I kept my gaze fastened over Blanch’s right shoulder as she finished the autopsy, her final examination of the lungs and heart, and then her exploration of the cranium. Sheila Carrington had every part intact, but something small and sinister had invaded her body and brought about her demise.
I completed my notes, exited the forensics room and peeled off the surgical garb, and then scrubbed my hands at the sink for long minutes as if ridding myself of fear and death itself. “It’s Christmas day,” I told Blanch as we hunched over the sinks, “but could I press you to have the culture report back to me by tomorrow morning?”
Blanch wiped gray strands of hair from her high forehead and blew tiny soap bubbles into the air as she scrubbed her face with her open palms. “I suppose this is necessary. What else do I have to do?”
I was about to point out that Blanch and I were kindred spirits—women who had learned how to handle death with an acumen and expertise that would bring most men to their knees. Like an old schoolmarm, Blanch had endured in the classroom of the departed, learning her trade by fits and starts, her arms greased to the elbows inside the abdominal cavities. She was like an old sailor, a whaler of sorts, gone deep into the bowels of giant beasts, but in her case, a most learned explorer of the human frame. The large questions had long ago been answered, all vision and outcomes observed at the macro level. But now we needed the forensic experts, like Blanch, to search the miniscule, the micro, in order to obtain our truths.
“Blanch,” I said, as I slipped on my overcoat. “It’s getting very cold outside. And I’d like to bring you some Christmas cheer. What can I get for you?” I considered my question the first gift of the season—one truly offered with no strings attached.
She brightened under the light of the offer but still, in the end, backed away into the shadows of isolation. “That’s nice of you,” Blanch said. “But I’d better get at that culture. If you need the report by morning, I’d better keep my nose to the grindstone.”
“I’m sorry,” I said. “I wish it could be otherwise.”
Blanch gave me a wink and stepped out of the room, leaving me with an empty gurney and a double-parked hearse. I pushed the gurney to the door and availed myself again to the elements, the frigid air momentarily taking the breath from my lungs as I worked the gurney toward the back of the car. Even in the bright light of morning the temperature was descending, a plague sinister or pervasive—like a hoard of locusts—moving across the land.
After loading the gurney I scurried into the hearse and slammed the door. I started the engine, prayed there would be some vestigial heat still lingering in the vents. I reached into my purse and took out my cell phone, hoping against hope that Lance might have left a text message or a voice mail. But the screen, empty, flashed its depressing news as I lingered in the front seat, the steering wheel cold to the touch, and considered my next move.
Peering at the rooftops, I noted that wisps of hot air were rising like ghosts across the Christmas landscape, and if not for the memory of my brief morning with Lance, the day would have seemed like any other. But the morning was all but finished now, my plate suddenly filled with reports and notations, with blood and guts and a funeral to manage.
I was still sitting in the hearse, revving the engine to jumpstart the heater core, when I noticed the patrol car heading in my direction. Although the IPD cars all looked alike, I knew immediately that Lance was behind the wheel, and when he pulled into the parking lot at the morgue, I began to cry.
He parked, studied me for what seemed like long minutes through the glass, and then he opened his door and moved slowly toward me across the asphalt. He was not in uniform, still unkempt and layered in last night’s memories, his face sallow and worried. But he appeared taller than ever, broad-shouldered and carried forward by a determination that gave me pause.
I rolled down the window in the hearse, feeling at last the first pangs of heat emanating from the vents, and the only thing I could think to say to him was, “Why aren’t you wearing a coat?” I tried to brush away my tears.
Lance didn’t answer. He didn’t smile. But when he edged up to my window he said, “I knew I’d find you here. I’ve been miserable all morning worrying about you.”
“Where were you?” I asked.
“Doesn’t matter,” he answered, his words fluttering from his mouth in vaporous rings. “I just wanted to do this right. I was hoping to have this talk before you were called away this morning.”
“What talk?” I asked. “What’s this about?”
Lance sighed, and my heart grew heavy thinking that he was on the verge of breaking up with me. Now I couldn’t hide my tears. “As I was trying to say this morning—”
“—Lance, don’t!”
“No,” he said. “Let me finish. Let me say it before I forget. If we’re going to be in this together we have to have each other’s backs. If we’re partners, we have to protect and defend. And I don’t know what I’d do if anything happened to you. In case you haven’t noticed, I’m a mess. You’re the most beautiful gift I’ve ever had handed to me. And the thought of spending another day without you is tearing me up.”
I was stunned. And as Lance knelt there on the frigid pavement, his hands draped over the rim of the window with his puppy dog eyes watering in the wind, I leaned out and kissed him. He reached across the transom where the temperatures, and our lives, mingled . . . and handed me the small box that he had wrapped earlier in the morning.
“I didn’t want to do this here at the morgue,” he said, “but if this is where we are going to spend our lives, then so be it.”
I unwrapped the box. Opened it. Inside was a gorgeous diamond ring—a stone worthy in size and beauty to the love we had found.
“Will you marry me, Mary Christmas?” he asked, smiling all the way.
He was wiping away my tears, some of them, I think, freezing to his fingertips as I said eagerly, “I will.”