“What is it?” Jeffrey asked.
She could not speak for a few seconds. Her throat felt as if it was closing in on her.
“Sara?”
A beeping filled the morgue. Jeffrey checked his pager. “That can’t be Lena,” he said. “Mind if I use the phone?”
“Sure.” Sara crossed her arms, feeling the need to protect herself from her own thoughts. She waited until Jeffrey was sitting behind her desk before she continued the examination.
Sara reached above her head, turning the light so that she could get a better look at the pelvic area. Adjusting the metal speculum, she mumbled a prayer to herself, to God, to anybody who would listen, to no avail. By the time Jeffrey returned, she was sure.
“Well?” he asked.
Sara’s hands shook as she peeled off her gloves. “She was sexually assaulted early on in the attack.” She paused, dropping the soiled gloves on the table, imagining in her mind Sibyl Adams sitting on the toilet, putting her hands to the open wound in her abdomen, then bracing herself against the bars on either side of the stall, completely blind to what was happening to her.
He waited a few beats before prompting, “And?”
Sara put her hands on the edges of the table. “There was fecal matter in her vagina.”
Jeffrey did not seem to follow. “She was sodomized first?”
“There’s no sign of anal penetration.”
“But you found fecal matter,” he said, still not getting it.
“Deep in her vagina,” Sara said, not wanting to spell it out, knowing she would have to. She heard an uncharacteristic waver in her voice when she said, “The incision in her belly was deep on purpose, Jeffrey.” She stopped, searching for words to describe the horror she had found.
“He raped her,” Jeffrey said, not a question. “There was vaginal penetration.”
“Yes,” Sara answered, still searching for a way to clarify. Finally she said, “There was vaginal penetration after he raped the wound.”
5
Night had come quickly, the temperature dropping along with the sun. Jeffrey was crossing the street just as Lena pulled into the parking lot of the station house. She was out of her car before he reached her.
“What’s going on?” she demanded, but he could tell she already knew something was wrong. “Is it my uncle?” she asked, rubbing her arms to fight the chill. She was wearing a thin T-shirt and jeans, not her usual work attire, but the trip to Macon was a casual one.
Jeffrey took off his jacket, giving it to her. The weight of what Sara had told him sat on his chest like a heavy stone. If Jeffrey had anything to do with it, Lena would never know exactly what had happened to Sibyl Adams. She would never know what that animal had done to her sister.
“Let’s go inside,” he said, putting his hand under her elbow.
“I don’t want to go inside,” she answered, jerking her arm away. His coat fell between them.
Jeffrey leaned down, retrieving his jacket. When he looked up, Lena had her hands on her hips. As long as he had known her, Lena Adams had sported a chip on her shoulder the size of Everest. Somewhere in the back of his mind, Jeffrey had been thinking she would need a shoulder to cry on or words of comfort. He could not accept that there wasn’t a soft side to Lena, maybe because she was a woman. Maybe because just a few minutes earlier he had seen her sister lying ripped apart in the morgue. He should have remembered that Lena Adams was harder than that. He should have anticipated the anger.
Jeffrey slipped his jacket back on. “I don’t want to do this outside.”
“What are you going to say?” she demanded. “You’re going to say he was driving, right? And that he swerved off the road, right?” She ticked off the progression on her fingertips, giving him nearly verbatim the police handbook procedure for informing someone that a family member had died. Build up to it, the manual said. Don’t spring it on them suddenly. Let the family member/loved one get used to the idea.
Lena counted it off, her voice getting louder with each sentence. “Was he hit by another car? Huh? And they took him to the hospital? And they tried to save him, but they couldn’t. They did everything they could, huh?”
“Lena—”
She walked back toward her car, then turned around. “Where’s my sister? Did you already tell her?”
Jeffrey took a breath, releasing it slowly.
“Look at that,” Lena hissed, turning toward the station house, waving her hand in the air. Marla Simms was looking out one of the front windows. “Come on out, Marla,” Lena yelled.
“Come on,” Jeffrey said, trying to stop her.
She stepped away from him. “Where is my sister?”
His mouth did not want to move. Through sheer force of will, he managed, “She was in the diner.”
Lena turned, walking down the street toward the diner.
Jeffrey continued, “She went to the bathroom.”
Lena stopped in her tracks.
“There was someone in there. He stabbed her in the chest.” Jeffrey waited for her to turn around, but she still did not. Lena’s shoulders were straight, her posture a study in stillness. He continued, “Dr. Linton was having lunch with her sister. She went into the bathroom and found her.”
Lena turned slowly, her lips slightly parted.
“Sara tried to save her.”
Lena looked him straight in the eye. He forced himself not to look away.
“She’s dead.”
The words hung in the air like moths around a street-lamp.
Lena’s hand went to her mouth. She walked in an almost drunken half circle, then turned back to Jeffrey. Her eyes bored into his, a question there. Was this some kind of joke? Was he capable of being this cruel?
“She’s dead,” he repeated.
Her breathing came in short staccatos. He could almost see her mind kicking into action as she absorbed the information. Lena walked toward the station house, then stopped. She turned to Jeffrey, mouth open, but said nothing. Without warning, she took off toward the diner.
“Lena!” Jeffrey called, running after her. She was fast for her size, and his dress shoes were no match for her sneakers pounding down the pavement. He tucked his arms in, pumping, pushing himself to catch her before she reached the diner.
He called her name again as she neared the diner, but she blew past it, taking a right turn toward the medical center.
“No,” Jeffrey groaned, pushing himself harder. She was going to the morgue. He called her name again, but Lena did not look back as she crossed onto the hospital’s drive. She slammed her body into the sliding doors, popping them out of their frames, sounding the emergency alarm.
Jeffrey was seconds behind her. He rounded the corner to the stairs, hearing Lena’s tennis shoes slapping against the rubber treads. A boom echoed up the narrow stairwell as she opened the door to the morgue.
Jeffrey stopped on the fourth step from the bottom. He heard Sara’s surprised “Lena” followed by a pained groan.
He forced himself to take the last few steps down, made himself walk into the morgue.
Lena was bent over her sister, holding her hand. Sara had obviously tried to cover the worst of the damage with the sheet, but most of Sibyl’s upper torso still showed.