Rachel led me around them to the open lid of the coffin. She stared down at Connie and let loose with a deep sigh, then squeezed my arm tightly.
“God, I can’t believe it,” she said, sniffling and pulling me close. I put an arm around her and scrunched her shoulders. She stifled a sob, largely without success.
“I’m so sorry, Rachel,” I said. And I was.
She raised her head again and stiffened her neck, as if gathering strength for the next two days.
“I know, Harry. I appreciate your being here. It means worlds to me.”
She stepped back, turned from the coffin toward me. “I’m sorry it took this to get you back into my life,” she continued. “But I am glad you’re my friend again.”
“I never wasn’t your friend, Rach. Things just happen the way they happen, that’s all.”
She gazed at me for a long time, intently, seriously, a look that was as much troubled as saddened, as much afraid as grieved.
“Maybe it’s not too late to get it right this time,” she said, almost a whisper.
I was close to being embarrassed, standing here in front of Conrad Fletcher’s coffin, talking to his wife this way. Then, I thought, what the hell, he can’t hear us.
“Yeah,” I whispered. “Maybe.”
A throat cleared behind us. I suddenly remembered that we weren’t alone. I turned. The guy in the khaki suit was staring at us uncomfortably, the pale light mostly unflattering on his sallow complexion. The woman, though, was as elegant and as lovely as I’d guessed from a rearview shot. Her skin was smooth, flawless, her features sharp and beautifully defined. Her cheekbones would give Katharine Hepburn’s a run for their money.
“Mrs. Fletcher?” he asked.
“Yes,” she answered, holding out a hand, “I’m Rachel Fletcher.”
“I’m Al Zitin, Dr. Al Zitin. And this is Dr. Jane Collingswood. We were taking our surgical residencies under Dr. Fletcher. We’re so sorry about this.”
Zitin and Collingswood, I thought. What a nice surprise.
14
This voice inside my head said: think fast, boy. Rachel obviously hadn’t met these two and couldn’t know that Jane Collingswood and Albert Zitin were firmly established in the ranks of Conrad haters. I knew she was about to introduce me to them, but as who? Did I want them to know I was an investigator? Did I not want them to know? I wish I’d read a few more books on this business.…
“Thank you for coming,” Rachel said, extending her hand now to Jane Collingswood. “This has been a terrible shock to all of us. All of us who loved him, respected him.”
I thought I detected a slight twitch in Al’s right eye. Dr. Jane, though, was beautifully sculptured ice.
“This is Harry Denton,” Rachel said, pointing to me.
“Hi,” I interrupted. “I’m an old family friend. I’m pleased to meet you.”
We shook hands and made pleasantries for a moment. Then we all turned, as if choreographed, toward the coffin. It was a profoundly uncomfortable moment.
“We just came by to pay our respects,” Al Zitin said. “We’ve got to get back to the hospital in a bit.”
“Yes,” Jane Collingswood agreed. “I’m sorry we can’t stay too long.”
“When is the service?” Zitin asked.
“Tomorrow at three. I didn’t see any reason to delay. This has been bad enough for all of us without dragging it out.”
Jane Collingswood looked at Rachel for a second, then said, “I think you’re being very brave. I don’t know how I’d hold up if I were in your shoes.”
I did. Jane Collingswood could survive the sinking of the Titanic. Her eyes were deep, intelligent, determined. And, by the way, incredibly lovely.
“Don’t let all this fool you,” Rachel said. “I’ve had my bad moments. But I know that Connie would have wanted me to hold up. He had such high standards, for himself and everyone else.”
There went that twitch again in Zitin’s eye. “Yes, he certainly did. He was a tough taskmaster.”
“But no tougher on anyone else than he was on himself,” Jane added.
“We’ll all miss him,” Zitin concluded.
“Yes, we’ll all miss him.”
“Thank you,” Rachel said, taking both their hands in hers. “Connie’s work meant a lot to him. People meant a lot to him. He would have appreciated your coming by today.”
Amidst Rachel’s incredible graciousness, I noticed out of the corner of my eye that people were starting to file into the visitation room in some number now. James Hughes, wearing a crumpled green sport coat over a white shirt that he might have slept in, wandered in with four other obvious medical students. I didn’t recognize any of the others.
I turned my attention back to Rachel.
“Thank you so much for coming by,” she said, finishing her speech.
“We were glad to do it,” Jane Collingswood said, unwrapping her hand from Rachel’s and extending it toward me. “Glad to meet you, Mr. Denton.”
“Pleased to meet you,” I said, taking her hand. There was something solid, slightly cold, in her grip. Jane Collingswood was an unreadable woman, reserved, cards held close to her chest. Could she kill a man? I asked myself. “I’m sorry it had to be under these circumstances.”
Zitin extended his hand to me as well. I shook it. His palms were wet, his grip slightly unsure. “Maybe we’ll get to see you again, sometime,” he said.
“I hope so.” Zitin didn’t impress me as the kind of guy who’d have the nerve to kill someone in cold blood. Then again, he’s a doctor. He’d know what he was doing.
Rachel looked over Zitin’s shoulder at the crowd milling in, then disengaged herself politely to take care of her other guests. How do people get through these ordeals? I wondered. I watched Zitin and Collingswood as they meandered toward the door, pausing to speak to a couple of colleagues, shaking hands with a student, making more small talk. People shook their heads sadly, as if wondering how anything this horrible could disorder their safe professional world.
I watched them until they left the room, then shifted through the crowd as quickly as possible and followed them. Their pace inside the room had been slow, respectful, dignified. But once they got out into the hallway, their heels clicked away like a mechanic’s ratchet. I picked up my pace to stay ten feet or so after them, then watched as they went through the double doors into the same back parking lot where I’d left my car.
This was one of those times when I really had to wing it. I wanted to talk to them, to ask the kind of questions that would provide some indication of whether they might really be involved in this mess. But what questions? How could I feel them out without putting them so on guard they’d lock down completely?
Damn, man, I’m going to have to take some lessons in this one of these days. But then I remembered something I learned a long time ago as a newspaper reporter, something that helped me get past the suspicions and distrust that people naturally seem to attribute to reporters: when all else fails, tell the truth.
I shuffled up behind them just as Zitin was fumbling with the key to his 300Z. He crossed around in back of the car to the passenger’s door, then opened it and held it for Jane.
“Excuse me,” I said, “you guys got a minute?”
They turned to me. Jane, I noticed, was cool, subdued. Zitin flicked his eyes over to me, then back at her, then back and forth a few times. Nervous already.
I walked up to the deep-blue sports car, wondering just what surgical residents make to afford this kind of wheels. Maybe he came from money, I thought.
“Yes, Mr.…” she said, “Denton, was it?”
“Yeah, Harry Denton.” I hesitated a moment, then plunged in. “What Mrs. Fletcher said in there is true. I’m an old family friend. I’ve known Rachel and Connie since we were undergraduates together. But I’m also a private investigator, and I’ve been retained by Rachel to look into Conrad’s death.”