the others along that stretch of Bathurst Street, looked quite respectable for forty or fifty years old, the exterior in good repair. She sat in the car a moment, restrained by the thought of the surprised Greta Garbo face when she opened the door.
“Is it really Wednesday already?” Mrs. Kochinsky might say. “I lost track of time.”
Maybe she was out on the town with her cousin from the States. Had he been the one who’d sent the photo Mrs. Kochinsky had flashed before Rebecca’s face? Apparently she’d only met him once, when he was a boy in Poland. They had exchanged some letters when she lived in Argentina but they had lost touch. Then the sudden phone call. Maybe he’d arrived, and in all the excitement of catching up, she’d forgotten what day it was. It happened. If that was the case Rebecca would admonish her gently and go away relieved. But she had to check and make sure her patient was all right.
Carrying her black medical bag, she climbed the steps to the wooden front door. She lifted the brass lion’s head knocker and clanged it twice. There was no sound of stirring from inside, no one preparing to open the door. She turned the knob and was surprised to find it moved easily. As soon as she opened the door, her heart reeled. Inside the small vestibule, the door to Mrs. Kochinsky’s apartment stood ajar. The glass panel, still covered by a sheer curtain, had been smashed, leaving a jagged hole. She pushed the door open and called out, “Mrs. Kochinsky?”
The place had been ransacked. She ought to leave to call the police rather than risk meeting the intruder face to face. She stood very still on the threshold, listening. The silence hung in the air. Only the desultory hum of tires on Bathurst Street and her own ragged breath interrupted the quiet. How could she leave without checking her patient?
“Mrs. Kochinsky? It’s Dr. Temple.” Nothing.
From the dimness of the entrance hall she could see coffee tables on their sides, ornamental cushions, vases, framed photos scattered on the floor. The kitchen lay straight ahead at the end of the hall; to the left, the living- and dining-room. Stepping over the shards on the floor, she moved forward, then stopped.
The muscles in her neck suddenly tightened. Adrenaline leaped through her chest. Mrs. Kochinsky lay crumpled, near the fireplace, like a pile of cast-off clothes.
Rebecca ran around an upturned chair to reach her, called out her name for a response. There was none. She kneeled down, her heart pounded against her ribcage. The woman’s face had turned a dark congested purple. Her eyes bulged. A line had been burned across her neck, tell-tale contusions and abrasions left by a ligature. A rope, a cord, something solid wielded by someone strong. Rebecca placed her fingers flat against the woman’s carotid artery. The neck and jaw were slack, the skin clammy. She shuddered at the unnatural angle of the lifeless head. The bastard had pulled so tight he had broken her neck. Crushed her like a bird. Rebecca closed her eyes and suddenly there was Mrs. Kochinsky, terrified in her office yesterday. Yesterday. A quiet panic took hold of Rebecca. The woman had run to her for help. Mrs. Kochinsky had trusted her. Rebecca could almost hear her: I know you care, that’s why I keep coming, I put myself in your hands. She looked down at her hands. She was responsible. And what had she done? Soothed her with words. Bathed her with platitudes while blinded by her own diagnosis of paranoia. No. Mrs. Kochinsky was paranoid. Wasn’t she? All those times men had chased her across her nightmares, all those times Rebecca thought her patient was viewing things through her own distorted lens, perhaps it had been Rebecca misinterpreting, denying. Perhaps Mrs. Kochinsky had seen exactly what was there. Rebecca could hardly fathom it. She had been convinced of her patient’s paranoia. And yet the woman was lying dead at Rebecca’s feet.
She stood up wavering, numb with an old pain. Her last memory of David’s face flashed by, white against the white sheet, his mouth loosened at the jaw, foreign, his body empty of him, the emptiness taking her over. She felt it wring her heart the same way, the old squeezing inside her chest. Surprising how much she cared for the old woman. How the bond between them had grown stronger when David died, each understanding the grief of the other. And she needed Rebecca so much; she said Rebecca helped her stay alive one week to the next. Then why was she dead? Why was she lying there in her pyjamas, fallen awkwardly on her side, arm beneath her back? Stay calm, thought Rebecca. Look carefully. Piece it together. There must have been a struggle. Rigor mortis still clamped part of the body tight but had released the small muscles. Mrs. Kochinsky had been dead all day, maybe all night. She seemed much smaller now than when she was alive.
A pale light filtered through the brocade curtains of the front window, creating murky twilight an hour early. Rebecca realized the chandelier in the diningroom was on. Last night. He’d come last night. But who? She glanced around the littered apartment. Could she be sure it wasn’t exactly what it appeared? Why couldn’t it have been a burglar? Maybe instead of the Argentine death squad Mrs. Kochinsky anticipated every day of her life, it had been a thief caught in the act who had played out her worst nightmare. Was it impossible that she had fled persecution on two continents only to find meaningless death on the third? Yet would a thief come here? The woman was not rich. If they were looking for saleable goods, any of the houses on the winding, genteel streets off Bathurst would have yielded more.
Hovering at the edge of the living-room, Rebecca realized the side door to the apartment was open. It led to a short hall and the back staircases, one upper, one leading to the basement, then the door to the outside. This must have been the way the killer got out. He would have ended up in the laneway at the side of the house. No problem escaping unseen.
On her way to the phone in the kitchen, Rebecca passed the bedroom: everything Mrs. Kochinksy owned lay scattered on the bed and floor — cosmetics, clothes, shoes. On the dresser her leather purse resembled a dead animal, its insides pulled out. The wallet sat open, presumably empty. A robbery? A good imitation?
Rebecca stood on the threshold of the kitchen, looking for the phone. The receiver hung from the wall. Mrs. Kochinsky must have run in here, trying to call for help. The killer had torn the cord out of the wall. Then he chased her into the living-room. Trying to piece it together was giving Rebecca the creeps. He may have been gone, but the aura of his presence was strong; an evil cloud filled the apartment, it smelled of him.
Rebecca didn’t want to disturb any evidence. Turning left, she stepped through the dining-room and continued into the den. Through the windows, the small backyard and garage were fading into the dim evening. The room itself seemed untouched. She found a desk in the corner. On it a phone sat beside a chocolate box filled with bills and receipts. Some papers lay to one side. The detritus of daily life. Garbage now that the inhabitant was dead. How much correspondence with art supply houses and galleries had she thrown out when David had died. All his notebooks. Wipe the slate clean. Start afresh. The clichés sounded right, but they didn’t work. Envelopes for David Adler still arrived with regularity at the house. Each time she dropped one in the garbage she saw his face white against the sheet.
Using a tissue from her pocket, she draped the receiver before lifting it and dialed 911. This line had not been disconnected. The dispatcher said that police and ambulance were on their way. Rebecca wondered how quickly they would arrive, considering there was no medical emergency. While she was relaying the information, her eyes fell on the papers near the phone. On top was a card printed in Spanish outlined with a black border. She used her high school Spanish to decipher the announcement of the death of Carlos Velasco, son of Isabella, to be buried in Tablada Cemetery, Buenos Aires, in February 1977. What was this doing in a pile of current mail?
The past few years had not been good to Mrs. Kochinsky. First her husband died, then during the vulnerability of her widowhood, the regime pursued her into the torture chamber in order to catch the son who produced plodding but graphic song lyrics about bloodthirsty generals and death squads in uniform. The death of Carlos Velasco may have been history, but the card had just been received. Why else was it keeping company with Mrs. Kochinsky’s latest hydro
