Chapter Twenty-eight.

Ellen got ahold of Lateef's teacher, Vanessa James, while her cla.s.s was down the hall at the library. Tall and rail-thin, the teacher munched on a green apple as she moved quickly around the cla.s.sroom, picking up stray books and crayons, straightening undersized chairs, and restoring a knit hat to its cubbyhole.

Vanessa asked, "It's all right with Laticia if we talk, right?"

"Yes, I called her on the way over. Sorry it's such short notice."

"No problem." Vanessa wore a long red sweater with black slacks and low heels. She had large eyes, a smile slick with lip gloss, and her hair straightened into a stiff bob, which showed off tiny diamond earrings winking in her earlobes. "We have fifteen minutes until they get back. What do you want to know?"

"Just a few things." Ellen slid her notebook from her purse and flipped over the cover, pen at the ready. "What kind of kid was Lateef?"

"Right to it, huh?" Vanessa paused in midbite, the apple at her mouth, her gaze suddenly pained. "Teef was like a light. You could say he was a cla.s.s clown, but that wouldn't do him justice. He was the one who made everybody laugh. But he was a leader."

"Is there any example you can recall?"

"It hurts my heart to think about it." Vanessa tossed the apple into a scuffed brown wastebasket, where it made a loud clunk. clunk. "Okay, here's one. On picture day, he combed his hair flat as he could, which wasn't much, and he said he was Donald Trump. The photographer told him to cut it out, and he said, 'You're fired.' " Her pretty face relaxed into a smile, which vanished as quickly as it had appeared. "All the kids looked up to him. We just finished our unit on African-American history. It's part of the new core curriculum in social studies the SRC set up." "Okay, here's one. On picture day, he combed his hair flat as he could, which wasn't much, and he said he was Donald Trump. The photographer told him to cut it out, and he said, 'You're fired.' " Her pretty face relaxed into a smile, which vanished as quickly as it had appeared. "All the kids looked up to him. We just finished our unit on African-American history. It's part of the new core curriculum in social studies the SRC set up."

"SRC?"

"School Reform Commission. For Dr. King's birthday, Lateef was voted to be Dr. King. He memorized a few lines of 'I Have a Dream,' and he did a great job. He liked to be in front of the cla.s.s." Vanessa paused at the memory. "He was quick as a whip. We do basic addition and subtraction, but he could have moved on to the third-grade curriculum, fractions and geometry. He was good on sentence structure, too; we have to get them ready for the PSSA's."

"What's that?"

"State tests. On our report cards, I have to pick from a lot of categories, like 'eager to try new things.' " Vanessa chuckled softly. "Lateef was my category buster. He was his own little category."

Ellen made rapid notes. "So how did the cla.s.s deal with his murder?"

Vanessa shook her head, with a sigh. For a second, she seemed to focus on the large bulletin board on the wall, which was covered with red construction-paper hearts, each with a fold down the center. At the top of the board, gold glitter read, Get Ready For Valentine's Day In 2B!

Ellen waited for the teacher to respond. Experience had taught her that silence could be the hardest question to answer.

"These kids, they're used to death. We lost two kids already this school year, and it's only February." Vanessa kept her face to the bulletin board. "But Lateef, everybody knew him. Everybody felt felt him. The District sent us grief counselors. That child was too full of life not to be missed." him. The District sent us grief counselors. That child was too full of life not to be missed."

"Do the kids talk about it?"

"Some of them, and some of them cry. They'll never be the same. They're not innocent, like children are supposed to be." Vanessa turned to her, her lips forming a tight line. "What I see is a real deep sadness, and it goes all the way inside. These kids, they're heartsick. heartsick. And those are the lucky ones." And those are the lucky ones."

Ellen didn't get it. "What you mean?"

"The unlucky ones, they don't even know what's bothering them. They can't express their feelings. They have an underlying grief and fear, but instead of expressing it in words, they act out. They fight. Bite. Kick. Bully each other. Their world isn't safe, and they know it." Vanessa pointed to one of the desks by the window, in the second row. "That was Teef's seat. It's there, empty, every day. I think about moving it, but that only makes it worse."

Ellen felt a pang. She thought instantly of Will's cubbyhole in his preschool, with his name card and a picture of Thomas the Tank Engine. What if one day that were empty, never to be filled again? "What will you do?"

"I'll leave it there. I have no choice. The first week, we made a little memorial and the kids brought flowers. Here, come look at this." Vanessa crossed to the desk with Ellen following her, and she lifted up the desk lid. Inside the well sat a huge pile of cards and dried red roses, their petals shriveling to black. "These are his Valentine's Day cards. Every day somebody comes by with another one. It kills me."

Ellen looked at the cards, thinking. It kills all of us. It kills all of us.

"You know who you should talk to, if you really want to understand the effects of the murders in this city?"

"Who?" Ellen asked her, intrigued. The best leads always came from other leads.

"My uncle. He'll see you, if you can handle it."

Chapter Twenty-nine.

Ellen was standing in the Glade-scented entrance hall of the funeral home with its proprietor, Ralston Rilkey. He was a slight man with a compact frame, in his early sixties, and he wore his hair cut short and natural, with steel gray coils tangled at the temples. He had a short forehead, and his eyes were worried above a wide nose and neatly groomed mustache, also going gray.

"And what is it you want to know again?" Ralston asked. "I'm fairly busy. We have two viewings tonight."

"I'd like to know how you've been affected by the murders in the neighborhood. There's been so many lately, especially of children like Lateef Williams. Your niece told me you might help, and Laticia gave her permission to talk to me."

"I'll speak with you, but the interview must be respectful. Here at Ralston-Hughes, we practice dignity in death."

"I understand."

"Then follow me." Ralston left, and Ellen followed him across a red-carpeted hallway, through a paneled door that read EMPLOYEES ONLY EMPLOYEES ONLY, and downstairs into the bas.e.m.e.nt of the converted row house. The carpeting morphed into inst.i.tutional gray tile, the temperature dipped slightly, and the fake-floral scents were eradicated by a starkly medicinal odor.

"Is that formaldehyde?" Ellen asked, making a note.

Ralston nodded, his bald spot bobbing as he walked ahead, and they reached a set of white double doors, which he opened. The odor grew stronger, and on the wall hung white smocks and plastic face shields. Stainless-steel shelves held boxes of cotton, jars, and bottles with labels that read Kelco Gold Series Arterial Embalming Fluid and Aron Alpha Instant Adhesive. Ellen made notes, trying not to shudder.

Ralston opened another door, and she found herself in a larger room with a glistening white table at its center, tilted at an angle. He stood behind the table in his suit of dark green, gesturing with evident pride. "This is our preparation room, one of them. You'll notice the table is porcelain. Porcelain doesn't react with the embalming chemicals."

"Would you fill me in on the procedure, generally?"

"The first step is washing and disinfecting the body. Embalming is simply the process of displacing blood with fluid, usually of formalde-hyde preservative with a red dye, to give the flesh a lifelike appearance. Even African-American skin takes on a pallor once the blood is removed."

Ellen made a note.

"Then we inject the fluid, and this machine does its work, replacing the blood with fluid." Ralston rested his small hand on a yellowish pump at the head of the table. "We insert a trocar, which punctures the viscera and removes fluid. We disinfect the cavities as well, then inject preservative and we pack the orifices."

Ellen wasn't about to ask.

"We wash the body again and apply lotion, to protect against dehydration. After death, the eyes begin to sink into the skull, and we pack cotton into the eye socket, place a plastic eyecap under the eyelid, then pull back the eyelid to apply adhesive and keep the eye closed."

Ellen's stomach turned over.

"Death also causes the facial muscles to relax, and the jaw drops open. We make the eyes and mouth as lifelike as possible. As we say, we set the features."

Ellen tried to remain professional. "Now, how was the procedure in Lateef's case?"

"With Lateef, there were so many gunshot wounds on one side of his face that we had to use his school photo as a guide and build from that foundation."

Ellen tried to visualize it. That little face, smiling from his memorial T-shirt. "Couldn't you use the other side of his face?"

"No. With as many gunshots as he had, there was significant facial swelling, which distorted even the good side of his face. The trauma, you understand. We use chemicals to reduce the swelling."

"How did you cover the bullet wounds?"

"On his face?" Ralston frowned. "You misunderstand me. There was no covering. There was nothing there. So in his case, we reconstructed. We snipped away the excess tissue around the wounds and glued the skin that was left to his cheekbone and eye socket."

Ellen didn't want to know more. n.o.body should know this stuff. It was unthinkable. She couldn't help but think of losing Will this way. Of him being the child on the table. Of his beautiful face being the one glued together.

"We poured wax into the bullet holes to fill the gap and used cosmetics to match the shade of the wax to his skin, which was lighter than his mother. Some mortuaries have airbrushes, but we don't need that. I'm forty-two years in this business, and my father had it before me. We don't airbrush."

Ellen rallied at the businesslike note in his tone.

"The result wasn't perfect, but it was acceptable to Laticia and the family, and it gave them comfort, to see him as they knew him in life. Even my niece gave us a good grade."

"That's wonderful," Ellen said, with an admiration she didn't try to hide, but Ralston shrugged it off.

"Even for a single gunshot wound, we wouldn't cover it, that would never work. The putty would simply sink into the wound." He held up an index finger. "That's one thing I've had to order more of, wax and putty. We've already used four times the amount that we did last year, and the manufacturer can't keep it in stock. I have a friend in Newark, he's in the same bind."

Ellen scribbled away. These would be the effects of murder that would flesh out the story, from a tragic perspective.

"And all the eyecaps I have are too big for children. For Lateef and the others, we have to resize the eyecaps. Cut them down with scissors."

Ellen wrote that down, too. "I hope the day never comes when they make eyecaps for kids."

"I hear that." Ralston nodded. "In addition, with Lateef, we didn't use a wire in his mouth. We sutured the muscle and used adhesive, and it worked very well. He had so much bruising, but luckily, the displacement during the injection cleared a lot of that. That's what we'd hoped for."

"You use the word 'we' a lot. Did you have help with Lateef?"

"My son John. We worked together." Ralston's tone softened. "We started at eight o'clock and we finished at dawn. My grandson, he's Lateef's age, and well, it wasn't easy for either John or me." He coughed slightly, and Ellen was about to ask a question, but held her tongue when she saw his head bow slightly and a stillness sweep over his slight frame. "Lateef, he's the one I'll never forget. I knew that boy. When he came in, looking the way he did, at first I didn't know what to do." Ralston shook his head, still downcast. "I didn't know what to do. I had to go outside. I stood in the back, by receiving. I asked the Lord to help me, to give me strength."

Ellen nodded. She didn't take a note. It would be off the record. It was too personal. Suddenly her cell phone rang, destroying the quiet and jarring them both. Embarra.s.sed, she reached for her purse. "I'm so sorry," she said, digging. "I should have turned it off."

"Feel free to take the call." Ralston checked his watch, the moment having pa.s.sed. "I should get back to work."

Ellen found the phone and switched it off, but not before she saw the area code. 302. Delaware.

Cheryl Martin.

Chapter Thirty.

Ellen tore south toward Wilmington, racing the rush hour. The sky had turned black, and snow flurries had begun to fall, flecks of white lace frozen in her headlights. The radio news was predicting a storm, and she felt as if she were outrunning that, too. She was in an uneasy state, hyperexcited, even after the long, sad afternoon. She couldn't remember the last time she'd eaten, but it didn't matter. She found herself accelerating, going to seventy miles an hour, then eighty. She wondered if she was speeding toward something. Or away.

Ellen found the house, parked at the curb, and looked out her car window. Cheryl's home was a lovely Tudor with a white stucco facade and dark brown trim, set among plenty of open s.p.a.ce. A white sedan sat in a circular driveway, and the evergreens and hedges landscaping the property were dusted by new flurries, so that the scene looked like a suburban snow globe. She grabbed her bag and her file and got out of the car.

They were sitting in a beautiful living room, on an L-shaped sectional couch in an oatmeal fabric that coordinated perfectly with a nubby sisal rug. The lighting was recessed and the walls were eggsh.e.l.l white, adorned with horsy landscapes that would undoubtedly echo the view from the picture window.

Cheryl was saying, "I have to admit, part of the reason I wanted to meet you is because I read your articles."

"Thank you." Ellen remembered the photos of Cheryl Villiers, nee Martin, from her mother Gerry's house. Cheryl had been the pretty sister with large blue eyes and the sprinkling of freckles on a perfect nose, and in person, she resembled Will, despite the crow's-feet and the laugh lines bracketing her wide mouth.

"I even remembered the articles you wrote about adopting your baby, or Amy's baby. I reread them online after my mom called. I thought they were really good."

"Thanks."

"They had a photo of the baby in the paper. It's so strange to think that that little baby is Amy's. My new nephew. I just can't deal." Cheryl smiled uncomfortably, showing lightened teeth. "My mother said you showed her some court doc.u.ments. Could I see them?"

"Yes, of course." Ellen dug in her purse and produced the adoption papers. "I really need to find Amy. I guess your mom told you, it's just to get some medical history. If you remember from the article, Will had a serious heart problem when I adopted him."

Cheryl read the papers, her head inclined at an inquisitive angle, so that her dark blond hair fell into her face. She had on a tan V-neck knit sweater, tight-fitting beige pants, and black leather flats.

"Do you think that's Amy's signature?"

"Yes, I do. It's absolutely her signature."

"How about on the consent form. Is that your signature?"

"No, I never signed this." Cheryl looked up, her eyes frank in light makeup. "She forged it."

"So what do you think's going on here?"

"Amy didn't want us to know about the baby, obviously."

Bingo. "What about this twisted ovary business?" "What about this twisted ovary business?"

"Look, my mom thinks that Amy couldn't have had a baby, but I don't agree. All the doctor said was that she probably couldn't have a baby, and Amy made a big deal of that. Even my husband said she could conceive." Cheryl's tone resonated with resentment. "She's a major drama queen. She just used the twisted ovary to get attention."

"So do you think she had a baby?"

"Of course, it's certainly possible. We all stopped seeing her about the same time. If she had a baby three years ago, I have no way of knowing it for sure. I was married by then, and we don't see as much of my family." Something flickered behind Cheryl's eyes, but she guarded that emotion. "They all smoke, for one thing. We don't tolerate smoking around the house."

"Your husband's a doctor, you say?"

"Yes, a physician. He just left to take the kids to pizza for dinner. We have twin girls. We thought it wouldn't be a good idea if they were around while you were here."

"Right." Ellen considered it. Twins. They'd be Will's cousins. But back to business. "So do you have any idea where Amy could be? Your mom thinks she stays in touch with you."

"Amy does email, but hardly ever. When she needs money."

"Do you send her any?" Ellen wanted the address.