening in fast-motion just like she had wanted. The thing to do now was stop the car, call Tommy DiCenzo, and tell him she needed help.
Then she pressed the accelerator, put on her turn signal and checked the rear-view mirror as she moved back into the travel lane.