What bothered her most, she decided, was the completely still way Mr. Kelly lay. A human being not moving at all. She shuddered. That stillness made the mystery of life all the more astonishing and precious.
I heard a voice from Heaven saying ashes to ashes, dust to dust, sure and certain I hope for Resurrection, and the sea shall give up...
The words coming fast now. She pictured her father, laid out by the talented siblings of Charles & Sons in Shaker Heights. Five years before. Rune had a vivid recollection of the man, lying in the satiny upholstery. But that day her father had been a stranger--a caricature of the human being he'd been when alive. With the makeup, the new suit, the smoothed hair, there was something slick and phony about him. He didn't even seem dead: he just seemed odd.
There was something far more real about Mr. Kelly. He wasn't a sculpture, he wasn't unreal at all. And death was staring right back at her. She felt the room tilting and had to concentrate on breathing. The tears tickled her cheeks with a painful irritation.
The Lord be with you and with thy spirit blessed be the name of the Lord....
One of the men near the body noticed her. A short man in a suit, mustachioed. Trimmed black hair flowing away from his center part, held close to his head with spray. His eyes were close together and that made Rune think he was stupid.
"You're one of the witnesses? You're the one called nine one one?"
She nodded.
The man noticed where her eyes were aimed. He stepped between her and Mr. Kelly's body.
"I'm Detective Manelli. You know the deceased?"
"What happened?" Her mouth was dry and the words vanished in her throat. She repeated the question.
The detective, watching her face, probably trying to figure out where she fit on the spectrum of relationships, said, "That's what we're trying to find out. Did you know him?"
She nodded. She couldn't see the body; her eyes fell to a small metal suitcase stenciled with the words CRIME SCENE UNIT. They fixed on the case, wouldn't let go.
"The tape. I was supposed to pick up the tape. For my job."
"Tape? What tape?"
She pointed to a plastic bag with blue letters, WSV, printed on it. "That's my store. He rented a movie yesterday. I was supposed to pick it up."
"You have some ID?"
She handed Manelli her real driver's license and her employee discount card. He jotted down some information. "You have a New York address?"
She gave it to him. This he wrote down too. Handed back the cards. He didn't seem to think she was involved. Maybe in his line of work you got a feel for who was a real killer.
In a soft voice Rune said, "I was the one who rented the tape to him. It was me. Yesterday." She whispered manically, "I just saw him yesterday. I ... He was fine then. I talked to him just a few minutes ago."
"You talked to him?"
"I just called on the intercom."
; "You're sure it was him?" the detective asked.
She felt a thud in her chest. Recalling that the voice sounded different. Maybe it was the killer she'd talked to. Her legs went weak. "No, I'm not."
"Did you recognize the voice?"
"No. But ... it didn't sound like Mr. Kelly. I didn't think anything about it. I don't know--I thought maybe I woke him up or something."
"The voice? Young, old, black, Hispanic?"
She shook her head. "I don't know. I couldn't tell."
"You were outside? Did you see anything?"