I left the class feeling like a born-again badass. Once I had discovered the mental and emotional benefits of Krav Maga, there was no going back. And what I like most about the method is its fundamental rule: there are no rules. That suits my inner vigilante to a T.
I rode back home, thinking how much better my body felt after its workout. That got me to thinking about bodies in general—how they have tales to tell. Maybe Gladys’s body had a tale to tell but one that wasn’t in the police summary I had read. If so, it would be in the autopsy report. I decided to visit the county coroner in the morning. My inner vigilante was rested, restored, and ready to roll.
Chapter 12
THE CORONER, Dr. Hugo Hefner, graciously agreed to see me after the Contessa von Phul called in a favor with him. So I hopped on the Hog and headed north on the Turnpike to the county morgue in West Palm.
The morgue was located in the basement of the public hospital. I got lost a couple times in the maze of corridors before I finally reached it. I pushed open the large swinging doors and looked around for the ubiquitous Babe wannabe receptionist. There wasn’t one in sight. Guess those government budget cutbacks were taking a bite out of the medical examiner’s staff.
“Hello!” I called.
Beyond another set of swinging doors, I heard a clattering as something dropped to the floor, followed by an expletive. There was a shuffling, and the doors were pushed open, revealing a wizened old man with a long white beard. His mass of white hair was backlit by the glow of overhead surgical lamps in the room behind him, creating a halo effect. He had on a long, white lab coat that flowed almost to the floor. He was holding both hands up in front of him. His hands were covered in latex gloves, which were covered in blood.
Basically, your standard-issue mad scientist. Think Gene Wilder in Young Frankenstein but about forty or fifty years older.
I guess I must have let my facade of imperturbable cool slip, because he cracked, “What’d you expect? A guy in a red silk robe sipping a martini?”
“Of course not,” I said, although that was exactly the image I’d had.
I started to introduce myself. “I’m—”
“I know who you are, young lady,” he crowed. “I looked you up after the contessa called and saw that I did the postmortem on your old man after you iced him. Nice shot.”
“Oh, uh, thanks,” I said.
“Well, don’t just stand there,” he said. “C’mon back. I’m a busy man. I got stiffs to see, cadavers to cut.”
Wait a minute. He expected me to go in there? With the bodies?
Yeah, okay. I was Dirty Harriet, after all. I asked myself my standard WWHD question in these situations: what would Harry do? The answer was obvious. In I went.
The room was walled with those sickly pale-green bricks that seem to be popular in public hospitals and public schools. A few steel gurneys were scattered around, each covered with a sheet from beneath which a tagged toe peeked out. One gurney in the center held the uncovered body of a young woman. Her chest was cut open, but her prefab double-Ds were on the job, standing straight up. It was a little poignant; the Grim Reaper had come knocking, but the knockers were still going strong.
Hefner glanced at the corpse.
“Fell overboard off the Hedonist,” he mumbled, naming a yacht owned by a certain notorious trust fund baby over in Palm Beach. “Wasn’t drowning that did her in, though,” he went on. “It’s a little known fact, but these saline implants can serve as flotation devices. Remember that the next time you’re on the water. The life you save just might be your own.” He eyed my chest. “Well, maybe not,” he amended. “This one probably OD’d. I’ll have to run a tox screen.”
“So, about Gladys Gutierrez?” I cut in.
“Yeah, I got the autopsy file out before you came up. C’mon into my office.” He peeled off his gloves and dropped them into a biohazardous waste container. He led me past the gurneys into a room the size of a broom closet and picked up a file from a gray metal desk.
“As you already know, she died of strangulation. Had been dead about four days. Looked as if she’d been attacked from behind and put up quite a struggle. Almost all of her nails were broken. No signs of sexual assault.”
“Were there any other findings that were remarkable in any way?”
“Well, let me see.” He leafed through the file.
“Five foot two . . .” he mumbled, “ninety-four pounds . . . had had a broken left wrist at one time that hadn’t healed too well—it had probably never been set . . . teeth weren’t in the best of shape—lots of cavities that had never been filled . . . oh, she’d had a hysterectomy at some point in her life . . . otherwise, looked like she’d been a healthy young woman.”
I thought over what he’d just said. Something didn’t make sense.
“A hysterectomy?” I asked. “I’ve been told that she had an IUD put in about a couple years before her death. How could she have an intrauterine device if she didn’t have a uterus?”
“Well, there’s no way of telling when she had the hysterectomy. It wasn’t real recent, because the abdominal incision was fully healed. But at the same time, the body was fairly decomposed, so it would be impossible to pinpoint a specific time frame.”
“Why would an otherwise healthy young woman get a hysterectomy?” I asked.
“Could be any number of reasons. Fibroid tumors, endometriosis, cervical lesions. It could be because of the IUD itself. They can cause some pretty severe complications, sometimes to the point where a hysterectomy becomes the only solution.”
“Hmm,” I said. “Anything else in the file that you can think of that might be helpful here?”
He turned a page. “Oh, yeah. There was a single red thread embedded in her neck. Silk.”
“So whatever was used to strangle her had red silk in it?”
“Very likely.” He set the file down and motioned for me to precede him out of the office. Back in the autopsy room, he wheeled the gurney with Miss Flotation Devices over to a vault in the wall, slid her in, slammed the steel door behind her, and bolted it. It had such a final ring to it. I felt my stomach sink. The girl had set sail on the Hedonist, crossed the river Styx, and come ashore in Hades. It was a classic Greek tragedy.
“Well, thanks for your help, Doc,” I said.
I found my way back out of the labyrinth and into the parking lot. Putting on my gear, I mounted my trusty steed and went west.
I turned south on the turnpike, then got off on Glades Road and headed for, well, the Glades.
I rumbled along the two-lane road, watching the tall white egrets stroll majestically along the canals that lined either side. Up in the distance, I saw the headlights of an approaching vehicle. The lights reflected off the blacktop, creating watery mirages on the surface.
Suddenly, the vehicle seemed to have crossed over into my lane. Damn these oblivious South Florida drivers!
There were still a few hundred yards between us, and I let off the throttle to slow down, waiting for the vehicle to drift back into the other lane. But, it wasn’t drifting. I downshifted and put the brakes on. As the car came closer, I could see it was one of those omnipresent Stupid User Vehicles. Figures. Man, were these SUV drivers obnoxious.
Move over! I thought. Moveovermoveovermoveover!
It wasn’t moving over. The headlights were bearing down on me. My right hand and foot were squeezing on the brakes with all my strength. I had no choice—I had to run off the road. I bounced into the stubbly grass that made up the shoulder.
The idiot was still heading straight at me. I could now make out an outline of the driver, cell phone pressed to ear. Damn it! I continued bouncing across the grass, dust kicking up all around me. Oh, shit! I was headed right into . . . the canal!
A startled egret flapped its wings and took off just as I went into
the water with a mighty splash.
I felt the Hog sink beneath me. I struggled to get my helmet off and shrug out of my leather jacket. I kicked my feet and pushed my arms down against the water. Finally, I sputtered to the surface.
“Asshole!” I yelled at the disappearing vehicle and gave it the finger.
Then I started swimming toward the shore.
Suddenly, out of the corner of my eye I glimpsed a log floating by. Wait a minute . . . that was no log. It was a gator snout, and it was coming right at me!
I frantically stroked over to the bank of the canal and pulled myself up onto land just as the fiend’s jaws opened an inch from my heels.
I lay there on the grass, gasping for breath. God, how I hate Boca drivers! And my Hog—my baby! It was sunk. There wasn’t a trace of it on the water’s surface. And after I’d just done all that maintenance, too!
I sat up and put my head in my hands. The stubbly grass cut through my wet pants. I felt as if I were sitting on a porcupine.
I looked up and down the road. It was deserted. I had to get help. Sure, I’m one self-reliant motorcycle mama, but even I couldn’t pull this bike out of this canal myself.
I pulled my cell out of my pocket and shook off the water. I pushed number one on my speed dial. As a Boca Babe, number one on my speed dial had been Saks. Now, it was a different kind of shop. Incredibly, the phone worked.
“Greasy Rider Bike Shop,” a voice answered. It was Chuck, the shop’s owner and my good buddy.
“Chuckles!” I gasped. “My ass is grass, and my Hog is bogged! Come get me, pal.”
Chapter 13
AFTER I CALLED Chuck, I called the cops. Not that I expected them to be of any help, but I did need them to come out and write an accident report for insurance purposes. Then I sat there on the banks of the canal for another forty-five minutes, shifting from cheek to cheek as the prickly grass cut into my butt. Several cars passed, and a few stopped to ask if I needed help, but I told them it was already on the way.
Finally, a flatbed tow truck pulled up, and Chuck climbed out of the driver’s seat. He hooked his thumbs on to his platter-size silver belt buckle and hoisted his low-slung jeans up to his beer belly, which protruded from under a black T-shirt with cutoff sleeves. He took off his baseball cap, wiped sweat off his bald head, and stroked his goatee.
He looked like a refugee from The Jerry Springer Show.
“What in tarnation have you gotten yourself into this time, Harriet?” he asked. “You look sorrier than a broke-dick dog.”
“Nice to see you, too, pal,” I replied. “Just haul my Hog out, will you? I’ll fill you in later.”
“Sure, no sweat,” he said, wiping his brow again. “I brought help.”
The passenger door opened, and a pair of black rubber flippers emerged. They were followed by a short, trim, black rubber-suited body and finally a face covered with a diving mask. Who the hell was this, the Freeway Frogman?
The would-be Navy SEAL removed his mask, and I recognized him as Enrique, Chuck’s lover. That’s right. Chuck is that most jarring of human contradictions—a gay redneck. Instead of a Confederate flag in the back window of his truck, he has a gay pride rainbow sticker.
Chuck had fled his native Georgia chased by a couple good ol’ boys and their hound dogs, who were bound and determined to “bag a fag” that night. He crossed the state line doing ninety on his tricked-out Shovelhead, leaving his pursuers in the dust, and never looked back.
South Florida is considerably more receptive to gays than the Deep South. Yeah, I know it’s confusing, but politically and socially speaking, South Florida is north of the South. Now, don’t get me wrong—we have our share of bigoted dumbasses around here. It’s just that they’re so scared shitless by the “alien invasion” of our shores that they can’t be troubled about gays. Their pea brains just aren’t capable of multitasking. So Chuck and other gays are relatively safe, unlike poor Gladys and other immigrants.
Anyway, it was a good bet that Georgia wasn’t on Chuck’s mind. But the plain fact remained: you can take the boy out of redneck country, but you can’t take the redneck out of the boy. There he stood, in all his guts ‘n’ glory.
Enrique flip-flopped over to me and kissed me on both cheeks. “This is so exciting!” he said. “I just got my diving certification last week. Point me to the sunken treasure!”
Oh, great. As if I needed a dead novice, fanatic diver on my conscience. But what choice did I have?
“It went in about there,” I said, pointing to the tire tracks in the grass. “Watch it, there’s a gator in there.”
“Hold up, Ricky,” Chuck said. “Lemme fetch my varmint rifle.”
He reached into the cab of the truck and pulled a sawed-off shotgun down from the gun rack. “I think we just might get us some supper right here. Might get a fine pair of boots outta the deal, too.”
Enrique shrugged on an oxygen tank and inserted the mouthpiece. Chuck went to the back of the truck, unhooked the tow cable, reeled it out, and handed it to Enrique. “Run this through the frame under the seat, then loop it and hook it back onto itself,” he instructed. Enrique nodded and waded into the water.
We watched him gradually disappear until the only sign of him was a few bubbles popping up on the surface.
Seconds passed. Then minutes. I held my breath. What was taking so long? What if he’d gotten tangled up down there? What if . . .?
I was painfully tracking the bubbles when suddenly something else round broke out of the water. It was a pair of glistening black eyeballs.
“Gator!” I screamed.
“Step aside, darlin’,” Chuck said, and raised the shotgun to his hips. There was a kaboom, and a spurt of water shot up six feet into the air. The gator thrashed its tail and took off in the opposite direction.
We stood there as more seconds and minutes passed. Chuck looked cool, calm, and collected, but I was freaking just a little. By the time Enrique surfaced, I had picked out what to wear to his funeral and what to say to his grief-stricken mama from Panama.
He flashed us a thumbs-up, swam to the bank, pulled himself out, and took off his face mask.
“That was awesome!” he exclaimed, brushing his long, dark, wet bangs out of his eyes.
Chuck rushed over and picked Enrique up in a bear hug, shotgun pointing heavenward as if to thank God for his safe return. Chuck’s cool demeanor disintegrated, and he wiped a tear from his eye. Well, what do you know? Guess he’d had the casket, flowers, and music all picked out while putting on the nonchalant act.
“I thought I’d lost you, man,” he said. “Don’t know what I’d do without you.”
Enrique beamed at me. Aw, shucks, love really can be sweet.
Chuck set Enrique down, walked over to the truck, and flipped the switch to get the winch going. There was a groaning noise as the crank turned.
Then my baby came out of the water, looking like the Chopper from the Black Lagoon—covered with algae and oozing mud.
I must have looked pretty pathetic, because Chuck came over and put his arm around me. “Hey, cheer up,” he said, pulling me into his massive chest. “I’ll have you back on the road in no time. Probably just needs to dry out overnight. We’ll leave it in the shop, then take a look in the morning. Hey, why don’t you stay with us tonight? No sense sittin’ on your duff an’ mopin’.”
“Oh, yeah? What’s for dinner? Roadkill remoulade? Armadillo almandine? Really, no thanks, Chuckles. If you guys would just give me a ride to my boat, I’d rather be alone tonight.” Like I wouldn’t any other night?
“Sure,” Chuck said. “Suit yourself, Lone Ranger. We love ya, anyway.”
The cops finally arrived and took my report. Then Chuck positioned my Hog onto the flatbed and tied it down. The three of us climbed into the cab. I sat between the happy co
uple as we rode off into the sunset.
“Say, you going to the national dicks’ convention in Orlando next weekend?” Enrique asked me. This wasn’t a reference to a gay porn gathering. Enrique was the hotel dick, I mean, chief of security, at the Boca Beach Hilton, and he loved to go to trade shows, where he could play with the latest high-tech surveillance devices and dish the dirt on who was doing whom in the industry.
“Nah, you know I’m not into gadgets and gossip,” I said.
“Oh, come on. Come up with me. You need to get out more, meet people. How are you ever going to get laid otherwise?”
Jeez. Happy couples—they’re always trying to inflict their brand of bliss on their single friends.
I’d originally met Chuck when I first got my Hog. I spent time hanging around his shop, picking up bits and pieces of maintenance know-how along the way. I still depend on Chuck for the major overhauls, but now I handle the regular upkeep myself.
Enrique had entered Chuck’s life shortly after I did. Personally, I would never have pegged them as a compatible couple. But their gay matchmaker had obviously known otherwise. Go figure. Now, they’ve basically become my post-Babe social circle, loner that I am.
“I’m not looking to get laid,” I told Enrique. After all, I had my Hog. It was always up for a ride, the pushrods pumped hard and the tires never deflated.
“Seriously, I can’t go to Orlando. I’ve got too much work to do,” I said. “Have fun.”
“Okay, but trust me. When you’re on your deathbed, you won’t be saying you wished you’d spent more of your life working. So, what are you working on these days?”
I filled them in on the Gladys case.
“You know, darlin’,” Chuck said, “did it occur to you that maybe your little afternoon dip here weren’t no accident? Maybe you’re on to somethin’, and someone’s out to get your ass.”
Dirty Harriet Page 8