Dead Certain

propped myself up on my elbows as Elliott came over and sat beside me on the edge of the bed. He handed me the coffee. He must have just come back with it, because it was still hot.
    “What time is it?” I asked, my voice still thick with sleep. Every movement was an effort, a battle against the heavy weight of grief.
    “Six-thirty,” said Elliott. “I hope you don’t mind, but I went back to Hyde Park this morning and picked up some clean clothes for you and a couple of other things you might need. I had one of my people stay there overnight—it was Joe who suggested it. In a place like Hyde Park, as soon as word of the murder hit the street, every two-bit break-in artist would have tried to get in and make off with your stuff as soon as the cops had left.”
    “Thank you,” I said. I felt it would be ungracious to explain that as far as I was concerned, the thieves could help themselves. Nothing, certainly nothing I owned, seemed important to me today.
    “I’ve also talked to Claudia’s mother. It sounds like she’s taking it real hard.” I wrapped my arms around my body as if to ward off the cold, but in reality I felt like I was holding myself together. “Her husband’s already on his way. He arrives at eight-fifty at O’Hare. I have the flight number. If you want, I’ll go pick him up.”
    “No,” I said. “I’ll go.”
    “I brought you some muffins,” he said. “Just in case you’re hungry. I put shampoo and soap in the bathroom for you. I also called Cheryl and told her about Claudia. She said she’ll get in touch with the people at the hospital and let them know what happened.”
    “Have you talked to Blades? Have they arrested Carlos yet?”
    “It’s still early, Kate. You’ve got to give him some time.”
    “Her father arrives in two hours,” I said. “What am I supposed to tell him?”
     
    I stood in the shower and tried to wash away the memory of what had happened. Growing in me like a cancer was a sense of realization, a suspicion bordering on fear, that if I hadn’t met Elliott for dinner, or if we hadn’t lingered in the stairwell, everything would have ended up differently. But what I couldn’t figure out was whether Claudia would still be alive or whether I would have been killed, too.
    I closed my eyes but could not get the picture of Claudia’s body out of my head. As the hot water rushed over my body, I ran through the entire clichéd litany of grief. I cried and demanded answers from God and from myself, felt the anger coursing through me at the injustice of what had been done. Claudia, who’d worked so hard to save lives, had had hers taken in an instant.
    Someone once said that pain is a teacher who must be understood. But that morning I knew that they were wrong. Pain is pain. Sometimes the best you can do is try to keep it from knocking you flat.
    Eventually the wave of emotions passed through me, having run its course. Slowly I forced myself to turn to more practical matters. I washed my hair and tilted my head back and let the soap run down my back. My body felt like it was made of lead, and every action seemed to be an effort of will.
    I got out of the shower and turned off the taps, drying myself on the pristine hotel towels that Elliott had managed to procure for me. I dressed slowly, like an invalid, in the black pantsuit that Elliott had brought, forcing myself to focus on the details—zippers, snaps, buttons. Then I dug a hairbrush out of my purse along with a big clip, which I used to pin up my still-wet hair. I didn’t bother with any makeup. Under the circumstances, what would be the point?
    I found Elliott in the kitchen, sitting at the antique farm table, making notes on a legal pad.
    I sat down across from Elliott, feeling drained from the effort of getting dressed and making the trip from the bedroom. I didn’t know how I was going to make it through this day. Elliott, having anticipated my state of internal disorder, had begun making me a list. On the yellow pad he’d written not just the flight information for Claudia’s father, but the name of a Jewish funeral home that would handle the arrangements for bringing Claudia’s body back to New York. I had never thought of death as a religious event. Somehow after you were dead, I didn’t see how it made a difference. But Claudia’s parents, for all their radicalism, had brought her up in synagogue. I hoped that the care that Elliott had taken over these arrangements might bring