I blinked, futilely attempting to block a sudden headache. Frustration pulsed through me in tiny waves. I was frustrated that I had only the vaguest idea of what an antigen was. That I had no idea what a good level of it would be. I knew by heart a long list of physical constants. The fine-structure constant of spectroscopy, 1/137. The main transition line of a helium-neon laser, 6328 Angstroms. The ratio of proton mass to electron mass, 1836. But I didn’t know what quantity of blood protein made the difference between life and death for the man I loved.
Matt seemed to be reading my face. He was the one needing a biopsy. He was the one who had watched his wife of ten years die. He shouldn’t have to worry about me, I thought.
“Look,” he said, showing me the paper he’d received from Dr. Abeles. “See how INCONCLUSIVE is checked off?” The page looked like an inventory sheet, or a to-do list. Not an official medical report. “It could just be an enlargement of the gland, not cancerous.”
Cancer. He’d put the word out there. I hated hearing “cancer,” or any form of the word. It was better whispered, or referenced indirectly. Like in the old days. When my Uncle Mike got cancer, my mother said, “Mike has …” She left the word unspoken, tilting her head and rolling her eyes up and to the side. Reluctance to utter language she thought vulgar? A prayer to God? Submission to fate?
I felt pain in my shoulders, my arms, my jaw. “Inconclusive” was not an encouraging word, not a much better word than “cancer.” “Inconclusive” was a term reserved for data of the kind I’d dealt with in my physics career. It meant the curve didn’t follow the path of a known equation, or that some outlying points precluded a smoothing algorithm. In a medical report, I wanted yes or no. No, actually. No foreign body. No unhealthy cells. No cancer.
I tried not to show Matt the depth of my panic. “So when is the next test?” A simple question.
“I haven’t scheduled it yet. I didn’t have my calendar with me.”
“Your calendar? What could be more important that you wouldn’t schedule it immediately? It’s a biopsy, right? How long can that take?” I heard my voice rise in pitch, if not in volume. My hands were folded on my lap, my knuckles white.
Matt pulled me to him. “Don’t worry. I almost didn’t tell you, since there’s nothing—”
“Conclusive.” I finished for him. I leaned against his chest, tense, listening to his heart. He was right, I told myself. It could be nothing. Like MC’s alleged stalking.
When the phone rang, I hoped it was good news. Not likely at midnight, however, I thought.
But it was, at least, definite.
“It’s Berger,” Matt said, covering the speaker with his hand as he listened to his partner. “There’s a nine-twenty-one at the Galigani Mortuary.”
I mentally reviewed my code list, and gasped. MC had called in a prowler.
“Everything’s okay,” Matt said, when he hung up. “Uniforms were already arriving for canvas, so they picked up the guy and they have him at the station.”
I grabbed my purse from the hallway table.
Matt gave me a slight teasing smile. “I suppose you want to go down there with me.”
“You drive,” I said.
CHAPTER THREE
The Revere Police Department was one of the beautiful, old, redbrick buildings in the City Hall complex. It belonged to a different century than that of its modern vehicles—a fleet of shiny, white motorcycles, sedans, vans, and new SUVs, all with red, white, and blue lettering—lined up in the parking lot and along Pleasant Street. Beautiful as this nearly hundred-year-old building was, a plea for a new facility was in the local news at least once a month, and the avowed priority of past and present city officials.
Matt and I passed through the blue foyer and into the main hallway. The photos that lined the wall were as familiar to me as Matt’s stories—Harry, one of the revered horses from the pre–motor vehicle days; young policemen shot in the line of duty; groups of officers in the old uniforms with high helmets like those in English hunting scenes.
Halfway down, where the burnt coffee smell was strongest, George Berger greeted us. Berger was Matt’s junior by about twenty years, but his slow, lumbering gait made him seem older.
“I knew you’d come, too, Gloria,” he said, pulling a photo out of his wallet. Little Cynthia Berger’s deep brown eyes peered at me, her pudgy body and curly dark hair framed by a playroom scene, clearly a backdrop in a mall photo studio. She held a Teddy bear in a choke hold; a giant gold lion lay at her feet. It always amused me when parents gave their children cuddly representations of creatures that would maul them if real.