“Try her at home,” he advises. “She’s probably taking a sick day, although it’s unlike her not to call in.”

You don’t know the half of it, Cynthia thinks. Unless, that is, Halpern grew up in a house where the mantra was You forgot to.

She thanks him (can’t forget that, no matter how worried she may be) and gets the number of a police department two thousand miles away. She identifies herself and states the problem as calmly as possible.

“My mother lives at 298 Tannenbaum Street. Her name is Ruth Scapelli. She’s the head nurse at the Kiner Hospital Brain Injury Clinic. I got an email from her this morning that makes me think . . .”

That she’s badly depressed? No. It might not be enough to get the cops out there. Besides, it’s not what she really thinks. She takes a deep breath.

“That makes me think she might be considering suicide.”

23

CPC 54 pulls into the driveway at 298 Tannenbaum Street. Officers Amarilis Rosario and Jason Laverty—known as Toody and Muldoon because their car number was featured in an old cop sitcom—get out and approach the door. Rosario rings the doorbell. There’s no answer, so Laverty knocks, good and hard. There’s still no answer. He tries the door on the off chance, and it opens. They look at each other. This is a good neighborhood, but it’s still the city, and in the city most people lock their doors.

Rosario pokes her head in. “Mrs. Scapelli? This is Police Officer Rosario. Want to give us a shout?”

There is no shout.

Her partner chimes in. “Officer Laverty, ma’am. Your daughter is worried about you. Are you okay?”

Nothing. Laverty shrugs and gestures to the open door. “Ladies first.”

Rosario steps in, unsnapping the strap on her service weapon without even thinking about it. Laverty follows. The living room is empty but the TV is on, the sound muted.

“Toody, Toody, I don’t like this,” Rosario says. “Can you smell it?”

Laverty can. It’s the smell of blood. They find the source in the kitchen, where Ruth Scapelli lies on the floor next to an overturned chair. Her arms are splayed out as if she tried to break her fall. They can see the deep cuts she’s made, long ones up the forearms almost to the elbows, short ones across the wrists. Blood is splattered on the easy-clean tiles, and a great deal more is on the table, where she sat to do the deed. A butcher knife from the wooden block beside the toaster lies on the lazy Susan, placed with grotesque neatness between the salt and pepper shakers and the ceramic napkin holder. The blood is dark, coagulating. Laverty guesses she’s been dead for twelve hours, at least.

“Maybe there was nothing good on TV,” he says.

Rosario gives him a dark look and takes a knee close to the body, but not close enough to get blood on her uni, which just came back from the cleaners the day before. “She drew something before she lost consciousness,” she says. “See it there on the tile by her right hand? Drew it in her own blood. What do you make of it? Is it a 2?”