to the morgue’s viewing suite, and as Butch held the door open for her, she didn’t look back at her family. She walked out into the hall with her head up and both hands on her purse. She still had her coat on, the brown wool three-quarter simply cut and simply made.
He had a thought that he should suggest she take it off. But she didn’t look like the type who was going to faint.
No, she was steady as bedrock even though he could feel the fear boiling out of her very pores.
Butch held another door open for her, and they stepped inside a small tiled room that had three chairs off to one side and a watercooler. Across the way, a horizontal, six-foot-by-four-foot glass pane was displaying the pulled curtain on its other side.
“No,” she said as she eyed the window. “Not like this.”
“It will be easier for you to—”
“If that is my daughter, I’m not going to identify her body through a piece of glass.”
Butch could only nod. “Give me a second.”
Going over to the narrow door by the window, he knocked once. When Havers opened up, Butch kept his voice low.
“We’re coming in.”
“But that is not the way—”
“That is absolutely the way we’re going to do this,” Butch whispered. “At her request.”
Havers glanced over Butch’s shoulder and then bowed. “Of course. We will accommodate her wishes.”
As the race’s physician stood to the side, Butch looked at the female. “We’re ready when you are.”
The female took several deep breaths, and that purse she had a death grip on started to shake.
“Ma’am,” he said, “I’m going to suggest you take your coat off and leave your purse here.”
She looked over at where he pointed as if she had never seen a chair before. Then she went across and set her bag down. Removing her coat, she was careful as she folded the wool up and placed it on the seat, and when she straightened, she tucked her blouse into her slacks. Her clothes were not fancy, but neither were they casual; they were the kind of thing an executive assistant would wear to work.
And he totally understood her need to prepare herself. Sometimes, composure on the surface was all a person could ask for.
When she came over to him, he offered her his hand. He just wanted her to know she wasn’t alone. “I’m going in with you.”
The female stared at what he held out to her. “It’s not your family.”
“She became my family the moment I took this case on.”
“You’ve done this before?”
“A hundred times.”
After a moment, she nodded. And then she put her palm against his own, her cold, clammy skin making him incalculably sad.
“What’s that smell?” she said before she stepped through the jambs.
“It’s the disinfectant they use to clean the rooms.”
“Okay.”
As Butch drew her inside, her eyes flashed to the body that was lying face-up on the gurney. A white sheet covered the remains from head to toe, the ends hanging freely on all four sides.
The female blanched and weaved on her feet. When Butch caught her, Havers seemed to recognize that his presence was extraneous and the healer had the good sense to step all the way back against the wall.
“Help me over there,” the female said softly. “I can’t seem to walk.”
“Lean on me.” Butch tightened his hold on her waist. “I won’t let you fall.”
“Thank you.”
Escorting her over to the head, he could feel the pressure on his arm where she was relying on him, and he pictured his Marissa in her place, standing over a slab, on the verge of seeing if their dead daughter was in front of them.
“Take your time,” he choked out as they stopped together.
The female took a deep breath, but then grimaced and rubbed her nose as if she didn’t like the astringent smell in the room.
He’d been mostly truthful about the disinfectant. It was used to clean, yes. But also, no one wanted the family to smell any blood or any decomposition, and in the case of these particular remains, though they had been kept in cold storage for the majority of the time, there had been stretches when they had not been exposed to the required temperature.
“Okay,” she said roughly. “Let me see.”
Butch reached out with his free hand and drew the sheet back from the face, folding it down high on the neck so that none of the wounds showed.
The female clamped a hand on her mouth as all the color drained out