by Liliana Hart
“I’ve got beer in the fridge,” I told him as consolation.
“Don’t tell the guys, but I’m not much of a drinker,” he admitted. “But I’ll take coffee if you have it.”
I snorted out a laugh. “Of course I have it. I’d go without food and sex before I’d go without coffee. It makes the world go round. Or at least more tolerable.”
Nash laughed and said, “Sugar, I knew there was a reason I liked you.”
We lifted the gurney out of the Suburban and made sure everything was stable before we started rolling Nina Walsh up the ramp.
The funeral home was a three-story, red brick Colonial that had been modernized with each generation. My parents had added the state-of-the-art kitchen and a lab in the basement with the kind of equipment that made most scientists drool with envy. Of course, there was a reason for everything.
All of the entrances worked on a keypad system instead of a key, so I typed in the code and waited for the click before pushing the door open. There was a mudroom that served as a transition space before the kitchen, but it was bare except for hooks on the walls that held extra gurney straps and other things I needed for transport. The floors were concrete and there was a drain in the middle since rain, snow, and gurneys didn’t go well together.
The door locked automatically behind us, and I keyed in the code to the basement. I hadn’t found it odd at the time, but it probably should have set off alarms that my parents had invested in a stainless-steel door and security that rivaled Fort Knox to protect the bodies they were interring. Or looking back, maybe I just hadn’t wanted to ask too many questions. There was a reason I’d moved away and gone to med school.
There was a quiet pfft as the door unsealed, and I pulled it open. Cold air blasted us as we wheeled her onto the lift, and my skin pebbled from the chill.
“Good grief,” Nash said. “It’s an icebox.”
“Bodies and heat don’t really go well together. Besides, it helps with the smell.”
He closed his eyes and shook his head. “We’re really going to work on getting you that hobby.”
“I’m married,” I said. “I don’t need a hobby. I like being at home.”
“That’s because you’ve been married all of fifteen minutes. In fifteen years, you’re going to wish you had a hobby. Take it from someone who’s been married a couple of times.”
I arched a brow. “Maybe the reason you’ve been married a couple of times is because you had too many hobbies and weren’t at home enough.”
He opened his mouth to say something, and then his lips twitched. “Maybe you’re right, Doc. You sounded an awful lot like my ex-wife just now.”
“I like both your ex-wives,” I said with a cheeky grin. “So I appreciate the compliment.”
He choked out a laugh and then took a step back into the kitchen. “Whew, you’ve got a sassy mouth. I bet you keep Jack on his toes.”
“It’s mutual, I think.”
“You got things from here?” Nash asked. “Not that I’m afraid of going down there or anything, but the game starts in a few minutes.”
“Uh-huh,” I said. “Maybe you should check all the viewing rooms to make sure I didn’t forget and left someone lying out.”
He visibly shivered. “That’s just mean, Doc. And to think I was going to make you a cup of coffee and figure out a way to lower it down to you.”
I full out laughed and felt lighter than I had in days. “Go watch your game,” I told Nash. “I’ll call you when I’m done.”
I pushed the lift button and Nina Walsh and I started our descent into the lab. Nash closed the big metal door, and it locked automatically. The basement was the safest place I could be. Unless my dad had put in a secret exit that I hadn’t found or, like Nash said, burned the funeral home to the ground. Then I was pretty much screwed.
The lift came to a stop, and I rolled the gurney past my embalming table and the refrigeration unit to the opposite side of the lab. The room was white and sterile. There were drains in the floor and the ventilation system was top notch. Even so, I always kept the air-conditioning on high.
The space was almost two thousand square feet, and the walk-in cooler took up most of the space on the east wall. I had a stainless-steel embalming table on one side of the room with the appropriate drains for body fluids, and I had an autopsy table on the other. Metal shelves lined the wall and held various equipment and my microscope.
Behind my autopsy table was a drying cabinet where I hung blood-soaked evidence, an x-ray illuminator, and a limited testing area for basic tox results. My desk was stacked with autopsy forms, a box of latex gloves, and my tape recorder.
Nina Walsh was a tiny woman, and moving her from the gurney to the autopsy table was like moving a bag of bones. Even for her height, I was estimating she was well under weight. I unzipped the bag and skidded it from beneath her with little problem, and then I tossed it on top of the gurney and pushed it all aside, so I’d have plenty of room to work.
The routine was second nature, and I only needed to find cause of death. All I knew was there was no good reason for a seemingly healthy woman to be on my table unless what Nash had said was true. It was just an unfortunate case of bad luck.
I did a quick set of x-rays, focusing on the lungs, and then I put them up on the light screen. I looked closely, but there was no sign of any cloudiness or water. In fact, other than having suffered from a broken finger at some point, she looked pretty darned good.
“Well, that makes things interesting,” I said under my breath.
I went to examine the hematoma on her temple, but it didn’t seem like a serious injury. She had a nice lump that had turned an interesting shade of black, purple, and green, but it would’ve settled down after about a week. Head wounds always looked worse than they were because of the amount of blood in the head. She also had slight swelling to her left cheek, and the skin was discolored there from where she’d lain so long after death, but the swelling was on the same side as the lump on her head so it made sense it happened in the fall.
I put on my gown and surgical gloves, and then I turned on my recorder and documented the day and time on the autopsy sheet on my clipboard.
“Caucasian female listed as Nina Evans Walsh,” I said, checking over the notes Nash had given me. “Age forty-four.” The table had a built-in scale and I documented her weight in my chart. “Ninety-eight pounds. Five feet, zero inches tall. Blonde and blue. No discernable birthmarks or tattoos. Abdominal scar consistent with caesarian section.”
I put down my clipboard and picked up my scalpel. I made my Y-incision and frowned at the sight of the cherry-red blood that sprung up as the blade passed through. I used my scalpel to peel back the skin and soft tissues, and as soon as I pulled back the chest flap, I could smell it.
I pulled down my surgical mask and leaned closer to the open cavity. The scent of bitter almonds. I hadn’t imagined it.
“Note for the record the signs of cyanide poisoning are present in the victim, most notably the smell of bitter almonds and the cherry-red color of her blood.”
I started working a little more quickly. This case had just taken an interesting and unexpected turn. I made cuts along the rib cage, disconnected the tissue, and then pulled the rib cage from the skeleton, setting it aside on a sterile tray. The organs were exposed, and I detached arteries and ligaments, and then I severed the attachments to the spine, bladder, and rectum.
Once everything was detached, I was able to pull all of the organs out in one piece and lay them on a smaller table to my right. The human body really was amazing. It didn’t take me long to detach and weigh the organs, and then notate everything on my chart.
“Contents in the stomach include grapefruit and coffee, consistent with the husband’s story of what she had for breakfast the morning of her death. The heart does show signs of cardiac arrest. This result is consistent with the effects of cyanide poisoning. Tests will confirm conclusively.”
I took
blood and tissue samples to send off to the toxicology lab in Richmond. I could do basic tests for alcohol or drugs in the system, but I knew cyanide wouldn’t show up in the standard test. Poisons never did. And while I needed the lab in Richmond to back up my findings, I happened to have a cyanide test kit. It wasn’t one that I’d ordered, but my parents had obviously had cause to use the ChemSee test indicators in the past because the box was open and several of the test strips were gone.
I put two of the tests on the table, and I used three drops of blood on one and three drops of urine on the other. I’d never actually had to use the tests before, on the living or the dead, and I had no idea how long it would take to get results, so I pulled my mask back up and went back to the body.
I put a block under Nina’s neck so I had room to work with my skull saw, and then went about the task of removing her brain. I didn’t expect to see any damage from the fall she took, other than the exterior hematoma, but I examined everything methodically and then weighed the organ.
I made sure to take extra samples of blood, tissue, and other fluids because I knew the tox lab would want to do several tests to make sure, but the signs were all there. I put Nina’s organs back where they belonged and then held my breath as I walked over to look at the two test strips.
Despite the frigid room, I used the sleeve of my gown to blot at the sweat on my brow. And then I carefully picked up the first test and held it under the light. The strip had turned bluish green. Positive. I held up the second test and saw the same result.
I turned on my recorder and said, “Homicide. Cause of death is suspected cyanide poisoning, pending formal results from the tox screen.
I peeled off my gloves and tossed them in the trash and then called Nash. “You’re going to want to get down here,” I said when he answered. “I’ll buzz you in.”
I hit the lock release on the door and Nash was already waiting to come inside. He closed the door behind him and took the stairs two at a time. His gaze briefly rested on Nina before they returned to me.
“Whadda ya got?” he asked.
“It’s probably a good thing you didn’t start your paperwork today,” I said. “I’m calling homicide.”
“No shit,” he said, clearly surprised.
“Cyanide poisoning.”
His brows lifted so high I thought they’d disappear into his hairline. “Well, that’s a first for me.”
“I thought the color of her lividity was off when I saw her on the bathroom floor,” I explained. “I figured it might have been a result of her lying in hot water for so long. But when I made my first incision her blood was the wrong color, and then I smelled the burned almonds.”
“I’ve always heard cyanide gives off that smell.”
“I was able to do a localized test with blood and urine and they both came back positive. We’ve got to get these samples to the lab in Richmond for a definite positive, but for now I’m comfortable calling it.”
“We’re going to have to get a warrant,” Nash said, pulling out his phone. “Let me call the sheriff and he’ll know which judge is on call.”
I cleaned things up and pretended not to try to hear Jack’s voice through the line. Nash relayed what I’d told him, and at that moment I wished it were Jack standing in my lab. I wanted to hear his thoughts and impressions. I wanted to work with my husband. But he was so damned stubborn. And so was I.
“We’ll wait here until the warrant comes through,” I heard Nash tell Jack. “I have a feeling we’ll need to move fast, and we’ll need all hands on deck. We don’t want another showdown with the fire department and have potential evidence destroyed. Roy Walsh is going to have to narrow down his alibi a little better.”
I couldn’t hear what Jack said next, but Nash agreed and disconnected. I checked my own phone to see if I had any texts over the last few hours I’d been busy with Nina Walsh, but there was nothing there.
“We need to get in that house,” Nash said. “If I was him, I’d have scrubbed every inch of that bathroom and thrown away anything that would leave a residue. You have any idea what we could be looking for?”
“Cyanide is an interesting poison. It could’ve been administered any number of ways. In her grapefruit, coffee, or even topically if she put on lotion. I saw some in the bathroom.”
I looked up at the clock and saw I’d been working on Nina a little over four hours. My neck and shoulders were stiff, and I walked over to the little fridge in the corner and grabbed a water and then tossed one to Nash.
“The warrant should take an hour or two. I’ve got my laptop in the car. I’m going to run out and get it so I can fill out the affidavit and get it turned in. I’ll call whoever’s free and have them keep watch on the house.”
He headed back up the stairs, a spring of excitement in his step. Cops were weird. They could be on their last leg of exhaustion and if a new case came up, they were fresh as a daisy.
“I made another pot of coffee,” he said. “Want some?”
“More than I want life,” I said. “Let me clean up here and get her in the cooler, and I’ll be right up.”
I checked my text messages one last time and then stuck my phone in my back pocket. Not one word from Jack. Not about Carver or the case. Of course, he hadn’t gotten one word from me either.
Chapter Six
It took almost two hours before the signed warrant was sent back to Nash electronically. I had time for a cold piece of pizza, two cups of coffee, and a shower and change of clean clothes. Despite the ventilation system, I was never quite sure what I smelled like when I came out of an autopsy or an embalming.
I kept extra clothes in the office closet just off the kitchen. It was my personal space, and I never brought clients there to talk. I used the front parlor for that. It also had a private bathroom and shower. I scrubbed and washed my hair twice and then changed into black slacks and a sleeveless blouse in the same color. I blow-dried my hair, left it down, and put on a touch of makeup. I found men tended to respond better when I questioned them if I put on some lipstick. Go figure.
When I came out of the bathroom and walked past my desk, I paused and backed up a step. My desk was stacked with files in the neat piles I’d left them in. But right in the center of the desk was a silver ring. It was a heavy band and intricately carved. It had belonged to my mother, and she wore it always.
“Hey, Doc,” Nash called through the door. I jumped and then started looking around to see if my father was still in the room. “Can I use your printer?”
“Be my guest,” I said.
The room was empty. It was possible he could’ve left the ring on the desk anytime over the last couple of days. I hadn’t been in the office to check. It was just as possible he’d waltzed in right under Nash’s nose and put it there over the last few hours.
The last time I’d seen it was when my father had come back from the dead. He’d slipped it into my hand after I’d blacked out from shock. The silver band had felt like a lead weight, and I’d tossed it into a drawer so I didn’t have the constant reminder.
It hadn’t been the first time Malachi had breached our personal space. I was sure it wouldn’t be the last. I picked up the ring and turned it between my fingers. Whatever was in those remaining flash drives, Malachi had said that his freedom relied on them. I didn’t much care about his freedom, and I couldn’t trust him as far as I could throw him.
But he had said something that resonated as truth, and that was that all governments were the same, and all the players were following the same bureaucratic rules. Labels meant everything. Patriots and traitors were often one and the same, depending on which side of the line they were standing at the time. And patriotism wasn’t always synonymous with doing the right thing. Loyalty only existed as long as you were coloring inside the lines of whatever agenda was most pressing. And agendas changed as frequently as the people who created them.
Maybe there were others involved. Maybe Malachi really thought he was doing the
right thing and working for the right people. It wasn’t my place to make those decisions. But I knew he wasn’t completely innocent, and he’d left a body count behind him that he needed to pay for. Maybe even my mother. And the only way to get the answers was to get into those flash drives.
“Checkmate, Dad,” I said, shoving the ring into my pocket. “Let’s see who comes out on top.”
When I came back into the kitchen Nash was closing his computer and holding up his phone. “Got the warrant,” he said. “Let’s roll.”
I grabbed my bag and slung it across my body. I didn’t think I was going to need it, but I’d found out the hard way that the times when I didn’t have it were the times I always needed it. I just assumed we were taking Nash’s unit. It seemed pointless to take two cars, and he could always drop me by the house on the way back since it was on the way.
George Strait blasted through the speakers as soon as he turned the ignition, and he backed out of the driveway with practiced ease before speeding down Catherine of Aragon and toward the Walshes’ house.
When we finally turned onto Cromwell, I saw a line of police cars pulled off on the shoulder, waiting for us to get there. And a little farther down the road was Jack’s black Tahoe. I watched in the side mirror as they all pulled into a processional line behind us, no lights, but the anticipation in the air was heavy.
When we pulled into the Walshes’ driveway I was glad to see the only cars left in the driveway were the car and truck under the carport.
I didn’t know anything about Roy Walsh, so I was waiting to meet him face to face before I gave Nash my initial impression. I might work with the dead all day, but I was extremely gifted in reading people, and my first impressions were usually correct.
There were no outside lights on and the trees surrounding the house gave it an ominous feel, but every room inside the house glowed with a soft yellow light.
“I’m surprised he’s still here,” Nash said as we got out of the car. “There’s no way I’d be able to stay in the house if something like that happened.”