Murder Well Done

by Constance Barker

  I held up my cup of coffee, still admiring her perfect golden skin, and made a toast. “Here’s to my new best friend, the Golden Goddess of Paint Creek!”

  She picked up her nearly empty cup and clinked with me. “And here’s to my best friend, the Ivory Princess of McLean County!”

  Chapter Five

  Brody sneaked up behind the secluded park bench I was sitting on, finishing up a crossword puzzle on my phone while I was waiting. He was 15 minutes early, and startled me with a kiss on the cheek.

  “Brody! Hi, hon. I was just going to text you to tell you where I was. How did you know where to find me? It’s a big park.”

  “Well, lovely lady,” he said with sly smile as he came around the bench with a handful of dandelions and pulled me up by the hand, “I know my girl pretty well. This is about the only bench in the park that’s out of sight from prying eyes along the road and around the ball fields and swings.” He hugged me around the waist, and I nuzzled my face into his chest. “And I’m pretty sure you didn’t come here for the sandwiches.”

  He was right about that. I took off my cap and put one of the dandelions in my hair. We kissed for several seconds, long enough to feel the tingles, until Brody cut it off.

  We sat, and I handed him half of the roast beef sandwich, from which he took a ravenous bite immediately.

  “So, what’s happening with this crazy case, Brody? Any leads or theories yet?”

  “Well, we have a few different paths to check out. We have to check out the wife, of course, and then there are all of the business clients from his accounting business and all those financial trails.”

  “I see. Lots to do. But I think he was spending most of his time doing home loans and second mortgages recently.” I dangled my feet from the park bench and kicked at a dandelion in the grass as I filled my lungs with the sweet country air from the gentle summer breeze. “So, how was Tom killed?”

  Brody shrugged “I didn’t see any bullet holes, but I don’t like to get too close to dead bodies. I leave that to the medical people. We’re still waiting for the autopsy, but Sylvia will be doing it at eight o’clock tonight.”

  “Really? Does she need any help?”

  “I can get you in there if you want. She was impressed with your observations on the case we had a while back, so I’m sure she would appreciate having a trauma nurse around to bounce ideas off of.”

  “Great. I’ll be there. So, what about the town council connection?”

  “What connection is that? I know he was a council member, but how is that relevant?”

  “Well, you know...he was the only one opposed to putting in the new streets with curb and gutter on the south side of town. Property owners there, plus some big contractors, stand to gain a lot if the council passes the upgrade.”

  “Interesting, Mercy,” Brody said as he finished up the last bite of his sandwich and reached for one of the cookies Ruby had brought me. “Good work, coming up with that. I didn’t know.”

  “Well, actually, it was Jake who came up with that information.”

  “Jake Carter? Your Jake from the diner?”

  “Well, I wouldn’t call him my Jake, but yup. That’s the one”

  “I can’t believe that Jake and Junior actually came up with some helpful information.”

  “Hey, I didn’t say anything about Junior. He’s pretty sure that Tom was killed because he was printing money from his printing press in the basement of the Village Hall. There’s a little more to his idea than that, but I’ll spare you the details.”

  “Mmm...good cookie. Yeah, that sounds more like Junior. But I’m down in that basement pretty often – it’s where the evidence room for Paint Creek is, and we have a small armory down there – and Junior will be disappointed to learn that there’s no printing press down there.”

  “Well, that doesn’t prove anything, Brody. Tom’s henchmen probably just beamed it up to the mothership whenever they weren’t using it.”

  “You have all the answers, Mercy. You should be the Sheriff.” He put his official “Smokey” hat on my head and kissed my cheek. “You know, you’re going to have to bake those cookies more often, Mercy. They’re just so good. One bite and it’s obvious that they were baked by a brilliant, beautiful woman with a heart full of love for children and small animals. If I’d never met you before, I would have fallen in love with you after the first bite. I’d ask for your recipe, but, hey...the chef is my girlfriend!”

  I’m going to have to drug Ruby and put her on a slow boat to China. “Well, it’s an old family recipe...” just not my family. “So, what have you been so busy with lately? I hardly heard from you at all this past week.”

  “Everything. Cotter’s Junction can’t support a police department anymore, so I’m hiring and training a new deputy for them and a couple of new deputies for the county too, plus the state is coming in to inspect our records, our vehicles, and our arsenal, making sure that everything is up to date and in compliance. And now we have this murder and this rash of dumpster fires, and they’re not just in Paint Creek. There’s something very odd about this case, Mercy. I’m going to need your help – you know, some eyes and ears here in Paint Creek.”

  “Sure, just let me know what you need.” I saluted and gave him back his hat. “I’m here to help!”

  “I’ll make a plan and talk to you about the details at the diner in the morning, Mercy.”

  “You know, I could use some help from you too, Brody. My lips are a little dry...”

  He got the idea and kissed me.

  “Hoo! Almost as good as that cookie!” he said with a wink.

  “I think you like kissing me, Sheriff Hayes.”

  “It’s a dirty job, but somebody’s got to do it.”

  We shared a laugh, but then my warm enthusiasm for our beautiful moment started to be replaced with melancholy as my mind raced with questions and uncertainties. I remembered that it had been nearly a week with hardly a word from Brody. Things seemed so hot and cold sometimes. Maybe he compartmentalizes me and his feelings for me the way I compartmentalize my feelings about death and trauma.

  I hugged his arm and put my head on his shoulder. “Brody...is our romance a dumpster fire?”

  He gave me a confused and worried look when he saw that my mood had turned serious. “What do you mean, Mercy? Our romance is great.”

  “I mean...like...when we’re together, the fire burns hot and the flames are all-consuming. But then maybe later on there’ll be nothing left but ashes. Maybe we’ll burn up all the chemistry that fuels our attraction, and then there won’t be anything left to keep the fire burning and keep our hearts warm.”

  He gave me a strained smile and held my chin tenderly in his strong hand. “Mercy,” he said putting his face close to mine, “I was a Boy Scout, and I know how to tend a fire. Every time I look at you, it’s like putting another log on the fire. And every time I kiss you it fans the flames to new heights. We’re not starting at the peak and burning out, honey. We have a real relationship, which means we’re just beginning to build our fire, and it gets warmer every day. The flames we have now? Those are nothing compared to what we will have next year and the year after that.”

  That’s how I felt too, but I still had another question to ask: “Brody...what if you met somebody prettier who made better cookies?”

  I think he didn’t know if I was kidding around or not, and neither did I, truthfully. But he answered sincerely. “Mercy, do you think I love you for your pretty face and your sandwiches? Love is a lot more than looks and cookies, honey. I know it’s only been a short time, but you’re a part of my soul...of me. Here...”

  He reached into his pocket and pulled out a keychain that held a tarnished pair of brass dog tags from his time in the military. He took one off the chain and handed it to me. “I’ve always kept these with me as a reminder of where I’ve been, Mercy. But now you’re the other half of me, so you should hold on to one of them. Maybe this will help you understand
that I’m always with you.”

  Chapter Six

  It was beginning to feel like this day was never going to end! It started out like any other, taking care of business around the diner, until that horrible dumpster fire and the discovery of Tom Hopkins’ body sent everything into a tailspin. But, I found my new best friend and moved my relationship with Brody back into a good place. It’s already been a pretty remarkable day.

  And now here I was, at the county morgue. I was in the little ready-room just outside the morgue, putting on some clean scrubs, a lab coat, latex gloves, and a surgical mask. Now I’m ready to assist Sylvia Chambers with the autopsy of my friend...I think. Actually, I wasn’t sure at all if I was ready for this. I mean, I worked with a lot of cadavers in nursing school, and I’ve had a lot of experience with serious injuries in the ER. But watching the Medical Examiner pull body organs out of a man I grew up with, examine them, weigh them, and throw them in a bucket might be a little unnerving.

  I walked the few steps to the door of the morgue at the end of the hall on the second floor of the public health building. I was engulfed in an eerie silence as I stopped with my hand on the door’s push plate. The blinds were closed on the other side of the glass door, indicating to me that Sylvia had probably already begun the autopsy. I pushed opened the door and then knocked gently.

  “Come on in, Mercy! Just getting started here. I hope you don’t mind, but I’ve already made the ‘Y’ incision and removed the rib cage. Come on in! Come in! I want to show you the marks on the neck before we look inside.”

  My nurse instincts began to kick in, and I walked over to the table, across from Sylvia. “Oh, my! Ligature marks – Tom was strangled, Sylvia!”

  “Yes, he was, and for a good long while by the looks of it.”

  I opened his eyelid with my thumb. I held back a gasp as I beheld his glassy, blood red eyes, and I noticed some bruising below the eyes as well.

  “A lot of subconjunctival hemorrhaging, as you can see,” Sylvia said, “along with some involuntary urination.” She looked at the lower half of the body, which was covered in a sheet. “The legs are charred pretty badly, but the rest of the body seems to be in good shape, once I cleaned up all the smoke and ash residue.”

  She pulled back the flap of skin from his chest to reveal the inside of the neck, and I could see at once that he was indeed killed by strangulation.

  “The hyoid bone is broken,” I said. “It must have been someone fairly strong to do that, I suppose.”

  “Well, not necessarily.” Sylvia leaned casually on the table with one hand and waggled her finger with the other. “It’s... mmmm, kind of a delicate bone, but with the use of a ligature a seventh-grader could probably break it.”

  “So, that doesn’t really narrow down our possible types of suspects, I guess. The neck looks bruised...a lot of burst capillaries...but I don’t see any rope burn from whatever kind of cord they used.”

  “Good point. Maybe it was a silk scarf or something smooth like that.”

  “What’s this mark over here?” I asked her, pointing to what appeared to be a cut on Tom’s neck.

  “Well, I thought it might just be a nick he got when he was thrown in the dumpster, but...”

  “But it looks like he was still alive when he was cut. I’m no expert, but it seems his blood was still flowing.”

  Sylvia walked over to an evidence bag that held his clothes. She pulled out his white shirt, and we examined the collar together.

  “Yeah, it looked like the cut would have been right above the top of his collar, and you can see quite a bit of blood on the collar here, Mercy. He was alive.”

  “Is there any way to tell what was used to make the cut, Sylvia?”

  She shook her head and shrugged. “Probably not. It’s not a stab wound, just a small slash, so it would be hard to get an idea of the length and shape of the blade or whatever was used. But whatever it was, the clean cut shows that it was sharp as a razor, no pulling or tearing. And look at this.” She held up the collar and held it towards me.

  “What? The blood?”

  “No, next to it here. There’s some kind of dust or dirt on the top of the collar, right where the blood stops, and then another little line of blood.”

  There was a light tan smudge by the blood stain, maybe a powdery substance. “I see...like maybe the blade scraped against it and wiped off some residue that was on it, and some blood that got on the edge of the blade when it made the slash.”

  She nodded. “It’s probably nothing – there are always a lot of red herrings in an autopsy – but I’ll send a sample to the lab to see if they can identify it. I’ll take a swab from the wound on the neck too. I already vacuumed his hair and clothing to see if we can get any carpet fibers. I think he was placed in the trunk of a car, so we might get lucky and find some fibers that will identify the kind of vehicle.”

  We walked back to the autopsy table, and Sylvia recorded some remarks into the microphone.

  I noticed some blue lividity marks on the body’s right side and arm. “He was kind of on his left side in the dumpster,” I said, “so shouldn’t these marks be on the left, Sylvia?”

  “The body was moved, Mercy. He died last night, sometime around 10:00, and I’d guess he spent the night in the trunk of a car, kind of in a half fetal position, with his knees bent so he would fit in the trunk.”

  “That’s the same position he was in when we found him in the dumpster.”

  “Right. He was probably still in full rigor this morning when the killer tossed him in the dumpster, and he ended up on his left side in there. He was on his right side over night when the blood settled on his right side,” she said, pointing to the blue lividity marks.

  “It looks like there are some marks on his right side too, maybe impressions from a plastic floor mat in the trunk.”

  “I’ll get some pictures.”

  I’d seen enough and didn’t stick around for the examination of all the internal organs. I could always read the report if she found anything important. I kind of wanted to watch her sew him back together when she was done, but my queasiness and feelings for my dead friend outweighed my scientific curiosity.

  Chapter Seven

  “Brrrrr! It’s cold in that little walk-in cooler, Smoke,” I said to my cook as I came out of the cooler after preparing my vegetable order. “You keep it pretty neat and organized in there, and everything has the date on it. I guess that’s why we always get top marks from the health inspector.”

  “Who cares about the health inspector?” Smoke said as he sliced a fresh pork belly slab into thick strips of bacon. “That’s why our friends and neighbors never get sick from spoiled food coming out of my kitchen.” Smoke wiped his face with one of the white kitchen towels and threw it in the laundry sack. “Anyway...you know, Mercy, if it weren’t for that cooler I’d never make it through the summer around this place. It gets mighty hot in this little kitchen.”

  “Especially when you start a fire on the grill, Smoke.” Zack, Smoke’s young assistant, had a big smile on his face as he hung up his apron and cap.

  “Run along now, sonny. We don’t need any wise-acres around here. Now go get some rest – you’ve got to be back here for lunch in two hours.” He had a serious look for Zack but then turned to me with a smile and a wink as Zack headed out the swinging doors with a wave. The back was still a crime scene, so he had to go out the front.

  “Heh heh,” Smoke chuckled, “that boy is getting to be a pretty good cook you know, Mercy.”

  “He’s learning it all from you, Smoke.”

  He smiled and got a nostalgic look on his face. “And I learned it all from your granddad, Mercy. I was 16, just a year or two younger than Zack is now, when your gramps hired me the day he opened this place. Of course, I learned a lot of cooking on a battleship that shuttled our soldiers between the war in Vietnam and some relaxing R&R in the Philippines too. If it weren’t for what your grandpa taught me about cooking, I would have
been carrying a rifle in the jungle instead of a spatula in the galley of a ship.”

  “Mercy! Come on out here. You’ve got a visitor!” Deloris hollered to me through the pass-through window.

  I wonder who that could be? I grabbed my clipboard and little laptop and went out to the dining room.

  “Hi, Neighbor! I thought I’d stop in and watch you work while I still have some free time before school starts in the fall.”

  “Ruby! Well, this is my home-away-from-home. Not exactly the Oakroom in Louisville, but it’s all mine!”

  “I love it! So clean and homey and...old school! I can see why it pulled you away from the big city.”

  “Deloris, coffee for my friend, please – 2 sugars, no cream. And a cup for me too. Thanks!”

  I looked down the counter as I went to lead Ruby to my little booth by the window. Red, Jake, and Junior all had their stools turned around, staring at Ruby with their jaws hanging down.

  “Aren’t you gonna introduce us to Miss America, Mercy?” Red finally said, breaking out of his trance.

  Ruby was embarrassed but turned to face the guys.

  “This is my neighbor, Ruby Owana. She’s the new history teacher at the high school. This is Red, Jake, and Junior. Now, you guys can stop gawking and make her feel welcome here.”

  Red jabbed Jake with his elbow but kept looking straight ahead at Ruby. “The boys in her class aren’t going to learn a darn thing,” he said softly.

  “Nice to meet you guys!” She smiled and waved at them, and then we sat in the booth. “I already met Deloris and Babs,” she told me.

  I heard some clunking behind the counter as we sat down and noticed that the old soda machine had been disconnected and was sitting on the front counter. The new one was still covered in plastic near the spot where it would be installed on the back bar. Delores seemed to be talking to the installer, who was lying on the floor, probably working with the water line.