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“I believe the phrase was ‘that colored girl up front. ’”
Now Kleiman blinked, as if that wasn’t at all what she was expecting. “Excuse me? I don’t understand the problem. ”
“The problem is that she’d like you to refer to her by name, not by her skin color. She’s also not a girl; she’s older than I am. I realize that the phrase used to be appropriate years ago, but—”
“I was trying to be polite!” Kleiman said, and, if anything, looked more rigid and cold. “If you’d like me to say what I really think, I think that…that woman is taking great advantage of you. She’s hardly qualified to run something as complex as a business like this. …”
“Actually,” Bryn said, “I’m fairly certain I don’t want to know what you really think, and neither does Lucy. Lucy works for me, not you, and I’m the final judge of her performance in the job, as I am of yours, and it’s your job performance we’re discussing, not Lucy’s. So consider this a warning. If you use inappropriate terms toward any of my staff again, the next time we talk about this will be the last. ”
“This is ridiculous! What I said was not in any way offensive!”
“In your opinion,” Bryn said. “And the point of something being offensive is that it was offensive to someone else. We’re done now. Thank you. ”
It was a clear dismissal, and Kleiman took it that way. She also slammed the door on the way out, which was damned difficult, since the doors were on hydraulics to make sure they didn’t make a lot of noise. Impressive. Bryn sighed and called Lucy’s desk phone. “Incoming,” she told her. “Kleiman’s on fire. Let me know if she comes after you. ”
“She comes for me, she’d better be wearing asbestos,” Lucy said. “Nope, she just passed me by and went to her office. ”
“If you have any problems…”
“Come to you, yes, boss. Your four o’clock’s not here yet. I’ll ring you when he comes in. ”
“Thanks. ”
Bryn looked at the clock, stretched, and decided she was too restless to sit still for twenty minutes. She stood, put on her white lab coat from the closet, and took the back stairs down to the preparation area.
William Nguyen looked up as she came through the frosted glass door and gave her a big, warm smile. “Hey,” he said. “Busy day, eh?” He nodded down at the body lying on the table in front of him.
It was gruesomely damaged, but from the part of the face that hadn’t been mangled, the man was in his fifties, with short-cropped graying hair. There was another body on the second table, covered with a clean white sheet.
“Are these the accident victims?”
“Yeah, it was a nasty one—rear-ended by a drunk driver at a stoplight, pushed their car into a dump truck. The drunk must have been going about a hundred; the car looked like it already went through the cube crusher. This is Mr. Lindell. I’m just doing gross examination right now. I’ll e-mail you the general outline of what it’ll take, but if the son wants open casket, this is going to be a pretty intricate job. ”
“Thanks,” Bryn said. “Just let me know as soon as you can. Hey, William…”
“Yeah?” He didn’t look up from his close analysis of Mr. Lindell’s cheekbone. “Damn, this is all splintered in here. Gonna be tough to find good anchor material for the reconstruction. ”
“Have you had any problems with Gertrude Kleiman?”
“Nope,” he said. “Except she won’t talk to me. ”
“Excuse me?”
“Never says a word. Even when she comes down here, she hands me paperwork, or picks it up, and leaves. If I say hello, she just ignores me. I don’t know. I just figured she was shy. ”
“Huh,” Bryn said, which was about as neutral as she could make it. “Okay. Thanks. ”
“For what?” He still didn’t take his attention from the dead man in front of him, gently palpating torn tissues.
“Just thanks. ” For being cheerfully oblivious, she thought. But the idea that Kleiman was rude to him, too, made her burn. “See you later. ”
“Yeah, see ya. ” He finger-waved her off, and she went back upstairs, wondering exactly what to do about Gertrude now.
She didn’t have much time to think it over, because as soon as she’d hung her coat back on the rack in the closet, Lucy paged her to let her know her four o’clock had arrived. Bryn checked herself in the mirror—habit—and went out to greet him.
He was a tall young man, and he looked athletic, but when she spotted him sitting in the chair, he looked…unstrung, like a discarded puppet. He looked up vaguely when she stopped in front of him and said, “Mr. Lindell?” in her gentlest voice. “I’m Bryn Davis. Why don’t we go into my office. ”
“Are my mom and dad here?” he asked, still seated. “Can I see them?”
