Always Kiss the Corpse (13 page)

The community supported its people through anything—well, any God-created disaster. Human variations from the norm were shunned. Sandro's family would be cut off. Vasily changed the subject. “How's Nikki?”

“Fine. Just fine.”

Andrei's tone had gone hearty. He got hearty when things weren't fine. Vasily's cousin Nikki, middle child of Uncle Andrei and Aunt Petra, was “an artist.” Last time he'd seen her she'd been dressed in black jeans, black sweater, black nail polish, black lipstick. Her hair was jet black already.

“She's doing triptychs. Overlaying prints of traditional church images with modern advertisements.” Andrei shook his head. “Awful. Maybe blasphemous. Now she wants to go to Greece for a year. How's your, uh, Helena?”

Vasily looked up. “Cynthia's fine.” He winked. “Couldn't be better. Much better than Helena.”

Andrei gave him a stern look. “You're what? Thirty-two? Start thinking family thoughts.”

“Yeah.” Vasily dropped his head to consider his last forkful of pancake. He lifted it up, put it in his mouth, chewed, swallowed. He blotted his lips. “Life's okay right now, though.”

≈  ≈  ≈

Showered and breakfasted, the album in its plastic bag on the floor at Noel's feet, Kyra drove them to Dulcey Lane, spotted the two blue spruce, and parked. “Well?”

“Here's my notion,” said Noel “I'll tell Maria it was definitely Sandro, and we'll see how she reacts.”

“Fair enough. And the album?”

“We'll take it with us.” He put it in his briefcase. They got out. He rang the bell.

Maria Vasiliadis opened the door, same black dress? Face still drawn. “Oh hello.”

Noel smiled. “May we come in?”

“Yes, of course. You didn't call.”

“No.” They both preferred not to alert a client that they had news; the client could easily imagine something worse than whatever Kyra or Noel might tell her. Noel, Kyra following, crossed the threshold into the living room.

“Please, sit. Will you have some coffee?”

“No thank you. Kyra?” His look to her said,
Don't
.

“Not for me either, thank you.”

Noel sat. The others did too, Kyra on a chair, Maria Vasiliadis on the couch. Both kept their gaze on Noel. He said, “Mrs. Vasiliadis, we're very sorry to have to offer our condolences on the death of your son.”

Her stare stayed on him for another moment, then her head dropped, her hand rose to her face. She sat in silence. Her other hand found a tissue, she transferred it to the right and dabbed her eyes. “Tell me.”

Noel explained, mentioned the attestations of Ursula Bunche and Brady Adam, of Rudy Longelli and Cora Lipton-Norton.

“I can't believe it.” Maria glanced to Kyra. “I know what my Sandro looks like.”

Kyra leaned toward her. “Mrs. Vasiliadis—maybe—since you hadn't seen him for quite a while without a beard—”

“Sandro is my son, Miss Rachel. He was born from me. He had no beard when he was born. I know Sandro's face. A strong face, good looking. That wasn't his face.”

“His friends—”

“They must be lying.”

“Why would they lie?”

“I don't know.”

“We believe they're simply telling us what they know, and believe.” Kyra spoke softly.

The tears came again. Maria squeezed her lids tight. She wiped her cheeks with her fingers. “Then what are you not telling me?”

“We're telling you what we know and—”

“Did he have cancer?”

“Mrs. Vasi—”

“Was he getting radiation treatment?”

“We don't know anything about cancer.”

“Then what? Why?”

Kyra glanced toward Noel. He nodded. Kyra said, “We know very little. We weren't certain we should tell you—”

Maria looked directly at Kyra, hands clasped in her lap. “You have to.”

“I think you must have been a wonderful mother to Sandro.” Kyra moved to sit on the couch beside her. “Yes, he was having treatment.”

Maria's brow furrowed. “For what?”

“We've learned Sandro was a very divided man.”

Maria nodded, in question rather than agreement.

“Maybe in his hormones, his sense of himself, he was not always a man.”

Maria stared at Kyra.

“Mrs. Vasiliadis. We learned that Sandro had begun to respond to the more feminine part of himself. We learned—” Maria sat very still. “He was undergoing what's called an SRP. It's a standard treatment, more and more men go through it—”

“SRP?”

“Sexual reassignment procedure.” No response. As if Maria had stopped breathing. “It's fairly common, there are other men like Sandro, it happens.” Shut up, stop the prattle. “His friends say Sandro had wanted this for—a while.”

“This SRP?”

“That—inside him lived the woman he'd always wanted to be.” There. Spoken. Now Maria knew. And would always know.

“The woman.”

“He was changing himself. He told his friends he had to change himself.”

Maria spoke slowly. “He changed himself to a dead person. My son—changed himself to—a dead person.” She shook her head. “No,” she whispered, and louder, “No.” Silence, then she shrieked, “No! No no no!!”

Kyra reached out for Maria's hand, then pulled back. Maria stared dead ahead. No one spoke.

Till Noel said, “Mrs. Vasiliadis? May I bring you anything?” No answer. “Some water?”

She turned to him. “What else must I know about Sandro?”

“You know everything now.” No, no need for her to see the photos.

“He had a lot of very close friends who loved him,” Kyra said, hearing it ring lame in her head.

More silence. At last Maria said, “Good.” And some seconds later, “Thank you.” Still she hadn't moved.

“Can we call someone for you?”

“No,” she said, “there's no one.” She stood slowly, as if uncertain her legs would keep her upright. Then she walked carefully to the door, and turned. Noel and Kyra stood now. “Please,” Maria said. “I want to be by myself.” She opened the door.

Kyra spoke gently. “Are you sure—?”

“Please.”

Kyra and Noel left. The door closed behind them.

EIGHT

In WISDOM's conference room, Richard Trevelyan sat at the head of the table. He had called the meeting. An emergency, he'd said. Gary Haines hated it when Richard chaired—five minutes of agenda could stretch into an hour. Richard was terrific in his medicine, but Gary wished Richard would save his orderly tendencies for that. Dawn had phoned everyone at eight this morning. Very unlike Richard. No agenda supplied in advance. Maybe this was the beginning of a new Richard. Damn unlikely, Gary smirked. He'd spend the next hour—god, let it be no more than that—with his mind roaming through the details of his latest case.

Gary sat at Richard's right, Stockman across the table to Richard's left. The five other chairs stood empty. Almost simultaneously Gary and Stockman checked their watches. Lorna, late as ever. Usually three or four minutes. As if on cue, the door opened and Lorna came in. She said “Gentlemen,” and sniffed the air. She glared at Gary, marched to the window behind him, and cranked it open forty-five degrees. The thin venetian blind clacked lightly in the breeze. She sat on Stockman's side, one empty chair between them.

“Hey,” said Gary. “That's a raw wind.”

“Gary, I've asked you and asked you! That damn cologne. Leave it off when we're meeting!”

“Sorry. By the time Dawn called—” Lorna was right, she had asked him. But Lorna was getting weird. Menopausal? As expensive a cologne as the market offered. Women loved his cologne.

“It smells like dying eucalyptus. Offends my olfactory sense.”

Your dress offends my visual sense, Gary nearly retorted. A hideous olive green that emphasized her plump frame. He clenched his teeth.

“Please,” Richard's whisper, hoarse but firm, “don't squabble. We need to talk. Calmly.”

“Okay,” Gary said, “what's this about?”

Stockman added, “Can we make it short? I have a luncheon.”

Lorna turned to Stockman. “Richard believes there's an emergency. Let's hear him out.”

“Thank you, Lorna,” Richard said. “We're under a lot of strain, but we mustn't take it out on each other.”

“Strain?” It irked Gary when Richard played pseudo-shrink. In questions of the mind, WISDOM belonged to Gary. “What strain?”

“Indeed,” Stockman said. “Even under strain we behave like professionals.” He frowned at Richard, then at Gary. “Go on.”

Staring for the first time directly at Richard, Gary realized the man looked awful. Like he'd aged ten years in a week, his face nearly as white as his hair, new lines from cheeks to jaw. A tremor in his hands? More of this and Richard could become a resident in that hospice he consulted at. He'd be sixty this year. Gary, at forty-eight the youngest of the team, took pride in the illustrious career he'd put together in so short a time.

Richard cleared his throat. “I've decided I should go to the police and explain my part in Sandro's death.”

“Are you crazy?”

Richard turned to Gary. “If they know what we've done here, they'll have a motive for his suicide and can close the case.”

“As far as they're concerned, the case is closed.” Gary glanced from Stockman to Lorna. “Tell him. I mean, again.” To Richard he said, “There is no case. Death from drugs is routine. And,” he leaned on his forearms and brought his face nearly to Richard's, “we had nothing to do with Vasiliadis' decision to kill himself. Okay?”

“Not we. Just me. I want to go to the police. I need to explain my role in Sandro's state of mind.”

“No way!” Gary couldn't believe Richard's stupidity.

“It's not just your role,” Stockman spoke gently. “It's WISDOM's research. We should do nothing without consulting.”

“That's what I'm doing,” Richard said. “Consulting.”

Lorna finally spoke. Stalling had let her brain get into gear. “I understand what you're getting at, Richard. When did you decide this?”

“Firmly, yesterday. But I've been back and forth with it all week.” He crossed his arms. “I feel completely responsible. The hormone mix, or one of them, clearly set him off. You didn't see his testes. I can't get the image out of my mind. His pain was terrible.”

“We could have done more for the pain, you're right,” Stockman said. “And over time you'd have adjusted the hormones.”

“We don't know why it didn't work. But the fault lies with me.” Richard's lips tightened.

Lorna said, “It's not your hormone mix, it's all of ours. Terry and I developed it.”

“Yeah, but I'm the endocrinologist. I'm the one administering it.”

He'd gone even paler, Gary realized. Get him a tranquilizer?

Stockman leaned forward and spoke, still gently. “Richard, I understand your sense of responsibility. And when one feels he doesn't live up to his highest standards, there's often a strong desire to confess.” He smiled, conciliatory, like in his counseling at the church. “But speaking to the police, that's not confession. WISDOM didn't cause Vasiliadis' death. Going to the police would just open up sluice gates to water that's already well settled. You could go to your religious leader—”

Richard shook his head.

“If you want I could make you an appointment with my pastor. He could meet with you. That's the place for confession.”

Not the place for Richard, Gary thought. Richard needs to be kept away from talking to anyone. Except maybe to him, Dr. G. Haines. “Richard, we could talk for a few minutes after this meeting.”

Richard held his glance for a second, then looked down at the table.

Lorna said, “The work, Richard. With police attention turned our way—All those people we'd have to hold off helping.”

“We're cutting edge, Richard, you know that.” Gary took delight at Lorna's shudder; with the breeze behind him, wafts of aftershave must have wisped her way. “Our responsibility is far greater than to a single person. Especially if that person is dead.” Gary couldn't figure out why Richard didn't see that; it followed logically.

“Yes.” Lorna said. “The client is dead. There's nothing to do for him. But we can do lots for the living. We have to move on. Look, it's Thursday. Let's think it over for the weekend, all of us, and reconvene on Monday. If you still want to go to the police, we'll figure the best way.”

Gary watched Richard turn to the blinds clacking in the breeze. He looked at his colleagues. What was Richard seeing? Three respected physicians, members of their communities? Gary hoped they'd convinced Richard.

Richard said, “I guess waiting out the weekend won't change much for Sandro.”

Stockman stood, and clapped him on the shoulder. “Good man!”

Gary reached out his hand to Richard, who took it, smiled a little, and shrugged. Lorna gave Richard a hug.

Monday was only three days off. Not likely, Gary thought, Richard's little guilt problem would go away.

≈  ≈  ≈

Andrei Vasiliadis drove his pearl-gray Monte Carlo north on the I-5, cruise control set to a mile under speed limit. No rush to get to Bellingham. He'd prefer not to go at all. But his responsibility stood clear. Maria would listen, she would thank him. Then he would meet with Father Peter, explain to him as to Maria, and discuss the details of the funeral. He had been to many non-Orthodox funerals and each time felt blessed his religion had its rituals and patterns for life's large passages. For Sandro, Andrei would organize the few final details. The protopresbyter need know nothing more than the rest of the community. Definitely Sandro's death was an accident.

Unexpectedly complicated had been his conversation yesterday evening with Diana, Sandro's ex-wife. He'd waited till he had Philip's report; with the certainty the body was indeed Sandro, he brought Diana the news. They met at ten-thirty in the evening, Diana having assured him Carla would be in bed. Stuart, Diana's second husband, was out of town; Stuart, it turned out, couldn't father children himself and had long wanted to adopt Carla. Now, with Sandro's death, he probably would.