I sat on the edge of my bed for half an hour, my door open, listening to the noises that were made in the aftermath of Francie Fain’s life. It was enough to wake the dead.
The beeping and clicking of all the monitors had ceased, but some of the heavy equipment was being taken out of the room and wheeled through the double doors, banging off the walls and sides of the entrance as it was shoved along by four chattering orderlies.
Members of the medical staff had been called in, perhaps from the adjacent wing where other patients were being cared for. They were talking among themselves, taking turns walking in to look at the patient, as though they were doing rounds on the deceased.
Normally, because Francie Fain had been in a hospital facility under the care of doctors, the sign-off by a medical examiner wasn’t necessary. But when I heard Dr. Jonathan Mayes introduce himself to the uniformed cop, I realized the fact that this was a homicide required the presence of a morgue official.
I stood in the doorway of my room and waited ten minutes, until Jonathan reappeared from Francie’s bedside, and came into the hallway, talking to the doctor wearing the lab coat.
They spoke for several minutes, then Jonathan went back into the room, reemerging with his briefcase and jacket.
“Hey, Jonathan,” I said, thinking of both his medical expertise and his compassion. “I’m so glad you’ll be assigned to do this postmortem. I’m devastated by Francie’s death.”
“Alex?” he said, taking the reading glasses off his nose. He had an English accent, although he’d lived in the States since medical school. “They didn’t tell me you were on this one.”
“I’m not. I’m—uh—I’m just keeping a witness company—totally unrelated. Not really a medical case, but we figured it would be a chance to use Francie’s protection services for the next few days.”
Jonathan grimaced. “Sorry to deprive you of that so quickly.”
“That’s the least of it,” I said. “Scully’s got us covered.”
“I never met Francie,” he said. “I don’t think I’ve actually ever testified in a case she represented.”
“You’d remember,” I said. “I promise you that.”
“I’m sure I’ll see you soon,” he said.
“May I ask a favor, Jonathan?”
“If it’s about cause of death and all that, my friend, the answer is no. I’m under very strict orders from the chief medical examiner not to discuss this matter with anyone.”
“Nothing like that,” I said. “Francie’s got no family here, and I have no idea what will be decided by Quint Akers or whoever gets to run the show, but I’d like to go in to be with her now for two minutes, just to say my own good-bye.”
“Are you sure you want to do that?” Jonathan asked. “It’s never easy.”
“Francie was on her way to my welcome-back party when she was stricken—or whatever it was that happened,” I said. “I think it’s only right.”
“That’s not a problem at all, as long as you’re up to it,” Jonathan said. “The nurses are cleaning up the body now. I’ll just tell them you’d like to come in when they’re done.”
“Thanks so much.”
Jonathan did a quick turnaround in and out of Francie’s room. “They’ll be ready for you shortly,” he said. “Do you need a steady arm to hold?”
I had been to the morgue scores of times in connection with cases I had worked over the years. I had recently spent an hour alone with the corpse of Paul Battaglia, after witnessing his assassination.
“I can do this, but thank you for offering.”
Jonathan left, and when the nurses came out to motion to me to come in, I walked across the hall and stood beside the hospital bed.
I hardly recognized Francie, although it had been such a short time since I had seen her on the street the night she collapsed. From the injuries caused by her thrashing around to the EMTs’ efforts to resuscitate her and finally to the tubes of the ventilator, I was not looking at the vibrant young defender I had sparred with so often.
The head nurse stepped out with the soiled linens, and only Billy was left at the foot of the bed.
“Will you think I’m crazy if I talk to her?” I asked.
“I do it all the time,” he said. “It’s good for you, I think.”
“Hey, Francie,” I said, biting my lip. “It’s Mrs. Burger. Mrs. Hamilton Burger. God, I loved your note. And how I hate that I didn’t get to put my arms around you one last time.”
Billy had his head down, sort of pretending not to listen as I babbled on.
“We’ll find him, Francie. We’ll get whoever did this and I will send his ass up the river for you, ’cause I think this is one time you might favor that result.”
I stroked her hair and tried to understand what had happened to her.
I lifted the edge of the hospital sheet that covered her and picked up her hand, wrapping it in mine. Rigor had not yet set in nor had the temperature of her extremities begun to chill.
I looked down. Her knuckles were bruised and scraped from her convulsions after the fall onto the pavement of Baxter Street. I rubbed her palm, foolishly thinking it would have hurt her for me to put pressure on the back of her hands, where the discoloration was so severe.
“I’m going to miss you, Francie Fain,” I said, stroking her fingers and bringing her hand to my mouth to kiss her fingertips. “I’m going to miss your sass and your smarts and your attitude and all you stood for. I’m going to miss every ‘objection’ you used to shout, whether you had cause to or not.”
While I was talking, I touched something hard on the surface of her skin and turned her hand over to look at it.
On the palm of her hand was a scar. A long scar, from the base of her forefinger to the lower corner on the opposite side of her hand.
I breathed in and threw back my head.
“You took a blood oath, Francie Fain. A goddamn blood oath,” I said aloud. “When the hell did you do that?”