Elliot touched her face, turning it gently toward him.
His beautiful, expressive eyes seemed to be filled with concern for her.
“Tina, you know there isn’t any maybe about it. You know better than that. If Danny were alive, and if someone were trying to get that news to you, it wouldn’t be done like this, not with all these dramatic hints. Am I right?”
“Probably.”
“Danny is gone.”
She said nothing.
“If you convince yourself he’s alive,” Elliot said, “you’re only setting yourself up for another fall.”
She stared deeply into his eyes. Eventually she sighed and nodded. “You’re right.”
“Danny’s gone.”
“Yes,” she said thinly.
“You’re really convinced of that?”
“Yes.”
“Good.”
Tina got up from the couch, went to the window, and pulled open the drapes. She had a sudden urge to see the Strip. After so much talk about death, she needed a glimpse of movement, action, life; and although the Strip sometimes was grubby in the flat glare of the desert sun, the boulevard was always, day or night, bustling and filled with life.
Now the early winter dusk settled over the city. In waves of dazzling color, millions of lights winked on in the enormous signs. Hundreds of cars progressed sluggishly through the busy street, taxicabs darting in and out, recklessly seeking any small advantage. Crowds streamed along the sidewalks, on their way from this casino to that casino, from one lounge to another, from one show to the next.
Tina turned to Elliot again. “You know what I want to do?”
“What?”
“Reopen the grave.”
“Have Danny’s body exhumed?”
“Yes. I never saw him. That’s why I’m having such a hard time accepting that he’s gone. That’s why I’m having nightmares. If I’d seen the body, then I’d have known for sure. I wouldn’t be able to fantasize about Danny still being alive.”
“But the condition of the corpse…”
“I don’t care,” she said.
Elliot frowned, not convinced of the wisdom of exhumation. “The body’s in an airtight casket, but it’ll be even more deteriorated now than it was a year ago when they recommended you not look at it.”
“I’ve got to see.”
“You’d be letting yourself in for a horrible—”
“That’s the idea,” she said quickly. “Shock. A powerful shock treatment that’ll finally blow away all my lingering doubts. If I see Danny’s… remains, I won’t be able to entertain any more doubts. The nightmares will stop.”
“Perhaps. Or perhaps you’ll wind up with even worse dreams.”
She shook her head. “Nothing could be worse than the ones I’m having now.”
“Of course,” he said, “exhumation of the body won’t answer the main question. It won’t help you discover who’s been harassing you.”
“It might,” Tina said. “Whoever the creep is, whatever his motivations are, he’s not well-balanced. He’s one sort of sickie or another. Right? Who knows what might make a person like that reveal himself? If he finds out there’s going to be an exhumation, maybe he’ll react strongly, give himself away. Anything’s possible.”
“I suppose you could be right.”
“Anyway,” she said, “even if reopening the grave doesn’t help me find who’s responsible for these sick jokes — or whatever the hell they are — at least it’ll settle my mind about Danny. That’ll improve my psychological condition for sure, and I’ll be better able to deal with the creep, whoever he is. So it’ll work out for the best either way.” She returned from the window, sat on the couch again, beside Elliot. “I’ll need an attorney to handle this, won’t I?”
“The exhumation? Yeah.”
“Will you represent me?”
He didn’t hesitate. “Sure.”
“How difficult will it be?”
“Well, there’s no urgent legal reason to have the body exhumed. I mean, there isn’t any doubt about the cause of death, no court trial hinging on a new coroner’s report. If that were the situation, we’d have the grave opened very quickly. But even so, this shouldn’t be terribly difficult. I’ll play up the mother-suffering-distress angle, and the court ought to be sympathetic.”
“Have you ever handled anything like this before?”
“In fact, I have,” Elliot said. “Five years ago. This eight-year-old girl died unexpectedly of a congenital kidney disease. Both kidneys failed virtually overnight. One day she was a happy, normal kid. The next day she seemed to have a touch of flu, and the third day she was dead. Her mother was shattered, couldn’t bear to view the body, though the daughter hadn’t suffered substantial physical damage, the way Danny did. The mother wasn’t even able to attend the service. A couple weeks after the little girl was buried, the mother started feeling guilty about not paying her last respects.”
Remembering her own ordeal, Tina said, “I know. Oh, I know how it is.”
“The guilt eventually developed into serious emotional problems. Because the mother hadn’t seen the body in the funeral home, she just couldn’t bring herself to believe her daughter was really dead. Her inability to accept the truth was a lot worse than yours. She was hysterical most of the time, in a slow-motion breakdown. I arranged to have the grave reopened. In the course of preparing the exhumation request for the authorities, I discovered that my client’s reaction was typical. Apparently, when a child dies, one of the worst things a parent can do is refuse to look at the body while it’s lying in a casket. You need to spend time with the deceased, enough to accept that the body is never going to be animated again.”
“Was your client helped by exhumation?”
“Oh, yes. Enormously.”
“You see?”
“But don’t forget,” Elliot said, “her daughter’s body wasn’t mutilated.”
Tina nodded grimly.
“And we reopened the grave only two months after the funeral, not a whole year later. The body was still in pretty good condition. But with Danny… it won’t be that way.”
“I’m aware of that,” she said. “God knows, I’m not happy about this, but I’m convinced it’s something I’ve got to do.”
“Okay. I’ll take care of it.”
“How long will you need?” she asked.
“Will your husband contest it?”
She recalled the hatred in Michael’s face when she’d left him a few hours ago. “Yes. He probably will.”
Elliot carried their empty brandy glasses to the bar in the corner and switched on the light above the sink. “If your husband’s likely to cause trouble, then we’ll move fast and without fanfare. If we’re clever, he won’t know what we’re doing until the exhumation is a fait accompli. Tomorrow’s a holiday, so we can’t get anything done officially until Friday.”
“Probably not even then, what with the four-day weekend.”
Elliot found the bottle of liquid soap and the dishcloth that were stored under the sink. “Ordinarily I’d say we’d have to wait until Monday. But it happens I know a very reasonable judge. Harold Kennebeck. We served in Army Intelligence together. He was my senior officer. If I—”
“Army Intelligence? You were a spy?”
“Nothing as grand as that. No trench coats. No skulking about in dark alleys.”
“Karate, cyanide capsules, that sort of stuff?” she asked.
“Well, I’ve had a lot of martial arts training. I still work at that a couple of days a week because it’s a good way to keep in shape. Really, though, it wasn’t like what you see in the movies. No James Bond cars with machine guns hidden behind the headlights. It was mostly dull information gathering.”