Never Buried: A Leigh Koslow Mystery (23 page)

"But not impossible."

Vestal grinned. "You really want to believe that boy is alive, don't you? May I ask why?"

Leigh didn't have an answer. Maybe she did want Robbie to be alive and well. And maybe she didn't.

***

Somewhere in the middle of Leigh's forty-second fax transmission, Maura checked in, looking worse than ever. She exchanged a few words with Vestal, then sat down on the hard tile floor beside the fax desk.

"Haven't you slept at all?" Leigh asked, concerned.

"I got a few hours in earlier today," Maura said dismissively. "Sleep deprivation I can do. How are things at your end?"

"I'm a faxing wizard, as you can see," Leigh answered, working as she talked. "As for the contractions and the search, they're both slowing. Gil has sicced the dogs on me—I'm no longer allowed in the house. He's had everything moved out."

Maura whistled softly. "Cara's husband is the protective type, eh?"

"You could say that. And Cara doesn't know—she thinks I'm still staying there."

"You need a place to stay?"

Leigh had hoped for an invitation. "As a matter of fact, I do. My stuff is all at my parents' place, but I'm afraid if I go back there, I'll never come out."

Maura grinned tiredly. "I can picture that. Your Mom would be happier with you under lock and key."

"Polanski?" The women looked up at an officer Leigh didn't recognize. "We've got a Jane Doe."

Maura scrambled up off the floor, then looked into his eyes. Her huge frame sagged like a dishcloth. "You mean a body," she said flatly.

The officer nodded.

Chapter 20

"Beaver County Sheriff's department pulled a woman's body out of the Ohio a half hour ago. Near Shippingport. She's on her way to the Medical Center in Beaver."

Not a muscle in Maura's body moved, and the officer squirmed a little. "We don't know much else, Maura. They said Caucasian female, approximately six feet tall. It could be anybody. But we knew you'd want to check it out."

Maura nodded. "Appreciate it," she said tonelessly. "I'm on my way."

The officer looked uncomfortable. "Do you want me to drive you? I'm on duty, but I could get—"

"No need," Maura waved him off. "I'm gone already." She withdrew a set of keys from her pocket, gave them a shake, and headed for the door.

Leigh hastened to catch up. She had to do something. "I'm driving," she said firmly.

Maura's blue eyes were weary, but the fire was still behind them. "I'm queasy enough already, Koslow. You're not driving me anywhere. But if you want to come—" She paused. "I'd like that."

A smile and a nod sealed the deal. Leigh looked over her shoulder at the small gathering of volunteers, who had ceased working and were watching the conversation in earnest. "The officer will fill you in," she announced, and followed Maura out the door.

***

They spent most of the trip in silence. Maura drove in her usual law-abiding, safety-conscious manner, but for once Leigh didn't complain. The fingers that held the wheel in a precise ten and two o'clock position were white as snow, and Maura's broad brow was dotted with clammy beads of sweat.

Leigh rehearsed a few lines of dialogue in her head, but none passed muster. She had no idea what to say. But she should say
something
, shouldn't she?

"I've never been to this hospital before." The words were out before she could decide against them. A stupid comment. But it would have to do.

Maura didn't respond.

She tried again. The direct approach this time. "This isn't your mother, Maura. I know it isn't. Mary is safe, somewhere. I have good instincts about this sort of thing. Really, I do."

A ghost of a grin broke the eerily calm facade, but only for a second. Leigh slumped back into her seat. Perhaps silence would be best after all.

***

They were spared the indignity of asking directions to the morgue by a local officer who spotted Maura in the hospital parking lot. "Polanski?" he asked.

She nodded.

The officer waved them over and began walking away from the front entrance and towards a side door. "I'll take you down." The women followed, descending from the friendly mauve hues of the patient areas to the more sterile-looking, white hallways beneath. The officer swung open an unmarked set of metal doors and ushered them inside. He pointed to a cubicle with a short row of vinyl-covered chairs. "You might want to have a seat for a minute," he suggested.

Leigh began to sit, but Maura stood and shook her head. "Let's just do it, okay?"

The officer nodded sympathetically, and tilted his head in the direction of another metal door. "I'll tell them who you're here to see." He slipped through the door quietly, and gave muffled instructions to someone within. In a few seconds he stuck his head back out. "They're ready," he announced.

Maura's pause was short. She pulled herself to her full height and opened the door with a strong motion. Leigh followed.

Before them, a human form covered with a paperlike sheet lay still on a steel gurney. The sheet bulged over a probable forehead, belly, and feet, but its stiff texture hid further detail. Leigh swallowed the bile that kept rising in her throat. Not counting her most recent encounter, she had never seen a body before, except at a funeral. Paul Fischer she hadn't known. The people she had known were laid out nicely, ready for the most discerning viewer. This body had been pulled out of a river. She tried to envision the face of her friend's mother, waterlogged and staring. She couldn't. It wasn't going to happen.

She moved close to Maura's side as the white-jacketed attendant reached for the sheet at the body's head. She could feel Maura take one long, shuddering breath before the barrier was removed.

Leigh hadn't intended to look. But she couldn't help it. What had once been a face was puffy, grayish skin, misshapen and eroded at its protuberances—a feast for the wildlife of the Ohio. Leigh's eyes froze on the corpse involuntarily, her thoughts halted with horror, her stomach lurching. She might have stayed that way indefinitely, were it not for the viselike grip that squeezed the blood out of her right arm. She looked up into Maura's face, which reminded her of the positive aspect of the cadaver.

It wasn't Mary.

Leigh felt a blow to her lungs, which were flattened inside her straining rib cage, and for a moment her feet didn't seem to be on the floor. Eventually, she realized Maura was hugging her. She smiled, and, as soon as it was physically possible to do so, took a long breath. "I told you so," she croaked.

'That you did," her friend conceded easily. "This woman is not my mother," she announced, her police voice back again. "But I wish you luck identifying her."

With that, Maura exited the morgue posthaste, with Leigh at her heels. An escort out wasn't necessary.

***

"Are you sure it's not too much trouble, my staying at your house?" Leigh asked, feeling guilty. She had picked up her Cavalier at St. John's and stationed it, and half of her belongings, on the street outside the Polanski's modest duplex.

"If it were, I'd tell you," Maura insisted almost cheerfully, leading her up to the open porch. "Honestly, Koslow, the house is too damn quiet. I can't stand to be here anymore. And I need to get in a few hours sleep before my shift tonight."

"Tonight?" Leigh asked, disbelieving. "You have to go to work?"

Maura shrugged and opened the front door with a key. "Mellman's letting me search for Mom on the clock, but I've been using my own time so far. In fact, my weekend just ended. If you don't mind, I thought I'd grab a bite and sack out until eleven."

"Don't worry about me," Leigh said, entering. "I can fend for myself. In fact, I can fend for you, too. What are you hungry for? I can make anything that comes in Styrofoam and requires a tip."

Maura didn't answer, but turned her back and walked into the small kitchen that bordered the L-shaped living/dining room. She returned with a purple flyer. "Beijing Gourmet," she said with a smile. "Moo goo gai pan, if you please."

Leigh smiled back. "Done."

The cartons were cardboard, but the tip was gratefully accepted. Leigh looked around the tattered house, wondering where her friend usually ate. As the dark wood table in the dining area was home to a computer, she suspected the tiny metal drop-leaf against the kitchen wall. She was looking for a rag to wipe the jelly stains off its plastic top when Maura collected her food, a fork, and a can of Mountain Dew and plopped down on the couch. Leigh followed.

The garlic chicken was the best she ever had, but unfortunately, she could only pick at it. The image of the mauled face remained before her eyes, and Maura, though she ate like a starving woman, seemed suddenly depressed, more so with every bite. Leigh turned anxious when the policewoman wadded up her fortune and threw it against the wall.

"Bad news?" she queried softly.

"
You reap what you sow.
" Maura scoffed. "Thanks a hell of a lot, China. I needed that."

Being a master of the emotion, Leigh knew guilt when she saw it. She put down her food and faced her friend squarely. "This is not your fault."

"The hell it isn't!" Maura roared, jumping up from her seat and beginning to pace. "I didn't check on her, Koslow, did you know that? I let her go to bed right after we got home, then when the call came about the break in, I ran out. I didn't check on her then, and I didn't check on her when I got back! I just assumed my aunts would hear her if she left. What was I thinking? She could have been gone all night Saturday, not to mention last night. How could I be so careless?"

"Now, you listen to me," Leigh began calmly. "You are the best damn daughter in the whole world, and if you say another derogatory word about yourself I swear I will slap you. Who was the model child? The model student? Who fulfilled her father's every expectation and more? Who gave up her independence, a job she loved, and a place of her own to come back and take care of her mother? Who answers the same questions fifty times a day without ever losing her cool? Who reads books like this"—she held up a paperback from the coffee table—"so they know just the right way to manage a parent with Alzheimer's?"

Maura swallowed.

"
You do
, my dear. You're such a better daughter than me, I don't even like to think about it. Your mother's wandering was not your fault, and whether or not you noticed right away is immaterial. You've done everything you could for her, and you still are. End of discussion."

Her appetite returning, Leigh took another mouthful of chicken. Maura sat back down beside her, rubbing bloodshot eyes. "I'm afraid, Koslow."

The chicken burned its way down Leigh's throat. Guilt she could deal with. Having her personal fortress of strength be afraid was another matter.

"I'm glad the woman from the river wasn't her," Maura continued in an unsteady tone, "but a part of me just wanted to know. Do you know what it's like, not knowing what's happening to her? Whether she's hurt, or sick, or frightened?"

Leigh could only guess. She remained silent, and Maura went on.

"The worst part is, I don't believe she just wandered off. You don't believe it either. I know that, even though you won't say it. She didn't meander down Elizabeth Avenue and into oblivion without a single soul seeing her." She took a deep breath. "Her disappearance has something to do with the Fischer family."

Leigh's appetite was gone again. When Maura said it, the theory became reality. And the reality was scary as hell. "But why?" she asked softly.

Maura shook her head and sighed. "Either she knows something about the murders, or someone thinks she does."

One word stuck out at Leigh. "You said 'murders.'"

"Yeah, I did. Stuff like this doesn't happen over accidents and suicides. Mom was only thirteen, but her mind was a steel trap. She knew something. I think they both did."

A new thought drove its way into Leigh's brain. Both of them? Suddenly she could see what kind of torment her friend had been facing.

"I don't believe Robbie Fischer ran away hysterical and died," Maura continued. "I think he killed his stepfather, probably in retaliation for his mother's not-so-accidental fall, then took off. And what's more, I think he's been back in Avalon. More than once."

Until tonight, Leigh hadn't been able to imagine how Robbie Fischer could show his face in Avalon without everyone in the city finding out about it. Now, she saw a way. "If Robbie Fischer did come back, he must have been trying to hide. And if he was innocent, he wouldn't have any need to."

Maura nodded grimly.

"But he could have talked to some of his old friends. Friends who would help him stay hidden. Right?"

The wrinkles in Maura's brow deepened. She looked miserable. "My dad was the chief of police!" she blurted out suddenly. "If Robbie had a reason to hide, then Robbie was covering up a crime—a crime
without
a statute of limitations."