Murder in the Morgue: A Senoia Cozy Mystery

by Susan Harper

  “Ugh!” Autumn exclaimed. “Doctor Roberts told me they’re bringing in the forensic pathologists from Fayetteville to finish my autopsy! There’s going to be an investigation because of my sloppy work, and I’m going to have to take a safety test. Blah! That’s my own stupid fault, I guess. I should have been wearing a mask if I was going to cut the woman open! Geeze! My mouth is so dry. Jeffrey, get me some water! Where have you guys been? Doctor Roberts told me he was going to go get you guys, like, forever ago! My face feels a little funny. Do my lips look swollen to you guys? Hey, where are my parents? I thought Doctor Roberts told me they were here? Oh, gosh, my dad is going to have a fit when I tell him I wasn’t wearing my mask. Did I tell you guys they are sending in that bimbo from Fayetteville to finish my autopsy? Honestly, that’s my morgue! And you know what? I have to take a safety test now….”

  “Oh, wow, Autumn,” Jefferson laughed as he brought her some water. “They really have you on some serious medications, don’t they?”

  Autumn blushed. “Is it that obvious?”

  “You’re not usually so…talkative,” Jefferson said and laughed.

  Autumn took the water and thanked him. She pointed a finger toward Dawn and Monte. “Hey, did you guys know these two were dating? Jefferson told me they were making out at the party tonight!”

  Dawn and Monte both blushed. Veronica, the only one of the group unaware of this, exploded into a fit of laughter. “Oh, wow!” she exclaimed.

  “Well, I guess that’s out in the open,” Dawn grumbled. “I’m going to tell Doctor Roberts to get you some different pain meds that won’t make you so loopy.”

  “Sorry,” Autumn said and fought back a laugh.

  “Did you find anything during the autopsy?” Felicity asked to turn the attention off of the incredibly embarrassed, no longer secret couple.

  “Really, Felicity?” Autumn quipped. “What kind of question is that? Of course I did. Look at where I’m at! The test still has to come back—that woman from Fayetteville is going to finish the autopsy once the hazmat team gives the all clear in the morgue—but I know it’s cyanide. Ugh, why didn’t I put my mask on? I could be dead right now if there had been more in that woman’s stomach. I didn’t get far in my autopsy, though. I had started by removing her fake teeth. She had all sorts of crap stuck in there—some sort of green veggie, a seed, and bits of chewing tobacco. Nasty. In her medical report, I saw that she had lip cancer and a few other forms of cancer as well, so I was suspecting that had been what had finally done her in. That’s when I noticed her stomach. It was really swollen. I checked out her medical record, and there wasn’t anything in there that should be causing that. As soon as I cut into her gut, yikes! This gas spewed out all in my face, and there was this bitter almond-like smell. Soon as I got over the fact I breathed in that disgusting gas, I realized what it was I was smelling and completely freaked out. Thankfully, I was able to call in help before I totally collapsed on the floor. I thought I was going to die for a second there, but the hazmat team got to me quick.”

  “Maybe leave the part out about you almost passing out and thinking you were going to die when you tell your parents what happened,” said Jefferson.

  “So do you think Rose breathed in cyanide gas?” asked Felicity.

  “Probably not. She probably ingested it, and her digestive system created the gas effect,” said Autumn. “So nasty! I’ve been doing this job for a long time, you guys, and there’s not much that gets me queasy anymore. But breathing in a dead woman’s gas, well, that one about did it for me.”

  Felicity shivered slightly. She scribbled down everything that Autumn had said into her notebook. Autumn went on to tell them about how she was going to probably be sleeping at the hospital for the next several nights to be constantly monitored, and she certainly didn’t sound pleased. However, Autumn did seem to count herself lucky. The door to her room opened and her parents stepped in, followed by Dr. Roberts. Autumn sat up and smiled, and Dr. Roberts declared the room was getting too crowded.

  Autumn needed her parents and rest. She would have rather been up and about helping her friends, but she knew she was not going anywhere any time soon. She hoped to be able to transfer to a regular room sometime that night, but as busy as the ER was, she figured it would be awhile. Still, it was nice to have her parents with her, comforting her.

  Felicity and the others left to give Autumn’s parents some space; they headed back into the waiting room of the hospital. Before grabbing herself a seat, Felicity pulled Dawn aside. “Hey, can I talk to you about something?” Felicity whispered and Dawn nodded. The two of them headed to the opposite end of the waiting room where a vending machine was set up. The two women pretended to look at different snack options while they talked.

  “What’s going on?” Dawn asked to provoke Felicity to speak.

  “Well… this is a little embarrassing…but I was wondering if you could tell me what it’s like dating Monte? I mean, I know you might not really want to talk about it because you two have kept it a secret for a while, obviously. But, I don’t know. I guess I was just wondering what it was like dating someone you’ve been friends with for so long?”

  Felicity could feel Dawn observing her with a keen eye. There was a long pause before Dawn spoke. “Felicity, I’m really happy being with Monte. We get along really well. I think we complement one another. Plus, since we’ve been friends for so long, we kind of got to bypass some of the awkward stuff. My question, though, is why are you asking?” Dawn smiled. “Are you thinking about moving in on Jefferson?”

  Felicity laughed slightly. “I’d rather not talk about what my intentions are right now.”

  “Fine,” Dawn said and pushed some quarters into the vending machine to make a snack selection. “But you two would be cute together.”

  “We’re really good friends, and we work together. I don’t know about that. Plus, I’m pretty sure he really likes me, and I’m just not there. I wouldn’t want things to not work out if I went that route.”

  Dawn frowned as she reached down to get her snack. She stood upright, still frowning. “So, are you talking about Jack, then?”

  “I have considered giving Jack a second chance,” Felicity admitted. “But honestly, that ended horribly the first time, so I don’t know about that either. I was really just wondering about you and Monte is all.” They turned to head back to the rest of their friends.

  Dawn muttered to Felicity under her breath, “Yeah, I’m sure that’s all it was.”

  Chapter 11

  Felicity sat patiently in the waiting room of the hospitals’ emergency wing, reviewing her notes. Nothing really seemed to be adding up thus far. The murderer could be just about anyone. The question was, who had the means to accomplish poisoning Grandma Rose? It was growing late, and the party on the opposite end of the hospital was likely coming to a close. The DJ was handling a lot of the party’s closing activities, so Felicity didn’t feel the need to rush back just yet. There would probably be some stragglers for the next hour or so—the people who didn’t mind staying up until two in the morning dancing to Halloween-themed music.

  The rain had stopped, but the ER was still hopping. They had just brought in a reckless driver who had hit a mailbox. His airbags had deployed and he needed to be checked out, but there were others ahead of him. A mother had tripped while out with her children and had broken her ankle. A nurse had given her some ice and told her they would get her back as soon as they could. Fortunately, there were no serious injuries, just many minor ones that kept the doctors and nurses busy.

  While Halloween was a fun night for most, it brought out the craziness in others. One man had decided to climb his roof to put up some scary decorations. His ladder slipped and he broke his arm. Another man thought it would be funny to scare the children by jumping out from behind a bush. He was sitting there with a mean looking black eye that a father had given him. The father was sitting meekly beside him, apologizing over and over. He had not been e
xpecting anyone to jump out and his instinct took over.

  She yawned loudly and her eyes closed. Felicity was close to falling asleep in her chair when she felt Jefferson nudge her. When her eyes opened, she realized there was shouting going on just outside. Glancing across the waiting room, she saw through the windows that Jack and the Newnan officers were placing someone under arrest. “What in the world?” Felicity exclaimed. “I’ll be right back.” She jumped up and hurried out the door to see Linda’s Uncle Donnie being placed into a patrol car.

  Linda was standing on the sidewalk looking positively livid; her arms were crossed and her eyes were wild. “You are unbelievable!” she shouted toward the patrol car.

  Felicity watched as two Newnan officers spoke to Jack. “You’re good here, Jack. Why don’t you go on inside? You can have a look at the crime scene now,” one of them said, sounding rather condescending.

  “Yeah, now that you two have rummaged through everything and corrupted the crime scene. Now I get to have a look at it?” Jack huffed. “Yeah, thanks for the assist, boys.”

  “Whatever,” said one of the officers. “Be thankful I’m the one driving this moron to the station instead of making you do it.”

  “This is my crime scene too,” Jack declared.

  “Yeah, whatever, Jack,” said one of the officers as he hopped into the driver’s seat.

  The other man remained behind and walked over to Linda to talk. Jack, spotting Felicity, headed in her direction. “The Newnan boys still being territorial?” Felicity asked.

  “You have no idea,” Jack said. “Normally only big city cops have to deal with crap like that. Never in my life have I ever dealt with cops from other districts acting like that.”

  “Why are they arresting Donnie?” Felicity asked. “Did you find some evidence to convict him or something?”

  “What? Oh, no,” said Jack. “He just got busted loading up the family’s walking table into the back of his truck. Linda and the rest of the family are furious because he let the wood get a little damaged from the rain while trying to hide it. He hid it out back behind the hospital under a tarp during all of the commotion, and now that things have settled down a bit, he thought it would be a good time to move it…except half of the family walked out back to take a cigarette break. Guess the tobacco addiction runs in the family.”

  “Oh, wow!” exclaimed Felicity. “I guess I should have seen that coming. The whole family shares the table, but Donnie was the only one who wasn’t allowed to bring it home.”

  “Sounds like he had no intention of letting the rest of the family know he had it. He was stealing it to make it look like someone outside the family took it so that he could have it to himself. The family are all arguing about whether or not to press charges; one cousin wanted to take him out back and just handle this himself—I think he meant beat the idea out of him. They were all so furious that we thought it was best to just bring him to the local jail until the family decides whether or not to press charges,” Jack explained. He then nodded toward the one Newnan officer that had remained behind. “And these morons think that this is evidence that Donnie is Grandma Rose’s killer.”

  “But you’re not buying it?” Felicity questioned.

  “Donnie doesn’t seem smart enough to get a hold of cyanide, and this was just an opportunity that presented itself to him. It wasn’t planned. The execution was way too sloppy. And the table is sentimental to him too. If he had planned this whole thing out, he would have come up with a much better hiding place than outside in the rain under a little tarp he probably found lying around the tents you had set up,” Jack explained.

  “I agree,” said Felicity, but then she recalled something. She flipped open her notebook, then she shook her head. “Although…Rodney did tell me that Donnie was in charge of Rose’s medication.”

  Jack frowned. He lowered his voice so that the officer speaking to Linda couldn’t hear. “If he had access to her medicine, he could easily tamper with some pills to poison her.”

  “Exactly,” said Felicity.

  “Her purse is down in the morgue,” said Jack. “Want to tag along with me to go check out her pills?”

  Felicity smiled. “Definitely.”

  “Meet me by the elevator and I’ll grab Veronica. She could probably tell us if the pills have been tampered with,” Jack said, and they split off in two different directions.

  Felicity didn’t have to wait long by the elevator for Jack and Veronica. They loaded up into the elevator, and Felicity felt a little anxious as it descended into the cellar. The hazmat team had given the all-clear, but being in such an eerie crime scene made her a bit anxious. They crossed the small lobby and into the actual morgue where Grandma Rose was lying on a table, covered by a sheet. Even though she was covered, it still made Felicity queasy to look her way. She built up her courage and moved toward the table. As Jack had said, Rose’s purse along with the stuffed kittens from her costume were sitting on another table.

  The kittens were clumped together, much like they had been on Grandma Rose’s lap during the Halloween party. Her purse was a typical grandma’s purse. It was large and weighed a ton. Felicity imagined what would be inside. There were probably a few of those small packets of tissues and some lozenges, things that every grandma would have in her purse.

  Jack opened up the purse and laid out Rose’s medication for Veronica to examine. Veronica looked at each pill with extreme care, which took a considerable amount of time, but she finally shook her head. “You can send them out to be tested, but as far as I can tell, it doesn’t look like anyone has messed with her medication,” Veronica declared.

  The elevator door opened and Jefferson came marching into the morgue. “Did you guys seriously come to the crime scene without me?” he asked.

  Felicity shot Jack a look. “Did you not tell everyone why you came to get Veronica?” she asked.

  Jack just shrugged. Jefferson huffed. “Well, I’m here now. Anything I can do to help?” He leaned up against the table, and almost as soon as he did, his elbow knocked Grandma Rose’s purse off the table and spilled out all of its contents.

  There were tissue packets and lozenges, just as Felicity suspected. Grandma Rose’s wallet and change purse went scooting across the floor while some peppermints rolled after them. Some receipts and other papers landed beside the bag, and her chewing tobacco tin opened its contents on the floor.

  “Seriously, Jefferson!” Jack scolded.

  “Relax, I’ll pick it up,” Jefferson retorted.

  “Eww,” Veronica said. “Her chewing tobacco spilled everywhere.”

  Felicity knelt beside Jefferson to help him pick up everything and return it to Rose’s purse. She stuck out her tongue slightly at all of the tobacco now on the floor. “Hold on, I’ll get some paper towels,” Jack said as he began searching around the sink for something to wipe up the tobacco with.

  “Hey, Jack, didn’t your dad chew tobacco?” Felicity asked from the floor.

  “Yeah, why?” Jack asked, kneeling down with them with a roll of paper towels.

  “Look at this. Does this look right to you?” Felicity pointed at it.

  Jack swabbed some up into the paper towel, and they all stood as he placed the smelly glob onto the table where Rose’s purse had been sitting only moments ago. “Hmm…” Jack said. “You’re right. It’s got…weird chunks of something in it.”

  Jefferson leaned closer. “It looks like seeds?”

  Felicity flipped open her notebook to where she had taken notes when speaking to Autumn. “Autumn did say she found a seed stuck in Grandma Rose’s fake teeth.” The gears in Felicity’s head began turning. She yelped suddenly. “Oh my gosh!”

  “What?” Jack jumped slightly.

  Felicity slammed her notebook closed. “I know who killed Rose!”

  Chapter 12

  Felicity, Jack, Jefferson, and Veronica loaded into the morgue’s elevator—the others chasing after Felicity as she had bolted when the rea
lization had hit her. As the doors to the elevator closed, her friends quickly began to question her. “All right, Felicity, what do you know?” Jack demanded.

  “Apple seeds,” said Felicity. “Grandma Rose was killed by apple seeds!”

  “Felicity, someone can’t die from eating apple seeds,” Jack huffed.

  “Actually,” Veronica said quietly, to assure Jack and Jefferson that she too was a bit skeptical. “Chewing on apple seeds will actually release a very small dosage of cyanide, but Rose would have had to chew probably close to two cups of apple seeds in order to get the result that Autumn got during her autopsy.”

  “Exactly,” said Felicity. “She would have.” The elevator doors opened and Felicity hurried out, walking quickly with the others close behind her. The waiting room where the Youngling family had gathered was a good distance away from the elevator, and Felicity wanted to get there as quickly as possible so that Jack could make an arrest. “Think about it,” Felicity said as they walked speedily down the halls. “Rose was an avid tobacco user. And who was in charge of getting her tobacco, Jefferson?”

  “Candice,” he said.

  “And what did we just find in her tobacco?” Felicity questioned.

  “Well, it looked like apple seeds,” he said.

  “And who in the family lives on an apple orchard?” asked Felicity.

  “Candice,” Jefferson said again.

  “Okay, but I’m still not totally convinced that she chewed enough apple seeds to where she would have been killed by cyanide poison,” said Veronica, and Jack nodded in agreement.

  “All at once, probably not. But over time, yes!” said Felicity. “Plus, Rose is on all types of medication for her cancers and for her Alzheimer’s, all of which contain chemicals that are incredibly dangerous. If she’s been chewing on apple seeds all day every day, that would be enough cyanide to mix with the chemicals she’s already been digesting and kill her.”