A Shattering Crime

by Jennifer McAndrews

  Of course, I didn’t actually know how to spot footprints. They always looked so obvious on television. In reality, though, autumn-dried grass tamped down or standing straight in no specific pattern didn’t readily offer up any shoe-shaped images. Add in a few fallen leaves, and even if there were prints, the leaves would obscure them.

  Rolling my eyes at my own foolishness, I picked up the pace and circled to the side of the house. Dead leaves had blown into the narrow gap between house and foundation and wedged themselves there, and I wondered abstractly who it was who took care of Rozelle’s yard. I hoped she wasn’t doing her own raking and shoveling, and that somewhere along her street was a neighbor who did these things for her and that they would come along soon and take care of that most recent mess.

  Terry ambled up alongside me so that we were side by side when we came upon the next window. From there we had a view into the kitchen, with only a top valance acting as a curtain on this window. The braid of garlic hung above the counter beside a sink in which several large baking tins rested half out of the basin. A cooling rack three levels high sat on the counter, each level filled with—

  “Cookies,” Terry said. Rather than surprise or even a little wistfulness, his voice was heavy with something that sounded remarkably like dread.

  My stomach sank. I understood his sentiment. Cookies sitting out on the rack and cooling . . . Wherever Rozelle was, she hadn’t planned on being away from home, at least not for long.

  I opened my mouth, thinking maybe Terry was expecting a comment, but words failed me.

  At the back of the house another door sat beside the kitchen and gave us a view of the living room from the other side. A small window set with privacy glass could only have been the bathroom, and farther along, at the rear corner of the house, heavy shades were down in what I presumed to be the bedroom.

  “Wish we’d found a key,” Terry mumbled. “I’d like to get inside, have a look around.”

  I kicked at a small cluster of leaves. “You think there’s any information to be learned there?”

  “Always something to learn,” he said.

  We rounded the rear corner, heading back to the street, and narrowly missed crashing into Carrie.

  “You left your cell phone in the car,” she said. “How can I be a lookout and call you if there’s trouble if you left your cell phone in the car?” She brandished my phone for emphasis.

  I could have pointed out that the lookout thing was her idea and she mentioned calling 911 and not me. Instead, I tapped my fingers against my forehead and gave a little smile. “Sorry. I wasn’t thinking. But, um, why did you take it out of my purse?”

  “It wouldn’t stop ringing,” she said. “I was only going to put it on vibrate, but when I saw who was calling, I thought you’d like to know.”

  I reached for the phone as cautiously as if I were reaching for a snake. “Why? Who’s been calling?”

  Wordless, she held the phone out to me. I grabbed it, thumb poised to bring up the call log, when again the phone rang. There, bold as a billboard across the display screen, were the words PACE COUNTY POLICE DEPT.

  My life was such that those words no longer filled me with instant fear or guilt. Dread, though . . . that was hard to put an end to.

  Taking a breath, I accepted the call then lifted the phone to my ear. “This is Georgia,” I said.

  The words had barely left my mouth when Diana’s voice blasted through the receiver. “Tell me you’re not snooping around Rozelle’s house,” she commanded.

  I let out that breath, shoulders dropping as I relaxed. As I resumed my slow walk around the house, eyes on the ground as I tried to pick up traces of Carrie’s recent footprints, I said, “I’m not in the house.”

  “Why are you there?” Diana asked. “We’ve already searched and secured her house and I told you—”

  “I know,” I said, catching Carrie’s eye. “You told us there was nothing to be learned here.”

  “And to leave this to the police, right?” Diana prompted.

  “Uuuhmmm, no, that I don’t remember you saying,” I said.

  “Really? Detective Nolan didn’t happen to mention the importance of leaving things to the police?”

  My steps slowed. We had reached the front yard and I had yet to spot a footprint, but that was no surprise. The realization that Nolan had told me no such thing rocketed through me. More than that, though . . .

  I glanced from the dead and dying grass at my feet to the curb, where Carrie’s tan sedan sat smack in front of the house.

  “Hey, Diana,” I said. “Tell me something. Any luck finding Rozelle’s car?”

  Her sigh carried a hint of resignation. “Not yet. We’re looking. Why do you ask?”

  Though she clearly couldn’t see me, I shook my head nonetheless. “No reason,” I said. “Just trying to put things together.”

  “Because that goes right along with leaving things to the police,” she said, sarcasm dragging her tone of voice lower.

  “She left home in a hurry but took her own car,” I murmured. “So probably no one stopped by and surprised her. Does that mean she was in a rush? Running late for some prearranged get-together?”

  “Georgia, are you talking to me or talking to yourself? Because I’m going to hang up on you if you’re talking to yourself.”

  I considered claiming I had been talking to her, asking her to keep me company along my mind wandering and give a little input. But my thoughts were half formed at best. A sense of certitude told me I was on to something, but I didn’t know what. Not yet. “Talking to myself,” I said. “I’ll let you get back to work.”

  We said our good-byes and I clicked off the phone, looked at Terry. “Okay. What next?”

  13

  When Carrie heard Terry’s next-stop plan for continuing our informal investigation into Rozelle’s disappearance, she instantly recalled an important shipment she had to pull together. A very big part of me wanted to claim she needed my help. But this was my crusade. All I had to do was think of Grandy and my resolve returned. Besides, Terry had some kind of weird faith in me. Or maybe he was just using me for my access to cars and the opportunity to spend a little time reliving the good old days.

  Whatever the case, Terry and I went alone to the last place I ever thought I’d visit—the last place most folks visit, come to that: the county morgue.

  For half an hour on the road, “turn right here” and “turn left there” acted as brief interruptions to Terry’s tales of life in his daughter’s house. One particular story involving his grandson, the family parrot, and Terry’s denture paste resulted in a complete U-turn. Distracting though it was, his chatter kept me from dwelling on our destination, and I pulled into the parking lot at the county coroner’s office far less nervous than I may have been otherwise.

  “Are you sure we’re allowed to be here?” I asked as we slow-rolled through a mostly empty lot. There were a few cars scattered throughout the lot, and a couple parked directly beside the building. Though signs indicated who was permitted to use the slots, the area gave an impression of abandonment, or a forbidden zone.

  “You pay your taxes, doncha?” Terry asked.

  I nosed the car into an empty spot in an empty row beneath one of three signs marked VISITOR PARKING. “Of course I pay taxes,” I said.

  “Then you’re allowed to be here. You can park here, walk through those doors there, and have a seat in the lobby.” With a wave of his hand, he indicated a pair of brown-aluminum-rimmed glass doors. “Whether you get any farther than that is a crap shoot.”

  Marvelous.

  Silence enveloped us as we stepped out of the car, and the air itself seemed oddly without odor, as if all life had been sucked into a void. I suppressed a shudder and used the key fob to lock the car.

  Terry had a bit of a slower step than Grandy, and I had to pay at
tention and be careful not to overtake him. We walked mostly side by side across the parking lot, a few stray leaves billowing into our path and getting caught beneath our feet. They flattened with a crunch and I had a moment’s wistfulness in memories of jumping into a pile of leaves in Grandy’s backyard when I was a little bit of a thing with constantly tangled hair. Now all I needed was a pile of leaves and I could re-create my childhood.

  Acting the gentleman, Terry opened the door and made a little bow as he waved me inside ahead of him. One step over the threshold and all thoughts of jumping in leaves and other innocent and innocuous pursuits fled my mind. The sensation that I had just entered a hospital washed over me, along with the odorous combination of commercial cleaners and dust. Two steps and I realized I had a leaf impaled on the heel of my shoe.

  I proceeded to the counter stretched along the far wall and propped my elbow on its pitted and gouged wood surface for added balance while I removed the dead vegetation. The dark-haired woman behind the counter looked up from her contemplation of the glossy pages of a textbook and laid a pen on the notebook beside it. “Help you?” she asked.

  Her tired, returning-student eyes skittered over to Terry when he laid his hands on the counter with a slight slap. “Yes, please, darlin’.” Terry gave her a big smile. “Will you tell me if ol’ Lucky Hendricks is still around?”

  The way he phrased it, it was hard to tell if he was asking if Lucky was still in the building or if he was still among the living.

  She flipped a lock of hair over her shoulder then lifted a phone receiver. “I’ll check. Who should I say is looking for him?”

  “Hank,” Terry said. “Hank Fields.” He touched his fingertips to my shoulder. “And this here’s my grand-niece Bernadette.”

  With her free hand, she pointed to her left. “Have a seat.”

  Terry turned in the indicated direction and I gaped at the back of his head. Hank? Bernadette?

  He made himself comfortable on a squared-off armchair covered in teal vinyl and pen marks. “Place hasn’t changed a bit,” he said.

  I perched on the edge of a 1970s version of a futuristic couch upholstered in the same scary teal. “What’s with the name change?” I whispered.

  “What’s that?” He set a hand behind his ear and tilted his head toward me.

  I huffed, leaned closer so I didn’t need to speak louder. “What’s up with the new name, Hank?”

  His brows lowered and seemed to blend into one straight line stretching from one side of his face to the other. “You want anyone who asks to know we were here asking questions?”

  I had already taken a breath in preparation of arguing with him, but let it out slowly. He was right. Last thing I wanted was for Detective Nolan to know I’d visited the morgue. At least, I thought the news would displease him. My mind spun back to the question of why he hadn’t issued his usual “let the police handle it” warning. If he hadn’t given me the warning, would he be opposed to my visit with the county coroner?

  Before I could formulate an answer—or a theory—the metallic thunk of a push bar on a door echoed through the quiet. Into the waiting area strode a man I estimated to be in his early fifties. He wore neat gray slacks and a charcoal shirt with a black-and-white art deco patterned tie. His dark hair was trimmed short and his smile was almost unnaturally white as he approached Terry, hand extended.

  “Hank,” he said, grabbing Terry’s hand before the poor man had risen from his chair. “Good to see you. How have you been?”

  They exchanged the predictable long-time-no-see banter with only a slight pause to acknowledge my presence.

  “What brings you by?” Lucky Hendricks folded his arms across his chest and peered at Terry with open interest.

  “Need a favor.” Terry put his hand on Lucky’s shoulder, looked left then right then back again. “Someplace we can talk that’s not so . . . public?”

  I expected some hesitation, some resistance on Lucky’s part, but he kept a smile in place and invited us to his office. “Such as it is,” he said.

  “Such as it is?” I repeated as we trailed him across the lobby and to the very door he had come through.

  As he tugged on the door, it unlocked with a click then he darted through ahead of us. “More like a desk in a corner of a room,” he said over his shoulder. “But I can assure you no one else will be listening.”

  Some stupid, late reality check landed like a fist in my gut. Morgue. We were headed into the morgue. Those no-one-elses who wouldn’t be listening were most likely corpses.

  Did that cold, tingly feeling across my cheeks mean the blood was draining from my face? I was so used to the heat of embarrassment, I couldn’t be sure what its opposite meant.

  Without any conscious decision on my part, I slowed my steps until I was trailing slightly behind Terry and Lucky. My plan was to keep my gaze on the backs of their heads, maybe as far as their necks. Under no circumstances did I plan to let my gaze wander elsewhere.

  But I kind of couldn’t help it. I thought the space we’d be walking into would look like locations I’d seen on television—wide hallways with rooms on either side that were almost like operating rooms only somewhat darker and with metal tables instead of gurneys.

  Instead, the rooms on either side of us reminded me of high school, with chicken-wire reinforced glass windows set into wooden doors, posters in the hallway reminding passersby of lab rules and protocols, and an encompassing hush of the sort enforced by hall monitors.

  Near the end of the hall Lucky tipped his head to the right and turned toward a door. Terry lagged behind a little until I caught up and we stood elbow to elbow while Lucky produced a heavy set of keys and fed one into the dead bolt in the door. With a turn of the key and a turn of the knob, the door swung inward, opening into darkness.

  I wanted to close my eyes, but that would no doubt end in some sort of self-injury. Instead, I squeezed them as almost closed as I could and peered out between the screen of my lashes.

  Lights flared on in the room as Lucky strode inside. I crept in behind Terry, doing my utmost to keep my gaze on the ground, but I couldn’t do anything to keep my nose closed without drawing attention to myself. The scent of the room impacted me instantly. I flinched backward at the aroma of . . . burnt coffee?

  Still shielding myself behind Terry, I cautiously opened one eye.

  Lucky had led us into what my one eye assessed as a room straight out of a high school science department. With the other eye open, I was able to confirm that assessment. Though clearly we were not in a high school, the large room contained the same sort of furnishing you would find there. Classic, black-topped lab tables on wooden legs, file cabinets tucked beneath. The tabletops themselves were scattered with stacks of papers, the occasional indoor plant, and an impressive array of coffee mugs.

  I was, indeed, standing inside a lab. Not a corpse in sight. Thank heavens for small miracles; I don’t think I could have handled the sight of a dead body.

  My shoulders sagged as I let go the worry I’d been carrying. I moved level with Terry in time to decline from Lucky an offer of coffee.

  “So what can I do for you?” Lucky perched on the edge of what I presumed to be the desk he had referred to earlier, being in the corner of the room and all. His hip pushed aside a half-finished cup of coffee and I reached to stop it from tipping over entirely. He smiled his thanks as Terry said, “Bernadette here had some questions and I told her you’d be the man to ask.”

  I resisted the urge to punch him in the arm but doubted I kept the surprise from my face.

  Lucky looked at me with raised brows and an expectant gaze.

  “Umm, yes,” I said. “Some questions I hoped you could help with.”

  He nodded, a motion that meant “go ahead.”

  Finding no way to stall until the right words came to me, I took a breath and said, “I’m tryi
ng to understand how you determine cause of death.”

  More nodding, but no offer of information.

  “That is, I suppose if someone dies of a known medical condition or, say, gets hit by a car, the cause of death is pretty obvious and you . . . wouldn’t do an autopsy?”

  Lucky Henricks folded his arms. “That’s right. We typically reserve autopsy for situations where the cause of death is suspected but not definite or is unknown altogether.”

  “Suspected or suspicious?” I asked.

  Lucky tipped his head, acquiescing. “Both, I guess you could say.” His gaze narrowed. “What is this about?”

  “Listen, Lucky,” Terry began.

  But since he was the one who’d thrown me to the wolves, I wasn’t about to let him do any rescuing. “I was there,” I said quickly, “for the groundbreaking ceremony where David Rayburn got sick. The newspaper says cause of death is undetermined but the suspicion is that it’s poisoning.”

  Lucky leaned back, almost imperceptibly. “That’s right.”

  “So what I don’t understand is how it’s only a suspected poisoning? I mean, if someone was poisoned, there would be signs, right? Like foaming at the mouth or speaking in tongues or something?”

  Beside me, Terry chuckled. I steeled myself against the suspicion that he thought my question to be somewhat simpleminded. After all, what did I know about poison really? It’s not that I was likely to come across that information during my education in accounting.

  Fortunately, Lucky seemed more interested in educating than mocking. “Most poisons leave very little indication as to their presence. They’re not as obvious as, say, signs of drowning or a heart attack or even a drug overdose.”

  “Then how do you test for them?” I asked. “And what would even make you think to test for them instead of, say, a valium overdose or something?”