Blood on the Tracks Read Online Free PDF Page B

sky was washed lead. A jet stitched a line down the middle.
    Nik cleared his throat. “I figured the railroad would be downsizing.”
    “What? Oh. Nik, it’s not your job. We all have our jobs. Our jobs are fine.”
    His hands went still, wrapped around his coffee mug. “Tell me.”
    My courage failed. I opened my mouth. Closed it.
    “Sydney Rose.” His voice held a warning.
    “It’s Elise.”
    “She hurt?”
    “Worse.”
    “An accident?”
    “Homicide called me.”
    He made a small noise that seemed to originate in his chest and swell through his throat. His eyelids lowered slowly over the blue irises and lifted just as slowly. As if he were moving from the first act of his life to whatever might lie beyond.
    “Wait,” he said.
    He got up, opened the cupboard over the refrigerator, and pulled out a bottle of Johnnie Walker. He poured a generous amount into his half-empty coffee cup. When he raised the bottle again, I hesitated only a moment before pushing my cup toward him.
    He poured almost as much in mine.
    We drank in silence for a few minutes, the whiskey lighting a welcome fire I’d managed to avoid for two weeks now.
    Do you drink more than one alcoholic beverage a day? the VA questionnaire asked.
    On my good days.
    Do you take street drugs or abuse prescription meds?
    Not as often as I should.
    “Where is Ellen Ann?” I asked.
    “With her sister. Spent the night. They do a sleepover the last Friday of every month, like they were still girls. Watch movies, eat popcorn.” He drained his cup and poured more whiskey in, not bothering with the coffee. When he moved to pour more for me, I waved him away.
    He set the bottle down and rubbed his hand hard over his face. “I’ve been worried about Elise. Letting all those tramps into her home. Welcoming them like they were good men who just needed a taste of God to set them straight. I told her. Goddammit, I told her.”
    He sank his face into his hands.
    I knew better than to touch him. I waited him out while he gathered himself into that tight, controlled place where he spent so much of his life. I waited and listened to the clock until I thought its steady tick would drive me mad.
    Finally he looked up.
    “What happened to her? Tell me everything.”
    I told him. Some of it. About Cohen’s phone call and going to Elise’s and the hobo sign scrawled on her wall. But not all of it. He didn’t need to know what some madman had done to his girl.
    When I finished, he stood and cleared our coffee cups, rinsing them before setting them in the sink. He cranked the window open a couple of inches to let in some air, then stood for a long time, gripping the edge of the counter and staring out the glass.
    “I am so sorry, Nik.”
    “You let them move her?”
    “The medical examiner was ready.” Nik said nothing, and I got defensive. “Wasn’t my call.”
    “So you didn’t think to pick up the phone and say, ‘Nik, get your ass down here right now’ and give me the chance to see her?” His voice cracked. “Didn’t give me the chance to know exactly what was done to her, what she suffered?”
    “It’s not how you want to remember her.”
    He slammed the sideboard. “Damn it, Sydney Rose, she’s family . It isn’t about what I want. It’s about what she deserves. We do for each other.”
    I flashed to what Detective Cohen had said before he took me in to see Elise. How patronizing I’d found him and how angry his words had made me, even though I now realized his intentions were good. “I should have called.”
    He gave me his back a few minutes longer. When he finally turned around, he was calm.
    “Who’s working it?”
    “Mike Cohen. And his partner, I assume.”
    “Cohen the guy you worked that jumper with?”
    “Yes.”
    “What are your thoughts on him?”
    He’s haunted, I wanted to say. Tired. “Decent sort. Works hard. Seems sincere enough.”
    “ Sincere . What I mean, Sydney Rose, is what kind of cop is he? What’s his record?