"I never took you for a coward before."
She laughed. "Go ahead, insult me if it makes you feel better."
"You'll risk your neck for an old car. You'll march into a damn combat zone without blinking. But you're too scared to take a chance on me."
"You're a long shot, Quantrell."
"So are you. But I'm not running."
She laughed again. "You will. A few bumps in the road. A few rough times. It'll be easy for you to leave me."
"You must think I'm pretty spineless."
"I think you're human. Nice, but human. And humans always choose the easy way out."
"Easy?" Now it was his turn to laugh. "If I wanted easy, I wouldn't be having this conversation. And I wouldn't be asking you out to lunch."
She paused. "Lunch?"
"You know. As in a meal, traditionally taken at midday. I'll pick you up at noon. Restaurant of your choice."
"I can't," she said, glancing at one of the message slips taped to her desk. She suddenly noticed it was from the Greenwood Mortuary, in response to a call she'd made to them yesterday.
"Can't?" he asked. "Or won't?"
"Can't," she said, and folded the slip in half. "I have another engagement."
"Where are you going?"
"A burial."
Grim affairs, burials. Grimmer still is a pauper's burial. There are no gaudy sprays of gladioli, no wreaths, no sobbing family and friends. There is just a coffin and a muddy hole in the ground. And the burial crew, of course: in this case, two sallow-faced gravediggers, their hats dripping with rain, and a blacksuited official from the Greenwood Mortuary, huddled beneath an umbrella. Peggy Sue Barnett was being laid to her everlasting rest in the company of total strangers.
M. J. stood in the shelter of a nearby maple tree and sadly watched the proceedings. It was the starkest of ceremonies, words uttered tonelessly under gray skies, rain splattering the coffin. The official kept glancing around, as though to confirm that he was playing to an audience-any audience. At least I'm here, thought M. J. Even if I am just another stranger at her graveside. A short distance away, Vince Shradick also stood watching the scene. Cemeteries were routine stops for the boys from Homicide. They knew that two types of people attended victims' funerals: those who came to mourn, and those who came to gloat.
In Peggy Sue Barnett's case, no one at all appeared. Those who passed through the cemetery this afternoon seemed intent on their own business: a couple, bearing flowers to a loved one; an elderly woman, picking dead leaves off a grave; a groundskeeper, rattling by in a golf cart filled with tools. They all glanced at the coffin, but their looks were only mildly curious.
The rain let up to a fine drizzle. In a still mist, the burial crew set to work, shoveling earth into the trench. Shradick came over to M. J. and muttered, "This was a bust. Not a goddamn soul." He fished a handkerchief out of his pocket and blew his nose. "And I'll probably catch pneumonia for my trouble."
"You'd think there'd be someone," said M. J.
"Weather might have something to do with it." Shradick glanced up at the sky and pulled his raincoat closer. "Or maybe she didn't have any friends."
"Everyone has a connection. To someone."
"Well, I think we got us a dead end." Shradick looked back at the grave. "Real dead."
"So there's nothing new?"
"Nada. Lou's ready to call it quits. Told me not to bother coming out here today."
"But you came."
"Hate to walk away from a case. Even if Lou thinks it's a waste of time."
They watched as the last shovelful of dirt was tossed onto the grave. The crew patted it down, gave their handiwork one final inspection, and walked away.
After awhile, so did Shradick.
M. J. was left standing alone under the tree. Slowly she crossed the wet grass to the grave and stared down at the mound. There was no headstone yet, no marker. Nothing to identify the woman who lay beneath this bare pile of dirt. Who were you, Peggy Sue Burnett? Were you so alone in this world that no one even noticed when you left it?
"It's not as if you can do anything about it." said a voice behind her.
She turned and saw Adam. He was standing a few feet away, mist sheening his hair.
She looked back down at the grave. "I know."
"So why did you come?"
"I guess I feel sorry for her. For anyone who doesn't have a mourner to her name."
Adam came to stand beside her. "You don't know a thing about her, M. J. Maybe she didn't want any friends. Or deserve any friends. Maybe she was a monster."
"Or just a victim."
He took her arm. "We'll never know. So let's just go inside somewhere. Get warm and dry."
"I have to go back to work."
"You have to stop being afraid of me."
She frowned at him. "What makes you think I'm afraid of anything?"
"The running. It's not that I don't understand it. But don't close up on me because of what I might or might not do. Don't hide."
"From you?" She laughed. "I don't have to hide from any…" She paused as a flicker of movement drifted through her peripheral vision. She focused on two figures, a woman and a child, both dressed in black, standing beneath a distant tree. It was an eerie apparition, almost ghostly through the mist. They seemed to be gazing in her direction, their faces very still and solemn. Or was it Peggy Sue Harriett's grave they were looking at?
Suddenly the woman noticed that M. J. had spotted them. At once the woman grabbed the child's hand and began to lead her away, across the grass.
"Wait!" called M.J.
The woman was moving quickly now, almost dragging the child after her.
M. J. started after them. "I have to talk to you!"
The woman and child were already scurrying towards a parked car. M.J. dashed across the last patch of lawn, reaching the blacktop just as the woman slammed her car door shut.
"Wait!" said M. J., rapping on the window. "Did you know Peggy Sue Barnett?"
She caught a glimpse of the woman's frightened face, staring at her through the glass, and then the car jerked away. M. J. was flung backwards. The car made a sharp U-turn, spun around in the parking lot, and took off toward the cemetery gates.
Footsteps thudded toward her across the pavement. "What's going on?" said Adam.
Without a word, M.J. turned and made a dash for her car.
"M. J.?" he yelled. "What the hell-"
"Get in!" she snapped, sliding into the driver's seat.
"Why?"
"Okay, don't get in!"
He got in. At once, M. J. turned the ignition and hit the gas pedal. They screeched across the slick blacktop and through the cemetery gates.
"We've got a choice," said M. J. as they approached the first intersection. "East or west. Which way?"
"Uh… east is back to town. She'd probably go that way."
"Then we go west."
"What?"
"Just a hunch. Trust me." M. J. turned west.
The road took them past a shopping mall, past a Pizza Hut, an Exxon gas station, a Burger King-the institutional underpinnings of Anytown, U.S.A. At the first red light, M. J. pulled to a stop behind a line of cars. The windshield filmed over with mist. She turned on the wipers.