Chapter I #2
Mae slowly turned her face up to look at the detective. He was a heavy man whose stomach bulged against the buttons of his brown suit coat. As he looked over at Henry, he made a note in his pocket-sized notebook. Glancing over at her, he sighed and repeated his question.
“About an hour ago,” she supplied.
The detective turned back to Henry. “That’s an odd angle,” he said to himself as he ran his thumb over Henry’s collar and rubbed it with his finger before shrugging.
“Do you have any reason to suspect foul play?” The detective grabbed Henry’s shoulder and leaned him forward to look at his back, then placed him back into his original position.
As he moved his head from side to side to get a better look, he paused momentarily to jot down more notes.
“Ma’am?” he called over his shoulder. “Any reason to suspect foul play?”
“He’s still young. He’s healthy. How could this happen?”
The detective raised an eyebrow, then frowned, shaking his head as he scribbled more notes down in his booklet. He glanced in the officer’s direction and said, “Mac, you brought me over for this? Do you even realize how many cases I’ve got stacking up?”
Mac just shrugged.
“Anything else?” Detective Bates asked, turning back to Mae, the underlying tone relaying his annoyance. “Is he the only lawyer in this office?”
“I work with him on our cases. It’s just the two of us. No one else would have a reason to be here unless we were seeing a client.”
“So he’s the only lawyer,” he surmised. “Any particularly dangerous cases that he was working on?”
“Well,” she began, “we were working on some cases regarding the removal of children from their homes by—”
“So no dangerous cases,” he interjected.
“Well, not exactly dangerous, but…” she stopped when she saw that he was pulling Henry’s head back to examine his throat.
He stepped back and opened his bag. He pulled out a tripod.
“What is that for?” Mae asked as her eyes widened.
He didn’t answer, but continued to set up the tripod, attaching the camera.
He looked into the lens and adjusted the settings slightly.
“Detective,” she ventured again. “Is there something wrong?”
Finally, he looked over at her, still seated in the client chair. “Standard procedure. In case the coroner determines that there was foul play.” He snapped a picture, and the flash instantly illuminated the room. “Doesn’t look to me like anything but a heart attack or some such ailment.”
“But, Detective…” Mae paused and tried to process what the detective was saying.
“He didn’t have any health problems. He was healthy.
He was only 38.” Mae tucked her hair behind her ear as her mind started turning over Henry’s discoveries from the day before.
She tried to remember where Henry said he would investigate that morning, but her mind stalled.
“This case we were working on…” she paused again, trying to think of how to word it properly.
“Yes, family law… Doesn’t sound like dangerous work to me.
” He put away the camera. “No signs of strangulation or wounds of any sort either.” He took out his cigarette tin and opened it.
As he lit the cigarette, the acrid smoke blew toward Mae's direction as he continued, “Looks like the poor bugger just up and had a heart attack, seems to me.”
Mae froze. Strangulation? Wounds? Surely that wasn’t the only way to determine foul play… “But…” she began again.
“We will let you know what the coroner finds. You’ll receive a summons to the precinct when it’s all done.” He took a deep drag on his cigarette and let the smoke come out of his nose and mouth. “I’ll make sure someone comes to pick up the body soon and deliver it to the morgue.”
There it was! Body. Mae's blank stare turned into a frown as she let the word assault her again. “But, Detective, about our case—”
“I’m sorry for your loss, Ma’am.” He interrupted her again. “As we’re in the fourth district, the precinct will be in touch.” And with that, he thunked back to the other end of the office and opened the door.
The officer, who had been stationed near the door watching, offered a wan smile and tipped his head toward her. “Ma’am,” he muttered as a final word as he slipped out the door after the detective.
After the coroner came to pick up Henry, Mae knew she must return home and find a way to tell Simon.
As she exited the office, the sounds of Beekman Street bustling toward midday assaulted her ears.
She became annoyed with the smiling faces and constant chatter she encountered on her way toward the streetcar.
How dare people continue their day, their lives, as hers was falling apart?
They had only been apart for a few hours.
Henry’s notes! Mae stopped mid-step and spun back toward the office.
As she fumbled with the key, she thought back to where Henry had said he would be that morning.
Had something been so disturbing that it had affected his heart?
Maybe the women’s cases truly were a conspiracy.
She glanced up the street to see if anyone was watching her movements, but everyone was going about their business.
Mae inserted the key, and it hitched on an internal mechanism. Mae jiggled the key. Henry always kept the locks oiled. She had never had a problem with this lock before. Finally, the key turned over, and she heard the deadbolt slide.
When she entered the office, the empty walnut chair screamed at her.
The coroner had moved it to get better access to Henry for the men to carry him out.
She approached the chair and ran her fingers over the polished wood.
She sat down in the chair and tried to remember the feeling of being in Henry's lap again. Mae thought of Henry’s expansive smile and shining eyes the first day this chair appeared in the office.
He had sat down and spun around like a child on a carousel.
“C’mon, Mae…” she remembered him saying, “come sit with me!” She had declined at the time, worried that the new chair might break from the combined weight.
He’d pulled her into his lap anyway, and she had squealed with delight as the room spun in circles around them.
She’d gently admonished him that their costly investment would break if they weren’t careful.
Careful. Always careful. She snapped back to the present.
To the back of the chair holding the cold, lifeless form of her lighthearted husband.
The chair stood stoutly in its place while its owner lay draped across it haphazardly. Was it worth her carefulness now?
Instead of a warm embrace, the chair creaked slightly, and the leather felt too stiff against her back. She stood back up as if the leather had branded her backside. It wasn’t right—not without him in it.