“Then we haul out the carpet cutters and…” He mimed scissoring around a body. “But then you’ve got the added problem of some extra weight if they’ve really been leaking, and especially if it’s shag carpeting.”
I shook my head. “Damn the shag carpeting!”
“Oh, you got that right. Me, I think that shit makes any room look like something that belongs in a porno movie—not that I’ve seen all that many pornos, you understand, it’s just there’s something kinda…I dunno…sleazy and tacky about it.”
Gas-ruptured bodies and home decorating tips. With lunch still hours away. My life was an embarrassment of blessings.
I looked in the back of the wagon where a crate hand-labeled Retrieval Gear sat with its unlocked lid bouncing up and down every time we drove over a pot-hole. Symbolic thoughts of Pandora’s Box notwithstanding, the sight gave me the creeps, knowing as I did what was inside.
“Do you think we’ll have to use any of the science-fiction paraphernalia?”
Dobbs seriously considered this; I knew he was considering it seriously because the right side of his face knotted up as if he were having a stroke. “Hard to say. I kinda like putting on them HazMat suits myself. Scares the hell out of people and they keep outta your way. I used to feel silly wearing that stuff until the doc explained to me that dead, leaking bodies produce their own kind of toxic waste.” He looked at me and, for the first time that morning, outright smiled; there was a lot of genuine kindness it. “Don’t you worry none. If it’s bad, I’ll walk you through it. I know this ain’t exactly what you had in mind, and I may act like a royal horse’s ass most of the time—at least according to anyone who’s known me for more than twenty minutes—but I got sympathy.”
“You’ve had assistants like me before?”
He barked a loud laugh. “Hell, buddy, how do you think I got started on this job?”
“You’re kidding?”
“If I was kidding, don’t you think I’d try to come up with something funnier than that?”
“Good point.”
He gave a short, sharp nod. “They got me same way as you. Had one too many before hitting the road one night and got stopped by Johnny Law. Since I’d drove an ambulance in Vietnam, judge figured that me and the meat wagon was a perfect community-service match.” He shrugged. “When my CS period was done, they offered me a permanent job.” He looked at me. “I actually kinda like it. Dead folks’re quiet, and I treat them with respect, even when I gotta roll ‘em up in sheets or rugs.”
“Or shag carpeting.”
He almost grinned. “I don’t make no jokes when I’m taking care of them. The doc likes that, likes my attitude, which is why I can get away with some of the shit that I pull, and whenever the city does its budget-cut dance, like they done here last quarter, I don’t have to worry about being left out of work.”
“That explains why I wasn’t given a choice in the matter.” My lawyer had told me that the courts try to match your own individual abilities to a county department where those abilities could best be used, which is why I’d expected to find myself cleaning offices—I’m a crew manager with a local janitorial company—but Judge Walter Banks was in a bad mood, evidently being pressured to assign more defendants to CS duty (damn the budget cuts!), and said he’d had his fill of “…people who think they’ve got the constitution of an ox so they don’t think twice about getting behind the wheel while under the influence…” and slapped me with both a five hundred dollar fine and one hundred hours of community service. My lawyer argued that, by law, I was to be given a choice of assignments; Judge Banks pointed out that the matter of being offered a choice was up to the discretion of the bench, and his particular bench felt that I damned well ought to be exposed to the dead in order to remind me of what could have happened had I hit a pedestrian or another car.
So I was assigned to the budget-strapped County Coroner’s Office. As Fred Dobbs’ assistant. In the passenger seat of the meat wagon. Talk about your pot of gold at the end of the rainbow.
“By the way,” I said, “I wasn’t drunk.”
“Of course you weren’t. And every man on Death Row is innocent.”
“I’m not trying to say I didn’t deserve my fine and the rest of it, I just want it made clear that I wasn’t drunk.”
“But you were half-snowed on Demerol.”
“I’d gotten slammed with a migraine, I went to the ER, they gave me a shot—”
“—and probably told you not to drive yourself home, isn’t that right?”
I shrugged. “I thought I could make it home before the stuff really kicked in.”
“Appears you were mistaken.”
I shrugged. “Hell, I was probably more dangerous driving to the hospital than I was driving home afterward.”
“Hate to be the one to break the news to you, but ‘under the influence’ don’t just refer to drinking, you know.”
“I do now.”
Dobbs sighed, rubbing one of his eyes. “You’re not gonna grouse like this for the next three weeks, are you? Unless it’s the sound of my own voice—which I find soothing and not without a certain musical quality—I kinda prefer to keep the conversation upbeat.”
“I didn’t think I was complaining.”
“Maybe not, but you were in the neighborhood. Speaking of—double-check the address for me, would you?”
I picked up the clipboard and read the address to him.
“You sure that’s right?”
I offered the board to him; he stopped at a red light, took the board, and read it for himself. “Huh. That’s odd.”
“What?”
“When Doc said East Main, I just kinda assumed it was the Taft Hotel. A lot of old folks and welfare cases wind up croaking there.”
I was familiar with the Taft; hell, anyone who’s lived here for more than a year knows about it. Once the most popular and expensive hotel in the city (named after William Howard Taft, who’d frequently stayed there), the last fifty years have seen it slide not-so-slowly into disrepair and decay, becoming nothing more than a glorified flop-house where those who’ve reached the end of their rope can crawl into poverty’s shadow and just give up. I’d assumed, as well, that the Taft was our destination, but it turned out we were headed for The Maples, an apartment building located two miles farther down East Main Street. The Maples’ residents were exclusively those elderly who still had their wits and retirement funds very much about them, and who were capable of living unsupervised. The Maples had good security, two doctors who lived on-site, an exercise room, a small chapel for Sunday services (some residents could not drive to church, so church came to them), and touted itself as the place to go for “…those seniors who can still do it on their own.” My grandmother had lived there until her death three years ago. Though I hadn’t set foot in its lobby since then, I had no reason to think that The Maples had suffered a fate similar to that of the Taft.
“Well,” said Dobbs, tossing down the clipboard as the light turned green, “I think we can rule out having to wear the spacesuits today.”
“Another thrill my life will have to do without.”
“I can feel your heartbreak all the way over here.”
I picked up the clipboard and looked at the sheet again. Under Caller’s Name, the space was blank.
“Aren’t they supposed to take the name of whoever calls it in?” I asked.
“Supposed to. The city’s supposed to have fixed all the potholes in the road, I’m supposed to weigh thirty-five pounds less than I do, and you’re supposed to be doing something else besides helping me. For that matter, this whole to-do was supposed to be handled by the book, but there ain’t been nothing about this has gone like it’s supposed to.”
“Meaning…?”
“Meaning that the doc was ordered by the mayor to examine the body hisownself. Doc doesn’t do that unless it’s a murder scene. Some old lady croaks in her apartment or a hotel room or at a nursing home, he sends one of his f
lunkies to look over the body and make the call to whatever funeral home is gonna be handling it.” He shook his head. “Not this time, no sir—this time the doc is ordered to do it personally. Mayor called him at home around five this morning, made the man get out of bed and go to it pronto. Doc was awfully tight-lipped about everything when he called me about the paperwork. Can’t say I’m too happy about being kept out of the loop.”
I remembered the call; it had come into the office just as I arrived for work. Dobbs had seemed confused as he looked at the forms left on his desk by the coroner—his end of the conversation consisted of, “Yes sir”, and “But why—?”, and “We’ll get on it right now.” It seemed like an awfully short exchange, considering what we were being sent out to do.
“So,” I said, “you’re supposed to be given more information than this?”
Dobbs nodded. “Yeah, but like I said, supposed to don’t always cut it. My guess is that one of the neighbors found her, told the building manager, and the manager called the police, cha-cha-cha—though why in hell the mayor got involved in this is beyond me. We can always ask whatever poor doofus the department left on the scene.”
“There’s gonna be a cop there?”
He nodded. “There’s always a cop there until we show up. Once foul play has been ruled out—and that’s already been done—what you’re left with is a body that’s just laying there stinking up the place and making everyone else nervous as hell. The law doesn’t require that an officer remain with the body until it’s picked up, but it ain’t exactly like Cedar Hill is Miami. They can spare an officer to corpse-sit for an hour or so.”
“I’ll bet that puts them in a cheery frame of mind.”
“Well, we’re gonna be finding out here in a minute or three.”
He drove the wagon into the Maples’ underground parking garage, expertly backing up so that the rear doors faced the freight elevator. We got out, unloaded and unfolded the collapsible gurney, grabbed the clipboard, Latex gloves for each of us, some scissors in case there was carpet work to be done, a couple of filter masks, and then, finally, the body bag.
Dobbs pressed the button, stood waiting for a moment, then shook his head and said, “Shit, I forgot, come on.” He started walking toward one of the parking garage doors that led into the lobby. “We have to get the elevator key from whoever’s manning the front desk.”
A set of glass doors opened into a warmly-lighted hallway with gold carpeting. On the walls hung bulletin boards with announcements and fliers tacked on them—Bingo Night, a pot-luck dinner at a local church, a lecture on living wills to be given at the library next week—as well as tastefully-framed prints of bowls of fruit, glamorous cityscapes, and myriad pastoral scenes. The furniture was clean and over-stuffed, the sofa pillows fluffy, the doilies and afghans perfectly folded and arranged, the whole setting designed to make you feel Right At Home. Smells of soup, cornbread, and meatloaf wafted from the cafeteria (The Maples Dining Room, as it was called by the sign), and the murmuring of the voices coming from the dining area suggested that it was filled with people who’d known each other for decades and could easily fall into the kind of familiar, friendly conversation that, between lifelong friends, becomes a kind of art unto itself.
Despite my increasing anxiety over what Fred and I were about to do, I slowed down, chancing a glance into the dining room, then stopped in my tracks entirely when I saw how everyone was dressed; the women wore either dresses or attractive suit outfits, while all the men were in slacks, jackets, and ties. I looked around, trying to see if there were anything posted about a dress code, and then just as quickly realized there wouldn’t be. This dining room was filled with people who remembered what it was like to treat mealtime as an event, every day. You dressed for meals not only out of respect for yourself, but for those with whom you would share the meal. Looking at the diners at that moment, I found myself wondering when, how, and why we’d come to view what was meant to be a sociable event of the day as just another excuse to grab some chow. Me, I frequently ate alone while wearing only my underwear, and the last time I’d had a dinner date, I’d worn khakis and a polo shirt, while my date arrived resplendent in her jeans, sandals, and OSU sweatshirt. Maybe we think it’s too old-fashioned or outright corny to dress like this for meals every day, but I’d’ve bet a week’s salary that every person in there had spent a lot of time deciding what to wear, then just as much time getting ready, and were probably enjoying their meal more than we of the jeans-and-T-shirted pizza nights could or would ever understand.
Somebody has to come up with these commonplace profundities. Might as well be me.
I smiled at an old woman who looked up and saw me looming in the doorway, then double-timed it to catch up with Dobbs, who was speaking to the receptionist at the front desk.
“…moved in about seven months ago,” the woman was saying, “and in all that time I don’t remember her ever having a single visitor.”
Dobbs gave his head a slow, sad shake. “That’s terrible,” he said, sounding like he meant it.
“One of the things we try to do here at The Maples is make sure that none of our residents feel isolated—it’s a terrible thing to be getting on in years and feel alone and lonely. We encourage everyone to interact with their neighbors—you know, sort of keep an eye on each other’s well-being so that no one feels ignored or forgotten…but Miss Driscoll never really allowed herself to become part of The Maples’ community. Oh, she’d be pleasant enough at meals and come to the weekly residents’ meetings, but aside from those times, she rarely left her room.”
Fred put on his stroke-face again, considering this. “And she never had any visitors?”
The woman behind the desk shook her head. “Not unless you count delivery people. And the thing is, she has—had—one of our bigger apartments. People who can afford anything on 7 or above are, well…comfortable, you know? They’ve been careful with their money. And—oh, God, this is going to sound so mean—our older residents who have a little money, they tend to get visitors. You know—family and friends who want to be left a little something in the will. Not to imply that they don’t love their grandma or grandpa or great aunt or whoever, but…oh, my; I’m really putting my foot in it here, aren’t I?”
“Not particularly,” said Dobbs.
The woman shook her head. “But not Miss Driscoll. Never a visitor, just the deliveries. I’ll bet she had two, three packages a week delivered to her. And some of those packages were fairly sizeable. On days when she had deliveries, she never came down for meals, just called the desk and said she wasn’t feeling well and could she have her meals sent to her room. We do that here, send meals to a resident’s room if they’re not feeling good enough to come down.”
“So she’d sometimes miss, what—three meals a week?”
“More, if it was a big delivery day.”
I couldn’t help but wonder why Dobbs was asking all these questions, unless it had something to do with what he’d told me about treating the dead with respect; maybe asking questions gave him some sense of what kind of person they had been while alive, and helped him decide how best to treat their remains.
And maybe he was just a good, old-fashioned, first-class nib-shit.
The woman behind the desk gave the freight elevator key to Dobbs. “Your gurney doesn’t squeak, does it?”
“No, ma’am, it certainly does not.”
She nodded her head. “That’s good. I wouldn’t want the other residents to be disturbed by this—at least, not any more than they already have been.”
Dobbs thanked her for the key, turned to leave, then looked back. “You don’t by chance know who called this in, do you?”
“I know it wasn’t me, I just came on-duty a couple of hours ago, but…wait a second, please, I’ll check the phone log.” She called up something on her computer. “We have to keep records of who makes this kind of call, and when, all that good stuff.” She found was she was looking for, scrolled up, then d
own, then said, “Huh.”
“Something wrong?” asked Dobbs.
“There’s nothing here. If the call had been made from this desk or the manager’s office, it would be entered in the phone records. But…there’s nothing.”
“So maybe it was one of her neighbors?”
“Let me check.” She called up another file, then another, then one more. “Okay, this is odd.”
Dobbs gave me a quick look, then went back to the desk. “You’re not gonna actually make me ask, are you?”
The woman looked at him, then back at the computer screen as if she expected the information she’d been searching for to have suddenly appeared during the interim. “We have certain rules that all our residents abide by, and one of those rules is that in a situation like this, if they make the call to the police, they are to immediately inform us so that we can enter it into the records. When a resident passes away on the premises, it’s vital that we record every bit of information—not just for the family’s peace of mind, but to protect ourselves should any legal questions arise.” She looked back at Dobbs. “There’s nothing here about Miss Driscoll’s dying—and I mean nothing.” Her eyes narrowed. “This is lazy and thoughtless and inexcusable. We could get into a lot of trouble for this.”
“I won’t say anything,” said Dobbs. “But it looks like maybe this’d be a good time for you to enter some information, huh?”
“I…I don’t know any of the specifics, I wouldn’t know where—”
Dobbs handed her a photocopy of the forms given to him by the Coroner’s Office. “Most everything’s there; when we got the call, when the doc arrived here, the estimated time of death, the doc’s official conclusion, all of it.”
She took the forms from him. “Do you always carry extra copies of this stuff?”
“All the time. You’d be surprised how many people forget to write this stuff down when someone dies.”
She pressed the forms against her chest and sighed with relief. “You’re a life-saver, you know that?”
“All part of my famous curmudgeonly charm.” And with a wave, he left, gesturing me to follow.
Cages & Those Who Hold the Keys Page 13