Notes on an Execution(38)

As she dialed, Saffy noted the tremble of her own fingers, the jump of excitement ballooning in her throat.

“Hello?”

A woman’s voice. Saffy could hear water running in the background.

“Am I speaking with Jenny Fisk?”

“Who is this?”

“Saffron Singh, New York State Police. Do you have a moment to talk? I’d like to ask you a few questions.”

“Sorry, what—?”

“I’m looking for a man named Ansel Packer.”

A stuttering pause, frozen. In the background, Saffy could hear the murmur of a television, heavy footsteps.

“What—what is this about? I’m sorry, I—I can’t talk now.”

“Is there a better time?”

“I mean—well, I’ll be at the hospital tomorrow. Northeast Regional, around noon.”

And Jenny hung up. As the empty station pulsed around her, Saffy remembered how it felt to snort lines of energy straight into her bloodstream. This was something more. This was irresistible.

*

The emergency room lights glowed neon. When Saffy flashed her badge, the girl behind the reception desk fluttered.

“Jenny Fisk?” Eyes wide. “I’ll get her. You can have a seat if you want.”

Saffy settled into one of the scratchy chairs. She’d gone home the night before, pulled on a pair of pajama pants, and lain atop her neatly made bed until the clock proved it was almost morning. As Saffy drove around Lake Champlain and into Vermont, she’d chugged cold coffee from a Styrofoam cup and tried to talk herself down. It was the same feeling that led her to the Hunter boy, only magnified now, a nagging sense of dread. Fever, or some twisted version of memory. Moretti’s orders had been firm: drop everything and focus on the captain’s suspect, until he’d been arrested or cleared. Saffy had not answered her pager all morning. Moretti would be furious. But as she sat in the waiting room three hours east of the Plattsburgh police station, Saffy felt crazed, electric.

The ER was hushed, slow on a Friday, the smell of sterile chemicals lingering. The beeper on Saffy’s belt buzzed twice, three times. She silenced it without looking.

“Hi.”

A woman in pink scrubs stood, hesitant, at the entrance to the surgical wing. Jenny Fisk had freckled arms and long hair parted in the middle, pulled from her face with two butterfly clips. Mid-twenties, Saffy guessed. She recognized Jenny’s type on instinct: high school pretty. She would have been popular the way Kristen was, all easy lines and midriff. Her face was a symmetrical, unremarkable lovely.

“Hello.” Saffy stretched out a firm hand. “Thank you so much for agreeing to talk. Do you mind stepping outside?”

It happened when Jenny reached for the handshake. The shock of recognition, flooding—a shimmer, winking, from Jenny’s thin finger.

The flash of amethyst, unmistakable.

Lila’s ring.

It was a specific feeling, a case breaking open. A heady rush, like water surging through a dam, or ripe fruit splitting juicy down the middle.

But as Saffy took Jenny’s hand, dizzy, stunned, the sensation was different. There was no ecstatic swell. Only a burst of memory: Lila’s chapped lips, how they’d suckled that purple gem. Gross, Kristen had whined, as slobber coated Lila’s fingers. Why do you put it in your mouth like that? Lila had only shrugged, her hair constant in its tangle. It tastes good, she’d said, like that was a reason. Lila’s smile, gap-toothed and dreamy. Lila’s skinny finger, loose beneath the brass.

“What’s all this about?”

Jenny leaned against the brick wall outside the ER, purple ring glinting. Saffy had quit smoking when she quit everything else, but she took the cigarette when Jenny offered it, if only to hide the quiver of her hands. Jenny hadn’t brought a jacket, and goose bumps formed on her bare arms, frigid in the autumn chill. Saffy felt a celestial sense of knowing, a cosmic certainty. She wanted to cry.

“I’m looking for someone you used to date. Ansel Packer.”

Jenny leaned in with the lighter, tightening alert. She blew a cloud of smoke from the corner of her mouth. “What do you want with him?”

“You know where he is?”

Jenny squinted, assessing. She lifted her hand, a gesture to the ring.

“You’re—married?” Saffy stammered.

“Engaged.”

A wide, angry lump formed in Saffy’s throat. Her own incompetence, like a sudden choke hold; she had not imagined, had not even considered, an outcome like this. Those footsteps, echoing last night through the phone.

“You’re still—” Saffy spluttered. “I’m sorry. That ring. Ansel gave it to you?”

Jenny’s thumb caressed the gem. “Why does that matter?”

“It matters. We’re looking into an old case.”

“You don’t look like a detective.”

Saffy didn’t feel like a detective either. An abrupt nakedness overwhelmed her, like Jenny had seen something private.

“What did he do?” Jenny asked. She heaved a long sigh, laced with precarity. “Something bad?”

And there it was. The very thing Saffy had come for. She wished she could bottle up this moment, save it for later, use it as proof. The slant of Jenny’s gaze. The shiver of her lip. Jenny was not surprised by this question. It was how she said those words: something bad. Jenny had been waiting.