by Darci Hannah
Apparently Officer MacLaren didn’t suffer any such qualms. In fact, if his face was any indication, I’d say he was actually excited by the prospect. He was explaining, in great detail, why it was imperative that he started with the body in the first place. As he talked I silently cursed myself for not conquering my bad habit of reacting before engaging in higher-level thinking. If I’d engaged my brain, I’d likely have been sitting before the fireplace in the breakfast room of the Cherry Orchard Inn enjoying a coffee and a cherry-filled croissant, not riding in a police car with a cop who was disturbingly pumped about viewing the body of a murder victim.
In retrospect, Jack had been right to question my qualifications for wanting to tag along. Advertising? What on earth had I been thinking? And if he’d just been an adult about the whole situation, he might have gotten his way. But he had to bait me with that ad. That and the fact that I could be a little overreaching at times. Giff liked to call it overzealous. Whatever personality affliction I suffered from, it had landed me here, right beside Jack, heading for Door County General and the morgue.
“So, how do you like living in Chicago?” Jack asked, once he realized I was no longer listening to his colorful narration on the more memorable dead bodies he’d come across during his career in Milwaukee.
“Oh, it’s great. Chicago’s great,” I answered, offering what I hoped was a convincing smile.
“Yeah, but starting your own business is pretty cool. You’ve got to have a lot of drive to do something like that. For instance, I could never do it.”
“You don’t need to do it,” I remarked. “You’re a cop. You already have a pretty cool job.”
With both hands on the wheel he flashed a quick grin. “Why thank you, Ms. Bloom, but what I meant was, when I’m not working I slip into bum mode pretty easily. You probably didn’t know this just from looking at me, but I’m totally addicted to video games.” This was punctuated with an ironic stare.
He was being kind, likely to make up for his earlier behavior. Besides, he was too fit to be addicted to video games. I played along and said, “Oh, I believe it. You and every man under thirty-five.”
“Did I tell you that I’ve been to your website, Bloom ’n’ Cherries! ?” I was glad he was staring ahead through the windshield as he said it, because this I did find alarming. As if reading my thoughts, he added, “It’s true. I don’t know anything about advertising, but I have to say, the pictures on your site are pure food porn. You’re good. You got me to order a few things, and I live right in the heart of cherry country.”
“You … ordered something from my site?” I wondered how I could have missed it.
“Yeah, but not under my own name, of course.” He flashed an impish grin.
The moment he did, every nerve in my body came fully awake, every warning bell sounding off. Dear God, could Jack MacLaren be the infamous C-Bomb—the internet enigma I’d been chatting with ever since opening my online store? We’d flirted! Dear God, I’d said things to C-Bomb I’d never say to any man … well, at least not to Jack MacLaren! Had Jack been trolling me? Had he been serious? Holy mother of embarrassment, I didn’t even know how to process it. Then I realized he was staring at me.
“You okay, Whit? I didn’t mean to alarm you.”
“What … what name do you use?”
His grin grew even wider. My heart sank like a stone and my cheeks burned with mortal embarrassment. Then, unable to contain his secret any longer, he said, “Inga MacLaren.”
“Your mother?” That was a revelation. Inga ordered quite a bit and always had it sent to her house, not a police station. “You’re ordering things from my site under your mother’s name? Isn’t that illegal or something?”
This made him chuckle. “Whoa there, PI Bloom. It’s only illegal if I don’t have her permission. And I’m sorry that shocked you. It started innocently enough. Inga is very cautious about buying goods on the internet,” he added, using a comical Swedish accent that mimicked his mother’s. “But she really wanted to support your business. I suggested she buy a prepaid Visa card, which she did. But she was still hesitant, so she came to the police station and wanted me to show her how to do it. Inga’s not so great with technology, so I helped her order a few things from Bloom ’n’ Cherries! and had it sent to her house. She loved your products so much that she has me ordering things for her all the time now. For the record, I thought they were great too. Have you ever considered opening a brick and mortar Bloom ’n’ Cherries! at the inn? I know your grandma sells her pies at the gift shop, but you have to pre-order those. And you have a lot of products. You could totally make a killing during the tourist season and use your website for the off-season.”
“I never really gave it much thought,” I told him truthfully, still processing the fact that he’d ordered baked goods from Bloom ’n’ Cherries! “I guess I’ve been kind of holding out hope for another shot at advertising. However, I don’t see that happening anytime soon.” Jack looked at me, his eyes full of question. “That ad,” I explained. “I really mucked things up good with that ad.”
“Maybe, but at least you got to produce a real TV ad, which is a lot more than most people can say. I’m sorry about that, Whit. And I’m sorry for what I said to you before. I didn’t really mean it. It’s more the fact that crime work can get very nasty sometimes. It takes a strong stomach, and sometimes when you’re digging for answers, you uncover things you’re not quite ready for—things that maybe you wish you hadn’t uncovered in the first place.” He saw the troubled look on my face and was quick to add, “I’m not saying that’s what’s going to happen here. What I’m trying to say is that once you start digging, you have to hope for the best and be prepared for the worst.”
Eight
I was still trying to process Jack’s ominous words when we pulled into the parking lot of Door County General, a modest though relatively modern hospital of twenty-five beds. The sight of the hospital made my stomach moan out loud, protesting the morgue before my brain had the chance to … or maybe it was the heavenly scent of Grandma Jenn’s cherry pie wafting from the back seat. I’d been smelling it for the last half hour. Suddenly I realized how hungry I was.
Jack, hearing the cry from my protesting stomach, had taken hold of the bakery box like a wide receiver, protecting it like the game ball. He gave me a large evidence bag containing Dad’s croquet mallet to carry instead.
“I forgot to ask,” he began as we stepped onto the elevator. He pressed a button. The doors closed and the elevator descended. “You’ve seen a dead body before, right?” He shifted the bakery box to his other arm—the one farthest from me—and held me in a questioning gaze.
“Yes. Of course,” I lied, and felt compelled to add, “Chicago’s full of ’em.”
It was not the answer he’d been expecting. A curious smile touched his lips and he said, “Okay. Well then, I don’t need to warn you about … ” The door opened and he stepped out, stopping in mid-sentence. I was waiting for him to finish his thought, to finish his warning, but he didn’t, because just then Doc Fisker popped out of a doorway halfway down the basement hall. He spied us as we came out of the elevator, paused to shove the remains of what looked to be a Danish into his mouth, and wiped his hands on his lab coat.
“Oh, hey there, Officer MacLaren!” Doc Fisker waved as he ambled toward us, a wide smile lighting up his face. He was a heavy-set man in his late sixties, with a pouf of white hair on his head and eyes as round and inquisitive as an owl’s. His thick glasses made them look even larger, which was always a bit disconcerting at first. “And is that Miss Bloom I see? Oh, fer heaven’s sake! I haven’t seen you around these parts in an age.” He shook Jack’s hand, then embraced me in an avuncular hug. Stepping away, he said to me, “I suppose you’re tagging along because of that mess up there at you orchard, eh?”
In answer to his question, I held up the bag containing Dad’s croquet
mallet.
“So that’s the culprit! Would’ve been nice to have had that right when the body came in.” Doc Fisker turned to Jack and, lowering his voice, continued. “I know Baxter’s a bit of a hot head on a golf course, but I’ve never heard of croquet inciting such rage. Were they playing for money, by chance?”
The question took Jack by surprise. “This isn’t the result of croquet, Doc.”
“Really? That’s surprising. Because everyone around these parts knows that’s Baxter’s prized croquet mallet.”
“Indeed. So why would Baxter leave it next to the body? That, dear doctor, is why we’re here.”
“Oh, a mystery! I do so love a mystery. I find there’s always a rather mysterious element hanging around that old orchard. Why, I was up there earlier this spring and do you know what I saw? Jeb had those girls—Jenn, Jani, the Robinson girl, and a few of the younger waitresses—dressed in flowing white gowns with flowered wreaths in their hair, holding hands and dancing around the budding trees. Was suspiciously pagan. When I asked him about it, he said … ” At that very moment, Doc Fisker caught a whiff of the pie in Jack’s hands. The temptation was too strong. He didn’t even have the willpower to fight through to the end of his own sentence. Instead he turned to Jack and rested his magnified blue orbs on the bakery box in nearly the same manner I had. And he’d just polished off a Danish!
“Oh, MacLaren, you wily devil. You’ve brought me one of Jenn’s pies.”
“Only the best for you, Doc. Fresh from the ovens of the Cherry Orchard Inn.” Jack held the box up to his own nose and took a theatric whiff. “A legendary pie made from the cherries grown in Miss Bloom’s own family orchard. It’s what put Cherry Cove on the map.”
“You’re a shameless rascal, MacLaren. Forcing an old man to work on a Saturday … and on a fool’s errand ta boot!” But even as the doctor spoke, he couldn’t help grinning.
“There you go again, Doc, confusing shameless with appreciative.” There was a twinkle in Jack’s honey-colored eyes as he said this. “And if you must know, Miss Bloom and I don’t believe that her father had anything to do with the murder of Jeb Carlson.”
A troubled look crossed Doc Fisker’s normally pleasant face. “Then ya better brace yourselves, my dears, because it looks a pretty convincing case to me. But don’t take my word for it. I’m only the county coroner around these parts. Very well, MacLaren, Miss Bloom, if you insist. Let us pull on some gloves, unwrap the body, and do a little pokin’ around, shall we?”
Nine
With my hands securely encased in latex, and my sweatshirt and jeans discretely covered by a freshly laundered white lab coat, I was as ready as I was ever going to be to face my darkest fears. I was about to view the very dead body of Jeb Carlson.
This thought had not stopped bothering me since I’d ambushed the front seat of Jack’s car. But if I was going to insist on playing detective, the least I could do was follow through on my promise. I was going to need to look at a dead body without my hands covering my eyes, and I was going to need to listen thoughtfully as Jack and Doc Fisker made professional observations and discussed theories. It would also be helpful if I could add valuable input, or at least offer an intelligent remark or two. I thought of some of the intelligent remarks I’d heard on television crime shows when one of the actors discovered a dead body. Marks on the neck meant strangulation; a blue face indicated asphyxiation; a body under water was a drowning … a smashed-in skull meant a croquet mallet to the head. Dang it! Cause of death was always so obvious!
Thankfully Jack and Doc Fisker were oblivious to the sweat beading up on my brow or the slight trembling of my hands. In fact, they were engaged in a steady stream of small talk, leaving me to mentally prepare for what I was about to confront in the morgue.
“Really?” I heard Doc Fisker say just before he turned his curious, over-large gaze on me. “You lost your job in advertising after making that ad?”
“Ah,” I began, pulling my macabre thoughts back to the conversation. “Yes.”
“Actually, Miss Bloom has a thriving online business now,” Jack added, snapping the fingers of his own latex gloves for a better fit. He cast me a grin and grabbed hold of a gurney. “She’s put all her advertising skills to good use, isn’t that right, Whitney?”
I suspected he was teasing me, but I was too nervous to do anything but nod in agreement as I followed them out of the medical examiner’s office. We then headed down the hall, past a lab, and stopped before what was obviously our destination.
“An online business,” Doc Fisker mused, picking up the conversation again. He paused to slide his ID card into the lock. The door opened and an attendant waved us through. “I don’t buy much of anything online. Don’t trust it with all that identity theft stuff. But now that I think on it, my wife purchased something online once. It was that book. Have you read that book, Miss Bloom?”
With only half a mind engaged in their conversation, I replied, “I don’t know, doctor. What book are you referring to?”
“Fifty Shades of Grey,” he said with an alarmingly straight face. Jack, caught off guard, missed a step. He also couldn’t help himself from throwing a questioning look my way. I ignored him.
“No, sir. I haven’t yet had the pleasure.”
“Well, the wife did, and let me tell you, she really enjoyed it.” A cottony tuft, resembling a slightly electrified albino caterpillar, wiggled behind the thick glasses.
The attendant opened another door for us and I was hit with a blast of cool air. We were now in the morgue proper. Dr. Fisker stopped before one of the many stainless steel doors of the body cooler. “Well, it’s your lucky day then, isn’t it?” This pronouncement was punctuated with a grin that definitely had no place inside a morgue. “Because I just happen to have a copy in my office.”
As the doctor talked he opened the little door, revealing two fish-belly pale bare feet. On one big toe was a tag. After a quick perusal of the tag, he cried, “Got ’em!” and gave a hearty yank on the drawer.
My own body, meanwhile, was taken with a violent shudder. I wasn’t entirely certain if it was due to the sight of the body draped beneath the white sheet or the mental image of the elderly Mrs. Fisker lounging poolside while reading S and M erotica. It was very likely a result of both.
“Just don’t read it out loud on the trip back to Cherry Cove,” Doc Fisker continued as he made ready to lift the sheet, “unless, of course, you want to.” The bushy eyebrows wiggled suggestively.
Jack, poor thing, blushed to the roots of his red hair.
My stomach churned, making a distressing noise.
Doc Fisker chuckled and threw back the sheet.
The sight was revolting. It was Alien-Autopsy-meets-Walking-Dead disturbing! The fact that the dark, lifeless eyes were staring directly up at me only made it worse. Beyond the angry black bruising and dented skull was the indistinguishable face that for the last seventy years had been animated by the soul of Jeb Carlson—curator of our cherry orchard and a true gentleman. There was no doubt in my mind that the poor thing had indeed blocked the business end of a croquet mallet with his head. He had a bruise the size of a dinner plate to prove it.
“Poor old bastard,” Doc Fisker said. “Quite the character. You probably didn’t know, but that book I’m giving you, well, this old trailblazer had it last.”
“Whaa … whaa … ?” Unable to form words, I looked at the doctor. “Oh dear,” I said, then collapsed on the hard tile floor of the morgue.
Ten
I awoke in a strange bed. My head was throbbing. And it took a moment or two before I realized where I was. But once I saw the retractable curtains, and the carts full of medical supplies and machinery, I suspected that I’d landed myself in the emergency room of the hospital. Then I remembered why, and groaned. Had I really passed out in the morgue? How embarrassing! Mortifying, really. Then my mind tra
veled back to the last thing I’d seen, which was Jeb’s face … or what was left of it after it blocked Dad’s croquet mallet.
The mental image was gruesome, and I had to close my eyes for a moment to block the sting of fresh tears. It was a terrible way for a man to die. So violent and unnecessary. And the thought that Dad might have possibly done that to the poor old guy was too much to contemplate.
But I had to. That’s why I was here. I was here to prove that Dad couldn’t have done such an unspeakably gruesome act against his friend. I wanted it to be true, but what did I really know of my dad? There was that old saying that a person can never really know what another person is thinking. Was there some deep, dark side to Dad that he kept hidden? I mean, I was aware the man lived with a good amount of stress. There was always some emergency at the inn or the orchard that needed handling. He wasn’t exactly a hothead, but every now and then he allowed anger to consume him. Mom would always say that Dad needed to blow his stack so he could let off some steam, then he’d settle down and focus on the problem at hand. This apparently wasn’t a secret—even Doc Fisker had commented on it. Dad was an avid golfer. He loved the sport, and yet he was known far and wide as a habitual club-tosser. Could he have tossed his croquet mallet in anger?
Then there were those unsettling two hours of time, during which Jeb was murdered, when nobody but Dad could account for his whereabouts. That thought depressed me more than all the others. The ache in my body intensified and I suddenly felt heavy as lead.
A moment later, the sound of a television caught my attention. The person in the bed next to me was watching the news. And the story of the hour was the murder at the Cherry Orchard Inn.
I sat up with a start. The effort intensified the throbbing in my head. I brought a hand up to investigate and found that I had a lump the size of a golf ball front and center. It hurt like a freakin’ sonofagun. The only blessing was that I was still in my own clothes, thank God. Ignoring the pain, I swung my legs over the side of the bed and threw back the curtain.