The Lightning Rule Read online

  He had two choices: let the file on the boy’s murder sink or allow himself to drown. The victim was beyond saving. Emmett had to decide whether he was too.

  SEVEN

  Daylight felt like a beating. The sun was a jab to the face, the heat an uppercut that knocked the wind from Emmett’s lungs. He would take that kind of abuse over a tunnel any time.

  The coroner’s wagon had drawn a clump of people who gathered outside the subway station, trying to peek in past the signs. The patrolman would wave them away, and they would move off a bit, then inch in again, similar to shooing pigeons. As Emmett cut through the throng, someone shouted to him, “What’s going on in there?”

  “Why’s the cops here?” another asked.

  “Sign says repairs,” Emmett told them.

  “Cops don’t do repairs.”

  “That’s exactly what we do,” he said.

  At his car, he realized that he had accidentally walked off with the flashlight the officer loaned him. He was clutching it as though he didn’t trust the blaring noon sun to stay bright. Returning the flashlight to the patrolmen would have been the right thing to do, but Emmett couldn’t bring himself to go back into the tunnel. He would replace the flashlight in the storage closet at the station instead, just not yet.

  A flyer was stuffed under the windshield wiper of his car. In bold print, it read: “Stop Police Brutality. Come and join us at the mass rally tonight at the Fourth Precinct at 7:30.”

  If anything, the rally would be an invitation for more brutality and an encore of last night’s disorder. Whether that was the organizers’ goal was open for debate. Emmett folded the flyer into his pocket. To be safe, he got his spare radio from under the front seat of his car and propped it on the passenger seat, close at hand. Edward had rigged it to the police band frequency for him. The department didn’t have the budget for walkie-talkies, and only the patrol cars were equipped with radios. Assuming another riot broke out during the rally, Emmett wanted to know where not to be.

  When he switched on the radio, dispatch was summoning the Traffic Division for any available assistance. Teams of reporters with television cameras were assembling around the Fourth Precinct and attracting a crowd. By normal standards, it was hardly an emergency. After the riot, normal standards no longer applied.

  Factoring in Albert Rafshoon’s usual delays, the coroner wouldn’t get to the victim’s autopsy for hours. Emmett had calculated for that when he phoned to make his appointment earlier that morning. He stowed the borrowed flashlight in his glove compartment and drove home, unsure what was in store for him.

  The house was painfully hot, the air stale. Edward was napping in his wheelchair, head nestled into his shoulder, and the television was turned down to a whisper. Emmett closed the door gently. At the click of the latch, Edward snapped awake. Groggy, he asked, “What’re you doing home?”

  A wet hand towel lay across his lap. It had been a compress for his head, and the ice in it had melted, soaking through to his pants and staining them embarrassingly at the crotch. Edward couldn’t feel it. He followed Emmett’s gaze to the spot.

  “It’s okay. Let me get another towel.”

  “It’s the ice,” Edward said defensively.

  “I know. It’s okay.”

  A knock came at the front door, interrupting them.

  “You expecting someone?”

  “Sort of.”

  “Sort of?”

  Emmett gave his brother a chance to cover the stain with the towel before he answered the door.

  A black woman stood on the stoop, clutching her purse in one hand, a note in the other. White hair feathered from her temples, and she wore a floral cotton dress over broad hips as well as stockings despite the heat.

  “Is this the Emmett residence?” She read the name off the note in a drummed-down southern drawl.

  “It is. Can I help you?”

  “I’m Mavis Poole. The hospital sent me. Somebody phoned about hiring a nurse’s aide.” She smiled hesitantly.

  Emmett had been expecting someone white. He was embarrassed by his assumption. The oversight was a far cry from the overt racism that spurred the riots, yet he realized that it grew from a common root. He considered apologizing to her, but there was too much to apologize for.

  The call to the hospital was the one Emmett had made after speaking to the lieutenant on the rooftop. Edward’s fall had convinced him that he couldn’t care for his brother on his own. It hurt him to admit it, and it hurt him to see Edward’s expression slide from stunned to hostile, his jaw working under the cheek.

  “Come in, Mrs. Poole. I’m Martin Emmett, and this is my brother, Edward.”

  She shook Emmett’s hand, a soft, polite grip. When she offered the same hand to Edward, he wheeled away. The back door slammed, resounding through the house.

  “Would I be right to assume you didn’t mention my coming ahead of time, Mr. Emmett?”

  “You would.” He regretted springing the poor woman on Edward.

  “No harm done, dear. I can be on my way if you think that’s best. If not,” she added, hopeful, “I’d ask if I might not sit a spell. Took me two buses to get here.”

  “Please. Make yourself at home.”

  She opted for a spot on the unused couch and perched on the edge of the cushions daintily. Emmett noticed that Mrs. Poole had a slight limp that she tried to conceal by her posture and the style in which she carried her purse. His guess, her lower back bothered her. He couldn’t understand why she didn’t pick a firmer chair.

  “I don’t move as fast as some, but I’m strong,” she said. “I’ve taken care of men as big as you, Mr. Emmett, and bigger. My late husband weighed over two hundred pounds. He lost both legs in Korea, and I learned to flip him like a pancake, so don’t mistake me for weak. I’m no stranger to hard work. I can do the job. That is, if you want me to.”

  Emmett saw in Mrs. Poole a quiet need, for a paying position or to be working, to have something to fill her days. She wouldn’t let on which. It wasn’t desperation, though it wasn’t that different. He could relate.

  “I imagine you’re no stranger to hard work either.” Mrs. Poole gestured at the badge hanging from his belt.

  “Your accent’s too nice to be from Newark,” he said, dodging a response with a compliment. “Where are you from?”

  “Swainsboro, Georgia. You heard of it?”

  “I’m afraid I haven’t.”

  “Not many folks have. When the farming dried up, my daddy moved us here, me and my ten brothers and sisters. Lordy, that practically cut the population of Swainsboro in half. For as many years as I’ve lived in Newark, I shouldn’t have any accent left. Some things just stay with you, I suppose.”

  There were things that stayed with Emmett too, things he couldn’t let go of, like an accent he couldn’t drop.

  “Let me see if I can talk to Edward,” he told her, turning to go.

  “Must be tough, caring for your brother on your own,” Mrs. Poole said in a tone tender and low to ensure Edward wouldn’t overhear. “You’re a grown man. You have a career, a life to lead.”

  She was giving him permission not to feel guilty for asking for help. Emmett had confessed nothing, yet she saw through him to his heart as clearly as she had seen his badge.

  “Give me a minute with him,” he said.

  Edward was at the far end of the porch, staring at the backyard, hands knitted tight. Emmett stepped outside, the screen door creaking and announcing his arrival. Edward wouldn’t acknowledge his presence. Emmett went and stood beside him. He had to let his brother speak first.

  “That crabgrass is going to ruin the lawn. You see it? By the garage,” Edward said. A patch of scrubby, yellow blades was encroaching on the property. “You’ll have to pull it up or else the grass’ll die.”

  “Okay. I’ll pull it up.”

  “And you’d better put some of that weed killer Pop used on it too.”

  “Okay.”

  Edward s
hook a cigarette out of his pack. He didn’t light it. “You coulda warned me, Marty.”

  “I know. I should have.”

  “I don’t have to like her.”

  “No, you don’t have to like her. But you might.”

  “And if I don’t?”

  “Then you don’t.”

  “You’ll get somebody else, won’t you?”

  “It can’t be me, Ed. I can’t quit to be here with you.”

  “I know that,” he said, a hitch in his voice. “I wish…”

  “What?”

  Edward was wavering, wary of loosening some emotional valve. Being in the wheelchair, it was easier for him not to meet Emmett’s eyes, to act as if they were on the telephone talking long-distance rather than person to person. The moment passed. He dammed up whatever it was he was going to say, sealing it inside him again. “Nothing. Never mind.”

  Emmett held the screen door, and Edward wheeled himself inside. Mrs. Poole was roosted on the edge of the couch, smoothing her dress over her knees.

  “Have you ever worked with somebody like me?” Edward asked her, getting right to the point. An awkward silence bloated the room.

  “I don’t know, dear. I just met you. What’re you like?”

  Mrs. Poole was looking Edward squarely in the face as though the wheelchair didn’t exist. She looked at him the way Emmett couldn’t.

  Rarely at a loss, Edward’s bravado dissolved. Emmett realized that Mrs. Poole had picked the couch because it was the lowest seat in the living room and it put her right on Edward’s level. It would hurt her to stand up again. She had sat there nonetheless.

  “I have references if you need to see them.” Mrs. Poole unsnapped her purse, prepared to present them in case Edward was on the fence.

  He deferred to Emmett. “Do we need to see her references?”

  The woman was tougher than Emmett initially thought, and it would take more than Edward to fluster her. That spoke louder than any reference could.

  “Do we?” He bounced the question back, leaving the final say to his brother, who deliberated for a beat.

  “No, that’s all right.”

  With that, the deal was sealed. Emmett gave Mrs. Poole a tour of the house, told her that she was welcome to whatever food was in the refrigerator, then wrote her a check for a week’s pay in advance.

  “You don’t have to give this to me now, Mr. Emmett.”

  “Really, I do.”

  Mrs. Poole tucked the check into her purse, taking the hint. “Is this a bribe so I’ll stick out the week?”

  “If I’d known you were that easy to bribe, I would have paid you for a month,” Emmett said with a wink. He jotted the phone number to the police station on a pad. “Here’s where I can be reached. It’s the Fourth Precinct.”

  “Ain’t that something. I live on Charlton Street. We’re practically neighbors.” Her inflection telegraphed the message that she was aware of what went on at the precinct, but this was business. Any differences would be left at the door.

  “I usually try to get home by five. If I’m late, you don’t have to stay.”

  “If you’re late, you’re late, Mr. Emmett. It’s okay. Life isn’t always predictable.”

  Life wasn’t predictable. All he could be certain of was that the victim from the subway tunnel was lying in the morgue with his throat slit. Nothing and no one could change that, including Emmett. He hadn’t settled on what he was going to do about the case. It was a decision even he couldn’t predict.

  EIGHT

  The entrance to Newark City Hospital was as inviting as a vise grip. The stoic, redbrick building had been designed in a horseshoe shape, creating a cul-du-sac with the main door at the center. Throughout different eras, the original structure had been expanded upon, so additions protruded from the roofline like growths gone unchecked. The hospital seemed less like a refuge than a last resort.

  Established to serve the city’s indigent and needy, City Hospital was as poorly funded as its patients. Its equipment was outmoded, its staff a skeleton crew, and its security nonexistent. Bedside curtains and toilet seats were considered luxuries, and mice could be seen scampering along the corridors’ baseboards. A diarrhea epidemic had broken out two years earlier, resulting in the death of eighteen infants and branding the hospital with a reputation as a place where people had a higher chance of dying than getting better. It was appropriate then that the Essex County coroner’s office was situated in the hospital’s basement. Knowing the elevators carried cadavers, lice-infested linens, and infectious patients as well as the visitors, Emmett took the stairs down.

  In order to reach the morgue, he had to navigate an intricate network of hallways, each virtually identical in their blandness, all of the doors closed save for the occasional supply closet. Emmett had gotten lost on his first trip there to see the body of Vernon Young. No signage marked the path. The morgue was the sort of place that seemed intentionally difficult to find.

  When Emmett finally did find it, he almost wished he hadn’t. Heavy double doors opened into the examination area, which bore an uncanny resemblance to a mechanic’s shop. Spray nozzles dangled from the ceiling, and metal tables split the basement into bays. Because of the coolers, the air was chilly, congealing the oily odor of innards with the tartness of chemicals and cleaning fluid. Tiled floors and walls created the faint echo of an empty pool. A bald man in a rubber apron was standing at the sink, the water running high. His back was to the door and to the corpse of an elderly black man lying on a slab, the chest cavity exposed, the skin peeled open.

  Emmett wasn’t squeamish. Life at the abbey had prepared him to be dispassionately passionate. Denied worldly possessions and frequent contact with family, he had mastered the art of detachment. Beliefs were to be intense, fervent. Emotions were not.

  “Didn’t hear you come in,” the man in the apron said amiably, cranking off the faucet as soon as he noticed Emmett. He was so trim that he had to loop the apron strings around his waist repeatedly to keep it tied on.

  “Is this a bad time?”

  “I’m sure this gentleman won’t mind. He’s not in a rush.”

  “Is Doctor Aberbrook around?” Emmett shifted his jacket to show his badge.

  “Nope. He retired. Moved to Florida.”

  That was news to Emmett. Working in the Records Room had the same effect on him as living at the seminary, where television, books, papers, and all links to the outside were prohibited. Emmett was utterly ignorant of change. Again, the world hadn’t waited for him and he was sprinting to catch up.

  “Retired? When?”

  “Two months ago.”

  “Are you the new coroner?”

  “New is a relative term.” He motioned to his balding pate. “How about you? You new to the department?”

  “Like you said, it’s a relative term. I’m Detective Emmett.”

  “Well, Detective, I’m Doctor Ufland. We’ll have to skip the handshake.” He was holding a length of entrail that he had been examining over the sink. He slopped the organ onto a scale. “Who’re you here for?”

  “The deceased’s name is Ambrose Webster.”

  Before leaving his house, Emmett had checked the phonebook listings. The address clipped to the movie pass in the victim’s pocket matched. That alone didn’t confirm that the body in the tunnel had been that of Ambrose Webster. Emmett had a strong suspicion that it was, though. While he should have been grateful for the lead, that the victim wasn’t a John Doe, he couldn’t deny the twinge of disappointment. Something about this murder was off.

  “Is he the one with the severed leg?”

  “That’s him. He was only delivered a couple of hours ago. I was going to ask if you had any idea what time you’d be—”

  “He’s done. I just finished him. It’s been slow today. The kid would still be on the table if it weren’t for this heat. If it doesn’t break soon, my coolers are going to conk out. Trust me, that would be unpleasant.”

  �
�I’ll take your word for it.”

  Ufland rolled a drawer out from a wall of individual coolers. Ambrose Webster’s naked body lay on a metal tray, his dark skin gleaming. His torso was thickly roped with muscle and unmarred apart from the stitches in the Y incision left from the autopsy and the slash across his neck that arced like a smile. His amputated leg lay beside its mate, the foot facing away, the knee turned out. Vernon Young’s body was completely different in shape and scale, but standing over Webster’s body brought Emmett right back to that day.

  The bullet the former coroner, Dr. Aberbrook, had pulled from Young’s body was a .22, not a .38, a fact that did little to further the case. All it established was that Detective Giancone hadn’t shot Vernon with his service revolver. He very well might have had a second piece. Like many a cop, Emmett himself also carried a .22 in a calf holster. Giancone could have had one too and discarded it. Lucaro was the likelier suspect. While he claimed not to have a weapon, Emmett didn’t believe that a mobster of his distinction went anywhere without one. Emmett had searched the crime scene thoroughly, sifting through crates of rotten food and garbage cans, dirty work that yielded nothing. He never found a gun. Without the murder weapon or Otis Fossum’s cooperation, the case stalled. His reassignment to the Records Room had convinced Emmett that he wouldn’t get another opportunity to jump-start it. Ambrose Webster had changed that. As Emmett stood beside Webster’s corpse, he had to remind himself that the dead boy wasn’t a means to an end.