Dead in the Water

by Annelise Ryan

  “Where’s Izzy?” Charlie asks.

  “He’s sick,” I tell her. “He called in this morning and said he had some kind of stomach bug. Unfortunate timing for me. I was hoping to get off a little early today, but with a sub coming in, I don’t think I’ll be able.”

  “What about the new guy?” Brenda asks. “Can’t he cover for you?”

  The new guy Brenda is referring to is Harold “Hal” Dawson, a transplant to our office who came here from Eau Claire. He was hired last year when I moved in with Hurley and made the decision to cut back to part-time. Both of these decisions were so I could spend more time with Matthew, and also with Emily, Hurley’s teenage daughter from a previous marriage. Hurley didn’t know Emily even existed until two years ago when she and her mother showed up out of the blue. A short time later, Emily’s mother died, leaving Hurley to care for his newly discovered daughter. Emily didn’t adapt well at first, in part because of her grief over her mother’s death, in part because her mother had lied to her all her life, telling her that her father was dead, and in part because her newly found father was in the process of building a family of his own with me and my yet-unborn son at the time. Poor Emily felt abandoned, unwanted, and like the proverbial fifth wheel. This led to some acting-out behaviors that worried and frightened Hurley and me. But after Emily underwent a near-death experience, things began to turn around. With time and a lot of counseling, her behavior and her relationship with me slowly improved.

  In truth, my decision to move in with Hurley was only partly motivated by the situation with Emily. Izzy’s mother, Sylvie, took a turn healthwise, requiring her to return to the cottage Izzy had built for her a few years back, a cottage that sits on Izzy’s property. Sylvie had lived in it originally, right after it was built, but she moved out less than a year later when her health improved. Her timing was prophetic for me, since my then-husband and I lived next door to Izzy, and my marriage blew up and crashed with all the speed and ferocity of the Hindenburg only weeks after Sylvie moved out. I settled into the cottage for what I thought would be a temporary stay, and ended up calling it home for nearly two years.

  When I decided to cut back my hours, Izzy hired Hal Dawson, a divorced, childless man in his mid-forties. It took a while to get to know Hal because he tends to be shy and reserved around people he doesn’t know well. Some people find his looks a bit off-putting, too. He resembles Ichabod Crane: tall and thin, to the point of being gaunt, with long arms and legs, large feet, and a very prominent nose. He quickly proved himself to be a great addition to our staff: smart, funny, and dedicated to his job. He’s constantly reading up on all the latest advances in forensic science and he’s shown Izzy up a time or two with his knowledge of some of the latest techniques and processes. His main redeeming quality in my opinion, other than his smarts and dedication, is his wry, often dark sense of humor, a quality that also won over most of the police department, Brenda Joiner in particular.

  “Quit being coy, Brenda,” I say, arching a brow at her. “I know you know Hal’s name. You’ve had the hots for the guy since he first got here, which was a year ago, by the way, so I think you can stop calling him ‘the new guy.’ And to answer your question, I told him I’d cover for him today because he had something he had to do out of town somewhere. Chicago, I think he said. He’s supposed to be back around five to take call.”

  Brenda’s cheeks, what little of them we can see above her mask, redden. She shakes her head in denial, making Patrick snigger. “Seriously, Joiner,” he says. “You couldn’t be more obvious.”

  Brenda’s color deepens and spreads down her neck. “Not that he would notice,” she says with a scowl. “Besides, he’s seeing someone.”

  “You should ask him out anyway,” Patrick says. “All he can do is say no, and who knows? He might say yes.”

  “I’m not desperate enough to try to break up another couple,” Brenda says.

  Patrick scoffs. “Hell, even I can hear your biological clock ticking, Joiner. You should go for it. Life is too short to play those kinds of games.”

  With the reminder of just how short life can be, we all turn our attention back to the woman on the floor, and Patrick’s color starts to turn again.

  CHAPTER 4

  After taking a few seconds to remind ourselves that none of us escape alive from “this thing called life,” Brenda, who I suspect is eager to change the subject, says, “Bummer that you’re going to have to change your plans, Mattie. What were you going to do?”

  “Desi, Emily, and I were going to drive into Madison to go shopping for a wedding dress this afternoon.”

  “Wedding dress?” Patrick says. “You two are finally going to do it? For real?” He looks over at Hurley and gives him a playful punch in the shoulder. “It’s about damned time.” This earns Patrick the evil eye from Hurley. I’m not sure if Hurley’s annoyance is because of the punch or the comment, but this is clarified a moment later.

  “It wasn’t from a lack of trying,” Hurley grumbles. “I’ve been proposing to this woman for two years, ever since I found out she was pregnant.”

  Patrick looks over at me and raises his eyebrows in question. “Playing hard to get, eh?”

  “No, things were . . . complicated.”

  This is an understatement of astounding proportions. My relationship with Hurley has been a teeter-totter ride of emotional ups and downs, career ups and downs, financial ups and downs, and family wonkiness. We hurdled so many obstacles during the first year and a half, we should have a wall filled with gold medals. What we have instead are walls covered with crayon scribbles, teenage heartthrob posters, and a sampling of all the foods Matthew doesn’t like. Turns out our kid is a spitter.

  The inauspicious circumstances under which we first met should have been a clue that the road ahead would be a rocky one. It happened over the dead body of the woman I had just discovered was having an affair with my husband at the time, a doctor named David Winston. David and I met at the hospital in town where he worked as a surgeon and I worked as an ER nurse. I switched to the OR when David and I started getting serious, thinking it would bring us closer together. He proposed soon after and the first six years of our marriage were good ones. But during the clichéd seven-year itch, David’s eye began to wander. I discovered this when I happened upon him and his ill-fated paramour alone together in an otherwise-abandoned surgical suite one evening. David was performing exploratory surgery on her using his penis as the only surgical instrument.

  Running from both him and my job—small towns are rife with gossip and a small-town hospital is a pivotal hub for hot news—I ended up working for Izzy and living in his backyard cottage. It was the perfect hideaway for me. Not only did the cottage suit me financially—I left with little more than the shirt on my back, since all of our assets other than the house were in David’s name—it was located next door to the house I had shared with David, providing ample spying opportunities.

  My new job with Izzy helped me get over my marital woes in several ways. It gave me something to do other than sulk and feel sorry for myself all day. It gave me a degree of financial independence. And it gave me Hurley.

  My attraction to Hurley was swift, powerful, and mutual, though that didn’t make the relationship an easy one. After muddling through several crises, we settled into the beginning stages of what appeared to be a promising relationship. That’s when Hurley discovered he had a fourteen-year-old daughter he never knew existed, and a wife he thought he’d divorced fifteen years before, except she never filed the papers.

  Needless to say, discovering he had a wife and child he didn’t know about threw a big wrench into the works of Hurley’s relationship with me. And as if one unexpected family arriving on his doorstep wasn’t enough, I discovered I was pregnant around the same time.

  My pregnancy wasn’t planned; it was the hapless result of some inattention on my part, and a course of antibiotics that interfered with my birth control pills. I was happy to discover I
was carrying Hurley’s child, but the timing couldn’t have been worse.

  Given how my relationship with Hurley began and evolved, it feels as if the Fates are trying to tell us something. And the obstacles haven’t stopped. Though I’ve finally agreed to marry Hurley, my attempts to plan the wedding have been an unmitigated disaster thus far. It started with my efforts to secure a venue. To date, I’ve made reservations at three different spots, only to have all three fall through the cracks—in one case, literally. The most recent place I tried to book was a small park with a gazebo, a nice backup to have in case it rains. The park setting seemed perfect, given that we were planning a small ceremony with a date in early June, a glorious time of year here in Wisconsin. But the original date came and went last week because in April, after ten days of torrential downpours, a giant sinkhole opened up under the park, swallowing the gazebo and most of the parking lot. It’s a miracle no one was injured or hurt, though there were some kids playing at the park at the time who will probably have nightmares for years to come. The other two places I tried to book fell through because of a scheduling error in one case, and a fire in the other. It’s hard not to take this stuff personally.

  Now, finding a wedding dress, which will likely be a nightmare all its own, is proving to be a problem, too. Shopping for clothes is not one of my favorite pastimes. Finding anything that doesn’t resemble a gunnysack or a bedsheet, that will fit my six-foot-tall, well-rounded body seems impossible. Sleeves are never long enough, the busts are always too tight, and if length is involved, it’s never enough. Then we have the shoes to deal with. I have size-twelve feet—though ever since having Matthew, they seem to be more like a twelve and a half—and I feel like I’d have better luck finding a fit in a kayak store. Turns out size does matter.

  Hurley has gone on record as saying it makes no difference what I have on, as long as we get the deed done. He’s planning to wear some nice slacks—though he hasn’t given up on the idea of jeans yet—and a plain dress shirt. He might wear a tie if I insist, but he doesn’t want to. We’re keeping it casual, after all. But as much as I’d love to buy into his it-doesn’t-matter philosophy, I can’t help but feel like I should have something special to wear to mark the occasion.

  I was supposed to go shopping with Emily and my sister, Desi, this afternoon. Dress shopping will have to wait, however. Not only will I be pressed for time at this point, I don’t want to do it smelling like death. I suppose Desi and Emily could still go and find dresses for themselves. Desi is standing up for me as my matron of honor—a title she hates—and Emily is going to be a bridesmaid. We won’t have a flower girl, but in an effort to keep everyone involved, the plan is for Matthew to be our ring bearer, though at just shy of two years old he tends to be unpredictable. I have my dog, Hoover, in line as a backup.

  I look down at what’s left of Carolyn Abernathy and realize my grumbles are petty. At least I’ll have the opportunity to reschedule my plans for the day. Whatever plans Carolyn had on her agenda for last Friday and beyond are forever canceled.

  “Any final thoughts on cause of death?” Hurley says, bringing me back to focus.

  “Hard to say, given the level of decomp,” I say. “I don’t see any obvious outward signs of trauma, and it looks as if she went down quickly and unexpectedly. And the dead insects are bothering me. So I’m still leaning toward poison at this point, though I suppose a medical condition of some sort is also within the realm of possibilities, particularly since she was a nursing student. I don’t see any signs of a catastrophic disease process, however, and I can’t think of one that would take her down in such a quick, unexpected way. Based on what I see here, I’d guess she was doing dishes at the sink when something made her stop, take her gloves off, and sit down in that chair beside her. She probably felt ill, I’m thinking. Then she either passed out or died, falling onto the floor. It could be something like a ruptured brain aneurysm, or a lethal heart arrhythmia, though that doesn’t explain the insects. It will be relatively easy to rule the medical problems in or out, once we get her opened up.”

  “Sounds reasonable,” Hurley says. “We’ll do a quick walk-through of the house to be thorough, notify her family, and then start hunting down friends and more of the neighbors for a chat.”

  “Check the medicine cabinet and her bedroom for any prescription drugs,” I say.

  Hurley nods at Patrick, who looks relieved to leave the room.

  “It may take some time to get a definitive ID,” I say. “Obviously, any sort of temporary photo ID is out of the question, and her fingertips are gone so I can’t just print her and run them. We’ll probably have to use dental records and DNA, and that’s beyond my scope. I can hunt for a dentist and request the records, but then the docs have to take over. I don’t know who will be filling in for Izzy, or how quickly he or she will be able to jump in. Some of these subs have no problem picking up the scalpel and getting right to it, but others need some adjustment time. So there’s a good chance Carolyn won’t get autopsied until tomorrow morning.”

  “Understood.” He nods toward the body. “Can you manage this on your own?”

  “With the help of the Morticia twins I can,” I tell him. “You guys go ahead and do what you need to do. I’ll see to it that Carolyn gets to the morgue.”

  All of the remaining cops leave the room and they’re none too slow about doing it. Can’t say I blame them.

  I take out my cell phone and call the Johnson Funeral Home, a family-owned business going back four generations. They are the official transporters of bodies going to our morgue. The latest generation in the business, identical twin daughters who are named Katerina and Cassiopeia, which has resulted in the ironic nicknames of Cass and Kit, have pale complexions, long, straight black hair, and an affinity for tight-fitting black attire. Their appearance and attire earned them the additional nickname of “the Morticia twins.” They are a little creepy, both in their appearances and their demeanors, but because of their slender but buxom builds and the fit of their clothes, they are often ogled by any man they run into, creep factor aside. It’s always entertaining to watch what my sister, Desi, refers to as the “Battle of the Heads”: men whose brains are telling them to run even as their penises are urging them to move in and conquer.

  Once I have the Johnson twins on the way, I place a call to my younger half-sister, Desi. While we share the same mother, Desi was the progeny of my mother’s second marriage. We look nothing alike. I favor my mother in terms of general looks with my fair complexion, blonde hair, and blue eyes, though my body build clearly came from my father. Not that I know what my father looked like. He abandoned my mother and me when I was a toddler, and all I have are some vague, misty memories of a large man with dark hair who smoked a pipe. My mother is tiny and petite, and Desi inherited her build, but with the dark hair and complexion of her father.

  “Guess what?” I say when Desi answers.

  She sighs her disappointment. “Someone died.”

  “You got it.”

  “You don’t think Izzy will let you out early?”

  “He called in sick with some kind of stomach bug, so we have a sub coming. And Hal is out of town for the day. I don’t feel comfortable taking an early day with a temporary ME coming in.”

  “Your sense of duty is both admirable and annoying,” Desi says. “However, all is not lost. I found a dress online I think will be perfect for you. In fact, I found two of them.”

  “Desi, you know how hard I am to fit.”

  “No worries. If they don’t work, I’ll return them and we can keep on looking. I can have them here in a day or two if I order them now.”

  “No long sleeves?”

  “One is sleeveless and the other one has capped short sleeves.”

  “Overall length?”

  “They’re both tea length, so they should be fine.”

  “What about the bust?”

  “The sleeveless one—the skirt of which has a silver underlining with
a sheer, mesh overlay in a pale blue that will look fantastic with your eyes—has a crisscross bodice with a V-neck in the same blue color. And it’s made of polyester and spandex. The one with the capped sleeves, which is peach colored, has a popover top made of polyester.”

  “Popover?” I ask, envisioning a breakfast treat.

  “You know, like a peplum, except this one doesn’t stick out below the waist and has a scalloped hem. The bodice is beaded and sequined, and the skirt is solid peach.”

  “What about my hips and tummy? They’re bigger than ever since I had Matthew.”

  “Both dresses have flowing, A-line skirts with lots of slinky, billowy material.”

  “They sound like parachutes.”

  Desi laughs and then clucks at me. “Trust me, okay? The lines on both of them will be very flattering on you. They won’t cling, and they’ll hide your hips and thighs.”

  She’d covered all of my negatives rather well except for one. “What sizes do they come in?”

  “Up to a twenty in both. I figured I’d order you a sixteen and an eighteen, to see which size fits best.”

  “Okay,” I say, giving in. “Let me know when they arrive. Do you want my credit card number to pay for them?”

  “Nope, I’m fine. If one of them works for you, I’ll buy it. You can consider it your gift from me.”

  “I don’t want you to do that, Desi. The dress should be my expense. Plus, you and Lucien are just getting back on your feet financially and Erika is going to be heading off to college in another three years. Save your money.”

  “We’re doing fine,” she insists. “Please let me do this for you. You and Hurley already have everything you need householdwise. I don’t have anything else I can get for you.”