by Lisa Black
‘Plenty of jewelry,’ Shephard had said, more to himself than to Theresa. What he meant was that it didn’t look like there were any pieces missing, and to judge from the floor of Mrs Reese’s closet, the clutter might just be a housekeeping issue.
He had done a quick check of the rest of the bedroom, drawers, walk-in closets, medicine cabinet in the bath. Nothing. If whoever attacked Reese had waded through Mrs Reese’s jewelry, they had been looking for a specific item. It threw out the burglary-gone-bad theory.
Now Shephard sat on the hardwood floor next to the filing cabinet skimming over the contents, blue latex gloves on his hands, legs folded underneath him like a teenage girl. They would ache when he had to get up, Theresa thought. ‘Were they friends? Reese and Johnson?’
Theresa snorted before she could help herself. ‘Not likely.’
‘Why not?’
She considered. ‘I don’t know for sure, of course, I can only tell you that I never saw them hanging out together, lunching together, or even saying anything more to each other than a comment on the football game or the weather or a particularly interesting victim history. On the flip side, there were no conflicts between the two that I know of. Darryl could be – irritating? But never any more than mildly irritating, and irritating to everyone equally.’
‘What about Reese and Justin Warner? Any relationship?’
‘That’s even less likely. For one thing, Justin has only been here – at the office – three months.’
‘And for another?’
She started to lean against the edge of the desk, thought of fingerprints, and rested her back against the bookcase instead. ‘The ME’s is like any workplace – there’s a pecking order. At the summit is Stone, of course; then the pathologists. They’re great people but they’re doctors, which makes them gods, just like any other place on earth. Then there’s the scientists – me, Don, the toxicologists, the histologists. The artists, our photographers. Then support staff, starting with Janice. Then the ones who really have to get their hands dirty – dieners, who end up with enough medical knowledge to open their own practice but still make peanuts because they don’t have a degree. And then, pretty much at the bottom, are the deskmen.’
He continued to fan paper files – from what she could see over his shoulder, they seemed to be tax returns, home appliances warranties, medical records and a family tree. The same kind of stuff that most people have in their personal filing cabinets. Theresa didn’t know if he was reading or digesting what she’d said, and she tilted her head back against a collection of world atlases and closed her eyes. The weariness that adrenalin had been holding back suddenly seeped into her body. She’d barely slept, and now she’d found two men – men she knew, men she worked with – lying in their own blood within the past eight hours.
She opened her eyes. ‘I’ve got to call Stone. Has anyone called Stone? Or – Mrs Reese? Where is Mrs Reese, anyway?’
‘According to a neighbor, she is in Minnesota helping out their daughter, who just had her second baby. A beautiful baby boy, she told us, seven pounds, six ounces. I never understand why people tell you how much the kid weighs. I’m happy for the happy happy parents, but really, what do I care how much the kid weighed?’
Theresa wondered what prompted this sudden burst of commentary … either he was getting punchy, staying up past his normal shift, or perhaps babies were a sore spot for him. Trying to conceive and not having any luck? No wedding ring, but that didn’t mean much in this day and age. He had a rip in his sleeve near his right wrist and two old stains on the left leg of his pants. He needed a shave (not surprising, he should have gone home for the day hours before) and a haircut (just a half-inch) and maybe a little bit of sun. Aftershave had worn off earlier in his shift so she couldn’t tell much from that. Theresa guessed single, probably divorced (and probably more than once, being a cop) and not in a serious relationship with anyone except perhaps video games (pale and accustomed to sitting on the floor).
Theresa had been quiet too long, and he noticed her scrutiny, flushed a bit, and rose stiffly to a crouch high enough to plant his butt in Dr Reese’s desk chair. Bent over, he continued to study the files.
Perhaps he was expecting a grandchild soon, and the idea made him nervous.
Perhaps he would never have grandchildren, and the idea made him unhappy.
Perhaps Theresa should get back to work. She asked again about ME Stone; Shephard said no one had called that he knew of and that she should. She knew she should, too, and did, and it wasn’t fun. As usual the Medical Examiner managed to imply, with silence and a single expelled breath, that the blame for all the agency’s recent misfortunes could be laid squarely at her door. Theresa kept it short.
She put the phone back in her pocket. ‘So someone knocked Reese out in order to rifle through his old tax returns? And maybe his wife’s lavalieres? You—’
He looked up. ‘What?’
She’d been about to say you didn’t touch the file cabinet drawers, did you? but thought better of it. It annoyed cops to constantly remind them of Principles of Crime Scene Management 101. ‘You find anything interesting?’
‘Other than wondering who would pay eighty-nine dollars for a wallet, no. He did have one file of clippings, though. Your past cases. It was on top.’
He flipped open a hanging folder, spreading some of the newspaper columns across the floor for her to see. A murder-suicide from six months before. A traffic accident in which three children died. A drive-by in Euclid. Just a fraction of the stories that pass through the medical examiner’s office.
Shephard asked her, ‘Any of those ring a bell? Stand out in your mind? A case that was controversial, that particularly involved Dr Reese? Any disgruntled customers?’
Theresa shook her head. ‘I wouldn’t have any idea. You need to ask Stone – if there were complaints or threats, he would know. I wouldn’t.’
‘Pecking order, huh?’
‘Exactly. Everything is need-to-know.’
‘And you didn’t have any beefs, arguments, or dramas with one or both of these two victims in recent memory?’
Theresa felt sure her eyes widened, which probably looked ridiculous.
He shrugged, all casual-like but with a piercing gaze. ‘I have to ask. You’ve reported two brutally attacked victims in less than a full shift.’
‘Well …’ She swallowed. ‘Yes. And no, no conflicts with either man.’
After a moment he shrugged again. ‘Don’t worry. My money’s still on our missing Justin Warner.’
This time she didn’t argue. She also felt guilty about not arguing.
‘And,’ he went on, ‘there’s a slim – very slim – chance that the two cases aren’t related. This place was rifled, like a burglary gone bad or maybe a family member who needed cash right away. Your deskman still had on a nice watch and a diamond ring, wallet in his pocket. On the surface it looks like very different motivations.’
‘That’s true. But why just the office and the wife’s jewelry box, and then not take half the jewelry? He didn’t open another drawer or a closet; usually, they’re looking for cash, guns and prescription meds – well, you know that. He might have been interrupted.’
‘By what? The wife isn’t home, the neighbors are two hundred feet away, the trees give plenty of cover. No one phoned.’
So he had checked the caller ID already. Theresa felt fairly impressed by Sergeant Shephard.
He went on: ‘And if Dr Reese surprised him in here and he attacked the doctor, thought he killed him, why did he go upstairs and open the jewelry box before getting overcome by the heebie-jeebies and decide to run? It’s possible, of course.’
Theresa knew it was possible. Criminals were human beings, fully capable of being as capricious, inexplicable and illogical as anyone else.
Something started to swell in the base of her brain, some vague wisp of an idea that melded into some faded scrap of memory.
She left Shephard to his tasks an
d exited the doctor’s house. From the driveway she called Don. ‘Are you still at the lab?’
‘Of course I’m still at the lab. It’s back to business as usual here, according to the county. Time to get our butts back into our task chairs.’
‘Stay there,’ she said – stupidly, in light of what he had just told her. ‘I have a really funny idea.’
‘Funny ha ha, or funny—’
‘Funny scary,’ she said. ‘I think someone’s hunting us.’
EIGHT
For the second time that morning she presented herself to Janice, Queen of the Secretaries, for consideration. She needed more than just a copy of a fingerprint card this time. She needed to get into the vault itself. Theresa needed to see a case file.
Case files were not like personnel files, though, and Janice let her in without hesitation.
Theresa had to look up his six-digit number but located the file for George Bain. Bain had been a cop in Euclid Heights for most of his life, but the moment he had his twenty years in he took the retirement and came to the Medical Examiner’s office for the regular hours and (relatively) safe working conditions of Ambulance Crew Member, aka bodysnatcher. Within two weeks the regular hours and safe but sometimes back-straining conditions had him bored stiff and stiff as a board, and he spent the next fifteen years bemoaning his haste to bid his cop days adieu. Then eight months ago he bid the ME’s adieu as well and retired completely.
That hadn’t agreed with him, either; he’d barely made twelve weeks of leisure before his heart succumbed to despair. Or succumbed to too little exercise combined with too many chicken wings. Either way the result had been the same.
Theresa sat at a table in the center of the room. She could look at the file all she wanted, maybe even make a copy of some items, but couldn’t leave with it. Janice always gave Theresa’s lab coat a long look upon her exit, as if considering a quick frisk. Happily for both of them, Janice had never actually tried it.
Theresa skimmed the contents of the file. George Bain had been sixty-seven years old, divorced, overweight, a smoker, with cholesterol deposits and arteriosclerosis. Essentially, a heart attack waiting to happen, and the autopsy confirmed it. She had always wondered how, even with a partner, he managed to heft dead weights on to gurneys without becoming one himself.
His body had a few bruises to the arms and two to the ribs, one rather harsh one on the left clavicle, thought to have occurred as he stumbled around in pain or possibly looking for a phone, according to the scribbled notes of the responding officer. There were no signs of foul play; the door was unlocked but closed, victim’s wallet still in his pocket. Cash and two guns were found in the bedroom, undisturbed. Neighbors had not seen or heard anything unusual that evening, though neighbors tended to keep their observations to themselves in that corner of town. Discretion being the better part of valor, and all that.
George had died on a Saturday night, so there had been no need to clear the building since there was only a skeleton staff present on Sunday anyway. The night-shift deskmen hadn’t been particularly close to him since they worked at different times and so would have been expected to suck it up. Dr Harris had been assigned that weekend, probably complaining the entire time that a former employee should have known enough to die during business hours.
Theresa pulled out the source of her brain twinge, the crime scene photos. George had not been much of a housekeeper, and his home had many obstructions which could cause a fall – stacks of newspapers, empty boxes, an abandoned mop, spilled liquids and scattered shoes. It didn’t quite qualify for an episode of Hoarders, however, and the clutter had some sort of order to it. The newspapers were stacked, and the boxes set parallel to the wall. George had probably considered the place rather tidy.
Except for the corner of the living room used as a home office, and the bedroom.
A cheap computer desk held a dusty monitor, yet more stacks of paper, three staplers and a coffee can brimming with pens and pencils. A clean end of the desk had a small mountain of sheets and notes on the floor underneath it, almost as if one stack had fallen over or had been gone through. Theresa could see a two-drawer file cabinet, similar to Dr Reese’s, except that instead of glossy walnut, George had a cheap metal one with scratches and some deep dents. It had been emptied, its contents in one large heap next to it.
She studied the photos, then turned each over one by one. She wondered why they had even been printed – most scene photos weren’t in this digital age, when doctors and other people with access could view them on their computers, zooming in and out at will. (Theresa had access only to cases with samples assigned to Trace Evidence; simply browsing through death scenes out of morbid curiosity was not allowed … The medical examiner’s office really did try to preserve the privacy and the dignity of the deceased.)
Certain aspects of the scene sorted themselves out as she studied it. The living room coffee table had stacks of playing cards and magazines next to an array of remotes for the home entertainment system. Cardboard boxes had been stacked behind the sofa in a nearly perfect rectangle of bricks – apparently, George spent way too much time on the home shopping channels. But the file cabinet and the desk drawer had everything removed from them and put in a condensed but not neat pile.
The kitchen: the back half of the counter had cereal boxes, a blender, a toaster, a knife block, and so on and so forth packed into a continuous block from one wall to the next. The kitchen table had been similarly loaded up to three-quarters of its capacity, with the remaining quarter left as pristine as the front half of the counter.
The bathroom: medicine cabinet contents undisturbed (all over-the-counter, basic first-aid kind of stuff – no syringes, no industrial-sized jugs of sleeping pills, no worn bottles of expired Xanax such as addicts carry around to lend themselves legitimacy if searched). Enough toilet paper to stock a good-sized men’s room lining the walls, but everything in its assigned though cluttered space.
The bedroom: bed made, albeit with more than a few wrinkles in the old-fashioned bedspread. No less than three dressers with their tops packed with the now-familiar boxes, cartons, and a stack of folded polo-type shirts. But on the lowest dresser this layer had been topped with smaller items: an open ring box, a loose tie, a bundle of letters held with a rubber band and what looked like a tiny bowling trophy. A decorative bottle of cologne, which she hoped had been empty since it lay on its side on top of the polo shirts. A bunch of watches.
The next shot showed a more aerial view of this collection. Beneath the stuff, the top drawer jutted out about three inches and appeared to be empty except for some loose pieces of paper.
Theresa’s mind made that immediate, instinctive leap: someone had emptied the first drawer out piece by piece, placing the items on top of the stuff that was on top of the dresser.
The other drawers were closed – not perfectly flush, but closed. Not a burglar, then; at least, not a professional one. Burglars didn’t take the time to close drawers.
Maybe George had been cleaning out this drawer when overcome by his fatal heart attack? Or maybe George had a fatal heart attack because someone had attacked him, just as someone had attacked Dr Reese. Or someone attacked George because George walked in just as the attacker had been methodically searching through the retired bodysnatcher’s stuff.
Or maybe Theresa was now engaged in the all-too-human pursuit of seeing patterns that weren’t really there simply because she felt convinced there must be a pattern in the first place.
The closet had a similar aura to it. The doors were open, clothes hanging, light on. But the top shelf had two blankets, a stack of jeans, and a stack of sweatshirts, leaving large spaces between these items – odd, considering that every inch of available space stayed filled throughout the rest of the house. Boxes and containers left on top of the shoes on the closet floor. She peered at the colored pixels, trying to sort their contents into specific items: smaller boxes, more envelopes in rubber bands, a baseball, a few boo
ks, a worn teddy bear—
‘What are you doing in here?’ Don asked at her elbow, scaring a few years off her life … annoying that they always came off at the wrong end and thus wouldn’t make her any younger. She tended to think bitterly and a bit nonsensically about age whenever Don entered the room. Particularly when he was accompanied by Elena, who didn’t look old enough to drive and was cute enough to make Miley Cyrus look like Leona Helmsley.
‘Reviewing a file. How are you doing, Elena?’
‘What an awful day,’ she said, blonde hair glimmering to her shoulders, hot pink fingernails fluttering. Elena had a lot of awful days, her nerves consistently rubbed raw by the strain of living with two doctor parents who imagined their little girl doing her residency at Johns Hopkins or some such place; Elena herself had just enough intelligence and common sense to know that would never be an option for a girl who couldn’t even pass high school biology. So she strode through life as a constant contradiction, an eternal disappointment and yet the envy of all who set eyes upon her. One couldn’t not like the kid – for all her dewy beauty she looked as awkward as a shy seventh-grader standing in a clique-ridden school cafeteria. Theresa patted the table across from herself and suggested Elena sit down for a moment.
Don sat beside Theresa, gingerly. She thought he felt wary at her being sweet and mothering for no apparent reason to anyone other than, well, him, but it turned out he had something else on his mind.
Instead of looking past her at the spread-out file, he turned toward her, removed her right hand from the table and held it in both of his. ‘I have to tell you something.’
She knew at once it would be bad. Solemn wasn’t a common expression for either of them.