Fatal Reaction

someone who’s been there before. Otherwise I have no way of knowing if anything’s missing or out of place.”
    I tried to think of some excuse that wouldn’t make me seem like a complete wimp, but it was too early in the morning for that kind of invention. Instead I said no. “I’m surprised you haven’t been there already,” I said. “Someone must have tipped off the building management company that Danny had AIDS. They called the health department and they came out and put it under seal. It took Joe Blades most of the day yesterday to get them to agree to give me permission to go inside.”
    He put his arm across my shoulder and gave it a squeeze. “Come on. Ten minutes of your life and it will be over.”
    “Ah, the hooker’s mantra,” I replied, taking a sip of my coffee. “Is there time for me to take a shower?”
    “Sure. Take your time,” he said. “Say,” inquired Elliott, casting a dubious eye over the dust balls under the radiators, “when are you guys going to get a cleaning lady?” The apartment Claudia and I shared was the poor, cousin of the one Stephen and I had just bought. Born in the same grand era, it was much smaller and the wood floors were scarred from years of neglect. Our furniture, which consisted of discards from my mother interspersed with sixties-era castoffs from Claudia’s parents, comprised a decorating style best described as an assault to the eye.
    “If it really bothers you I think there might be a broom in the closet in the kitchen,” I informed him sweetly-“Make yourself at home.”
    I showered quickly, but mindful of my lunch with my mother, I chose my clothes with care, selecting a black cashmere turtleneck, a pair of gray wool trousers, and a black snakeskin belt with a heavy gold buckle. After I was dressed I brushed my hair a full hundred strokes, a habit left over from an otherwise forgotten nanny. Knowing that Mother loathed my usual style, I elected to wear my hair down, which involved spending ten minutes on my hands and knees emptying out the cabinet under the bathroom sink until I finally found an old tortoiseshell headband. As an afterthought I pulled a pair of gold earrings that had once belonged to my great-grandmother and a heavy gold bracelet from my jewelry box.
    “You look very nice,” said Elliott when I emerged from my bedroom. What I looked like was a brainless North Shore society princess with a lunch date, but being well brought up, I said thank you nonetheless. As I got my coat I took a quick peek under the radiators. I was relieved to see that the dust bunnies were still there.
    If anything Danny’s apartment was worse the second time. At least the morning I’d gone with Stephen I had no idea of what awaited me. Even before we got there, just watching the numbers in the elevator increase as we rose to Danny’s floor had caused a hard knot of apprehension in my stomach. Now, as Elliott paused to remove the health department seal, I had to remind myself to breathe.
    He turned the key in the lock and pushed open the door. The stale smell of old blood, like rotting meat, had gotten worse.
    “Let’s just take a quick walk through it together,” said Elliott, putting his arm around my shoulder and steering into the living room. I felt an adolescent shiver that had nothing to do with the blood-splashed walls. It was all exactly as Stephen and I had left it except that the stains had grown darker and the pool of blood near the Phone was now dry.
    Elliott whistled softly. “I don’t know what he died of hut whatever it was he sure didn’t die quietly,” he observed, so close to me I could feel the warmth of his breath.
    Joe Blades once told me that every crime scene tells a story. Looking around Danny’s living room I knew instinctively that the story I was seeing was one of violence. The overturned furniture, the pillows hurled to the floor, the telephone toppled from its table, all these things spoke of some sort of physical struggle. Even to my untrained eye it seemed obvious from the splatter patterns on the walls that they could have been made only if Danny had been moving as he bled.
    “Look here,” said Elliott, stooping near the edge of a long stain beside the slipper chair closest to the phone. “I’d swear this looks like two different sets of footprints.” He studied them in silence for a few minutes, considering. “At least this lets your friend Stephen off the hook,” he concluded, straightening to his full