Upstairs I find Otto, Arnie, and Laura in the library, standing beside a new, fresh box of pastries on the table. Today, I’m going to have to be strong and pass these goodies by. I don’t want to eat anything more just yet, not after my waffle incident. But it isn’t easy. The warm, sweet, yeasty aromas are making me drool. Or maybe my food bolus isn’t gone after all.
“Otto, you have to stop bribing us with these pastries every time you work.”
“No, he doesn’t,” Arnie says, taking a bite out of a donut that leaves his mouth and part of his face dusted with powdered sugar. He looks over at Otto. “Don’t listen to her,” he adds, his mouth full.
“Any word on our alien bones?” I ask Otto.
He shakes his head. “Don’t expect there will be until sometime next week.”
Arnie says, “I have some information that might be helpful. I did some research on that piece of material we found with the bones. It’s nothing too spectacular, just some gold-colored thread known as Lurex. It came into use somewhere in the late fifties and was quite popular in the sixties. That gives us a window of time to look at.”
“Of more than fifty years,” I say. “That’s a pretty big window.”
“Ah, but I’m not done yet,” Arnie says with a wink. “The piece of fabric we found was somewhat protected from the elements due to its location in relation to the body habitus, but also because Lurex thread isn’t very biodegradable. However, I found remnants of some plain nylon threads around the edges of it, implying there was a garment composed of nylon that decomposed, and our piece was a small part of that larger garment, maybe some type of badge or insignia or appliqué. Nylon takes around thirty years to decompose in these conditions, so I’d say our body was buried sometime between 1960 and 1987.”
“That’s still twenty-seven years,” I say.
“That’s the best I can do for now,” Arnie says. “But I’ll keep digging.”
“Speaking of digging,” I say, “wait until you hear what Izzy dug up.” I fill Otto and the others in on what Izzy told me earlier about Dr. Farmer. “Hurley is going to try to arrange for me to have a chat with Tomas Wyzinski,” I tell them when I’m done. “And I think we’re going to have to visit Drake Industries, too.”
“I’m fine with you working on investigative stuff for the day, particularly since it’s a Saturday,” Otto says. “We had a call right before you got here for a nursing home death, but it sounded routine, and the guy was ninety-eight, so I signed off on it over the phone.”
“I’m going to be here most of the day, so I can assist you with an autopsy if one comes in,” Arnie says.
Otto nods.
“I’ll be here for a little while,” I say. “Izzy will be here shortly to conduct another job interview, so I’ll be in the office for at least that long. If you don’t need me for anything else in the meantime, I’ll probably try to catch up on some of my paperwork.”
“That’s fine,” Otto says, and with that we split up and head for our respective workstations. It’s only after everyone is gone and I’m alone in the silence of the library that I realize Laura didn’t say a word the entire time. I am both relieved and bothered, relieved for the obvious reason, and bothered because it is so out of character for her.
A few minutes before 8:30, Izzy appears in the library doorway. He tosses a folder onto the table and says, “Here’s the résumé and info on our candidate. He’s out front, so I’m going to go get him.” Rather than do so, however, he stands in the doorway, eyeing the pastry box.
“Don’t even think about opening that box,” I tell him, getting up from my desk and walking over to the table. “It’s infested with diet demons, little waiflike creatures that get into your brain and convince you that the sugar in that box is necessary to life.”
Izzy looks at me, amused. “Diet demons?” he says with a healthy dose of mockery.
I ignore him, pick up the box of pastries, and carry it to the far end of the room, leaving it on the desk that used to be Hal’s. Izzy watches me for several seconds with a longing expression on his face before turning away and heading for the front lobby.
I grab the folder and glance at the résumé inside. Christopher Malone, thirty-four, bachelor’s degree in criminal justice, attended a police academy and worked as a cop for a year in Ventura, California, and then traded that job for one working as a diener—an industry term for an autopsy assistant—for a medical examiner in Ventura. He kept that job for five years and then took one as a medicolegal investigator for King County in the state of Washington for six years before moving here. He is currently unemployed.
Izzy returns with Christopher in tow. He is an attractive fellow, about five-eleven with a full head of thick, dark hair, hazel eyes rimmed with dark lashes, high cheekbones, and three dimples—one in his chin and one in each cheek. I, too, have dimples in my cheeks—and not just the ones on my face.
Christopher remains standing until Izzy introduces me and then shakes my hand with just the right amount of firmness. As soon as Izzy indicates he can sit, he does, directly across from me. “Pleasure to meet you,” he says. “Thanks for giving me an opportunity to interview with you.” His voice is even, steady, and low-pitched, but not overly so. He folds his hands on the table in front of him and looks from me to Izzy with a patient, warm smile that makes his dimples even deeper. No one says anything for several long seconds, but if this makes Christopher uncomfortable at all, it doesn’t show.
Finally, Izzy starts in with his spiel regarding the job description, hours, and requirements. When he’s done with that, he looks at the résumé and says, “It looks like you spent a lot of time out on the West Coast. What brings you here to Wisconsin?”
“A divorce,” he says. “I’m actually from this area, and my parents and my brother still live here. My wife left me because of . . . well, because of a problem we couldn’t get past. Isn’t that always the way?” he asks with an apologetic smile and shrug. “We lived out west for her job, so when the divorce happened, I decided to come back home.”
There is a noise then, a subtle sound like a chair leg scraping on a wooden floor. But none of us has moved, and the room is carpeted.
Izzy asks Christopher to talk a little about what he did on his last job, the one in Washington, and as I’m listening to him, I become aware of an odor that gets stronger and fouler as the seconds roll by. I realize then what the sound was earlier. Mr. Malone has let loose a fart.
I put my hand up to my face, not only to stifle a giggle but also to block out the smell. I’m feeling sorry for Malone—interviews are nerve-wracking enough without losing control of one’s gases—when I hear another long, low sound. This time it’s unmistakable, and sure enough, seconds later the smell hits.
Over the next five minutes, Malone cuts loose with three more farts. If he is aware of them, he doesn’t show it. His expression hasn’t changed, and he appears calm and composed. Izzy, however, has started to squirm in his seat. The air in the room is quite rank at this point, making me wonder what the hell Malone ate for breakfast. When Malone cuts loose with fart number six, Izzy gets up from the table and offers to give him a tour of the office. I’m grateful for this, because I’ve been holding my breath for so long I’m about to pass out.
Don’t get me wrong. I’ve smelled all kinds of bodily emissions during the course of my careers and motherhood, not to mention the horrific odors that accompany sick and decomposing bodies. But there is something about the foul, acrid smell of Malone’s farts, not to mention the frequency of them, that is not only sickening, it’s making my eyes burn and water. I get up and follow the two men out of the room, turning left when they turn right and making a mad dash for the front office.
I burst into the reception area and suck in a breath of clean air. Except it’s not clean air. I can still smell that smell, albeit less so than I did in the library. I look around, puzzled, and clamp a hand over my mouth.
“Is he still doing it?” Cass says from behind he
r desk.
I give her a questioning look.
“Is that poor man still passing gas every few minutes?” she asks. “He must have been awfully nervous because he tooted four times while he was waiting out here for Izzy.” She grimaces and waves a hand in front of her face. “I think the guy needs to consider a serious dietary change.”
“No kidding,” I say. Behind me, I hear Izzy’s voice approaching and realize that he and Mr. Malone are already headed back to the front area, their tour done. I look at Cass, desperate to escape. I can’t go back the way I came, but when I look out the front door, I see the remnants of the media people lingering out there. It’s a tough choice, but one I make quickly. I run for the front door and escape to the outside.
Cletus has joined the morning throng, and as soon as he sees me, he hurries over to ask me who the latest visitor is. “Is he here regarding the alien body investigation? Is he from NASA, or SETI, or some top-secret government branch that investigates extraterrestrial phenomena?”
I stop and stare at the remaining journalists, presumably those low on their respective totem poles if they have nothing better to do on a Saturday than wait around here for a space alien story that’s never going to happen. Just then, Christopher Malone comes out, and it’s all I can do not to turn and run.
“Why don’t you ask him yourselves?” I say, arching my brows in a manner that suggests Christopher might be willing to dish something juicy. The crowd closes in around him, and I hear another telltale sound.
I turn and walk as fast as I can, heading for the underground garage and a back way into the office. I’m just entering the garage when I hear one of the reporters say, “What on earth is that godawful smell?”
Back inside, I stop in the autopsy suite and grab a mask, putting it on. Then I head back to the library, passing Otto, who is sitting in Izzy’s office behind Izzy’s desk. He eyes me curiously as I go by but says nothing. Izzy is back in the library, seated at the table, talking on his cell phone. He waves me in, and I take a seat.
“I see,” he says to whoever is on the other end. “Yes, of course.” More listening. Then a worried sounding, “Really?” More listening. My head is about to burst with curiosity, or maybe it’s about to explode from the smells.
Finally, Izzy thanks whoever is on the other end and disconnects the call. “Well,” he says, leaning back in his chair. “That was interesting.”
“Interesting isn’t what I would call it,” I say. “What the hell was that? A bad case of nerves combined with a bad choice of meals?”
“Apparently not,” Izzy says, tilting his head. “Our Mr. Malone has a metabolic disorder, an inherited one that affects the way his body processes food. It results in the production of lots and lots of really foul-smelling flatus.”
“Oh. Wow. Poor guy,” I say. “Isn’t there a treatment or a cure for it?”
“Not according to his past employer.”
“Is that who you were just talking to?”
Izzy nods. “It was. He filled me in on Mr. Malone’s rather sad history. The reason Malone has a degree in criminal justice is because he wanted to be a cop. But no one could ride with him in a squad car for any length of time, so after going through all the potential partners they had, they told him they were going to have to let him go.”
“Ouch,” I say wincing. “That had to have been a hard one to take.”
“Malone didn’t take it,” Izzy says. “He sued the police department for discrimination, claiming he has a disability. He said it didn’t interfere with his ability to do his job; his superiors and coworkers disagreed. They settled.”
“Wow.”
“The Ventura ME’s office where he worked—that’s who I was just talking to—said they heard about the police department thing after they hired him, so they were afraid to try to deal with the problem. Having him in the autopsy room with the fans going wasn’t too bad, but they had to give him his own office and install an exhaust fan in it, too. The guy said Malone’s work was exemplary, so there wasn’t any other reason to let him go. When Malone’s wife got a job promotion and had to move to Seattle, everyone in Ventura was relieved.”
“I’ll bet.” I slip my mask down and sniff the air, testing it. It seems tolerable, so I remove the mask. “It’s too bad,” I add. “He seemed easygoing and qualified.”
“He is qualified, very much so,” Izzy says in a cautious tone. I frown at him. “And he can start immediately.”
“You are not seriously considering hiring him,” I say, staring at Izzy appalled.
“I can’t not hire him,” Izzy says with a shrug. “Unless we turn up something in his background check, criminal check, or references, there is absolutely no reason why I shouldn’t hire him. If I don’t hire him, he might sue us for discrimination.”
I stare at him in disbelief. “Izzy, you can’t . . .”
“I can, and I might have to.” I continue starting at him, and he gives me half a smile. “He can start immediately,” he says.
I’m speechless and, quite honestly, torn. My first impression of Malone was a good one, and the fact that he can start right away is a definite feather in his cap. A mental image fills my brain of Malone wearing a cap with a jaunty feather in it that then wilts when it comes in contact with that toxic gas. That gas . . . it’s rather daunting, and while I feel some sympathy for Malone, I don’t know if I can survive it. Then I realize I won’t have to most of the time. If we hire Malone, he’ll be working opposite me since we’ll be job sharing. So my exposure will be minimal. It’s the rest of the office that will suffer.
“Do you have any other candidates?” I ask Izzy.
He shakes his head. “There aren’t a lot of people clamoring for this job. Cutting up dead people isn’t as popular as you might think.”
“Okay,” I say with a shrug. “Get to checking those references.” I’m not sure if I’m hoping Malone’s references will or won’t check out. The fact that he lasted several years at his other jobs makes me think we can make it work. There are air fresheners, and exhaust fans, and masks. But how much will that smell linger in the office? Will it be there even when he isn’t? And what about when he has to interview people? How will that work if he’s gassing them the entire time? But he can start immediately. Tomorrow even. That means a full night’s sleep might be just over the horizon. That means some semblance of a normal life might be possible sooner rather than later. Isn’t that worth a little odiferous suffering? I mean, come on, I deal with a kid who fills his pants regularly with something resembling toxic waste, and I’ve managed to get through some pretty horrific smells on this job. How bad are a few toots going to be?
The rational, more scientific part of my brain is knocking on the door of my idealistic part, trying to get in and remind me that this sort of thinking is the same kind of thing that happens to women when they contemplate having another child after experiencing the so-called joys of childbirth. Labor is painful. Not stub-your-toe-and-now-it-throbs kind of painful, not splitting-headache kind of painful, not burned-myself-on-the-oven-rack kind of painful (which was painful enough the one time I tried to bake something that I never tried again). No, childbirth is push-a-Volkswagen-through-an-opening-the-size-of-a-mason-jar painful . . . and the Volkswagen is on fire. And yet women seem to forget or minimize this pain soon after experiencing it. I think it’s a survival tactic, because if we remembered the pain for any length of time as vividly as we experienced it, our legs would be forever crossed with DO NOT ENTER tattooed on each knee.
My phone rings then, saving me from having to debate this moral dilemma any longer, and I see it’s Hurley. “What’s up, love of my life?”
“I just got off the phone with Wyzinski’s lawyer, Joan Mackey. She said she’d be happy to let you talk to Tomas, and she’s eager to hear what you have to say. But she also said she doubted you’d get much out of him.”
“Well, at least I can give it a try. When can I talk to him?”
“Mackey sa
id she’s free this afternoon if you want to meet her at the prison. He’s at Waupun Correctional, which is only an hour’s drive away. She can meet you there at one. There’s some paperwork you’ll have to fill out, so you might want to get there about fifteen minutes early. She said she’ll meet you inside in the lobby area; they tend to frown on people sitting in their cars in the parking lot.”
“Got it. In the meantime, if Otto doesn’t have anything for me to do here, I’m going to try to have a chat with David this morning about those trips the pharma companies paid for.”
“Want me to come along?”
“No, but thanks. I think David will be more willing to talk to me alone, particularly if I come at it from a personal level as opposed to a professional one.”
“Maybe it should be professional. Maybe you should record your chat.”
I consider this for a second but quickly dismiss it. “Hurley, if David is the DW referred to in Hal’s notes, and I think he is, then all of those trips that are mentioned in the locales that come after his initials are trips he took when I was married to him. In fact, I went on two of them with him, so if he was doing something illegal, we both benefited from it. I honestly don’t think he was doing anything illegal, at least not intentionally. And if he was, I’m not sure we can prove it. So I think we need to not think of him as a suspect.”
There is silence on the other end for longer than I expect. “Hurley? Are you still there?”
“I am. How much of what you just told me is you trying to protect your ex?”
I sigh. “And how much of your desire to see David punished is because you resent my past relationship with him?”
“Don’t be ridiculous,” Hurley says, but I detect a hint of doubt in his voice.
“Look, if you take David down you might take me down with him. Not to mention that Patty is pregnant and she doesn’t need this right now.”
Dead Calm Page 26