Lucky Stiff

by Annelise Ryan

  “Oh, right. Thanks.” I take the box and set it down beside the door, wondering if Hurley is taking advantage of it as an excuse to return. But by the time I straighten up to look back at him, he’s already in his car, shutting the door. The engine starts and he pulls away. I stare at the red glow of his taillights fading over the snow, feeling as if my hopes are locked inside them.

  Chapter 35

  Knowing I have only a few hours to sleep leaves me edgy and restless—a state helped by the fact that Hoover, Tux, and Rubbish spend the rest of the night having races and playing hide-and-seek. My cottage has become a pet play station. While I manage to doze off for a few short periods of time, I spend most of the night tossing and turning. My mind reels as I try to sort out my feelings for Hurley. By the time my alarm goes off at nine, I have made a decision.

  Clearly, I have feelings for the man, and it seems pretty obvious he has feelings for me, too. And if all of my jobs have taught me anything, they’ve taught me that life is just too damn short and love is too damn rare to let either one slip away. If Hurley and I are meant to be together, I need to know that. I need to give us a chance, and if that means humbling myself and returning to my hospital job, so be it. And judging from the way my casino trips have gone, that seems to be my only remaining option.

  I shower, dress, and take Hoover outside to do his morning rituals. I’m feeling pretty jazzed about my decision; and when Izzy pulls out of his garage and drives over to where I’m standing with Hoover, I smile and mime rolling down his window.

  He does so and I greet him with a chipper “Good morning! I was going to call you as soon as I got done out here.”

  “What’s up?”

  I inform him that Hurley and I are heading out to the Strommen place and that we’ll both be in the office by noon for the autopsy on Lisa Warden.

  He nods, but he looks confused. “You seem rather happy for someone who’s about to deliver devastating news.”

  “Well, the Strommen thing won’t be fun,” I admit, “but I’ve reached a decision on the other matter.”

  “You mean the working-for-me matter?” he says, frowning.

  “Yes.”

  With that, we hear a car approaching and Hurley pulls into the drive alongside Izzy’s car. Izzy says, “We can talk some more later.” He waves at Hurley, and then pulls away.

  Hoover runs over and jumps up on the driver’s door of Hurley’s car, tongue lolling, tail wagging. I know how he feels. Hurley rolls down his window and gives him a few pats on the head.

  “Let me put him in the house and I’ll be right out,” I tell him. I take a reluctant Hoover inside and head back out to the car. I’m tempted to tell Hurley about my decision, but I figure there isn’t enough time, and I don’t want to tell him before I tell Izzy. Hurley has brought me a cup of coffee, light with cream—the way I like it. I take it gratefully; my mind is filled with images of more mornings like this, the two of us riding somewhere together, comfortable and happy with one another. It’s both a scary and an exciting proposition.

  “Are you ready for this?” Hurley asks me.

  For a second, I think he’s read my mind, but then I realize he’s talking about the Strommen thing.

  “I’m not looking forward to it,” I admit. “Have you given any more thought to what we discussed the other day? About Charlotte, I mean.”

  Hurley sighs heavily. “She’s broken several laws, Mattie. And unless Izzy is willing to lie on the death certificate, my hands are tied. The best we can hope for is a lenient judge.”

  “What about Hannah?”

  “I don’t see us filing any charges against her. She’s been through enough already.”

  Hurley has arranged for two officers to meet us, and they pick up our tail at the bottom of the Strommen drive. We all pull up in front of the Strommen house and park. Charlotte is at the window. When she sees us, her shoulders sag. There is no need to knock once we climb the steps to the front porch; Charlotte opens the door before we get to it.

  We all head inside: Hurley and I, a female officer named Brenda Joiner, and a new rookie officer named Kevin Masterson. Charlotte doesn’t pretend this is a welcomed or social visit. She doesn’t offer to take our coats; she doesn’t invite us to have a seat. I’m pretty certain she won’t be offering us any refreshments. I doubt she has much to offer anyway.

  We stand in the foyer; everyone is shifting awkwardly for several seconds before Hurley speaks. “Charlotte Strommen, you are under arrest for insurance fraud and evidence tampering. You have the right to remain silent.” As Hurley finishes reciting Charlotte’s rights, Masterson walks over to Charlotte with a pair of handcuffs. He slaps one on, pulls that arm behind Charlotte, and then goes for the other arm.

  “You’re arresting me?” Charlotte says, clearly shocked. “What about my kids?”

  Hurley, who has finished reading Charlotte her rights, says, “Officer Joiner here will take them to the station. We’ve arranged for Child Protective Services to meet them there. They’ll be placed with foster care for now, until we can get you arraigned.”

  “No,” Charlotte whines, tears brimming. “Please don’t do this.”

  I’m betting Charlotte isn’t going to be able to raise bail, and that means her kids are likely to be shuffled around for a while.

  “Where are Hannah and Peter?” I ask her.

  “Upstairs in their bedrooms. Do you really have to do this?” she asks. Her voice is bordering on hysteria. “Please, they’ve been through so much already.”

  “I’m sorry, Charlotte,” I say, meaning it.

  We hear a commotion from the top of the stairs. When I look up, I see Hannah and her brother standing there, staring down at us. “What’s going on?” Hannah asks, looking angry.

  “Your mom is being taken down to the police station for questioning,” I tell her. “I think you know why.”

  Hannah says nothing, and Peter looks up at her, his expression curious. Finally Hannah turns around and stomps down the hall. We hear her bedroom door slam shut seconds later.

  “I got them,” Joiner says, heading up the stairs. Peter starts to cry.

  Masterson asks Charlotte if she has a coat, gets it, and drapes it over her shoulders. He then steers her out of the house to his patrol car.

  “This is awful,” I say to Hurley.

  “Yeah,” he admits, looking glum. “It is.”

  Ten minutes later, we are all at the police station. Masterson takes Charlotte into the interrogation room, removes the cuffs, and has her sit down at the table. Charlotte does as directed, looking scared, lost, and desolate. Hurley and I head into the room, and Hurley takes a seat across the table from Charlotte. He turns on the switch for the audio- and video-recording device as I settle into the seat next to him.

  Hurley starts by reminding Charlotte that her rights have been read to her and asking her if she understands them. She nods solemnly, so he continues to speak. “Charlotte, we found something when we did your husband’s autopsy that was confusing at first; but in light of other evidence we’ve uncovered, we’ve since figured out how it came into play.”

  He pauses, no doubt waiting for Charlotte to ask what this evidence is, but she’s not playing. She folds her arms over her chest and stares him down, the muscles in her cheeks twitching like crazy.

  “We know your husband committed suicide,” I say softly.

  She shifts her gaze to me and her eyebrows arch with surprise.

  “We also know how he did it,” I add. “We found a small worm stuck in his throat and it was identified as a clothing-moth larva, like the kind you might find on a wool coat. My guess is that it was stuck to the coat hanging in your bedroom closet, and your husband inhaled it when he put the plastic dry-cleaning bag that was on that coat over his head. Normally, that would be a nearly impossible way to die. It’s been done, but it’s very rare. Most people can’t resist the urge to pull the bag off their heads once they begin to suffocate. But your husband found a way ar
ound that by putting ether on a washcloth and putting it in the bag before he put it over his head, effectively putting himself to sleep.”

  Charlotte bows her head and sighs.

  “How did he get the ether?” I ask. “Do you have any in the barn? I know sometimes farmers use it on their livestock.”

  Charlotte’s whole body sags, and I know she has given up. I breathe a small sigh of relief because without the paper bearing the impressions from Donald’s note, all we have is speculation. And thanks to me, that evidence is inadmissible. If Charlotte doesn’t confess, we don’t have a case.

  “Donald learned how to make his own ether years ago, back when we had cows,” Charlotte says. “It’s actually quite easy. All he used was some water, a plastic bag, and a certain type of starter fluid.”

  Hurley says, “We found the note he wrote to you.”

  Charlotte looks up at him, confused. “You couldn’t have. I burned it.”

  “But you kept the notepad he wrote it on,” I say. “We were able to see what he wrote from the impressions it left on the sheet beneath. We read his apology to you and his explanation that it was the only way he could see to provide for you and the kids. Despite all your financial troubles, he kept up the payments on his life insurance policy, and that was the only real asset you had left. The only problem was, the policy wouldn’t pay for a suicide. So he instructed you to remove the bag and washcloth, destroy them, and put his body in his boat. Then you had to drive your ATV into the back of the pickup, hook up the boat and take it down to the landing. Once you got the boat in the water, you motored out a ways and tossed your husband’s body overboard.”

  Fat tears drop from Charlotte’s eyes onto the tabletop.

  “After that,” I continue, “you brought the boat back to the landing, aimed it out at the lake, revved up the motor, and let it go. Donald told you in his note to empty most of the gas in the motor so it wouldn’t go far. He figured someone would find the boat adrift and assume he’d fallen overboard and drowned. Then you drove yourself home in the ATV, using fields so you wouldn’t be seen. Donald planned it out well, except for one thing.”

  Charlotte looks up at us with red, watery eyes and nods. “He didn’t realize how hard it would be for me to move his body alone,” she says. “When I found him in our bed that way . . .” She hiccups a sob and I recall the nervous look on her face when I examined her bed a few days ago. Now I know why. “I tried to move him,” Charlotte groans, “but I couldn’t do it. I had to get Hannah to help me. And even then it was a struggle. When we tried to . . . put him in the water, we dropped him, and his head hit the side of the boat.” Her eyes take on a haunted look. “I think that was when Hannah broke.”

  She looks so pathetic, so wounded, it breaks my heart. I want to reach out to her, but I don’t because I suspect she’d only pull away.

  “I shouldn’t have done it,” she says, hiccupping sobs. “I should have just called the cops when I found him. But I didn’t want his death to be for naught. If I’d known how much it would affect Hannah . . .”

  Her voice drifts off and she puts her arms on the table and drops her head onto them, crying. I feel like crying myself. Hurley gets up and leaves the room, and Masterson comes in. He walks over to Charlotte and takes her arm. “I need you to come with me, Mrs. Strommen,” he says.

  Charlotte obliges, shuffling like a zombie as Masterson steers her along. I follow them out and watch as Charlotte is led past her kids, who are in the vending room with Brenda Joiner. The kids watch their mother walk by, but no one says a word. It’s a portrait of a family completely and utterly broken.

  Chapter 36

  I have nearly an hour before the autopsy on Lisa Warden is scheduled to start. I ask Hurley to drive me home so I can check on the animals to make sure they haven’t killed one another, and to get my car. We make the trip in silence, both of us depressed over the morning’s events. Hurley doesn’t say a word when I get out of his car, and he takes off before I’m in the door.

  Inside all is relatively quiet. As usual, Hoover greets me at the door, tail wagging, and I let him outside to do his business. I find Tux curled up on the sofa, grooming himself, and he barely spares me a glance as I come in. Rubbish is in the kitchen sprawled atop his food bowl, sound asleep.

  Happy to see everyone is living together amicably, I head back out and drive to the hospital. There I make my way to the human resources office, where I find the hospital’s HR director, Paula Wren.

  “Hey, Mattie, what brings you back here?” she says. “Have you decided to stop cutting up dead people and go back to cutting up live ones, instead?”

  I suspect she’s merely making a joke and this is confirmed when I say, “Actually, yes, I am.”

  She arches her brows in surprise. “Are you serious?” she asks. “Because we have several openings: one in the OR and two in the ER. And given your experience, I suspect you’d be a shoo-in.”

  “I’m not interested in going back to the OR. But I’m very interested in the ER positions.”

  She nods sagely. Little explanation is needed, given that everyone knows my history with David, who is currently the hospital’s only general surgeon. Working with him again would be a bit too awkward for everyone involved.

  “I’m sure Molinaro will be thrilled to hear you’re coming back,” Paula says. “We haven’t had many qualified applicants.”

  Nancy Molinaro is the director of nursing for the hospital. She is often referred to as “the Don” because of this title. It’s a fitting nickname, given her scary appearance and ruthless reputation.

  “Can you give me an application?”

  “Of course, though it’s really just a formality in your case.” She gets up from her desk and walks over to a basket on top of a file cabinet. “Here you go,” she says, grabbing an application and handing it to me.

  I thank her and leave, heading for the ER and taking a back hallway into the department that will lead me right past the office of Collette “Colitis” Morgan, the department manager. I find Collette at her desk, where she is, perhaps serendipitously, working on the staff schedule.

  “Hey, Collette.”

  “Mattie! What brings you around these parts?”

  “Actually, I’m looking to come back here to work.”

  She looks confused. “I thought you were working at the ME’s office now.”

  “I am, but it’s not working out quite the way I hoped. Paula said you have some openings here in the ER?”

  “I do—two of them, in fact. Both are full-time; one is three twelve-hour night shifts a week, and the other is five P.M.’s. Are you looking for something here in the ER?”

  “I am. This was always my favorite place to work, and going back to the OR at this point would be . . . well, you know.”

  She nods.

  “And I’d be most interested in the night position.” Twelve-hour shifts are tough sometimes, but it means only working three days a week as opposed to five, giving me more time to spend with Hurley. And if I work the night shift, I’ll be less likely to run into David.

  Collette looks delighted and relieved. “Well, if that’s the case, you can pretty much consider yourself hired.” This isn’t surprising. Nights are the least popular shifts, and the hardest to fill. “How soon would you be able to start?”

  “I need to check with Izzy. I don’t want to leave him in the lurch. But I’m thinking something like two to four weeks.”

  “Fantastic! Get your paperwork started and we’ll get working on it. And welcome back.”

  “Thanks.”

  I leave, feeling comfortable with my decision. Yes, there will be some awkward moments to deal with; and yes, I’ll probably be the subject of whispered conversations in the hallways, lounges, and cafeteria for a while, but it feels like the right thing to do.

  I head back to the office to prepare for Lisa Warden’s autopsy, feeling upbeat and positive. By the time I get changed into my scrubs and head for the autopsy room,
Izzy is already there and has Lisa’s body on the table.

  “I went ahead and started on the preliminaries,” he says. “Hurley called and said he won’t be able to make it, but to let him know if we find anything. He said he had some business to take care of.”

  As always, I’m disappointed that I won’t get to spend time with Hurley, but I console myself with the knowledge that we have our whole future ahead of us.

  “It’s just as well,” I tell Izzy. “I need to talk to you anyway. I’ve decided to go back to work at the hospital.”

  He looks at me with a sad expression. “I figured as much from what you said this morning. Can’t say I’m not disappointed to lose you, but I’m also happy for you, if it’s what you really want.”

  “They have openings there in the ER and I can start whenever you’re ready to let me go. But I told them I wouldn’t leave you hanging. I’ll stay on until you can find a replacement.”

  “I appreciate that. As luck would have it, I have someone who’s interested.”

  “Really? Who?”

  “Jonas Kriedeman.”

  “The evidence tech?”

  “One and the same. He told me some time back that he had thought about applying when I had the opening you took. But by the time he decided to go ahead with it, you were already on board.”

  “Well, that’s great.”

  Even I can hear the lack of enthusiasm in my voice, and Izzy eyes me curiously. “You don’t sound very convincing,” he says.

  “It is great,” I say. “I’m happy to know you have a ready and willing replacement waiting in the wings. And Jonas is a great guy. I’m sure he’ll do a good job.”

  “I sense a ‘but’ in there somewhere,” Izzy says.

  The man reads me like a book. “I guess I wasn’t expecting all of this to happen quite that fast. It makes it so . . . real all of a sudden.”

  “Is that a bad thing? Because I’m more than happy to keep you on.”