by Molly Harper
Sheriff Linden grimaced, which was answer enough for Frankie. He fumed, “So you’re just going to sign off on it as an accident without even looking into it? Is that how you normally handle things around here, Ms. McCready?”
“No, I’m going to do my due diligence, just like I do with each and every body that comes through my doors. But I’m not going to waste the county’s limited budget on expensive, unnecessary tests when we need to save it just in case there’s an actual murder in our town . . . for the first time in more than twenty years.”
Sheriff Linden glowered at her with those icy green eyes of his and she rolled her own in response. “Okay, do you have pictures of the scene?”
The sheriff took a mini tablet out of an oversize pocket in his cargo pants, tapped in an access code, and handed it to her without looking at the screen. She scrolled through the photos of the body, the deer stand, and the ground surrounding the scene, until she found one that featured the dry-rotted wooden steps Bobby Wayne had nailed into the broad oak tree when he was in high school. Frankie noted that the fifth step up was broken and dangling from the trunk by a loosened nail.
“That broken step’s, what, eight feet off of the ground?” she said, manipulating the screen to zoom in on the step. Sheriff Linden frowned at the screen and nodded. Frankie snapped on a pair of sterile exam gloves.
“Excuse me, Bobby Wayne,” she said in a polite but brisk tone. “I just need to take a quick look.”
“You talk to the dead bodies?” Eric asked.
“I was raised well. Just because they’re not breathin’ doesn’t mean I shouldn’t be polite,” she shot back as she opened the body bag and gently extended Bobby Wayne’s hand. The sheriff took a rather large step back and she showed him the dark brown material packed under Bobby Wayne’s ragged fingernails. “And this looks like tree bark, doesn’t it? And those stains on his sleeves?” Frankie sniffed delicately at the green camo jacket. “Smell a lot like beer.”
The sheriff nodded, his lips going the color of day-old oatmeal. “McCready, don’t sniff the body. I gotta draw a line somewhere.”
“From that height, given the scratches on the tree trunk and the bark under his nails, and what looks like a Bud Light can at the base of the tree, I think it’s pretty safe to say that Bobby Wayne was trying to climb into his rickety old deer stand while holdin’ a beer, because I’m pretty sure Bobby Wayne was born holdin’ a beer. The step gave way under his foot, he dropped the beer, tried to keep hold of the trunk, but fell onto his back, with his rifle barrel right under the base of his skull, and the rifle went off. It’s a terrible tragedy, but these things happen. Haven’t you ever heard of the Darwin Awards?”
Sheriff Linden shook his head. “How would that even happen?”
Frankie took the sheriff’s tablet and opened the photos from the crime scene. She noted the way he instinctually turned his eyes away from the images. She tapped the screen. “Bobby Wayne always used his granddaddy’s rifle. He thought it was good luck.”
“Okay.”
“Well, modern firearms have that firing pin block thing that prevents a gun from firing accidentally if it’s dropped.”
“I’m familiar with the concept.”
“Bobby Wayne’s granddaddy’s rifle didn’t have that. So . . . not good luck after all.” When he shot her a disappointed look, she added, “But just to make you feel better, I’ll run tests on the back of Bobby Wayne’s jacket to show the patterns of gunshot residue and determine how the rifle was situated against his back when it was fired. And I’ll send the bullet to the state lab for comparison to his rifle.”
“You can run GSR tests here?” Sheriff Linden asked, eyeing her work space.
“As I’ve told you before, Sheriff, this is technically the county morgue. There’s no major hospital for fifty miles. I’ve been the county coroner since my uncle, the last coroner, died. I know what I’m doin’.”
“You ran unopposed,” Sheriff Linden shot back, a tiny bit of color returning to his cheeks.
“No one else wanted the job,” she told him. “Because people around here enjoyed dealin’ with Sheriff Rainey about as much as I like dealing with you.”
“Well, that’s hurtful.” He placed his hand over his heart. For the first time since he’d entered the basement, Sheriff Linden offered a hint of a smile and she saw a glimpse of that charming, adventurous soul she’d spent quality naked time with all those nights ago.
“I’m not tryin’ to be hurtful. Just honest.” Frankie carefully tucked Bobby Wayne’s arm back in the bag and zipped it. The sheriff took a deep breath and his shoulders relaxed. Frankie rounded the table and he took several steps back toward Mr. Watts’s table.
“I get that you’re used to murders by the hour, but you’re going to have to pump your brakes just a little bit. This is Lake Sackett. Not every non-natural death is going to be suspicious. Sometimes alcohol and outdoor sports are going to combine in awful, permanent ways.”
“Look, I’m an interim sheriff. I took the job knowing I would only have it until the special election in November. That doesn’t make it any less demoralizing to campaign for the job I have. And difficult, since, as you like to point out at every possible opportunity, I’m an outsider. I have to make a good impression with voters or there’s no hope of me getting elected.” He pinned her with those frank, incredibly dilated green eyes. “Besides, I saw what happened to the last sheriff. I would like to retire without the words ‘gross incompetence’ written on my cake.”
“Well, don’t let your evidence room become a hoarder nightmare and you’ll already be way ahead of Sheriff Rainey.”
Eric wiped at his sweaty brow. “So, what, you’re saying I should relax? Take up a hobby?”
Frankie opened a mini-fridge she kept near her desk and handed him a bottle of water. “No, I’m sayin’ you’re going to burn yourself out if you’re not careful. And you’re going to become the ‘boy who cries murder,’ which will make people laugh at you when you walk into the Rise and Shine. They’ll pretend it’s something else, but it will be you. Not to mention, it doesn’t look great to the tourist trade if every hunting accident and drowning is investigated as the possible work of a serial killer.”
The sheriff sagged against the autopsy table behind him. “You’re right. But for the record, I want to do a good job, not just ’cause I want to be elected, but for my own reasons. I have to do well here.”
“Um, I really appreciate this new level of emotional openness between us, but maybe you shouldn’t touch Mr. Watts like that,” Frankie said, timidly gesturing to the table he was leaning on.
The sheriff turned, saw the covered body on the table, and stumbled away, dragging the sheet with him in his haste. The barest hint of Benjoe Watts’s gray hair became visible. And then Eric Linden did the last thing Frankie would have expected.
His eyes rolled up like window shades and he fainted dead away on the tile floor.
ERIC WOKE UP with a cold cloth on his forehead and Frankie’s hand waving a broken smelling salts capsule under his nose.
Inhaling sharply at the harsh ammonia scent, he blinked at her a few times and a dreamy smile parted his lips. And then his brows drew down hard over his eyes.
“I’m on an embalming table, aren’t I?”
Frankie nodded, her purple- and blue-streaked ponytail bobbing over her ear in a jaunty fashion that seemed obscenely out of place. Eric yelped and launched himself off the slab. His boots skidded on the tile and he landed in a heap on the floor.
Despite her general lack of damns about Eric, she understood a good panic faint. She’d had them off and on for years—usually while she was waiting on test results from her physicals or felt some pain that didn’t feel normal for a woman in her midtwenties. On the rare occasion when she’d done it in front of her parents, she’d played it off as low blood sugar and long hours. Still, waking up on the floor, not knowing how you’d gotten there and how long you’d been there, was scary and humiliat
ing. She was willing to cease hostilities until Eric was on his feet. A battle of wits was no fun with the unarmed.
“I wanted you to be more comfortable while I worked. Besides, I could hardly lift your heavy butt all the way over to the elevator,” she huffed. “I only got you this far because the table lowers all the way to the floor.”
“The table . . . where you embalm people.”
“Oh, calm down, it’s disinfected at least three times a day,” she said, slapping his bottle of water into his hand. “So, you’ve got an aversion to dead bodies. A way-more-serious-than-the-average-person’s aversion. I should have noticed before, at the Huffman drowning site, when you refused to make eye contact with, well, anybody. But I thought you were just being a jerk.”
“It’s a long story. I don’t want to talk about it,” he snapped.
Frankie raised her hands in a defensive pose. “Fine. I did GSR tests on the back of Bobby Wayne’s jacket while you were ‘nappin’.’ ” She made sarcastic air-quote fingers. “In my professional opinion, the pattern looks pretty consistent with someone who was lying on top of a rifle when it fired, but I’m sure you’ll want to send it along to the state lab to confirm.”
He cocked his head to the side and his eyes narrowed. “You let me stay unconscious on an embalming table while you ran forensic tests?”
“It was only a few minutes. And I wanted to wake you up with good news,” she said with a cheeky grin. “Well, that’s not true, I wanted to wake you up with the news that I was right and you were wrong. But it’s basically the same thing.”
“What the—what?” he spluttered.
She placed a large evidence envelope in his hands. “Bobby Wayne’s jacket. Scrapings from under his fingernails. I’ll send you the blood alcohol content results, plus photos of the wound and the bullet as soon as I remove it.”
“There is something very wrong with you.”
“You’re not the first one to say so,” she said cheerfully, though his words stung a bit, even in his low honeyed-whiskey tones. “But gettin’ back to the subject we were discussin’ before you took your little floor nap, yes, I do think you need to relax a little bit and take up a hobby. Preferably one that gets you out of the house and into the community, so people see you as an actual person with feelings, instead of a cyborg sent from the future to accuse innocent people of murder.”
“Let me guess, you’re going to recommend I take up fishin’?”
“What’s wrong with fishin’?”
“It’s just a little self-interested to recommend I take up fishin’ when your family runs the local bait shop.”
“You aren’t one of those outdoor superstore guys, are you?”
“No, I’m just not that into fishing,” he said, shrugging.
Frankie scoffed. “I wouldn’t tell anyone here that.”
“I told you I’ll get a handle on it. A little trust wouldn’t hurt this uncomfortable workin’ dynamic we have going.”
“Okay, fine,” she said. “I’ll stop expressing concern for your well-being.”
“Can you tell me where Margot’s office is?” he asked. “I’m supposed to give her some reports about emergencies and incidents at the Founders’ Festival. I tried telling her there were none, but she said she wants me to fill out a form and give some sort of sworn blood oath for a report to the county commissioners.”
Frankie frowned at the tone of . . . intrigue in Eric’s voice. She swallowed thickly. She’d given this guy some of the best . . . hours . . . of her life, and he wanted her to draw him a map to Margot’s office? She’d never envied Margot her polished good looks, the always-smooth blond hair and the kind of skin that came only from good genes and fancy spas. But now, seeing her former hookup showing interest in her cousin, Frankie kind of wanted to shave Margot’s head. She would feel bad afterward and apologize, but still, she wanted to do it.
This was a bad sign, in terms of her character. Nice Southern women didn’t turn on family members when a handsome-but-judgmental law enforcement officer showed interest in them.
And what was Eric thinking, showing that much interest in her cousin? Surely he had to know that Margot and the local elementary school principal, Kyle Archer, were Facebook-official. Then again, being an outsider with no family in the area, he was cut off from most of the traditional channels for “local news”—the kitchen table, the beauty parlor, the church parking lot.
Oh, what did she even care? She didn’t have any claim on Eric Linden. She didn’t think she even wanted a claim. She just didn’t want him looking like Christmas had come early when he thought about spending time in Margot’s office. Because of reasons. That had nothing to do with Eric’s face. His stupid, beautiful face.
“Just up the stairs. And she was only kidding about the blood oath,” Frankie said, rolling her eyes. As soon as Eric relaxed just the tiniest bit, she added, “She’ll accept tears.”
Eric’s mouth dropped open, making Frankie laugh as she turned to Mr. Watts. When she heard Eric move toward the stairs, she called over her shoulder, “Sheriff?”
His boots scraped against the floor as he stopped.
“The dead, they aren’t scary. Even if they were scary in life, they’re not any particular way in death. Not angry, not sad, not happy. They’re nothin’ at all. They’re not there,” she said.
“And yet you talk to them.”
She turned and smiled at him. “Just because they’re dead is no reason to be rude.”
She told herself the little shudder in Eric’s shoulders was due to the air-conditioning.
A FEW HOURS later, Frankie walked down the rear hallway, past the gallery of paint-by-number Jesuses, to the office Margot shared with Frankie’s daddy. The rigidly structured religious art had given Frankie and her cousins nightmares when they were kids. But as the paintings had been done by their lovely but untalented ancestor Sarah McCready, no one had the heart to throw them out. So the family hid them here in the back hallway, where customers never ventured.
Frankie knew that most people didn’t grow up running around a mortuary like it was a playground. The McCreadys had lived in Sackett County since the 1840s, long before the Army Corps of Engineers created the lake by damming the Chattahoochee River at Sackett Point. Her whole extended family lived on what could only be called a compound of cabins on the original family homestead, which happened to be lakefront property now.
The funeral home and bait shop was founded by a pair of McCready brothers, John and Earl Jr., nearly a century before. Earl came home from World War I injured but determined to work to support his bride, Kate. He built a little bait shop on a scenic boat-friendly spot on the river, selling night crawlers, cork bobbers, and Kate’s famous sandwiches to fishermen on their drive to the river. John made up for his lack of interest in fishing with carpentry skills, a talent he hoped to turn into a cabinet shop. Then Spanish flu hit and the county’s dwindling population needed coffins a lot more than they needed fine sturdy cabinetry.
With all the coffins the town needed, John had to have more space, and Earl let him use the back of his store as a workshop. The bait shop flourished, and the coffin business boomed, because no one had managed to find a cure for death. And when the river was dammed, the lake’s edge ended just at the shop’s back door, as if the business was always meant to be right on the shore.
The McCreadys added on to the business as they had more children, and soon it didn’t seem at all strange for the tourists to launch their fishing boats from the same spot where the locals mourned. Frankie’s cousin Duffy and her aunt Donna ran fishing tours out of the dockside bait shop. Her mother’s snack stand was the centerpiece of the back docks, feeding eager fishermen her deep-fried masterpieces before sending them out on the water.
While the cozy collection of cabins far down the shore was where the McCreadys lived, the McCready Family Funeral Home and Bait Shop was home to Frankie. This was where she contributed to her community. This was where she had a purpose, like
a cog in a great big machine, working with her family to do what no one else in town could do.
And if there happened to be readily available deep-fried Oreos at Sarah’s Snack Shack, well, every job has its perks.
Margot had taken over a corner of Bob McCready’s office, but Frankie’s cousin was spending more time on the sales floor lately. As a former big-city event planner, she was much better at dealing with people who were breathing than . . . other McCreadys were. While Bob had a talent for the logistics and paperwork of funeral planning, he somehow managed to blurt out the most unintentionally offensive thing possible when faced with non–family members. So far, the arrangement was working out just fine, though Margot seemed to be filling Bob’s swear jars much faster than Bob these days.
And it seemed that her fair cousin was in the office, by the sound of the shrieking. “Tootie, we have talked about this!” was followed by a deep, rumbling bark.
Double dammit.
Frankie jogged down the hallway in time to hear Margot continue. “Tootie, you know I support the work you’re doing at the shelter. I helped you set up the shelter. But you cannot keep bringing your strays into the funeral home. It’s not sanitary! Not to mention, it doesn’t exactly present a professional image to have packs of wild dogs roaming the hallways while people are trying to mourn their dead.”
“I’ve read up on this,” Tootie said as Frankie poked her head through the door. Small in stature but large in mouth, Tootie McCready stood in the middle of Margot’s office with her hands on her hips. Her purple sweat suit set off the snow white of her hair and the gleam of her still-sharp blue eyes. A large German shepherd lay at Tootie’s feet, his gaze switching between Tootie and Margot as they spoke.
“If I tell you that this is an emotional support animal, you can’t ask me to prove it or you’re in violation of federal law. You just have to take my word on it. Or I’ll sue you.”
“You’ll sue your family business?”