Dead of Winter

by Annelise Ryan

  Fortunately, Chris has a good sense of humor about the whole thing, surprising when you consider his disorder has already cost him two jobs and a marriage. You’d think his problem would make it hard for him to date and hook up with anyone, but as luck would have it, he has struck up a relationship with a local cop named Brenda Joiner, who seems to tolerate Chris’s emissions with relative ease. It doesn’t hurt that Chris is tall, good-looking, smart, and charming. And with his police background, he and Brenda have a lot in common.

  I remove the memory card from my camera and slide it into my computer. As soon as I’ve started the download process, I head back to the autopsy suite, but Cass stops me in the hallway.

  “Mattie? Can you hold on a sec?”

  Her voice rings with a British accent, and I see that she is dressed like a 1920s flapper, replete with a cute bobbed wig and a fringed, knee-length dress. Cass belongs to a local thespian group, one that Izzy’s partner, Dom, also belongs to. Cass likes to “live my characters.” This involves her dressing up and wearing the appropriate hair and makeup all day long—even to work—for whatever character she is currently playing. Izzy indulges this quirk, though it has led to some people believing we have a huge turnover in personnel at our front desk.

  “What’s up?” I ask.

  “That reporter, Irwin Cleese, is out front. He says he heard there was a suspicious death at the hospital, and by the time he got there, you and the body were already gone. The staff there wouldn’t tell him anything, so he’s here, wanting to know if we can give him any information for the paper.”

  My gut reaction is to say no, an instinct triggered by my past experiences with other reporters in town. But I stop myself. Unlike his predecessors, Irwin has thus far proven himself to be polite, discreet, and reliable when we ask him to hold back information. Plus, we might be able to use him in this case. Not only do we have a dead victim, but there is a live one still out there, and Irwin might have some resources we can use.

  “Ask him to wait while I chat with Izzy,” I tell her. She nods and hurries back to the front desk, while I head for the autopsy suite.

  “You haven’t changed yet?” Izzy says when I enter the room.

  “No, and I won’t be,” I tell him. “We’re out of all the large-sized scrubs again. I tried to squeeze into what we had and ended up bursting out of the seams like Poppin’ Fresh Dough. I’ll just put on a cover-up over my street clothes. But before I do that, Irwin Cleese is out front, wanting to know if we can share any info with him. I started to say no—”

  “But then you realized we could probably use his help on this case,” Izzy finishes for me.

  Izzy has always had a disturbing ability to read my mind, a trait that works both ways. We often finish one another’s sentences, and we tend to think alike. We are able to discuss any topic, no matter how painful or awkward, and Izzy is always honest with me, even when I’d prefer he wasn’t, like the time he told me my school-bus-yellow dress made me look like I needed a backup alarm. The two of us are amazingly similar and compatible in everything but our physical parameters. We would have made an odd-looking but solid couple if it hadn’t been for the fact that we both have a sexual attraction to men.

  “You got it,” I say. “How much do you want to share with him this early in the game? And should I check with Richmond first? He might not want to involve anyone else just yet.”

  “Good point,” Izzy says with a conceding nod. “Why not give Richmond a call?”

  I do so, taking my cell phone out of my pocket. Richmond answers on the second ring. “Hey, Mattie, what’s up? Have you got something for me already?”

  “No. Sorry. Hold on while I put you on speaker.” He waits as I do so, and once I’m done, I say, “Can you hear me okay?”

  “I can.”

  “I’m here in the autopsy suite with Izzy and we have a question for you. Irwin Cleese is here, wanting information, and Izzy and I were thinking that—”

  “He might be able to help us?” Richmond finishes for me.

  “Exactly, yes.”

  “I say go for it. We don’t have any details at this point that he wouldn’t be able to find out on his own eventually, and he might have some resources that could help us find the sister.”

  “Okay. Anything new on your end?”

  “No. As soon as you guys have a definitive ID, I’ll go and notify the girl’s father.” Richmond sounds less than enthusiastic about this plan. “Can’t say I’m looking forward to it.”

  Izzy says, “Given that her hospital ID is probably a phony name, I may need to have the father come in and identify her. I can run her prints through AFIS, but I’m betting she’s not in the system. Nor do I have any dental records yet. All I have is a DMV photo of who we think she is.”

  Richmond makes a pained sound. “Ugh. Poor guy. But if it has to be done . . .”

  “Sadly, I think it does,” Izzy says, looking down at Liesel’s pale face.

  “Okay then. The sooner the better,” Richmond says. “Any chance Mattie can come with me?”

  I look over at Izzy, eyebrows raised in question. Izzy thinks a moment, glances at the clock, and then says, “Sure.”

  “Thanks,” Richmond says, sounding genuinely relieved.

  “Give us twenty minutes to talk to Irwin Cleese,” I say.

  “No problem,” Richmond says. “Come on over to the station when you’re ready.”

  * * *

  I disconnect the call and then head out front to fetch Irwin Cleese. He is a tall, thin fellow with huge feet—a trait that makes me empathetic toward him, particularly since it seems to make him somewhat clumsy, another trait we have in common.

  “Hi, Irwin,” I say.

  “Hi, Mattie. I heard you had something going on with a death in the ER earlier this morning. Got anything you can share with me?”

  “We do. Izzy says you can come into the autopsy suite if you want, and he’ll talk with you there.”

  Irwin gives me a look of disbelief. He’s never been invited into the autopsy area before. “Are you sure?” His color pales a little.

  “I am,” I tell him. “Come on and I’ll take you there.” I turn and head for the back area.

  Irwin hesitates a mere second before leaping at the chance, literally. With his first step, he trips over his own feet and takes a huge jumping step in order to keep from falling. “Sorry,” he mutters, regaining his pace.

  I lead the way, talking to him over my shoulder. “Have you ever seen an autopsy before?”

  “Can’t say that I have,” he says after clearing his throat.

  “It can be a bit overwhelming the first time. Don’t be ashamed to admit it if you start feeling queasy or light-headed. There are chairs off to one side you can sit in.”

  “I’ll be fine,” he says with forced bravado.

  I badge us into the autopsy room and a rush of cold, formaldehyde-scented air greets us. I lead him toward the side cabinets, since they are located a safe distance from the autopsy table and, more importantly, near some chairs.

  “Hello, Mr. Cleese,” Izzy says.

  “Dr. Rybarceski,” Irwin says with a nod. These two have always had a very formal relationship. “What have you got today?”

  As he asks this, Irwin looks toward the body on the table. Liesel is fully exposed at this point, naked, pale, but still intact. Izzy has removed the various leads and pads that were on her chest, though her breathing tube is still in place, protruding from her mouth. There is a towel covering her genital region, but the multiple bruises on her body—yellow, green, blue, purple—are easy to see. Irwin looks at her and his head tilts to the side. A sad expression comes over him, and for a moment, I think he might cry.

  “She’s so young,” Irwin says, his voice a bit shaky. “What happened to her? Some kind of trauma?”

  “Yeah,” Izzy says, his voice laced with bitter irony. “The human kind. This girl has been beaten multiple times, and sexually abused.”

  Irw
in’s face pinches into a painful grimace, and he looks away for a second, swallowing hard. “Do you know who did it?” he asks, swiping the back of one hand over his mouth.

  “Not yet,” I tell him. “She was dumped at the ER. The guy who brought her in beat feet almost as soon as they got there.”

  “Boyfriend?” Irwin asks.

  “Not likely,” Izzy says. “He gave the staff a fake name, so we’re not sure who she is, though we have an idea. We think she may have been a victim of human trafficking.”

  Irwin perks up a little at this.

  “We have reason to believe that her younger sister is caught up in the same human-trafficking ring and is still out there somewhere,” I add.

  Irwin looks very eager now. “How can I help?” he asks.

  “What do you know about human trafficking in this area?” I ask.

  “Not much,” he says with an apologetic look. “This part of the state doesn’t see as much of that as the bigger cities do. I worked in Milwaukee for a little while . . .” His voice fades out, and he takes on a sheepish expression. “But all I did was write obituaries.”

  “Do you still have connections in Milwaukee you could use?” I ask.

  Izzy, who I suspect wants to test Irwin’s abilities—or perhaps “sensibilities” is a better word—picks up his scalpel in preparation for making his first cut. He reaches over Liesel’s body and places the scalpel just above the distal end of her right collarbone. With a quick, deft slicing motion, he cuts through the skin at a downward angle, stopping midsternum. He then makes a similar cut from the other side, meeting the end of the first one. Finally he places the scalpel at the bottom of the V he has made, and slices down the body toward the pubic bone.

  “I . . . um . . . I do know some people there on the city beat,” Irwin says, his voice wavering a tad as he watches Izzy’s actions with huge, round eyes. “I could put out some feelers.”

  “You should check with Detective Richmond,” I say. “Let him know what connections you can tap. If you coordinate your investigation with him, you could end up with a nice exclusive.”

  Izzy has undermined the tissue around his incisions and flayed back flaps of skin, exposing the pleural and abdominal cavities beneath. He makes quick work of cutting through the musculature and exposes Liesel’s omentum—the tough, fibrous lining in the abdominal cavity, behind which we will find all of the abdominal organs. Two deft cuts later, and the omentum is pulled back, revealing the liver, the stomach, and an intertwining mass of small and large intestine.

  “An exclusive would be great,” Irwin says, sounding less enthusiastic than he had moments ago. I glance over at him and see that he has wisely taken one of the chairs. His eyes remain riveted on Liesel; his color is pasty.

  Izzy picks up the large, scissor-handled bone cutters we use to snip the ribs, effectively creating a removable plate comprising partial rib bones and the breastbone, or sternum. He starts with the ribs on his side of the table, positioning the short, thick blades around each bone and then quickly shoving the long handles together. A loud crack emanates with each cut, and just as he finishes with the third one, the crack is followed by a resounding crash off to my side.

  Irwin has passed out cold, sprawled on the floor beside his chair. Both the chair he was in and the one next to it have toppled over.

  I look over at Izzy with a wan smile. “Hey, at least he didn’t puke.”

  After a conceding shrug, Izzy resumes his cuts.

  I walk over to Irwin, who has landed on his back, arms and legs akimbo. His mouth is agape, and his eyes are open and staring at the ceiling. For a moment, I’m afraid we’ve killed him, but then I see his chest rise and fall, and see the pulsation of his carotid in his neck.

  “Irwin?” I say, lightly slapping cheeks the color of cottage cheese with the back of my hand.

  “Gealzobuck fracas,” he slurs. His eyelids flutter and his lips puff out just before more gibberish comes out of his mouth. “Canawanga.”

  “Wake up, Irwin,” I say. I go over to a sink, wet a towel, and bring it back, placing it on his forehead.

  “What?” he says eventually, the first coherent thing he utters. A bit of color returns to his face. He looks around the room with a confused expression before squeezing his eyes closed and covering his mouth. “Oh, man, I’m sorry.”

  “Don’t be,” I tell him with a smile. “It happens to the best of us.”

  He slowly pushes himself up to a sitting position, blinking rapidly several times. His eyes dart toward the table, and just as quickly dart away from it.

  “It’s probably best if you don’t look over there again,” I tell him. “Think you can get back up into the chair?”

  He nods unconvincingly, but manages to get onto his hands and knees, and from there, to sort of crawl into the chair. After positioning his butt in the seat, he leans forward, elbows on his knees, face in his hands. “This is so embarrassing,” he says to the floor.

  “Not as much as you might think,” I say. “At least you didn’t puke or lose control of your bladder. A lot of people do. And once, when I was an OR nurse, I made the mistake of not eating breakfast the morning before a long case and I fainted while standing at the operating table. I felt it coming on and I tried to stop myself from going down by grabbing the sterile drape covering the patient with one hand, and the tray of instruments with the other. I went down anyway, ripped away the entire operative field, and dumped all of the instruments onto the floor. They had to start over from scratch and pray that my breaking of the sterile field didn’t compromise the patient in any way. Fortunately, it didn’t. But I never lived that moment down. My nickname from then on was ‘Avalanche.’ ”

  Irwin gives me half a smile, clearly a little skeptical of my story, but grateful nonetheless.

  “I swear,” I say, holding up a hand.

  “That must have made it hard for you to go to work there every day, facing all those jeers,” Irwin says in a way that makes me think he’s intimately familiar with such ribbing, and maybe worse.

  “It did,” I admit, thinking, But not as much as catching one of my coworkers playing my husband’s skin flute did. I wisely keep this salacious addendum to myself. “Sit there and keep your eyes away from the table. I’m going to go get you a soda.”

  I leave the autopsy suite and quickly head for the break room, where I grab a cola from the fridge. I carry it back and hand it to Irwin, who holds the cold can up against his temple for a few seconds before popping the tab on it and taking a long gulp. When he lowers the can, his other hand quickly covers his mouth as a loud burp rips loose.

  “Oh, geez,” he says, looking embarrassed. “I’m sorry. I’m really making an ass out of myself today.”

  “No, you’re not,” I say, placing a hand on his shoulder. I feel an odd affinity that I haven’t experienced around Irwin before. Empathy? Sympathy? “When you feel like you’re able, I’ll walk you out.”

  “I’m good,” he says, standing up. He does it so fast it startles me, and I hold my breath, wondering if he’ll go down again. But while he wavers slightly, he maintains his stance, and after a few seconds, he starts walking to the door. I shoot Izzy a wary look and then follow Irwin out.

  When we reach the front lobby, Irwin stops and turns back to me. “Thanks,” he says. “If it’s okay with you, I think I’ll avoid the autopsy room in the future. But I appreciate the heads-up on the story.”

  “You’re welcome. Get in touch with Detective Richmond, like I said, and he’ll fill you in.”

  He nods, squelches another burp, and then hurries out the door.

  I glance back at Cass, who is wearing an amused expression. “I take it he crashed?” she says in a wry British tone.

  “Went down like a felled tree.”

  “Sorry I missed it,” she says. And with that, she goes back to working on her computer.

  CHAPTER 8

  I return to the autopsy suite, and find that Izzy has removed Liesel’s intestines
from the body cavity and the chest plate, exposing her heart and lungs. He is standing there looking into her body with a sad expression.

  “What’s wrong?” I ask.

  “This poor girl,” he says, shaking his head dolefully. “She was put through hell. Her spleen was ruptured, and her liver was lacerated. She had an intestinal tear, and a bad bruise on one of her kidneys. And to make matters worse, she was pregnant—though not for long—at the time of death.”

  I squeeze my eyes closed for a moment before looking at Liesel. Izzy has removed the breathing tube and, despite the bruising, the relatively calm and serene repose of her face is a sharp contrast to the violation that is her body. She is as open and desecrated as any person can be, her insides literally exposed for the world to see. Or, at least for Izzy and me to see. There is nothing I can do for Liesel at this point—her pain is ended—but maybe I can help her sister.

  “Did you find any useful trace on her body?” I ask Izzy.

  He shrugs. “I took some samples from her vagina and rectal vault that might contain some semen. We’ll have to wait for Arnie to analyze them. Maybe we’ll get lucky and get a DNA hit. I also took some nail scrapings, though I’m not sure there was anything there that will prove useful.” He rolls his neck a couple of times, and sighs.

  “Are you okay, Izzy?”

  “I’m fine. It’s just that this case is hitting home for me. Now that Dom and I have Juliana, it’s hard not to empathize with the father of this poor girl. We need to nail the bastards responsible for this. And we need to find her sister.”

  I’m about to suit up and help Izzy finish the autopsy when the door to the autopsy suite opens and Cass pokes her head in.

  “Mattie, there’s a woman out front who says she desperately needs to talk to you. She says it’s about this girl’s case.” Cass’s British accent is even stronger now.