place-holding traceries of lead.
“I don’t know what to do,” said Cate, finally. “I have two packs of Chips Ahoy in one of those bags, but I can’t imagine anyone wanting to eat them, considering.”
I took another sip of water and swallowed it. “Maybe the kids are hungry?”
Cate stood up. “I’ll put them on top of the cooler.”
Our young cop Fergus asked if he could grab a couple. Then the kids dove in.
After that there was nothing else for me and Cate to do but wait. We were quiet for ten minutes or so, and I could tell it was making her jittery; my shock passing, her own just settling in.
I figured I’d better keep her talking, keep her mind occupied.
“So who built this place?” I asked.
“Our great-great-great-something-or-other Nicholas commissioned it in 1857, in memory of his three daughters. He named it the Chapel of the Sisters.”
I looked across the room toward the weathered mahogany pulpit, its dusty façade graced with overlapping arches.
“When I think about what this could be,” said Cate, “instead of a place so ignored and abandoned that someone could literally discard a child?”
“Do people break in other than the homeless guys?”
“Some of the monuments have been tipped over and smashed. And the local junkies used the chapel for a shooting gallery before I got decent locks on the doors. I was terrified I’d walk in here and find someone who’d OD’d.”
“Has anyone ever messed with the graves themselves, though? Dug them up?”
Cate shook her head. “Maybe the parents couldn’t afford a proper funeral?”
“Sure,” I said. But I didn’t believe it, not for a second.
“A family would have tried to bury their child,” she said, looking down at her lap.
I traced a finger beneath an inscription carved into the wall beside us: I will ransom them from the grave….
“The ground hadn’t been disturbed,” I said. “There was a thick bed of leaves underneath the bones, and the rib cage was smashed in—”
“Please,” said Cate, her eyes clenching shut as she snapped her hand up between us, palm toward me. “I don’t think I can handle details.”
“I’m sorry,” I said. “I’ll save it for the detectives.”
She touched my kneecap. “ I’m sorry.”
“I know, Cate.”
And I did know, too well. I’d seen some awful things the last few years. Been through some shit.
It hadn’t made me any tougher or braver. It’d only made me tired and sad.
And inconsiderate sometimes, like now.
Cate was trembling. I put my arm around her shoulders.
“Hey, you know what’s good about all this?” I asked.
“God, please tell me,” she said, “because I can’t think of a single thing.”
“The cops are taking it really seriously, you know? Roping off the scene, keeping us all here… these guys aren’t messing around.”
“That is good.”
“Wanna cookie?” I asked.
Cate shook her head. “Man, who’d’ve thought the cemetery lady would turn out to be such a wuss, eh?”
“You’re not a wuss. You’re just sane.”
Our young cop’s shoulder radio crackled to life, and I heard a gravelly voice say, “Skwarecki’s here. Now we’re waiting on the ME.”
I wondered what Skwarecki would look like. Some beefy guy with a mustache, probably. Grizzled former jock, lots of broken capillaries.
That was the visual average of homicide detectives I’d dealt with before this.
Fergus stiffened up, shoulders thrown back, and I turned to look toward whomever he was staring at.
I was struck by two facts in that instant: I was looking at Skwarecki, and I was an idiot.
She wore a gold badge at the waist of her knife-creased gray trousers, one finger hooked into the collar of a matching jacket slung over her shoulder. Her highlights could’ve used a little touch-up at the roots, but her loafers were buffed to a twinkle.
My imaginary composite had one detail correct, however. The woman had twenty years on me, but she was still a jock to the bone.
I pegged her for field hockey once upon a time. Good shoulders on her, if a bit slight for defense. Narrow hips and some meat on the back of her thighs: a sprinter.
“Yo, Opie,” she said, snapping her fingers at our young cop.
Her voice was fast, clipped Queens, that definitive outer-borough twang, like she had gravel in her sinuses.
“The fuck you waiting on,” she said, “second coming of Christ? Get your butt over here.”
He hustled to comply, and she was right in his face, cocking one hip as she tapped his badge with her finger.
“Albie,” she said, “that what they call you when you’re awake?”
He blushed and nodded but she’d made him smile, too.
Neat