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“A course book.” He put it down. “One year down, two to go.” He shrugged. “What’s our next step?”
“I’m going to Brooklyn for dinner.”
“Have fun.”
“You’re not coming?”
“I didn’t know I was invited.”
“Don’t be ridiculous. Of course, you’re invited. I’d like to make it to Brooklyn within the hour so you might want to change.”
“Funny ha-ha. Where are we going for dinner?”
“Does it matter?”
“How should I dress, Old Man?”
“In street clothes would be a start. Rina made supper so we’re eating in. Dress lightly. Sammy and Rachel have very poor AC.”
“So why don’t we go out?”
“They couldn’t find a babysitter.”
“So why not just take the kid?”
“I don’t make the decisions, Tyler, I just follow orders. When you’ve been married as long as I have, you just show up and smile. Rina invited you. Do you want to come or not?”
“Yes, I’ll come. Jeez.”
“By the way …” Decker plopped down a box onto the floor. “Your copy of the files. We can go over them tonight after dinner.”
“Where? Here?”
“I’d like to stay here for one more day. There are people on the list who live in New York. Might as well question them while I’m here. And I have to return all the original files to Breck and to Karen now that we have copies.”
“What about the Staten Island police? Do you think we should talk to them since Joanne filed a report with them?”
“We should give them a courtesy call and help them clear their missing persons file. But since Pettigrew was murdered in Greenbury, they don’t have anything to do with the case.”
McAdams stood up and hefted the box. “We’ve got a lot of reading to do.”
“And it’s only going to grow once we get the e-mails and the phone records. Get dressed already.”
“Patience, man. I know you’re starved, but I’m not the cause of your low blood sugar.”
“I know you’re not the problem. But, at present, you’re the only scapegoat I have. Put some clothes on and let’s get out of here.”
Tyler had retired an hour ago, but at two in the morning, Decker was wide awake. By three, he finally crawled under soft down covers. It had been a good night. Gathering all the files and cross-referencing proved to be beneficial. He had put almost all the names listed into four categories: Pettigrew’s relatives, his closest friends, his work people, and his old friends from his Greenbury days, this last category being the smallest but the most important because Pettigrew was murdered there. As for the others, he had narrowed the New York City field down to four people he still wanted to interview:
1 Harold Cantrell: Pettigrew’s boss for two years at a place called the McGregor Fund.
2 Marta Kerr, aged thirty: described by PI James Breck and Karen Osterfeld as a close friend of Pettigrew. He had even stayed with her for a couple of months. Her address was in Chelsea and there was an associated phone number.
3 Darwin Davis, aged twenty-five: a friend of Pettigrew from his Morse McKinley days. They reconnected once Davis graduated and moved to the city.
4 Dr. Elwood Marshall (aged, well, who really cares?): Pettigrew’s surgeon and doctor, who specialized in sex reassignment surgery. He had been working with Pettigrew since he was twenty up until his disappearance five years ago.
Decker would make the calls first thing in the morning. He was thinking about how he’d arrange his day when he drifted off and lost himself in a world he wouldn’t remember in the morning.
Chapter Ten (#ulink_c1b35426-f98e-57d0-9b32-99cbd68866cf)
The medical practice was in the East Village, near Washington Square and in a maisonette that fronted a six-story residential brick building. Dr. Elwood Marshall specialized in cosmetic and reconstruction surgery, and judging by the amount of people in the waiting room, he did well. All the couches and chairs were taken, and there was a small line at the reception window. Decker waited his turn and it took almost eight minutes before he faced a heavily made-up receptionist wearing a brunette wig of long waves. A pretty woman in that extreme way, except the voice told another story. It was beyond throaty: it was deep as in a well-developed Adam’s apple. The name tag said Eloise.
“Can I help you?”
Decker discreetly took out his official ID. “We have an appointment with Dr. Elwood.”
“We?”
Decker looked around until he spotted McAdams leafing through the magazine entitled Gay Today. If he could have beaned the kid from across the room, he would have done it. He looked back at Eloise, the receptionist. “My detective seems to have found some interesting reading material.”
“People have all sorts of interesting facets to their personality.” Her smile was a smirk. “I’ll tell the doctor you’re here. It may take a few minutes. We’re swamped today.”
Decker thanked her and the glass partition slid closed in front of him. He walked over to McAdams and elbowed him hard. He whispered, “Learning something?”
“There are some real hot-looking dudes in this magazine.” He put it down on the table. “If I were gay, I wouldn’t stand a chance. Lucky for me that women just aren’t that picky.”
Decker stifled a laugh. “Try to concentrate on the investigation, Tyler. It’s what you’re being paid to do.”
“You mean that paltry sum that’s handed to me twice a month?”
“You were the one who turned down those cushy, well-paid internships.” Decker heard someone call his name. “That’s us. C’mon, Harvard. Let’s go find some answers.”
They were escorted into an office that looked out on a small back garden. The sun had ducked behind clouds, leaving the foliage to grow in gray, sooty light. The air-conditioning was running full blast. The nurse was tall with long thin hands. He said, “The doctor will be with you as soon as he can. Have a seat.”
There were two wooden chairs and one plush leather desk chair separated by a large, rosewood desk holding one pile of paperwork, a bamboo file organizer, a cup of pens, a stapler, and a large phone that had many blinking lines. The walls were covered with diplomas and certifications. Ten minutes after the detectives were seated, a white-coated man in his mid to late fifties flew in like a rogue gust of wind. He was medium in stature with a paunch that lay over a Gucci belt. He had a long face with wiry, silver hair and eyes somewhere between tawny and brown. He sat down at his desk chair and extended his hand to both detectives. “How can I help?”
“As I told your receptionist over the phone, it has to do with a case we’re working on involving one of your former patients.”
“And I suppose you know that even if we’re dealing with former patients, there is confidentiality. Who are we talking about? My receptionist didn’t say.”
Decker said, “We found some remains up north in Greenbury near the Five Colleges of Upstate. We have a tentative match to Lawrence Pettigrew. Lorraine Pettigrew.”
Marshall sat back in his chair, a pained look on his face. “That’s awful.” He regarded Decker. “Because the police are involved … was it murder?”
“Yes.”
“How?”
“The developments are recent, but the murder was not. He has been dead for quite some time. Anything you can tell me about him would be helpful.”
“Like what?”
“Did he confide in you on personal matters, for instance?”
“They all confide in me on personal matters. When people come to me, they are very confused and very emotional. I’m just as much therapist as I am surgeon.”
“What about Pettigrew?”
“He was no exception.”
“Anything specific that you can tell me?”
Marshall picked up the phone. “Donnie, can you get me Lawrence/Lorraine Pettigrew’s file, please?” After he hung up the receiver, he said, “It’s been a while. From what I recall, he was very gung-ho on having surgery. When I first see them, they usually are. I always go slowly. Any change, be it a nose job or breast implants, takes getting used to. Let alone something as drastic as sex reassignment surgery. I start with the face. We did some skin sanding, some hair removal. He did well with those procedures, so we took the next step.”
“Which was?”
“Hormonal therapy.” A moment later, Donnie came in with the file and then left. Marshall began to skim through it.
“Yes, I put him on a low dose of the appropriate hormones needed to override the androgens. That’s when the problems started. He didn’t like how it made him feel. He said … this is what I wrote down … it made him feel on edge and moody.”
“PMS,” McAdams said.
“Yes, it does mimic some symptoms in some people. But with time, most transgender people adjust to it. Lawrence not only disliked how it made him feel, he also didn’t like the changes in his body.”
“Meaning?”
“He liked losing his body hair, but he didn’t like having actual breasts although he had been dressing with prosthetics for two years. He loved the way he looked in women’s clothing. But he didn’t like looking at his naked body.” Marshall looked at the chart. “He said he didn’t feel beautiful as a man or a women, just some kind of weird chimera. Now, adjustment can take months. But he didn’t seem to want to adjust. So we began to talk about alternatives.”
“Which are?”
“His problem was not that unusual. There are many men who feel as he did. They consider themselves women in men’s bodies. They are attracted to men. But they don’t want to do the last, fateful step because they can’t adjust to their bodies as women.”
“Okay,” Decker said. “I talked to a few of Pettigrew’s friends. Karen Osterfeld and her current partner, Jordeen Crayton. I believe that Pettigrew intended to marry Karen Osterfeld, who was Karl Osterfeld back then.”
Marshall said nothing.
“Do you know anything about that?”
“If I did, I wouldn’t say. Karen Osterfeld is still very much alive.”
“And she’s your patient?”
“You know I can’t say anything.”
“How about if she gave you permission to talk to me?”
Marshall said, “Has she?”
“I haven’t asked her.”
“So then there’s nothing to talk about.” Marshall stood up. “I hope I’ve been helpful. I have examination rooms filled with patients. I really must get on with them.”
Decker said. “I have one more question. Since Lawrence didn’t adjust to his womanly body, I assume that sex reassignment surgery was off the table.”
“Yes, of course. It was not appropriate for him. He kept on with hormones but at an even lower dose. And he wanted to continue with cosmetic dermabrasion and laser hair removal. I didn’t have a problem with that.”
“Did he do those procedures here?”
“Yes.”
“And he was still your patient up until he disappeared?”
“Yes. As I recall, we found out about his disappearance because he didn’t show to one of his appointments. Pettigrew was usually reliable.”
“His disappearance must have come as a shock to you.”
“It was disturbing, yes. But your news is not just disturbing, it’s awful.” Marshall was silent for a moment. “My patients are often not socially acceptable to their families. The rejection causes them to seek other means of support—a community that understands them in the best of all worlds. But sometimes they seek solace in bad habits—crazy partying, alcohol, drugs, and promiscuous sex. That kind of edgy lifestyle often gets them into deep trouble.”
Getting a caffeine fix in the city was as easy as walking down the block. Small cafés, stores, and take-out markets abounded. The detectives had a little over an hour before their appointment with Harold Cantrell, Pettigrew’s manager at McGregor in Midtown near the UN Plaza.
McAdams sipped iced tea. “We’ve got two Pettigrews: the conventional Lorraine and the in-your-face Lawrence.”
“But both of them were very smart.”
“I’m not denying the intelligence. I’m thinking maybe the conventional Lorraine went up to Morse McKinley to have one last fling as Lawrence. He certainly wasn’t forthcoming to Karen about what he was doing up there.”
“True.”
“If the murder happened up there, shouldn’t we be concentrating on his last days in Greenbury?”
“We’re down here now. We might as well get whatever background we can before we go back up. It’s not like the usual case where time matters. We can be deliberate.”
McAdams said, “What do you think of Pettigrew’s rejection of sex reassignment surgery?”
“In terms of what?”
“Karen, who was Karl back then, thought she was marrying a woman. Maybe she was angry that Pettigrew refused to go through with the surgery?”
“But she herself didn’t go through with the surgery. They obviously came to some kind of understanding. They were having a baby together.” Decker finished his iced coffee. “I mean, what are you thinking? That Karen and Pettigrew got into an altercation and she killed him, dragging his body back up to Greenbury?”
“Maybe she tailed him to Greenbury and caught him in a compromising position. The coroner thinks that Pettigrew was hit from behind by someone shorter than him. Karen is definitely shorter than Pettigrew.”
“I don’t see a pregnant woman lugging around a six-foot-plus body and burying it deep in the woods.”
“Maybe she had help. Maybe Jordeen isn’t as innocent as she makes herself out to be. Isn’t it you who told me to look at the spouse first?”
Decker didn’t answer right away. “Sure. It could be Karen. Maybe they did fight. Accidents happen.”
