Working Stiff

by Annelise Ryan

“But I don’t know the first thing about crime scene investigation. Hell, I’ve only been doing this for two days.”

  “You’ll learn. Just like you’re learning here. Just like you learned when you started working in the OR. I’ll send you to some seminars and training programs. You’ll catch on.”

  I think about what he’s suggesting. We live in Sorenson, a small town in Wisconsin where the crime rate is low, longevity is high, and the obits frequently tell of octogenarians who die “unexpectedly.” Even with what might come in from the surrounding areas, which is mostly villages and farmland, I can’t imagine us getting that much business. After all, this is Wisconsin, the land of cheese, brown-eyed cows, apple-cheeked people, and old-fashioned values. The only reason we have a medical examiner in Sorenson is because Izzy happens to live here and we are the biggest city within a hundred-mile radius, which isn’t saying much, given that our population is only eleven thousand. So how often is a “suspicious” death going to occur? Still…

  I’m about to argue the point one more time when Izzy says, “Please? Will you just give it a try? For me?”

  Damn. His pleading face reminds me of what a good friend he’s been to me, especially lately. I owe him.

  “Okay, you win. I’ll give it a shot.”

  “Excellent!” he says. “Though perhaps a bad choice of words for our line of business.” He wiggles his eyebrows at me and I have to stifle a laugh, though not at his corny joke. At fifty-something, Izzy suffers from that wooly caterpillar thing that strikes so many men as they age. The hairs in his eyebrows are longer than many of those on his head, though there are a few in his ears and nose that look like they might catch up.

  Moments later, my humor is forgotten as I place Ingrid Swenson’s brain on my scale.

  Chapter 2

  I’m sitting in the small cottage I call home, reflecting on day number two of my new job. Invariably, my thoughts drift to David and I wonder if Karen Owenby is the woman Izzy saw visiting him. The mere mention of her name fills my mind with murderous thoughts, yet as bitter as my feelings toward Karen are, they’re nothing compared to what I feel toward David. His betrayal devastated me.

  After catching him in the act on that fateful night, I drove home, threw together some clothes, and fled the house so I wouldn’t have to face him again. But I didn’t know where to go. I briefly considered heading to my mother’s house, but realized that would be a big mistake. My mother is a lifelong prognosticator of gloom and doom, a modern-day Nostradamus. Five minutes with her can induce a severe case of depression in me even when I go into it on the highest of highs. And on the night in question, I was already as low as I cared to go.

  In addition to her role as the Great Depressor, Mom is also a professional hypochondriac. She’s a full-fledged, card-carrying, many-times-honored member of the Disease of the Month Club and revels in sharing her various aches, pains, and possible terminal diseases with David and me. She has a collection of medical reference books at home that the Harvard Medical School would envy, and getting a doctor into the family has been the pinnacle of her existence. I knew she’d never forgive me for letting David go. Nope, Mom was definitely out of the question.

  I then considered my sister, Desiree, who, after a childhood of sibling rivalry and creative tortures, has become my best friend. But Desi thinks of marriage as a sacred, inviolable institution. I feared she would try to convince me that mine was worth saving no matter how grim it had become and that I just might cave under the pressure. Or worse, I might say something about her marriage that I’d later regret. Not that her marriage is in trouble—as far as I know, it’s doing just fine. But I can’t stand Desi’s husband, Lucien. He’s a lawyer, a good thing I think, since he’s a walking, talking sexual harassment suit waiting to happen. Half the words coming out of his mouth sound like dialogue from a bad porn movie and he’s been known to pop a chubbie over anything that has, as he so indelicately puts it, “two pairs of lips.”

  Then there’s the matter of Desi’s two kids, Ethan and Erika, who sometimes seem like the perfect poster children for birth control. Erika is twelve, and if she isn’t actually the devil’s spawn, she does a damned good imitation. She’s weathering the hormonal storm of adolescence and is as emotionally stable as a crack addict quitting cold turkey. Desi doesn’t seem bothered by the wild outbursts, the sullen attitude, the constantly dyed hair, or the nose piercing. She says it’s just a phase, though personally, I think Erika is a by-product of the curse crazy old Mrs. Wilding cast on Desi back when we were kids and Desi peed in the old woman’s flower garden.

  Ethan on the other hand, could be a sweet kid—is a sweet kid, I suppose. He’s nine and still at an age where he’s willing to hug and doesn’t think he knows everything. But I can’t get used to this fascination he has with bugs. Real ones. Live ones. When he sees a bug he gets this wide-eyed, eager expression—almost like a hunger—and within seconds, he’s on it. Every time I see the kid he’s got some kind of multilegged crawly thing with him—often as not, on him. Desi thinks it’s cute. I just think it’s creepy.

  Having ruled out my family as safe havens, I turned to Izzy. We’ve been friends for more than a decade and I knew I could trust him to be horridly honest but nonjudgmental—exactly what I needed. Plus, he and his partner, Dom, love to dish dirt and I had two candidates who were ripe for the picking.

  Dom, who is twelve years younger than Izzy and several inches taller, is auburn-haired, lily white, and slender. His eyes—an unusually deep shade of blue rimmed with long, thick lashes that any woman would envy—are his most distinctive feature. He’s a born actor and, prior to meeting Izzy, he tried his luck in both New York and Hollywood before giving up and heading back home to Wisconsin. Nowadays, he keeps house for Izzy and limits his acting forays to a local thespian group.

  Since Dom and Izzy are not only my friends but also my neighbors, it took me all of two minutes to throw my suitcases into my car and drive to their place—twice as long as it would have taken me to walk over. Dom answered the door, took one look at my tearstained face, and ushered me into the kitchen. He shoved a box of tissues in front of me, hollered for Izzy, and then busied himself making tea.

  Izzy walked into the room, looked at me, and said, “Uh-oh. What’s the jerk done?”

  “The worst possible thing,” I sobbed.

  Dom turned around from the stove, slapped a hand to his cheek, and looked aghast. “Oh, no! You mean he wore plaid with stripes again?”

  I laughed despite my misery. “No, it’s much worse than that. He had sex with someone else.”

  “That bastard!” said Dom.

  “Are you sure?” said Izzy.

  “Oh, yes,” I said, wincing. “I’m quite sure. I caught him in the act.”

  “What a fool,” Izzy said, and for a brief moment I was flattered by the thought that Izzy considered me enough of a catch that David had to be an idiot to look elsewhere. But then he added, “How stupid is it to do it right in your own house?”

  “It wasn’t in the house,” I said, pausing to inhale some steam from the tea Dom set in front of me. “It was at the hospital. In one of the operating rooms.”

  “Eeeewwwww,” Dom said, making a face. “Aren’t those rooms supposed to be sterile?”

  “Supposed to be,” said Izzy. “But you’d be surprised what goes on there. A few years ago I heard about a doc who was caught trying to use a suction machine to—”

  “Hey, guys,” I interrupted. “Can we get back to the subject at hand please?”

  Dom jumped in with “It was a hand job?”

  “No,” I said, giggling. “It was a blow job.”

  “Oh, well that changes everything,” Izzy said. “Blow jobs haven’t been considered sex since the Clinton administration.”

  For the next hour and a half, I sat at their kitchen table alternately sobbing, laughing, whining, and listening as Izzy and Dom called David any number of nasty names and cast a host of colorful curses on his wandering
, one-eyed trouser snake. By the time they got around to declaring Karen a whoring bitch and me a selfless heroine horribly wronged, it began to feel like one of those religious revival sessions. Several times I was tempted to holler “Amen!” at the end of a particularly rousing criticism or curse.

  The fun didn’t last long, though. The hard reality of my situation kept creeping back into the forefront of my thoughts—that and the ominous silence of Izzy’s phone. In my mind, I kept imagining David frantic with worry once he realized I wasn’t home. I felt certain he’d be desperate to find me, to try to explain himself, or maybe even apologize. And I figured it wouldn’t take him long to figure out where I was. He knew Izzy and I were close friends, so I was pretty certain that once he determined I wasn’t with my mother or my sister, he’d check Izzy’s place.

  But he didn’t. There was no knock on the door, no ringing of the phone, and when I finally gave in and called my mother to tell her not to worry, I discovered David hadn’t called there either. Curious, I called home, and when David answered I quickly hung up, stung by the truth of my situation. He was there, he knew I was gone, and yet he’d done nothing to try to find me or talk to me. That hurt almost worse than his infidelity. Everything I had come to believe about my relationship with him, about my life and my marriage, was a lie.

  And I still had no place to go.

  That’s when Izzy came to the rescue. There was a cottage behind his house that he’d had built a few years ago for his mother, Sylvie. At the age of eighty-something, Sylvie’s health had taken a turn and Izzy didn’t want her living alone. But she was none too keen on living with her son as long as Dom was around. While Sylvie is well aware of Izzy’s lifestyle, she isn’t particularly happy about it. The mere sight of Dom always makes her clutch at her chest and let forth with a melodramatic “Oy!” Living with Dom would probably trigger a rapid battery of oys that would either kill Sylvie or make Izzy want to.

  So Izzy compromised by building the cottage and hiring home nurses. After a year there, Sylvie’s health improved and she moved into a retirement village where she’s still oying strong. I’m sure she’ll die “unexpectedly” at the age of a hundred and something.

  Sylvie’s defection meant the cottage was empty, furnished, and available. Given my circumstances, it would have been foolish of me to refuse Izzy’s offer to let me stay there. Of course, the tiny detail that the cottage is a mere stone’s throw from my own house is something I chose to ignore. Besides, it isn’t as if I’m right next door. We live in a swanky neighborhood where most of the houses sell for half a mil or more and the wooded lots are big enough to erect a good-sized parking lot. All I can see of my house from the cottage is a small section of the roof.

  The cottage was meant to be a temporary way station, though so far, “temporary” had lasted a little over two months: sixty-seven days of hiding away and wallowing on my pity pot. And despite what Izzy thinks, I have a very good reason for hiding. Small towns aren’t particularly conducive to privacy. Fart with your windows open and the news will likely make it across town faster than the wind can carry the smell. Sorenson is no exception, and given that several people witnessed my hysterical flight from the OR with David chasing after me as he struggled to do up his pants, I have little doubt that most of the townsfolk know every sordid detail.

  I finally surfaced from my self-imposed exile a few days ago, and that was because I had to. I’m broke. The pitiful severance pay I had the hospital mail to Izzy’s address—four weeks of accrued vacation time that I used as notice so I wouldn’t have to show my face at work again—is almost gone. I’ve spent the bulk of it on essential food items like chocolate and cheesecake, though a few bucks (as Izzy well knows) have gone toward counseling from my two favorite therapists: Ben & Jerry. And another month of rent is due soon—not that Izzy would toss me out if I didn’t pay—hell, he’s willing to let me stay in the cottage indefinitely for free. But pride is about the only thing I have left at this point and, warped as it is, setting up house in a Frigidaire box seems preferable to taking a handout.

  I’m just as determined to avoid asking David for help. Our checking account is a joint one and the checkbook is in David’s desk at home. All of the credit cards are in his name, too, and while I don’t think David is mean enough to freeze all the accounts, I can’t be certain. And I sure as hell don’t want to risk further humiliation by going to the bank to find out. Besides, trying to sneak a few measly bucks here and there isn’t my style. I want to earn my money fair and square and with my pride intact—by nailing David’s ass to the wall in a highly messy divorce proceeding.

  Once again it was Izzy who saved the day, this time by offering me the job as his assistant. While the actual work it entailed did give me pause, I knew I couldn’t afford to be picky. When I tried to think about nonmedical jobs I had enough training for, the only thing I came up with was prostitution. And then I realized that, in one way, the clientele at this new job were perfect: they were probably the only people in town who didn’t know the sordid saga of David and me.

  So thanks to Izzy I have a new job and a new home. I have a chance to start over and leave a painful past behind. And as I sit here looking out the window at the distant flash of headlights from a car pulling into David’s driveway, I tell myself I don’t really give a rat’s ass who might be visiting.

  But I do. It’s perverse and stupid and destined to cause me pain, but I have to know.

  Which means there is at least one other job I qualify for: that of the village idiot.

  Chapter 3

  I’m not sure what haute couture dictates for night spying, but it really doesn’t matter since my choices are severely limited. In my hasty flight from the house two months ago, I shoved what I could into a couple of suitcases. Several times I’ve thought about going back to retrieve more stuff—I still have my key, so it would be simple enough to get in, assuming David hasn’t done something drastic like change the locks. But I’m afraid. Not of David, but of myself and the strength of my convictions. Loneliness is a powerful motivator.

  Fortunately, the meager clothing I do have includes a pair of black slacks and a black turtleneck. Worried that my blond hair will shine like a beacon in the night, I’m delighted I also have a brown scarf among my absconded treasures. I dress, tie the scarf around my head, and then give myself a quick perusal in the mirror. I look like the bastard love child of Mrs. Peele and Zorro but it will have to do.

  It’s early October and the night air has a bracing bite to it. Halfway through the woods my nose starts to run and I swipe at it with my sleeve, leaving a shimmering slug trail that glistens in the light of the full moon. Soon I am standing behind a tree at the edge of Izzy’s property, gazing across a wide expanse of yard at a lit window in what used to be my home. The blinds are drawn, but unless David or his new hussy has seen fit to replace them, I know there is a small gap on one side. David may be good at fixing people, but when it comes to household projects he is sadly inept. When he installed the brackets for the blinds—a project he insisted on doing himself so he wouldn’t have to pay someone else—he got one of the brackets half an inch higher than the other. As a result, the blinds hang at an angle, leaving a narrow gap on one side of the windowsill.

  I glance over at the driveway and see a gray BMW parked next to David’s Porsche; Karen Owenby drives a gray BMW.

  I make my way across the yard knowing the house is set far enough back from the road that no one driving by can see me. When I reach the window, the bottom of it looms tauntingly a foot above my head, and after trying a couple of jumps I realize I’ll never get high enough long enough to see anything. Frustrated but determined, I skirt around the house and find a wheelbarrow in the backyard with a small pile of pine bark mulch in it. I steer it around front, park it beneath the window, climb atop the mulch, and peer through the glass.

  David is sprawled on the couch in front of the gas fire-place, his legs extended in front of him, the amber light from th
e sterile flame dancing across his face and making his blond hair shimmer. I can tell he is restless; one foot keeps time to some imaginary beat and his face bears an expression of tired impatience. A shadow falls over him as a dark-haired figure steps up to the couch: Karen Owenby.

  She doesn’t look very happy—in fact, it looks as if she and David are having one hell of a row—and I try to find some solace in that even as I feel the last tenuous threads of my heart give way. Karen is pacing back and forth in front of the couch, pausing occasionally to wag a finger in David’s direction. The house is too well built for me to hear what she is saying, but the shrill tone of her words is unmistakable.

  She pauses a moment, hands on her hips, torso bent forward, her jaw flapping a mile a minute. And I see David’s expression change; his brow draws down in anger, his eyes narrow to an icy glint. He pushes off the couch suddenly, making Karen backpedal so fast she nearly falls. David grabs her by the shoulders, and at first I think he is trying to keep her from toppling over. Then I realize he isn’t steadying her, he’s shaking her.

  Karen’s hand whips up and slaps his cheek so hard I can hear the thwack of skin against skin from outside. As David’s face darkens, Karen spins away from him, grabs her coat from the chair, and hurries toward the front door. I spend a few seconds relishing the quickly reddening handprint on David’s face before it dawns on me that Karen is leaving and that I’ll be in plain sight from the front porch should she happen to glance in my direction.

  What’s more, David is right behind her.

  Panicking, I step back to climb out of the wheelbarrow, misjudge the distance, and hit the edge of it instead, tipping it over. My legs straddle the bed like a saddle and I come down hard on the edge, sending a lightning bolt of pain from my crotch all the way up to my teeth. For several agonizing seconds I am frozen, my teeth clenched tighter than a patient with lockjaw. I am unable to move, unable to breathe, and my ankle, which is half mangled in the metal framework beneath the bed of the wheelbarrow, throbs with a growing tempo. I bite back a scream that’s trying to box its way out of my lungs and hold perfectly still, praying I won’t be seen.