Code 6, p.3
Code 6, page 3
“Why not?”
“She drank a lot. Too much. When I mentioned security cameras, she thought I wanted them because I didn’t trust her to stay out of the liquor cabinet. She didn’t want me spying on her.”
Kate’s interest piqued. She’d never heard this before.
“Let’s talk more about the drinking,” said the detective. “Your daughter said Elizabeth had been sober for a long time.”
There was a long pause. Longer than Kate could understand. Her father’s voice lowered, but with a little more effort, she could hear.
“By any chance, was there a flower delivery to the apartment today?” she heard her father ask.
“Matter of fact, there was. Your security guard said it came this morning. Twenty-four calla lilies.”
“Check the flowers,” her father said.
“Check them for what?”
“Elizabeth had flowers delivered every morning. Not always calla lilies, but fresh-cut flowers. I used to wonder why the flowers were always dead the next day. Then I checked out one of her deliveries. The flowers never came in a vase. They came in a box, and each stem had one of those three-inch water vials attached to it. The idea is to keep the flowers fresh until you can put them in a vase. Except that Elizabeth had a special arrangement with her florist. Hers came with vodka.”
Kate climbed down the chair and moved closer to the door, secretly hanging on her father’s next words.
“Vodka?” asked the detective.
“Twenty-four vials for twenty-four stems. About twelve shots, I’d estimate. She thought she was fooling me into thinking she’d emptied the liquor cabinet into the sink. Apparently, she fooled Kate.”
Kate’s heart sank.
“I hope this doesn’t sound like a stupid question,” the detective said. “But why did your wife drink so much?”
“Because she was addicted.”
“I understand the chemical dependency. But sometimes there’s a reason.”
“What are you getting at, Detective?”
“I understand there was a call to nine-one-one from the penthouse.”
“Yes. Kate called when—when she realized what happened.”
“Not that call. Department records show that there was a call two years ago. From your wife.”
Kate knew all about that call. She couldn’t imagine why the detective had brought it up.
“That was unfortunate,” she heard her father say.
“I have a transcript of the call, if you’d like to refresh your—”
“I don’t need to see a transcript. I know what she said.”
“She said you threatened her.”
“Which was a lie.”
Kate could have corroborated the statement, but on the night of her mother’s death, she didn’t want any part of this discussion. Her father could handle himself.
“Why would she lie about something as serious as that?” asked the detective.
“Because she was drunk and angry.”
“Angry about what?”
“The trash she’d read in the tabloids.”
“About your extramarital affair?”
“There was no affair. That was something the tabloids made up to sensationalize the story about Sandra Levy.”
“Sandra Levy was one of your closest confidantes at Buck Technologies, as I understand it.”
“That was a mistake on my part.”
“She was a spy, right? She was stealing corporate secrets and classified information.”
“She’s in prison, where she belongs. Look, Detective, what happened two years ago with Sandra Levy has absolutely nothing to do with the terrible thing that happened to my family tonight. And the Fairfax County Police Department has no business reopening an espionage investigation after the Department of Justice got the conviction it wanted and closed the case.”
“I’m not talking about espionage,” said the detective. “I’m talking about domestic violence.”
Kate could hardly believe her ears, shocked that, on this night, the detective would dredge up allegations that even her own mother had admitted were false.
“You’re way out of line,” her father told the detective.
“Sadly, a suicide is sometimes a sign we arrived too late. But that doesn’t mean there wasn’t a crime committed two days ago, two weeks ago, two months ago—or when a call to nine-one-one was made two years ago.”
Kate heard the chair scrape the dining room floor, her father rising. “I’ve had enough of this,” he said.
“Just a few more questions.”
“I’m asking you to leave,” he said firmly.
The silence lingered, and even through the closed door, Kate could feel the tension between the two men. She’d had enough eavesdropping and needed to look her father in the eye. She pushed open the swinging service door to the dining room.
“Are you two almost finished?” she asked, as if she hadn’t been listening.
“The detective was just leaving,” her father said.
“There’s one more issue to address,” the detective said. “The identification of the body.”
“Is there any doubt as to that?” asked Gamble.
“There rarely ever is, unless the victim is a homeless person. Still, it’s a formality I offer to the family. We can accommodate almost any request, mindful of the sensitivities. Some families only ask to see a tattoo or a birthmark. Some do it by photograph. Others don’t do it at all. You don’t have to decide now. You can think about it and call me in the morning.”
“I don’t need to think about it,” her father said. “I don’t want to do it.”
“I do,” said Kate.
Her father shot her a look of surprise. “Are you sure, Kate?”
Kate had no second thoughts about not looking over the balcony, no need to see her own mother’s violent and senseless death on public display. But having one last moment in the same room with her mother, if only her body, felt like her most lucid decision of the evening.
“Yes. I’m sure.”
Chapter 4
It was an hour-long Uber ride from Kate’s apartment in DuPont Circle to the historic town of Manassas, site of the medical examiner’s office for northern Virginia.
Kate’s first visit to Manassas had been at age eleven. She’d told her parents she was ready to do a summer sleep-away camp for young theater actors. Her mother cried, but her father was so proud of his “big girl” that he’d immediately plopped down deposits on programs at Lincoln Center in New York, Steppenwolf in Chicago, and even the West End in London. On her own, Kate had found the Manassas ARTfactory—perfect not only because the old building was once a candy factory, but also because it was just thirty minutes from home.
Kate stopped her car on Battle Street, where her parents had dropped her off, and the memories flooded back.
“If you change your mind and want to come home, honey, it’s okay,” her mother had said, to which her father had a predictable and firm response:
“She’s staying.”
Kate cut the trip down memory lane short and arrived only a few minutes late for her 2:00 p.m. appointment. The medical examiner’s assistant led her down the hallway to the autopsy room.
“Are you ready, Ms. Gamble?” he asked.
“I think so.”
The door opened, and Kate followed the assistant inside. Torrents of icy air gushed from the air-conditioning vents in the ceiling. Bright lights glistened off the white sterile walls and buffed tile floors. Kate said nothing as they continued across the room to the mound beneath a white sheet on a stainless-steel table. The assistant reached for the upper-right corner of the sheet, near a dissection table upon which the medical examiner’s scalpel and other instruments were neatly arranged.
“I’m not here to rush you,” he said, holding the sheet by the corner. “You tell me when.”
“I only want to see her hand,” said Kate.
The assistant nodded, as if to say, Good decision.
“The right hand is fractured, so—”
“The left is fine,” said Kate.
He peeled back the sheet a few inches. Kate stared down at the familiar hand that had once held hers. She didn’t gasp and collapse to her knees, the way television melodramas invariably portrayed the reaction of the next of kin. It was all a bit numbing.
“Where’s her jewelry?” asked Kate. “Her engagement ring and wedding band?”
“Everything is secured in a locker until after the autopsy. Your father advised that someone from his security detail will pick it up.”
Kate wondered what jewelry they would recover. Had she leapt to her death wearing her wedding ring? The Tiffany necklace Kate liked to borrow? Her favorite earrings? How does one decide such things?
Kate laid her hand atop her mother’s. It was cool to the touch. Holding it there, even for a minute or more, didn’t warm it. Nor did the chill of this final, brief physical connection even begin to answer the most basic of questions her mother had left unanswered.
Why?
Kate opened her purse, removed a bottle of nail polish, and unscrewed the top.
“What are you doing?” asked the assistant.
“When I was a little girl, my mother would let me paint her nails. It was our thing. I wanted to do that for her today.”
The assistant looked pained. “I don’t mean to be insensitive, but you can’t do that until after the autopsy. It’s scheduled for later this afternoon.”
Kate had observed an autopsy as part of her Law and Forensic Science practicum. She glanced at the cold, stainless-steel scale, where the medical examiner would weigh the brain, kidneys, heart, liver, and other organs upon removal; and then her gaze drifted toward the dissection table, where the scalpel would do its work. The procedure would be done with proper respect, she was certain, but the battered body was already in poor condition. An autopsy would leave only a hollowed-out husk.
“I don’t think I want to come back after the autopsy,” said Kate.
“I wish I could bend the rules. But I can’t.”
Kate felt cheated at first, then thought maybe the assistant was doing her a favor by keeping this short. She put the bottle of nail polish away. “I understand.”
Kate rested her hand atop her mother’s for a moment longer and said goodbye.
The assistant led her back to the lobby. “Do you have any questions I can answer for you?”
“How long will it take to get a toxicology report?” she asked.
“A few weeks.”
“Will the media find out if my mother was intoxicated?”
“Virginia treats the records of the medical examiner like medical records. Without the consent of the next of kin, a toxicology report isn’t typically public information in cases where there are no legal proceedings.”
That was good news. Kate had felt due for some. She thanked the assistant and waited outside for a ride. She checked her Uber app to make sure her ride preferences were set to “no conversation.” The last thing she needed was a chatty driver all the way back to the city. The first two drivers canceled on her; apparently, the morgue came up on their phones as a haunted house. Finally, she snagged a willing soul. An hour-long car ride was more than enough time to be alone with her thoughts, and by the time she reached DuPont Circle, it was a relief not to have to go up to her apartment for still more time alone. Earlier, Kate had agreed to meet an old friend for coffee, and despite her initial reluctance, she was actually glad to have company.
It had been almost two years since Kate had seen Noah Dunn. They’d met at Georgetown when he was in law school and Kate was an undergraduate. That morning, he’d been one of the first to call and tell her how sorry he was to hear the horrible news about her mother, which Kate appreciated. She wasn’t sure which was the bigger surprise: that for some reason, she’d never removed him from her contacts, so that his name had popped up on her screen; or that they’d talked for another twenty minutes or so, without a moment of awkwardness. Until the end of the call, when things got a little strange. “I have something I want to give you,” he’d said, “something important.” The last time Noah had uttered words to that effect, Kate had assumed it was a ring and signed up for a semester-long study-abroad program. She really cared for Noah, but he moved fast—way too fast for Kate, who was well versed in the things a husband and wife should never say to one another.
She ordered a coffee at the counter and found him in a booth by the window.
“Good to see you,” she said, as she slid into the bench seat across from him.
“Likewise. And sorry for being so secretive about this. I was afraid you wouldn’t come if I told you what it was.”
“Now you’re freaking me out.”
“I won’t keep you in suspense.” He opened his backpack and laid the script on the table.
Kate did a double take. “My play? How did you get that?”
“I’m a federal prosecutor. I specialize in retrieving important documents out of Dumpsters and trash cans.”
Since their breakup, Noah had gone on to become the youngest “senior” prosecutor in the Cybercrimes Unit of the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the District of Columbia. If cyberspace was the Wild West, Washington was Dodge City. Noah was right where he wanted to be, on the front line in the fight against cyber-enabled fraud, intrusions, hacks, scams, and anything else that the most brilliant criminal minds in the world could imagine.
“How did you even know I threw this away?” she asked. “Wait—did you follow me to Ford’s Theatre?”
“Not exactly.”
“Noah, this is getting weird.”
“I saw the announcement in the Georgetown alumni magazine that you were one of the winners of Irving Bass’s playwriting competition.”
“Oh, God. My mother put that in there.”
“The article said that the readings of all the winners were open to the public, so I went.”
She froze. “Then you saw what happened?”
“Yes.”
“Ouch.”
“My plan was to say hello and congratulations on the award. But I saw how upset you were and thought it probably wasn’t a great time to show my face and say, ‘Hi, remember me? I’m the guy who used to tell you how great your script was.’”
She smiled sadly. Noah had been one of her precious few beta readers. Her biggest fan.
“You should have said something.”
“I was torn. At first I thought, No, leave her be. Then I thought, For Pete’s sake, you came all the way over here, just say hello, and I started after you. That’s when I saw you pitch the script in the garbage. And I let you go.”
“But you took the script.”
He leaned closer, excitement in his eyes. “Kate, it’s fantastic.”
“Irving Bass didn’t think so.”
“Irving Bass is a has-been and a—”
He stopped himself, but Kate knew what he was going to say. “A drunk. It’s okay to say it. My mother didn’t corner the market on alcoholism.”
Noah pushed the manuscript closer. “Anyway, I just wanted to give this back and remind you of what you said when you applied to law school. You promised to keep writing.”
“Writing was always just a dream. Not a goal.”
“You have to stick with it.”
“I did. On top of law school, it practically killed me. No regrets, but—”
“No buts. I loved your take on our own government’s first taste of technology. The census of 1890 really was the dawn of the personal information crisis. I prosecute cybercrimes. I know what I’m talking about.”
She flipped through the pages. The red ink made her smile. “It’s bleeding.”
“I made a few edits. Sorry. Couldn’t help myself.”
It was the way they used to work together. Kate would write all night, and Noah would edit in the morning as she slept. “Of course you couldn’t,” she said.
“So you’ll promise me you won’t put down the pen?”
Kate tucked the manuscript into her purse. “I promise not to throw it back in the trash. But I can’t dive back into it now. I need to wait till I get past . . . all of this.”
“Wait? Are you serious? Did Hemingway wait for the end of the war to write A Farewell to Arms?”
“About ten years.”
“Okay, smarty-pants. But did Victor Hugo wait for the end of the French Revolution before writing Les Misérables?”
“The revolution ended before he was born. But I take your point.”
“Yes. Because it’s a good point. Only my examples suck.”
“Irving Bass would shred you,” she said, smiling as she slid out of the booth and rose. “This was really sweet of you. I needed it.”
“No problem. And, hey, if you need an editor—or a friend—give me a call.”
“Thank you. I will.”
Kate headed for the door. Her cellphone rang as she stepped out onto the sidewalk. It was her father. She almost let it go to voicemail, not wanting to spoil the moment with Noah so soon by having to recount her visit to the morgue. But it wasn’t fair to ignore him under these family circumstances. She answered on the fourth ring.
“Hi, Dad. What’s up?”
There was a brief silence, and then he spoke in a very serious tone. “Your mother left a note.”
Kate stopped in her tracks. “What?” she asked, but she knew exactly what he meant.
“Handwritten. Definitely her cursive.”
Kate was almost afraid to ask. “What does it say?”
“I think you should read it for yourself.”
She breathed in and out. “Right. I think so, too.”
Chapter 5
Kate waited at the curb on Maryland Avenue. Her father had called from the back of his limousine and was just around the corner. Three minutes later, the car pulled up. The driver hopped out and opened the rear door for her. Kate slid into the backseat beside her father. As they pulled away, the glass partition rose, separating them from the driver so they could speak in private.
