No Way Back(Jack McNeal #1)(11)

An SUV picked them up at Reagan. McNeal sat in the back with one of the Secret Service guys. “You’ve found her, haven’t you?”

Finks sat up front, leafing through papers, clearing his throat.

“I need to know. Have you found her? Is that why we flew down here?”

Finks turned around. “We’re on our way to the hospital, Jack.”

McNeal knew what that meant. He swallowed back bile as they headed into the city. He began to steel himself. As a cop he’d seen more dead bodies than most. But being up close to a corpse, the smell of death in one’s nostrils, erodes something within a person: The compassion. The humanity.

He withdrew, more adrift. Alone. A reminder of his own mortality. Maybe a reminder of the past.

He closed his eyes. Mile after mile, getting closer to seeing his wife. The only woman he had ever loved. He wished he had been there for her. How had it come to this? Maybe he should have worked harder on their relationship. Maybe he should have taken her up on her offer to visit DC. He didn’t know why he hadn’t. Maybe he was just like his father—a stubborn, grouchy old man. A man who nursed regrets and grievances, real or imagined. A working-class cop who returned each night to the warmth of a family home. His mother had sacrificed her career as a nurse to look after her husband, her family, and the house. Money was always tight. But they had each other. The family unit always came first.

McNeal’s mind raced through all these irrational, pointless factors as he passed a sign for the hospital. He had made similar trips as a detective with other people’s wives and husbands to the morgue. He always remembered the deathly silence of the journey.

The SUV pulled up at the hospital’s underground parking garage.

“This is us, Jack.” Finks snapped McNeal out of his morbid thoughts.

McNeal got out of the vehicle and followed Finks and two Secret Service agents, taking the elevator down to the basement, through a door marked Medical Examiner.

McNeal had been in dozens of such facilities over the years. It was always the same. A mixture of dread and sadness. His stomach clenched as he was ushered down a corridor that smelled of bleach. He was shown to a viewing area. Through the glass, a gurney with a sheet over it, a body underneath. No! Tell me no.

Finks ordered, “Pull back the cover to just under the chin.”

The technician on the other side of the glass drew back the sheet.

McNeal stared at his wife’s gray face. Her dirty, mousy-brown hair had fragments of leaves embedded in the strands. Her eyes were shut. Her mouth turned down.

“Can you identify this person, Jack?” Finks asked.

McNeal tried to gather his thoughts. He pressed his face to the glass.

“Jack?”

He felt his throat tighten. He pressed his hand to the glass. He didn’t know why. He wanted to touch her. “It’s my wife, Caroline McNeal.”

“I’m so sorry.”

McNeal could not look at anything else but her lifeless body. He sensed he was about to break down. Being in the morgue triggered powerful memories. His mind flashed to images of his dead son. He felt as if his heart had been ripped out at its roots. A terrible emptiness opened up within him. He wanted to tell her all the things he hadn’t over the years. How much he loved her. How much he needed her. How much he admired her. But it wasn’t in his nature. Now it was too late. “How did she die?”

“I’m not prepared to answer that.”

Tears clouded his vision, spilling down his face. “How did my wife die?”

Finks sighed. “She was found floating in the Potomac. I’m so sorry.”

Jack McNeal stared at his dead wife. He felt light-headed. Time seemed to stop. Even until the last moment, when the cover was lifted back off of her face, he clung to hope. He prayed it was someone else. A big mistake. But as he stared at her lifeless body, her twisted neck, her beautiful face like gray wax, he felt his body go into shock.

He didn’t want to believe it was her. He struggled to comprehend that she was really gone from his life—this time for good. He felt dislocation, as if it was happening to someone else.

McNeal pressed his forehead against the glass. He closed his eyes as he fell to his knees, weeping, unashamed, at her loss. He thought of everything they had. The love. The years together. The terrible sadness they shared. And then the estrangement.

He never imagined this was how it would end for her. For them.

“Caroline! I’m so sorry!”

McNeal was sorry he hadn’t been there for her. He couldn’t imagine his wife taking her precious life. Never in a million years. He questioned if he could have done more. Caroline always said he was closed off emotionally. It was true. The death of their son had had a profound impact on them both.

He had dealt with it by retreating into his work. Stoic, like his father. He drank heavily. Caroline wanted to talk about it. He didn’t. He never did.

After their son’s shocking death, they had hugged and cried for a time. But then McNeal had locked himself back into his world. She had reached out to him. She had talked to a therapist. Then she began a gradual retreat into her own world. The world of politicians, DC, Capitol Hill, and the media. She didn’t come home as often. Eventually, she didn’t come home at all.

Finks helped McNeal away from the glass partition. “Come on, Jack. It’s time to go.”