[Mrs. Washington] Evening. Some evening. It might be Friday; it might be Thursday. Here is the thing: it is after-hours, and the building is closed. There are other lights on, a handful. Someone left her computer running, one of the clerks; someone else left his office light on, it cuts across the corridor, sharp against the darkness. The city is trying to save money. There are signs everywhere: LIGHTS OUT! with happy-faced, light-bulb butted firefly clip art outlined in dark text against white paper to remind the city workers to turn out the lights when they leave the room; when the building is shut down for the night.
"Uh, Dr. Slaughter?" this voice mail is waiting on Imogen's office phone, the little red light blinking, blinking, blinking. " - there's this woman here. She's like, been here for two hours. Joanie told her that she didn't have an appointment and you wouldn't see her without one but she's like, still here. And uhm, I feel bad calling the security guys and I need to go, so she's here. Uhm, but like: it's Friday and I have to go home. Alright? I figure if she doesn't leave before then the night guard will kick her out when he comes through, but I guess I kinda promised her that I'd at least let you know she was here, you know, before I left, so I'm leaving you this voice - "
Click.
There's no more digital room on the message for any more of the receptionist's meandering message. By the time it is over, too - there's a knock at her office door. The knock is soft; not hesitant, but soft somehow.
[Dr. Slaughter] She is in the privacy of her office, her lab coat removed, the weightlessness strange after a day of pockets heavy with pens and other accouterments of her day to day life. Her lab coat is over the back of her chair, her suit jacket hangs from a small coat rack in the corner, propped in the space between the door jamb and the nearest wall, just barely fitting.
Her arms are bare, her skin white against the black of her camisole, against the black of the tattoo that snacks about her bicep, defined beneath her flesh.
She listens to the message, relieved for the silence of the building, for the privacy from the clerks, receptionists, her colleagues, a line tightening along her brow as the reception maunders on in her ear. Her pen is poised over a small message pad - she writes nothing, as Nina leaves her nothing of note.
The message ends, and she listens to the dead air for a moment, the frown deepening without the necessity of habit to suppress it. She shakes her head, leaning forward to replace the phone on its cradle. She is mid-motion when the knock at the door stills her. A fractional pause before she resets the receiver, a soft click as she does.
The light above her is droning softly. The office is small, closely packed with medical texts and journals, file cabinets with drawers which lock. A chair across from her has a box full of file folders, in place of a guest.
She twists in her chair, plucking her lab coat from the back, slipping it on as she calls out: "Come in."
[Mrs. Washington] The door swings open. Her visitor - the receptionist did not mention her name - but her visit is a middle-aged African-American woman. She is more than middle-aged, but she is still somewhere north of 40 and south of 60, with a round, dark-skinned face that remains largely unlined, well tended dark hair, recently curled and set in a tight, rather formal arrangement around her face. She has broad cheeks, a wide mouth, and several chins. Though she is just a handful of inches taller than Imogen, she has at least one hundred pounds, perhaps more, on the Fianna kinswoman, the bulk of her body wrapped in neat, dark clothing that is at least ten years out of date, worn and mended. Her shoes are dark brown, orthopedic loafers, and she walks with a certain restriction to her movement that suggests pain.
Arthritis. Pinched nerves. Neuropathy. Heel spurs. Some underlying malady.
Or grief.
There is a black handbag clutched under her right arm. It is large and heavy and leather. It is fifteen years old and looks it. On second look - on third, Imogen must deduce that the woman is wearing her Sunday Best for this meeting with the official world; the finest clothes she owns, scrubbed and pressed and preserved for these possibilities: for weddings and funerals. For court dates, too. For praising the lord.
"I know that girl done said you was too busy ta see me. I don't mean to be no bother to you." Her regard is direct and steady; not quite unblinking, but there is a certain underlying strength there. She walks slowly; she walks straight. She pulls the bag out from under her arm and holds it in both hands. "You was the one to see to my son. I hope - I'd like - " - and she stands there, looking at Imogen directly and evenly, the bag in her hands.
[Dr. Slaughter] After a moment, the doctor pushes her chair back, getting to her feet, the pooled tails of her lab coat coming free as she rises. She straightens the edges of it around her as she steps around the desk.
She is sleek in black, slacks, camisole, a belt with a steel metal buckle. Her attire is for every day, and yet is doubtlessly of better quality and price than this woman's Sunday best. In contrast, Imogen does not has a Sunday best. She does not attend church; her day to day clothing is as suited for a day at the office, at the court as it is a funeral - at least of the human kind.
She has not come to comfort the older woman, nor yet guide her to a seat, but she does pick up the box of file folders, setting them down, gesturing briefly for her to sit, if she so chooses.
Imogen, for her part, leans against the edge of her desk. "I only got th'message tha' yeh were here to see me, just now," she says, adroitly leaving out that the chances she would have voluntarily subjected herself to a grieving relative on a Friday night were slim.
"I'm sorry fer yer loss Mrs -" she pauses to allow the other the chance to supply the name.
[Mrs. Washington] "Washington. Mrs. Washington," the stranger supplies, nodding her dark head in thanks for the silent offer a chair. It is an offer Mrs. Washington accepts, settling her hips into the visitor's chair in front of Imogen's desk. Still holding her handbag in front of her, in her lap, Mrs. Washington looks not directly at Imogen, but over the kinswoman's shoulder, some point on the opposite wall, or some place in history, some remembered past. Her eyes are moist, but she is not crying; perhaps those are not tears swimming there anyway. Now, given the straight way she sits, the sure solemnity of her broad, round face, it is difficult to imagine the woman ever crying.
"I don't know as you 'member me, doctor," she begins, her dark eyes swinging back to Imogen, then. The kinswoman is leaning against the edge of her desk, taller now than the visiting stranger, the grieving relative come to call after hours, late on a Friday. " - but I 'member you. I was there when you come for my son." She is watching Imogen intently, now, her hands folded over her handbag with enough force to crumple it. "Ving. Irving Washington." The regard is so close and direct that she might be searching Imogen for signs of recognition. Oh, yeah. I remember that one. Except that she isn't; there's no expectatation written into the soft planes of her round face, just that reserve. "I 'spect you see alot of dead men, what you do. Him, you said he didn't kill himself."
[Dr. Slaughter] There is a brief pause, and though there had been no spark of recognition - merely a reserve to match Mrs. Washington's own, Imogen nods.
"I remember him," she says, honestly, though without the file, the truth is, she recalls it only vaguely. The memory is distinct, not in particular for the dead man, but for the police officer, his quotas and his request.
The overdose, it comes back to her. A man released from jail - or maybe that had been another victim. His mother had their pastor with them.
A tension works its way between her eyebrows, as she remembers something else as well.
"Mrs. Washington," she says carefully, "If you have questions about your son, I will be more than happy t'answer them for you, but first, I do need to ask, who let yeh back here?"
[Mrs. Washington] "One'a them assistants of yours is my sister-in-law Vergie's cousin's boy. I've been knowin' him ever since he was twelve years old. Told him I left my bus pass after I come down with my neighbor to identify her daughter." Mrs. Washington offers this explanation evenly, directly, her chin lifted to look directly back at the physician. "Are you gon' git him in trouble over it?"
[Dr. Slaughter] She studies the other intently while she speaks. She seeks a 'tell', a symptom of a lie, a cover-up. If she finds none, Dr. Slaughter slowly shakes her head.
"No," she says. 'In trouble' is relative. One can be sure that the good doctor will be speaking to Vergie's cousin's boy (whoever that is, she reflects) before the night was out. Still, he wouldn't lose his job.
"What can I do for you?"
[Mrs. Washington] There is a certain grace to the older woman's face as she watches this; it is a grace often overlooked, less physical than spiritual; less spiritual than - there are no tells on the woman's face; no signs of a lie. She talked her way into the place by lying to a boy who has a job, a good job with the city, a job that has no opportunity for advancement, no joy in it, no personal rewards, wheeling the dead from room to room, stinking of formaldehyde and paper-dry tissues, the cheap sort that leave behind a sense of wood-pulp scoured against the sky. A good job, though: with regular hours, paychecks every two weeks, some regularity, the possibility that one might move out of the high-rises into a regular apartment, two bedrooms; rent you pay yourself, with the money the city deposits into your account every week. She talked her way into the place by lying to him; endangering his job.
Then, Mrs. Washington looks away; back at the wall, holding herself back. She's quiet, nodding to herself.
"You know that cop wanted you to say he killed himself." Mrs. Washington says, evenly. " - but you didn't. I know they got 'tistics they gotta worry about. I want to know why."
She's sorry for it, too. That lingers on the surface of her face, that sorrow.
[Dr. Slaughter] She pauses before answering.
"Why he has statistics," she says, quietly, "or why I wouldn't do as he wanted?"
[Mrs. Washington] The woman's dark brown eyes flicker back to Imogen as she considers the question; as she pauses. The space is silent; there is a smell. It is not one that Mrs. Washington notices.
"That second one, is what I want to know."
[Dr. Slaughter] Her brow contracts slightly, the merest beginnings of a frown.
The pat answer comes easily to mind. Words like duty, honour, truth. Something compassionate, something to soothe an older woman's mind that there is still good in the world, even with her son gone.
The real truth is less pretty than that. There was honour there, yes, but pragmatism more. Imogen lies and falsifies data too often to do it on a whim.
She lifts a hand, pushing back a few stray strands of bright flaming hair. "I was there to find out why your son died, Mrs. Washington. Not to help some young man with his statistics."
[Mrs. Washington] "They ain't never found who done it." The woman says, and she is silent then, nodding her head. Looking away from Imogen again, her dark eyes tracking around the office as if it were a new thing. She sees the furnishings differently than Imogen, does. She sees what there is to clean; how far the trash can is from the door. How many shelves need to be dusted every week.
She sees the world through the shadow of her work, which is a weary shadow, and long. Her grief is subsumed, an undercurrent. She wears it beneath her skin, she wears it like she wears her clothes, old and worn. This is an old grief, too. It is deeper than one death; it is broader than one corpse in a lonely hotel room. It is darker than one not-suicide rescued from the oblivion of a lie into the oblivion of truth. "What I want to know is: is that a different kind of 'tistics to you, that why he died?
[Dr. Slaughter] There is a small, narrow window in her office, tucked between bookshelves and filing cabinets. It is cracked open, allowing in a small measure of a night breeze. It has also let in the smell and sound of rain, the whisper of tires, one storey below. Now it lets in a slice of light as lightning flashes in the sky. The resulting rumble of lightning.
Her head turns slightly to glance toward the window, her gaze flicking to the sill. A portion of thought separates to consider - should she shut it or not. She decides not, and turns her attention back.
To an old woman who wears grief like it were her connective tissue.
"I am aware that what I do is not a statistic for the people for whom it matters," she says finally, carefully.
[Mrs. Washington] Mrs. Washington looks up. There is no thunder in her eyes, but there is a kind of keenness when she casts that rising, upward glance. The suggestion of the storm outside does not draw her attention away. She ignores it steadily, as she ignores so many things in and of and about her life.
"I figured on him dying alot sooner than he done. When he was runnin' with them Disciples. Or when he was out of prison; when he was hooked on them drugs. I figure," Mrs. Washington continues, figuring. She is considering the shape of the life that was once in her body; that changed when it left her body, becoming frayed, full of broken threads, in such predictable ways. " - he should've died sooner than he done. Lucky he got clean. Got the chance to know Jesus."
It doesn't sound like much comfort. She doesn't say it like it was much comfort; she just offers that thought as a fact.
"Ving," she continues, " - my Ving'd been writing for the City Paper." The one homeless men and women hand out on streetcorners, demanding a dollar from everyone who takes one. The one funded by classifieds for escorts and massage parlors and psychic hotlines. She opens her purse, reaching into its cavernous depths. Pulls out a battered manila envelop, folded and refolded. "I got this in the mail after he died. He mailed it two days before. Notes for them stories he was writing.
"That detective, he wasn't interested. I don't have no one else to give them to."
[Dr. Slaughter] The keen gaze is met with a steady, unflinching one of her own.
A better person might have lied. Of course it hadn't been a statistic. Every death has meaning. A better person might have said it, and meant it.
She straightens from the desk to lean forward, taking the manila envelope between her fingers. "Was it normal for your son to mail you his notes for his stories?" she enquires, feeling the weight of the envelope as she draws it back to herself.
[Mrs. Washington] There is a minute movement of her head. "No, ma'am," the woman allows. She places her hands down on the arms of the visitor's chair and levers herself up from it, out of it. "Sometimes he mailed me the stories, sometimes when he was writing, before he submitted them he'd mail it to me. Say, momma, I am mailing this to you, don't you open it. That's my copywrite. But I never opened them. That one come after he died, so I opened it.
"If you is gonna throw that away, I'd 'preciate it if you'd give it back to me afore I go."
[Dr. Slaughter] She shakes her head slightly, "No, I won't throw it out," she says. "But I would like to take a look at it.
"How would you like me to contact you to return them?"
[Mrs. Washington] There is a moment of surprise, a certain contraction in the woman's face; the leap of nerve endings alive to pain.
"I would appreciate it if you mailed it," says Mrs. Washington, watching Imogen steadily. " - my address is on the front of that envelope there. Hard for me to git down here, since they stopped runnin' the cross-town."
[Dr. Slaughter] Dr. Slaughter nods. "I can do that," she answers, simply.
"Is there anything else I can do for you?"
Early in her career, more than once, Imogen had conversations with various forensic pathologists more senior to herself. They spoke to her about the need for compassion, or at least, the need for enough politeness to avoid complaints to her superiors. It is conversations like that which changed how she might form that last question.
From, 'Is there anything else?'
to 'Is there anything else I can do?'
Three simple words change the tone. She does not find it to be much hardship, though they fit strangely in her mouth.
[Mrs. Washington] "Don't get Vergie's cousin's boy in trouble." Mrs. Washington appears to have taken the good doctor's question seriously. Her answer is grave and direct. "He thought I was gonna hafta walk all the way home without my pass."
The handbag that had been clutched in front of her is again tucked beneath her arm, then.
"He's a good boy," the woman offers, gravely. She moves gravely, too, as if something has gone wrong somewhere inside her body; as if bits of her were broken; still running, but broken irrevocably. "Better than mine."
With that, Mrs. Washington is headed toward the door. She can, she says, see herself out.
[Dr. Slaughter] "I've already said that I won't," she answers, following Mrs. Washington to the door, ostensibly out of manners.
She can see herself out, she says, and the doctor nods, wishing her a safe trip home in lieu of a goodnight. She remains at the doorway and watches to make sure the older woman gets on the elevator. And though many floors are protected by a keycard, she watches the small lit display of floor numbers and heads back inside only when she sees it reach the ground.
She is still holding the manila envelope, filled with a dead man's writing. She turns it over in her hand before setting it down in the centre of her desk. She will begin to read the contents over the weekend.
But first, she had Vergie's cousin's boy to find.
[Mrs. Washington] TRANSCRIPT!
to Mrs. Washington
"Uh, Dr. Slaughter?" this voice mail is waiting on Imogen's office phone, the little red light blinking, blinking, blinking. " - there's this woman here. She's like, been here for two hours. Joanie told her that she didn't have an appointment and you wouldn't see her without one but she's like, still here. And uhm, I feel bad calling the security guys and I need to go, so she's here. Uhm, but like: it's Friday and I have to go home. Alright? I figure if she doesn't leave before then the night guard will kick her out when he comes through, but I guess I kinda promised her that I'd at least let you know she was here, you know, before I left, so I'm leaving you this voice - "
Click.
There's no more digital room on the message for any more of the receptionist's meandering message. By the time it is over, too - there's a knock at her office door. The knock is soft; not hesitant, but soft somehow.
[Dr. Slaughter] She is in the privacy of her office, her lab coat removed, the weightlessness strange after a day of pockets heavy with pens and other accouterments of her day to day life. Her lab coat is over the back of her chair, her suit jacket hangs from a small coat rack in the corner, propped in the space between the door jamb and the nearest wall, just barely fitting.
Her arms are bare, her skin white against the black of her camisole, against the black of the tattoo that snacks about her bicep, defined beneath her flesh.
She listens to the message, relieved for the silence of the building, for the privacy from the clerks, receptionists, her colleagues, a line tightening along her brow as the reception maunders on in her ear. Her pen is poised over a small message pad - she writes nothing, as Nina leaves her nothing of note.
The message ends, and she listens to the dead air for a moment, the frown deepening without the necessity of habit to suppress it. She shakes her head, leaning forward to replace the phone on its cradle. She is mid-motion when the knock at the door stills her. A fractional pause before she resets the receiver, a soft click as she does.
The light above her is droning softly. The office is small, closely packed with medical texts and journals, file cabinets with drawers which lock. A chair across from her has a box full of file folders, in place of a guest.
She twists in her chair, plucking her lab coat from the back, slipping it on as she calls out: "Come in."
[Mrs. Washington] The door swings open. Her visitor - the receptionist did not mention her name - but her visit is a middle-aged African-American woman. She is more than middle-aged, but she is still somewhere north of 40 and south of 60, with a round, dark-skinned face that remains largely unlined, well tended dark hair, recently curled and set in a tight, rather formal arrangement around her face. She has broad cheeks, a wide mouth, and several chins. Though she is just a handful of inches taller than Imogen, she has at least one hundred pounds, perhaps more, on the Fianna kinswoman, the bulk of her body wrapped in neat, dark clothing that is at least ten years out of date, worn and mended. Her shoes are dark brown, orthopedic loafers, and she walks with a certain restriction to her movement that suggests pain.
Arthritis. Pinched nerves. Neuropathy. Heel spurs. Some underlying malady.
Or grief.
There is a black handbag clutched under her right arm. It is large and heavy and leather. It is fifteen years old and looks it. On second look - on third, Imogen must deduce that the woman is wearing her Sunday Best for this meeting with the official world; the finest clothes she owns, scrubbed and pressed and preserved for these possibilities: for weddings and funerals. For court dates, too. For praising the lord.
"I know that girl done said you was too busy ta see me. I don't mean to be no bother to you." Her regard is direct and steady; not quite unblinking, but there is a certain underlying strength there. She walks slowly; she walks straight. She pulls the bag out from under her arm and holds it in both hands. "You was the one to see to my son. I hope - I'd like - " - and she stands there, looking at Imogen directly and evenly, the bag in her hands.
[Dr. Slaughter] After a moment, the doctor pushes her chair back, getting to her feet, the pooled tails of her lab coat coming free as she rises. She straightens the edges of it around her as she steps around the desk.
She is sleek in black, slacks, camisole, a belt with a steel metal buckle. Her attire is for every day, and yet is doubtlessly of better quality and price than this woman's Sunday best. In contrast, Imogen does not has a Sunday best. She does not attend church; her day to day clothing is as suited for a day at the office, at the court as it is a funeral - at least of the human kind.
She has not come to comfort the older woman, nor yet guide her to a seat, but she does pick up the box of file folders, setting them down, gesturing briefly for her to sit, if she so chooses.
Imogen, for her part, leans against the edge of her desk. "I only got th'message tha' yeh were here to see me, just now," she says, adroitly leaving out that the chances she would have voluntarily subjected herself to a grieving relative on a Friday night were slim.
"I'm sorry fer yer loss Mrs -" she pauses to allow the other the chance to supply the name.
[Mrs. Washington] "Washington. Mrs. Washington," the stranger supplies, nodding her dark head in thanks for the silent offer a chair. It is an offer Mrs. Washington accepts, settling her hips into the visitor's chair in front of Imogen's desk. Still holding her handbag in front of her, in her lap, Mrs. Washington looks not directly at Imogen, but over the kinswoman's shoulder, some point on the opposite wall, or some place in history, some remembered past. Her eyes are moist, but she is not crying; perhaps those are not tears swimming there anyway. Now, given the straight way she sits, the sure solemnity of her broad, round face, it is difficult to imagine the woman ever crying.
"I don't know as you 'member me, doctor," she begins, her dark eyes swinging back to Imogen, then. The kinswoman is leaning against the edge of her desk, taller now than the visiting stranger, the grieving relative come to call after hours, late on a Friday. " - but I 'member you. I was there when you come for my son." She is watching Imogen intently, now, her hands folded over her handbag with enough force to crumple it. "Ving. Irving Washington." The regard is so close and direct that she might be searching Imogen for signs of recognition. Oh, yeah. I remember that one. Except that she isn't; there's no expectatation written into the soft planes of her round face, just that reserve. "I 'spect you see alot of dead men, what you do. Him, you said he didn't kill himself."
[Dr. Slaughter] There is a brief pause, and though there had been no spark of recognition - merely a reserve to match Mrs. Washington's own, Imogen nods.
"I remember him," she says, honestly, though without the file, the truth is, she recalls it only vaguely. The memory is distinct, not in particular for the dead man, but for the police officer, his quotas and his request.
The overdose, it comes back to her. A man released from jail - or maybe that had been another victim. His mother had their pastor with them.
A tension works its way between her eyebrows, as she remembers something else as well.
"Mrs. Washington," she says carefully, "If you have questions about your son, I will be more than happy t'answer them for you, but first, I do need to ask, who let yeh back here?"
[Mrs. Washington] "One'a them assistants of yours is my sister-in-law Vergie's cousin's boy. I've been knowin' him ever since he was twelve years old. Told him I left my bus pass after I come down with my neighbor to identify her daughter." Mrs. Washington offers this explanation evenly, directly, her chin lifted to look directly back at the physician. "Are you gon' git him in trouble over it?"
[Dr. Slaughter] She studies the other intently while she speaks. She seeks a 'tell', a symptom of a lie, a cover-up. If she finds none, Dr. Slaughter slowly shakes her head.
"No," she says. 'In trouble' is relative. One can be sure that the good doctor will be speaking to Vergie's cousin's boy (whoever that is, she reflects) before the night was out. Still, he wouldn't lose his job.
"What can I do for you?"
[Mrs. Washington] There is a certain grace to the older woman's face as she watches this; it is a grace often overlooked, less physical than spiritual; less spiritual than - there are no tells on the woman's face; no signs of a lie. She talked her way into the place by lying to a boy who has a job, a good job with the city, a job that has no opportunity for advancement, no joy in it, no personal rewards, wheeling the dead from room to room, stinking of formaldehyde and paper-dry tissues, the cheap sort that leave behind a sense of wood-pulp scoured against the sky. A good job, though: with regular hours, paychecks every two weeks, some regularity, the possibility that one might move out of the high-rises into a regular apartment, two bedrooms; rent you pay yourself, with the money the city deposits into your account every week. She talked her way into the place by lying to him; endangering his job.
Then, Mrs. Washington looks away; back at the wall, holding herself back. She's quiet, nodding to herself.
"You know that cop wanted you to say he killed himself." Mrs. Washington says, evenly. " - but you didn't. I know they got 'tistics they gotta worry about. I want to know why."
She's sorry for it, too. That lingers on the surface of her face, that sorrow.
[Dr. Slaughter] She pauses before answering.
"Why he has statistics," she says, quietly, "or why I wouldn't do as he wanted?"
[Mrs. Washington] The woman's dark brown eyes flicker back to Imogen as she considers the question; as she pauses. The space is silent; there is a smell. It is not one that Mrs. Washington notices.
"That second one, is what I want to know."
[Dr. Slaughter] Her brow contracts slightly, the merest beginnings of a frown.
The pat answer comes easily to mind. Words like duty, honour, truth. Something compassionate, something to soothe an older woman's mind that there is still good in the world, even with her son gone.
The real truth is less pretty than that. There was honour there, yes, but pragmatism more. Imogen lies and falsifies data too often to do it on a whim.
She lifts a hand, pushing back a few stray strands of bright flaming hair. "I was there to find out why your son died, Mrs. Washington. Not to help some young man with his statistics."
[Mrs. Washington] "They ain't never found who done it." The woman says, and she is silent then, nodding her head. Looking away from Imogen again, her dark eyes tracking around the office as if it were a new thing. She sees the furnishings differently than Imogen, does. She sees what there is to clean; how far the trash can is from the door. How many shelves need to be dusted every week.
She sees the world through the shadow of her work, which is a weary shadow, and long. Her grief is subsumed, an undercurrent. She wears it beneath her skin, she wears it like she wears her clothes, old and worn. This is an old grief, too. It is deeper than one death; it is broader than one corpse in a lonely hotel room. It is darker than one not-suicide rescued from the oblivion of a lie into the oblivion of truth. "What I want to know is: is that a different kind of 'tistics to you, that why he died?
[Dr. Slaughter] There is a small, narrow window in her office, tucked between bookshelves and filing cabinets. It is cracked open, allowing in a small measure of a night breeze. It has also let in the smell and sound of rain, the whisper of tires, one storey below. Now it lets in a slice of light as lightning flashes in the sky. The resulting rumble of lightning.
Her head turns slightly to glance toward the window, her gaze flicking to the sill. A portion of thought separates to consider - should she shut it or not. She decides not, and turns her attention back.
To an old woman who wears grief like it were her connective tissue.
"I am aware that what I do is not a statistic for the people for whom it matters," she says finally, carefully.
[Mrs. Washington] Mrs. Washington looks up. There is no thunder in her eyes, but there is a kind of keenness when she casts that rising, upward glance. The suggestion of the storm outside does not draw her attention away. She ignores it steadily, as she ignores so many things in and of and about her life.
"I figured on him dying alot sooner than he done. When he was runnin' with them Disciples. Or when he was out of prison; when he was hooked on them drugs. I figure," Mrs. Washington continues, figuring. She is considering the shape of the life that was once in her body; that changed when it left her body, becoming frayed, full of broken threads, in such predictable ways. " - he should've died sooner than he done. Lucky he got clean. Got the chance to know Jesus."
It doesn't sound like much comfort. She doesn't say it like it was much comfort; she just offers that thought as a fact.
"Ving," she continues, " - my Ving'd been writing for the City Paper." The one homeless men and women hand out on streetcorners, demanding a dollar from everyone who takes one. The one funded by classifieds for escorts and massage parlors and psychic hotlines. She opens her purse, reaching into its cavernous depths. Pulls out a battered manila envelop, folded and refolded. "I got this in the mail after he died. He mailed it two days before. Notes for them stories he was writing.
"That detective, he wasn't interested. I don't have no one else to give them to."
[Dr. Slaughter] The keen gaze is met with a steady, unflinching one of her own.
A better person might have lied. Of course it hadn't been a statistic. Every death has meaning. A better person might have said it, and meant it.
She straightens from the desk to lean forward, taking the manila envelope between her fingers. "Was it normal for your son to mail you his notes for his stories?" she enquires, feeling the weight of the envelope as she draws it back to herself.
[Mrs. Washington] There is a minute movement of her head. "No, ma'am," the woman allows. She places her hands down on the arms of the visitor's chair and levers herself up from it, out of it. "Sometimes he mailed me the stories, sometimes when he was writing, before he submitted them he'd mail it to me. Say, momma, I am mailing this to you, don't you open it. That's my copywrite. But I never opened them. That one come after he died, so I opened it.
"If you is gonna throw that away, I'd 'preciate it if you'd give it back to me afore I go."
[Dr. Slaughter] She shakes her head slightly, "No, I won't throw it out," she says. "But I would like to take a look at it.
"How would you like me to contact you to return them?"
[Mrs. Washington] There is a moment of surprise, a certain contraction in the woman's face; the leap of nerve endings alive to pain.
"I would appreciate it if you mailed it," says Mrs. Washington, watching Imogen steadily. " - my address is on the front of that envelope there. Hard for me to git down here, since they stopped runnin' the cross-town."
[Dr. Slaughter] Dr. Slaughter nods. "I can do that," she answers, simply.
"Is there anything else I can do for you?"
Early in her career, more than once, Imogen had conversations with various forensic pathologists more senior to herself. They spoke to her about the need for compassion, or at least, the need for enough politeness to avoid complaints to her superiors. It is conversations like that which changed how she might form that last question.
From, 'Is there anything else?'
to 'Is there anything else I can do?'
Three simple words change the tone. She does not find it to be much hardship, though they fit strangely in her mouth.
[Mrs. Washington] "Don't get Vergie's cousin's boy in trouble." Mrs. Washington appears to have taken the good doctor's question seriously. Her answer is grave and direct. "He thought I was gonna hafta walk all the way home without my pass."
The handbag that had been clutched in front of her is again tucked beneath her arm, then.
"He's a good boy," the woman offers, gravely. She moves gravely, too, as if something has gone wrong somewhere inside her body; as if bits of her were broken; still running, but broken irrevocably. "Better than mine."
With that, Mrs. Washington is headed toward the door. She can, she says, see herself out.
[Dr. Slaughter] "I've already said that I won't," she answers, following Mrs. Washington to the door, ostensibly out of manners.
She can see herself out, she says, and the doctor nods, wishing her a safe trip home in lieu of a goodnight. She remains at the doorway and watches to make sure the older woman gets on the elevator. And though many floors are protected by a keycard, she watches the small lit display of floor numbers and heads back inside only when she sees it reach the ground.
She is still holding the manila envelope, filled with a dead man's writing. She turns it over in her hand before setting it down in the centre of her desk. She will begin to read the contents over the weekend.
But first, she had Vergie's cousin's boy to find.
[Mrs. Washington] TRANSCRIPT!
to Mrs. Washington
