Page 9 of Code 6

It was an hour-long Uber ride from Kate’s apartment in DuPont Circle to the historic town of Manassas, site of the medical examiner’s office for northern Virginia.

Kate’s first visit to Manassas had been at age eleven. She’d told her parents she was ready to do a summer sleep-away camp for young theater actors. Her mother cried, but her father was so proud of his “big girl” that he’d immediately plopped down deposits on programs at Lincoln Center in New York, Steppenwolf in Chicago, and even the West End in London. On her own, Kate had found the Manassas ARTfactory—perfect not only because the old building was once a candy factory, but also because it was just thirty minutes from home.

Kate stopped her car on Battle Street, where her parents had dropped her off, and the memories flooded back.

“If you change your mind and want to come home, honey, it’s okay,” her mother had said, to which her father had a predictable and firm response:

“She’s staying.”

Kate cut the trip down memory lane short and arrived only a few minutes late for her 2:00 p.m. appointment. The medical examiner’s assistant led her down the hallway to the autopsy room.

“Are you ready, Ms. Gamble?” he asked.

“I think so.”

The door opened, and Kate followed the assistant inside. Torrents of icy air gushed from the air-conditioning vents in the ceiling. Bright lights glistened off the white sterile walls and buffed tile floors. Kate said nothing as they continued across the room to the mound beneatha white sheet on a stainless-steel table. The assistant reached for the upper-right corner of the sheet, near a dissection table upon which the medical examiner’s scalpel and other instruments were neatly arranged.

“I’m not here to rush you,” he said, holding the sheet by the corner. “You tell me when.”

“I only want to see her hand,” said Kate.

The assistant nodded, as if to say,Good decision.

“The right hand is fractured, so—”

“The left is fine,” said Kate.

He peeled back the sheet a few inches. Kate stared down at the familiar hand that had once held hers. She didn’t gasp and collapse to her knees, the way television melodramas invariably portrayed the reaction of the next of kin. It was all a bit numbing.

“Where’s her jewelry?” asked Kate. “Her engagement ring and wedding band?”

“Everything is secured in a locker until after the autopsy. Your father advised that someone from his security detail will pick it up.”

Kate wondered what jewelry they would recover. Had she leapt to her death wearing her wedding ring? The Tiffany necklace Kate liked to borrow? Her favorite earrings? How does one decide such things?

Kate laid her hand atop her mother’s. It was cool to the touch. Holding it there, even for a minute or more, didn’t warm it. Nor did the chill of this final, brief physical connection even begin to answer the most basic of questions her mother had left unanswered.

Why?

Kate opened her purse, removed a bottle of nail polish, and unscrewed the top.

“What are you doing?” asked the assistant.

“When I was a little girl, my mother would let me paint her nails. It was our thing. I wanted to do that for her today.”

The assistant looked pained. “I don’t mean to be insensitive, but you can’t do that until after the autopsy. It’s scheduled for later this afternoon.”

Kate had observed an autopsy as part of her Law and Forensic Science practicum. She glanced at the cold, stainless-steel scale, where the medical examiner would weigh the brain, kidneys, heart, liver, and other organs upon removal; and then her gaze drifted toward the dissection table, where the scalpel would do its work. The procedure would be done with proper respect, she was certain, but the battered body was already in poor condition. An autopsy would leave only a hollowed-out husk.

“I don’t think I want to come back after the autopsy,” said Kate.

“I wish I could bend the rules. But I can’t.”

Kate felt cheated at first, then thought maybe the assistant was doing her a favor by keeping this short. She put the bottle of nail polish away. “I understand.”

Kate rested her hand atop her mother’s for a moment longer and said goodbye.

The assistant led her back to the lobby. “Do you have any questions I can answer for you?”

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