Ada Unraveled (13 page)

His partner, the other budget-cuts survivor,
was dubbed Famine--of the black horse--because he is indeed black
and also anemically thin. That would be Detective Leslie Mosby.
Both are thought of as nasty backstabbers by the rest of the
department, according to Matt.

I mention all this because, just my luck,
the remaining two horsemen were smoking cigarettes in front of the
once abandoned and now rehabbed hospital building as I pulled up. I
was hoping not to meet them. I wasn’t sure they knew who I was but
I recognized them from newspaper articles. They liked
face-time.

Which was amazing, given Pestilence’s
face.

However, I was looking forward to meeting
Gerry’s brother, Tom Beardsley, Junior Detective with CCSD. He’d
been given the lead on this investigation and that might mean
someone was considering him for a promotion.

I checked my cell phone to see if there was
a message from Dr. Bridle. There was. She would be joining me
inside shortly. I mustered up the courage to deal with the
Horsemen, and climbed out of my car.

Avoiding eye contact, I made my approach to
the one story buildings where Jake Stowall’s exam would be
performed. As I neared the T in the sidewalk I couldn’t help but
overhear part of the detectives’ conversation.

“Pizaro thinks it’s just a coincidence. The
women probably moved on, to greener pastures. Barflies do
that.”

“Yeah, but not two. Pizaro’s a dickhead. I
think Lemon has picked it up. He’s a doer….”

Part of police work, trying to find the
missing. And part of ours. LIRI has worked several missing persons’
cases over the past three years.

I quietly slipped inside the Forensics
Center and began walking down a grim hall. Maybe it wasn’t really
grim. Maybe it was just the nature of the facility and the activity
I was approaching that made me feel grim.

The Cleveland County Forensic Sciences
Center was a combo affair, part county veterinarian lab and part
Medical Examiner’s offices, which seemed apropos somehow. Not just
because both activities involved autopsies and the
medical-slash-legal effort to define cause of death, but also
because in death humans are often reduced to little more than
animals.

What after all is the difference between
corpses and carcasses—except what we lend them?
I mused as my
shoes tapped out my approach on the linoleum floor. Anyway, the
whole combination use facility was a fit to my thinking.

Until sounds of a lowing cow somewhere deep
in the gray and dingy white buildings further unnerved me,
reminding me that in the veterinarian part some of the patients
were still alive. Her complaint lent an air of despair to the
activities at hand. Following signs to the elevators, I rounded the
corner and found Dr. Karen Bridle waiting.

We made our greetings and my mood
lifted.

Bridle was wearing a silk blouse in pale
gold under a green suit. Her cocoa ears sparkled with tiny
emeralds. Very businesslike, very chic. I wasn’t shabby in my
sorrel, roan and black chestnut print dress with solid sorrel
matching jacket, black pumps, and saddlebag shaped purse. It was
what I thought of as my horse lover’s outfit.

Fumbling with the envelope containing copies
of the photographs of Jake Stowall in situ while taking my roan
raincoat off, I said, “I still haven’t cleared your entrance to the
procedure, but I’m sure we’ll be able to work something out.”

I was thinking Gerry’s son Tom could pull
some strings for us, but Karen said, “There won’t be a problem. As
I’ve told you, I’m a frequent expert-on-call for the Forensic
Science Center. In fact, I’m a bit surprised I wasn’t called in on
this procedure, but then…” she paused while the double doors slid
open silently. We stepped inside and turned toward the front, alone
in the huge steel elevator meant to accommodate rolling beds. As
the doors slid shut again, my heart and the hospital Otis descended
together.

She continued, “…if the doctor handling this
case is the Head County Medical Examiner, Dr. Khoja Marana, that
would explain my exclusion. He hates me. He’s very political and I
inadvertently went public on what I thought was a botched routine
autopsy years ago, and he’s been snotty with me ever since. His
name is Hindi Sanskrit for
master death.

As the doors slid open, now two stories
down, I stood momentarily speechless, but finally asked, “Is that
master with an –ing or with an of?”

She chuckled uncharacteristically. “Of, I
think. Come on, let’s get hopping. We’re late and I want a good
seat.”

Good seat? I’d be pleased with the back row.
Maybe in another room.

Still anxious I followed her down bisecting
halls. In truth, I’d only attended a couple of autopsies in my
second career, as part of some post certification training I
volunteered for in San Diego, and that had been with a class of
eight that I could get lost in. So my butterflies were aflutter
again.

Dead ahead, no pun intended, were the backs
of the Dos Malos twins.
How had they beaten us down here?
I
shook myself, mentally, and stepped forward into the deep silence
of the final hallway. We joined the small clutch of official
looking men—now including the Horsemen--spilling out of a doorway.
But we didn’t stay at the back of the pack for long. Just inside
the double doors, marked “Exam” on one and “Room #3” on the other,
was a small anteroom with a marred steel desk. Sitting at the desk
was Gerry Patrone, with her brother Tom. I pushed past the others
and led Dr. Bridle with me. I could feel the pack of men bristle as
I jumped line.

Another set of double doors led into the
autopsy room itself, these with circular windows at head height.
They were closed at the moment.

I won’t bother telling you what Gerry was
wearing. Her outfit was just too gorgeous. No wild zebras this
time, all business, all class. Again, the greetings, this time in
hushed tones. Tom Beardsley’s eyes lingered on my face then moved
on to search Karen Bridle’s as well. He was memorizing, analyzing.
Smart.

“The pathtech is prepping the body inside.
When Dr. Marana gets here some of us will go in,” Gerry said.

Okay, I will tell you what she was wearing.
A burgundy opera coat, still draped over her shoulders and open to
a rose colored faux suede dress. A silk scarf of mixed lavenders
and pinks tucked in around her long throat. Her mid-calf burgundy
boots matched the heel-length cape, both of which were necessary as
the dress barely reached her knees when she stood. Seated…well I
won’t be wearing anything that short ever again. Sigh.

Her ears and one delicate hand were adorned
with pink opals. This matching purse was another Coach…she must
have stock in the company. Same-o pink Gucci watch, tsh-tsh.

A female Sherlock Holmes, perhaps? Under a
blond pile of outrageous curls?

Okay, the boys behind me weren’t jostling up
for a seat at a postmortem were they? They were preening for Gerry,
youngish wife of a magnate.

The doors to the exam room shoved toward us
and a tall white coated guy stepped out, fixing the doors in the
open position. His name tag announced he was Dr. Marana--not at all
what I was expecting. He wasn’t quite Indian, he wasn’t quite
Persian, but he was generally Asian. He didn’t have an acne ravaged
complexion as I’d expected. Wasn’t under five foot five. Wasn’t
fat. Wasn’t, ugly. He was an Asian Will Smith. Unfortunately the
wave of chemicals now pouring forth from the opened morgue room was
a jarring contrast.

The Asian Will glanced perfunctorily at me,
then spotted Dr. Bridle, flashed what I thought was a scowl—but
could have been confusion--and swept back into the examination
suite practically shouting back at us in a deep baritone voice,
“Only room for five of you inside.”

What the hell was this beautiful guy doing
in a morgue?

Another cool breath bordering on cold blew
out of the exam room as the doors finished swinging closed. It
smelled like Death himself was waiting inside.

But there was no time to lose in reverie or
fear.

“I’ll wait out here so you two can go in.
Hurry,” a now-hovering Gerry whispered in my ear.

Moving quickly, I led Dr. Bridle inside with
me and bravely took a place by the body, telling Dr. Marana, “I was
the first to discover Jake Stowall’s remains and have been asked to
stand in for the family during the autopsy. I asked Dr. Bridle to
accompany me.” Not a complete lie. Just a partial.

We’d caught the men off guard, but the rest
of the available viewing space was quickly taken up by the white
and black
horsemen
, and Tom Beardsley. Gerry tossed a meager
wave as the closing doors shut her out. I saw relief on her face.
Brat
.

Behind me I heard the young sheriff’s deputy
cough and then gag slightly. I hoped he wouldn’t toss on my clean
suit. It was the odor. Jake had been dead and buried for a couple
of weeks by now—and before that he’d simmered in the sun out of
doors before being found. Although he’d been embalmed, the smell of
death was still profound, and now mixed with some damp, earthy
fragrance, perhaps gathered from the deep hole he’d been in—maybe
seeping through the walls of his flimsy coffin, I mused. This
branch of the Stowall’s weren’t rich.

The pathtech offered a small jar of camphor
and surgical masks. I wiped some on the mask and gratefully pulled
it on. I took out my notepad and pencil, and surreptitiously turned
on the recorder hanging on a thin cord around my neck and under my
dress.

The table the body rested on was elevated
three inches above the normal counter height to accommodate the
handsome ME’s height, skewing our view of things somewhat. However,
the downward slanting, cold steel bed had the usual indentation to
catch fluids, raised edges, and stained clear tubes underneath.
Marana took his place diagonally across from me and asked his
assistant to lift the sheet from the body. The smell grew in
intensity and those of us on the perimeter took an unconscious step
back. I bumped into Pestilence and a new smell briefly claimed my
nose. Fahrenheit 32, I believe. I know that because a friend of
ours wears it. Learner must have taken a bath in the popular men’s
cologne for me to notice it over the stench rising from the corpse
and the camphor under my nose. Maybe it was a trick of his, to cope
with the aromas of decay.

Marana pulled the ceiling microphone lower
and began recording his observations.

“The autopsy of Jake Stowall. Mr. Stowall
comes to us through exhumation. The Stowall family, using their
physician and
lawyers
, overrode the County M.E.’s initial
call for a postmortem.” He looked pointedly at Dr. Bridle as he
spoke. “This procedure is court ordered as per Cleveland County
Superior Court Judge Gregory Canon. Unfortunately Mr. Stowall was
embalmed as required by law for inhumation, effectively removing a
significant body of evidence through which the cause of death might
have been clarified.

“First observations: Mr. Stowall’s remains
have been severely burned in the mid-September wildfires,
significantly damaging a second body of evidence, the exposed
skin.” His voice fell to a robotic drone as he detailed the visible
damage to the upper torso.

To my left, Karen Bridle suddenly
interrupted. “May I offer the Medical Examiner a possible solution
to the issues you’ve raised at this point?”

Marana lifted his large brown eyes to her
face, scowl deepening, but said nothing. I thought I felt something
almost physical pass between them. Her chin thrust forward. His
head lowered, but then he was tall… Hmmm. Did these two have a
history, other than the one Bridle had just mentioned? It was an
errant thought that caused me to reassess Karen in the strong exam
room lighting. She was really quite lovely. She had an air of
nobility about her that increased her beauty—and was only a few
inches shorter than the giant Indian with Asian or Iranian or maybe
even Chinese features.

Perhaps some distant African relative of
Karen’s was a Maasai king… I wondered if she was even aware of his
reaction to her, given her remarks in the elevator.

“I took tissue samples from the body when we
discovered it, including a small amount of blood.” I remembered her
working closely at the body while I had my back turned trying not
to vomit when we first discovered it. She pulled a bulky brown
envelope from her briefcase, which I then realized was a cooler in
disguise.

“
Common!
That evidence is worthless.
How do we know she hasn’t messed with it?” Detective Learner
objected rudely. Surprised, I looked at him. Why did he sound like
a lawyer for the defense?
And, whose defense?
Now next to
me, Learner’s ugly mouth curved up slightly at the corners, and I
realized he’d achieved his goal. His objection was now on the
record, actually on the official recording.
So, if not the
state, then who was Detective Learner representing?

The look of anger on Marana’s face
increased, but his eyes remained on Bridle’s face. He growled,
“There is a flow to this procedure I cannot allow spectators to
interrupt lest a step be omitted.” His narrowed eyes now slid to
Detective Learner. “As you well know detective, Dr. Karen Bridle is
a board certified forensic specialist who is fully aware of
evidentiary collection and transportation procedures. Any further
comments during this examination may force me to remove all of you
until it is completed. Am I clear?” The pathtech, Larry as it turns
out, slid quietly up to Karen and took her offered envelope.

So Marana’s apparent displeasure with Karen
Bridle did not preclude his defending her professionally and
accepting any evidence she had to offer. She had his respect, and
maybe even his love.