Hedging (A Smith and Wetzon Mystery)

plaintive meow stopped her near the door. It was coming from the kitchen. From the stove. She opened the oven door and the cat leaped into her arms, clinging to her.
    The stairs were marble, steep and slippery. She plunged down and clutching Chat, raced through the lobby and out to the deserted street. Sirens, coming close. She went back and propped the door open with the empty shopping cart.
    She walked toward Second Avenue. The EMS truck rushed past her, siren wailing. Lights flashed on the roof of a police car that followed the medical service truck. Brakes squealed as they came to a halt in front of Zoey’s building. They pushed the cart aside and burst into the lobby.
    A man rushed past her, people in night clothes came out from brownstones across the street. Soon enough, a crowd had formed in front of the building. T.J. turned back and joined the curious. An air of excitement, anticipation, settled over them. Something about impending disasters brought this out. Was it the enjoyment of someone else’s trouble? Schadenfreude ? The Germans were so good with words like that.
    Another police car and a van. A crime scene unit. Zoey was dead. She watched them unload their equipment. The cops in the second car pushed back the crowd to either side of the building, clearing the entrance. Time passed and more onlookers arrived, spilling into the street. More sirens. An ambulance. Harsh lights. Gaudy night .
    At first, the watchers whispered to each other, but no more. Now everyone was silent, separate, sensing violence, death. A soundless Greek chorus.
    The cold seeped into her legs; her hand burned. She couldn’t leave. Bad enough she’d run away and left Zoey like that. The cat shifted against her. She opened her jacket and the cat crawled inside, then she zipped it up leaving Chat’s head free. She sneezed twice, three times. Her eyes and cheeks itched.
    More time passed. Everyone waited. Police came and went. The ambulance attendants started moving. A gurney was set up and rolled into the building. Now the crowd shifted uneasily. T.J., already on the outer edge, drifted backward. Chat began to purr.
    A shudder ran through the watchers. The gurney was rolled out of the building, an almost flat blue body bag strapped to it. Zoey hardly took up any space.
    “Hold it!” The shout came from a man running toward the scene. He was holding up a wallet, something. The attendants stopped. The cops came over to talk with him. He was one of them. He put the wallet away, moved toward the gurney. They gave him space.
    It was like a movie, T.J. thought. But the cop was someone she knew, the one with the little white dog, the one who’d talked to her in The Big Dipper only an hour earlier. An attendant unzipped one end of the body bag. The cop bent over Zoey’s body, then doubled over as if he’d been sucker-punched. Another cop touched him on the shoulder, and he straightened. He wiped his eyes, motioned to the attendant. The bag was zipped up, and Zoey was loaded into the waiting ambulance.
    T.J. couldn’t take her eyes from the cop. She stood with the others watching. Someone yawned. The excitement was waning. It was time for the living. T.J. sneezed again. Chat buried her head inside the jacket. Another sneeze, louder.
    The cop stared into the crowd that surrounded her. His face wavered in the rolling, colored lights. He came toward her as the crowd began to disperse. She thought she should run but her feet were locked to the sidewalk.
    And she was tired of running, sick to her soul about Zoey. She scrunched up her face to halt the tears, but she couldn’t stop them.
    When he stood in front of her, she held out her wrists. “Do you want to arrest me?”
    He took her wrists, lifted them and kissed her fingers. “Jesus Christ, Les, I’m so happy you’re alive.”

22
    “S HE’S WITH me. I swear. No, she’s okay. She will be.”
    She could hear him talking on the phone. Nothing wrong with her hearing. It was just the rest of her. She laughed, then couldn’t stop, gasping into hiccups. The dog licked her face, cuddled into her side. Her sore hand wore an efficient bandage.
    He came and sat on the bed. “Les.” Tree filtered sunlight dappled his face.
    She couldn’t remember much about how she’d gotten here. It was his place, of course. It was a guy place, looked as if he’d just moved in. A gun in a shoulder holster hung from the doorknob of a half opened closet.
    “Where’s Chat? Hic—”
    “The cat?