Page 34 of Feared

“You weren’t mean to him, Anne. We had a fight, and we all were a part of it, not just you.”

“Oh no.” Anne shook her head, hugging Mary back. “I just never thought anything like this could ever happen. I feel so terrible.”

“I know, it’s horrible.” Mary patted Anne’s back, and she seemed to rally, wiping her eyes and streaking her mascara even more.

“What do we know about how it happened?” Anne asked, trying to compose herself. “Do we know anything?”

“Not yet, unless Lou does. Here he comes.” Mary squinted over her shoulder to see Lou making his way back to them, and he hugged Anne when he got there.

“I’m so sorry about John, honey.”

“Lou, it’s so awful, I wassoawful to him.”

“No, no, don’t think about that now. You guys were buddies, and he knew it. Now listen, I tried to get information.” Lou released Anne from his embrace, and Bennie pressed closer.

“Lou, what did you find out?” she asked, urgent.

“So I talked to my buddy, Oscar. He knows me from way back, like when I worked security at Blackstone, back in the day, and I used to go fishing with his cousin and—”

“Lou, please,” Bennie interrupted, impatient.

“He doesn’t know anything. I gotbupkis.”

“Anybody see or hear anything?”

“Don’t know. I know they got uniforms canvassing.”

“Time of death?”

“Oscar doesn’t know but he was called in an hour ago.”

Bennie checked her phone. “So, eleven thirty. Who found the body?”

“He doesn’t know that either.”

Bennie frowned in thought. “Somebody had to see or hear something. This is a city neighborhood on a Saturday night. Apartments cheek by jowl, restaurants, galleries, foot traffic.”

“But it’s late, and it’s Philly. You know the joke. I was asleep already.”

“How about street cameras? Did they start looking for them yet?” Bennie squinted at the traffic light in the darkness. “I can’t see a damn thing, but there has to be video.”

Suddenly the spectators erupted in chatter and motion. People held up their cell phones, reporters with microphones surged to the barricade, and photographers hoisted still cameras, their motor drives clicking away. Mary and the others turned to see what was going on.

At the sight, Mary’s hand flew to her mouth. Uniformed assistants from the Medical Examiner’s Office were coming down the front steps, carrying a stainless-steel gurney that held a black-vinyl body bag.

“Oh no!” Judy cried out, covering her face, and Anne emitted a horrified gasp. Anthony held on to the three women as best he could, and only Bennie and Lou remained stoic, watching as the assistants loaded the gurney into the back of the van, then closed its doors.

“I got the bag shot!” said a gleeful photographer.

Lou gave the photographer a dirty look, and Anne burst into new tears. Judy did the same, and Mary tried to comfort them, with Anthony’s help. Bennie kept her gaze on the scene, her expression grim.

And in the next moment, she ducked under the barricade.

CHAPTER FOURTEEN

Anthony drove with Mary in the passenger seat and Bennie and Judy in the backseat. Anne and Lou had gone home, leaving Mary and the others snaking through the city streets in the darkness. Mary didn’t know what Bennie had done after she went through the barricade, but somehow it had resulted in their leaving hurriedly for the Roundhouse, the police administration building. Mary wasn’t sure it was a great idea, and Anthony probably felt the same way, though she hadn’t had a chance to ask him. But like most wives, she could read her husband’s mind.

Mary cleared her throat. “So Bennie, why did you go through the barricade?”