Rage Against the Dying - By Becky Masterman Page 0,19
at the most feel a little tremble of fear imagining there’s someone hiding behind the other car when they pull into the garage after dark, but of course there isn’t and life goes on as before, tra la.
When it’s real life they, some families of some victims, spend the rest of their lives waiting to die. The end.
Only suckers believe in Closure.
Seven
At two the next afternoon I picked Zach up at Tucson International (one terminal, two concourses, twenty gates). I watched him come down the escalator into the baggage claim area, his body slowly clearing a dip in the ceiling, coming into view from the bottom up, shoddy hiking boots to balding crown. He wasn’t much taller than me and was a lot skinnier. And though he was six years my junior, I don’t think it’s vanity to say he looked older than me.
The moving staircase gave way abruptly to the stationary floor, making him falter into my embrace. So as not to face reality head-on, he whispered into my hair, “Yee-ha. That last bit was like riding a bronco.”
“You come in between the mountain ranges, the wind funnel makes it choppy.” Besides being genuinely affectionate, the hug allowed me to give him a quick sniff. Last time I’d seen Zach personal hygiene had not been a priority. But he’d cleaned himself up for Jessica’s sake and even had a new short-sleeved blue shirt on. I could tell from the perpendicular creases in the denim that it hadn’t been out of the package long. I couldn’t smell alcohol either. He must not have had a drink on the plane and that may be why he pulled away quickly, so I couldn’t feel his fingers flutter like moths against my back.
I let his body go but kept his hands still in mine a moment longer, let him look into my eyes without looking away from him the way so many others had. “Don’t do this, Zach. You don’t have to see her. We got the confirmation from the dental records.”
“Did I ever tell you I thought of being a forensic dentist there for a while?”
Yes, he had told me that, on four or five occasions, along with how he didn’t blame me for Jessica’s death. Zach retrieved a small canvas bag from the carousel and we walked from the terminal to the parking lot, where I got him situated in the car, handed him the bottle of water you always give to new arrivals in the desert, made him drink some, and headed up Palo Alto Drive, turned left onto Valencia, right on First, for the relatively short drive to the medical examiner’s office downtown.
Max Coyote and Laura Coleman were already there, and Dr. George Manriquez met us almost instantly upon arrival in the lobby.
“Dr. Manriquez,” I said, the situation calling for formality despite my having known him during my brief time with the Tucson Bureau, and stepped back to let him prepare Zach for what he was about to see.
“Mr. Robertson,” he said, indicating a couple of small armchairs placed at an angle to each other in a far corner of the lobby, “Please sit here for a second.”
Zach followed his instruction while the three of us, me, Max, and Coleman, faced each other pretending not to listen.
“Mr. Robertson,” George said again, once they were both seated. “No one understands better than I do that this is real life, not drama, so I want to prepare you a little. We have no mystery here, no indirect lighting like in TV shows. You’re not going to see your daughter, that is, anything that looks like your daughter. This is some dark brown skin covering a skeleton. Have you ever seen a mummy?”
“In books, yes,” Zach said, nodding. “We … we went to Pompeii once but I know those bodies aren’t the same.” The memory of some vacation bowed him like a weight.
“Yes, those are plaster casts, but still, that’s something how the remains you’re about to view will appear. Do you have any questions you want to ask me? Anything at all.”
Zach wiped the back of his hand across his mouth, seemed to decide not to ask, then asked. “Is there … is there any smell?”
“Not really, or not that disagreeable one you may be thinking of. A little musty, perhaps, but you won’t be shocked by it. It’s the sight that is likely to be disturbing.”
Zach’s head drooped and I noticed the knuckles of his laced fingers were white. I