by Nina Post
“Yes, sir.”
The chief rubbed a hand over his smooth head. “You know, I always presumed that house was a museum, and I hate museums. Or even worse, a gift shop. Bunch of dolls and miniatures and angels and bears stuffed with potpourri.” He grimaced. “Never mentioned it to my wife out of fear she would make me go inside. If I could have a new officer for every hour I’ve had to spend in one of those gift shops, the sheriff’s office would never have to back us up.” He considered Shawn, tightened his brow. “So, you on top of this thing?”
“Yes, sir, I am.”
“We need this solve, Danger. We don’t get it, we look like a bunch of inept goons. We do, we’re the heroes.”
Comet looked up and meowed.
“No pressure,” Shawn said with a sideways grin.
“Ask for more support than you think you need.” The captain patted Shawn’s desk like it was a beloved pony then went back to his office.
Shawn opened his browser and typed in the web address that the tech gave him. He entered his user ID and password, and waited a few seconds. The old TV screen, left powered on, was all static, but looked like someone was adjusting rabbit ear antennas for better — for any — reception. Comet scratched at the carrier door.
“One sec, Comet.”
The static cleared a little until Shawn could make out a figure. Then it cleared more until Shawn could see that the figure kind of resembled him — tall, dark-haired, handsome as all get out.
And this guy was in a room a lot like the squad room.
Comet growled a little. Shawn squinted at the picture. There was his captain.
His captain? No, impossible.
Had someone bugged him? Put a camera on him? Shawn jolted in his chair and looked down at his body, at his desk, at his phone. He shot a glance at the browser. The captain was still there, whereas his captain was in his office.
Or was this footage from earlier? The vantage point was near the captain’s knees, but it was unmistakably the captain, towering over whatever was looking up at him. That reflective bald head and quarterback shoulders. They didn’t call him Telly or Kojak for nothing.
Then the video showed the door to the division office. Then the sideboard and interior of a car. Shawn propped his forearms on the desk and leaned forward in his chair, jaw dropping open a liitle. That was the house he grew up in. And that was the room his Dad was confined to.
The vantage point stilled. He could see both his father and the guy who looked just like him. He was wearing clothes that Shawn had in his closet. The other Shawn sat right in front of Shawn’s father, and even though there was no sound, the other Shawn was talking, putting his hand on his father’s shoulder. Laughing. Laughing?
What the hell was this asshole laughing about? He talked, his put his hand on Shawn’s father’s arm. He talked some more. Then he was leaving and Shawn could see the hallway again, and then the car. And he could see himself holding his head in his hands for a minute, then nodding slightly as he pulled it together. Then more static.
He fell back in his chair, stupified, then noticed the PIO, Andy, heading toward him, then stopping by his desk.
“Detective? Someone from JBEZ wants to talk to you.”
He’d rather talk to news crews all day long than go to any family event — well, he’d rather run one of those extreme three-day ultra-marathons through the desert than go to any family event — but with that said, no way.
“Absolutely not,” Shawn said cheerfully.
“He really wants to talk to you, specifically.”
“Just tell them I’m consulting in Mongolia.”
“I can’t tell him that,” Andy gave him a goofy grin.
“Andy, don’t you do this kind of thing all day?”
“Yes, but honestly, these people scare me,” Andy said in a fearful near-whisper.
“Okay, when this thing is over, hopefully when we bring in the right suspect, you and I are going to have a sit-down about your choice of career.”
It was up to Shawn, as the lead detective on the case, to decide if anything was to be released to the press. “Just tell them that I’m unavailable at the moment. Wait, no, that just sounds like I’m in the bathroom. We need to tell them something, even it’s completely empty of real information. Aw, heck, just send him over to my extension.”
Andy brightened and ran off.
Shawn picked up the phone after the line lit up. When the reporter finally shut up, Shawn placated him with the information that he would be holding a press conference outside the building in the morning.
The sooner he got this over with, the better.
Then he looked back to his monitor, though he had logged out of the webcam feed. How was this other guy who looked just like him, who had the same captain, showing up on Lyle’s old TV?
And how in hell was this other Shawn getting along with his father?
Haviland Sylvain’s autopsy was in a half an hour.
Normally, the ME was home by six. Off-track betting gamblers owed bookies much, much less than he would owe her.
Shawn crossed the reception center into the autopsy area shortly before seven p.m.
As usual, the first thing that struck him was the odor, though the ME kept a scrupulously clean exam room. It was large, brightly-lit, with disconcerting metal sinks and unsettling attached hoses, intimidating X-ray machinery, various and terrifying syringes and vials and bags, and one assistant, the taciturn Isaac Edison.
Her favorite sounds for working — the chatter of air-traffic controllers doing their job — was playing at low-volume through the audio system.
She held up a hand in greeting as she wheeled Haviland Sylvain’s body out of the walk-in cooler. Shawn stood by and bore witness as the cheerful pathologist and her assistant unbuttoned, unhooked, or cut off the clothing. Isaac labeled and photographed the items of clothing.
“Good news,” she called out. “I got Lyle’s vet to do the necropsy right after this. We’ll have to go over to his office for the exam.”
“Should I even ask how you talked him into that?”
“The circle of bribery, Detective. It’s a wonderful thing.”
Great. Now he would owe her double. Was there a support group for this?
“Great news.” He knew he’d be paying for it later.
Shawn stood by, hands clasped behind his back, as they washed the body and cleaned the wound, then fingerprinted, weighed, X-rayed, photographed, and fluoroscoped for anything embedded that they missed on initial examination. They collected trace evidence, including fibers.
“I have a few red fibers here.” She turned to a lab table for a minute, bent down to a miscroscope.
“Isaac went through Ms. Sylvain’s medical records,” Dr. Evans said as she worked. “She was healthy, aside from a few years her GP noted that she was underweight and suffering from anxiety. She – the GP – prescribed her some common anti-anxiety medication.”
“When was that?” Shawn thought of Carolyn Lewis again. The addict who robbed pharmacies to get her fix and make money.
“Twice, actually. Once ten years ago —”
Before her husband and mother-in-law passed away.
“And again starting a year ago. Her BMI was lower than average when she died. If I were a GP, I’d have her gain some weight. Which they almost certainly told her.”
Was one of her employees making her anxious?
“She was up-to-date on her vaccinations, got her flu shot every year – “
“House calls?” Shawn asked.
“Yes. Isaac, when was the last time the lady had been to a doctor’s office of any type?”
“Four years,” Isaac said in a sonorous voice.
“She had a few years to forty, which is the age suggested for a first mammogram,” Dr. Evans pointed out, “and she would have had to leave the house to get that done.” She began her visual exam of the body, dictating into her digital voice recorder on the counter, her usual upbeat voice subtued. She n
oted hair color, eye size, muscle stiffness, and age. She noted an old fracture of the ulna. She removed and weighed organs including the heart, the liver, and the lungs with a grocer’s scale.
Shawn watched.
“Whenever I weigh the heart,” she said to Shawn without losing her focus on the task at hand, “I think of the ancient Egyptians. They believed that the heart was the most important organ in the body. After death, the weight of the heart was judged in the Hall of Osiris to see if its owner was worthy of the afterlife.”
Dr. Evans, with Isaac’s help, examined and dissected the organs, and searched for signs of disease. “Contents of stomach: looks like she had chicken soup, crackers, and a small amount of apple pie approximately nine hours prior to death. Early dinner.”
The apple pie that Kendall told him Westrom made.
“Nothing suspect about the pie?”
She gave him a curious look. “No.”
Kendall Peterson had also eaten the pie, and he was fine so far.
She set aside slivers of tissue for later examination under a microscope. Shawn was familiar with this process from past autopsies; the ME would follow up with a closer inspection to look for any abnormal changes that couldn’t be seen with the naked eye.
“She’ll live on in these slivers. They’ll be preserved for decades.”
“As quality of life goes, a precipitous drop-off.” Shawn was mostly kidding. “No food, no sex, no senses.”
“Who said that we don’t have a soul, that we have a body and we are a soul? C.S. Lewis? This job makes me careful — I’m sure my daughter thinks too careful — and reminds me to enjoy the pleasures of being alive: wine, food, sex, my five senses.” She straightened from the microscope and waved her hands to indicate the world around them. She glanced over her shoulder, winked at him, then went back to looking through the microscope for another ten seconds.
“But most important,” the ME said, straightening, “is being with the people I love, looking at them, appreciating the time I have with them. Savoring the moment when my daughter lets me hug her, or falls asleep on my shoulder. What else is there?”
Shawn remembered Sarah saying a similar thing.
“One day I’m going to die, and so are you.”
“Thanks for the pick-me-up.”
She went back to the body and drew samples of urine and eye fluid. “Gather ye rosebuds while ye may, Detective Danger — Old time is still a-flying, And this same flower that smiles today, Tomorrow will be dying.”
“Dr. Evans, are you trying to make me cry?”
He envied the ME her family, her ability to let work go, to let it inspire her to savor her life. He knew he delayed gratification. He could do that for a long time. And when he tried to let work go, even for a day, he felt like he was wasting his time and didn’t even know what to do, so he ended up not doing much of anything. They both worked with death, both spoke for victims. But she was living her life.
Could he?
Dr. Evans stated for the recorder that she was testing for drugs, blood infection, electrolyte imbalance, and other abnormalities.
Then she removed the brain, and weighed and examined it section by section.
Shawn watched, but his mind was elsewhere. Out of all the things he should have been focused on, and at this highly inappropriate moment, he couldn’t help but think of Sarah. Would she want to go on a real date? Was she actually interested in him?
The ME washed up and disposed of her gloves, shut off the audio, then turned to Shawn with a twinkle in her eye and a smile playing on the corners of her lips. “I’m going to make your day.”
“Right here?” He feigned moral outrage. “Dr. Evans!”
She rolled her eyes but grinned wider. “You’ve got yourself a homicide. The cause of death was suffocation.”
“Not hematoma or —”
“No, she was suffocated after the head injury. She did have traumatic bleeding which would have been fatal, eventually, but the suffocation killed her. I found a red fiber, possibly silk, in her nose.”
“The pillow on the sofa,” Shawn said almost to himself. Did he have the techs check the pillows? Yes, yes he did.
“Feels good to be official, doesn’t it? You look like my daughter Lauren on Christmas morning.” She put on her coat.
Shawn scoffed. “I look like an eleven-year-old girl? But I’ve been hitting the Academy gym lately like you wouldn’t believe.” He flexed his arm and she squeezed his bicep. Then she flexed her arm and he felt some pretty serious muscles.
“You’re like Linda Hamilton in Terminator 2.”
“Only about thirty or forty pounds bigger.” She gave herself a smack on the ass. “So, I’ll be sending these tissue and fluid samples to a few labs, which happen to be scattered across the country, so don’t expect them first thing in the morning.”
Shawn knew that she knew that he knew that, but nodded.
“I’ll be on them for the results, though.”
Whoever killed Haviland Sylvain was angry enough to bludgeon her in the head hard enough to fracture her skull, but sympathetic enough, maybe, to make sure she didn’t suffer. They held that red silk pillow over her face after they arranged her on the sitting room sofa.
She grabbed her purse. “Ready?”
“For what?”
“We’ve got the tortoise necropsy to attend at Dr. Oliver’s office. The exotic animal vet?”
Shawn shook his head, closing his eyes for a second. “Right, of course.” He gave her a sheepish look.
She swatted him on the arm with a fake frown.
“Ow!” Shawn put his hand over his shoulder. “Remember, I have the physique of an eleven-year-old girl.”
Dr. Oliver welcomed Shawn and the ME to his well-appointed veterinary hospital, led them through the waiting room with its leather furniture, and then into an exam room in the back.
“As you can see, we have the necessary equipment here for specialty surgeries —” he gestured around the room ” — video endoscoscopy, radio surgery, and of course, X-rays. I saw Lyle just a few months ago to remove a racquetball-sized bladder stone. I was saddened to hear that he had passed. I did his yearly checkups, you know.”
“He was killed,” Shawn bristled at the use of ‘passed.’
“The necropsy will tell us with certainty,” Dr. Evans said with a warning raise of the eyebrows.
Dr. Oliver identified the tortoise as Lyle, an adult male sulcata tortoise. He took external measurements of his weight and size, then noted any abnormalities seen on the exterior.
“He was in very good health.” Dr. Oliver examined the shell. “He had the right diet — and it must have been challenging to make sure a healthy, full-size tortoise like Lyle had enough of the right foods. He was exposed to adequate amounts of vitamin B, spent most of his time outside in a very large area, and wasn’t made high-strung by the presence of dogs or cats in the house. Really, a tortoise couldn’t ask for better care. You suspect a non-natural death?” The vet peered over the top of his wire-rim glasses.
“A sleeve of the tortoise’s school jacket was stuffed in its beak.”
“I see,” Dr. Oliver said.
“You don’t seem surprised by the jacket detail.” Shawn lightly thwacked his notebook on his thigh. “Why is that? Also, this is information we have not released to the public, and we would like to keep it that way.”
“Understood.” The vet gave him a slight smile. “Well, Detective…Danger, is it?”
Shawn nodded once.
“Very interesting.” Dr. Oliver looked him up and down as though evaluating his suitability for that last name. “I’ve treated Lyle for seven years now, and I know that before Haviland Sylvain took over his care, the previous owner — her mother-in-law, Margaret Sylvain, sent the tortoise to boarding school. Money can truly accomplish anything. Lyle left early, without a degree, but there is no doubt in my mind that had Haviland not taken him out of the school, Lyle would have graduated with the rest of his cl
ass.” He chuckled. “Have either of you ever met Margaret Sylvain?”
They shook their heads. “No,” Dr. Evans said.
“I hate to speak ill of the dead, but she was – well, let me say, it must have been very difficult for Haviland to have her as a mother-in-law. Moving on.” The vet glanced at Shawn. “It is possible that Lyle was suffocated with the jacket sleeve you found in his beak. But a necropsy will tell helps determine the cause of death by examining body lesions or changes in tissues.”
He finished his external examination. “I’ll start the internal examination now. This is not dissimilar to Dr. Evans’ work in the morgue.” He inspected the organs, the muscles, and the joints, and took samples from each.
“The liver is pale,” the vet noted. “There’s also a slight yellow discoloration of the body fat.” He continued his examination. “The large and the small intestines contain partly-digested green plant material.” A few minutes later, he said, “Hmm.”
“Hmm?” Shawn asked. “What does that mean?”
“Ranunculus sp. in Lyle’s stomach.”
“Ohh!” Dr. Evans arced her brows and lifted her chin.
“Would someone care to illuminate the homicide detective in the room?”
“Buttercup flowers,” Dr. Evans said. “Is that right, Dr. Oliver?” As though she doubted the veracity of her knowledge. Shawn held back a laugh. The ME looked closely at the contents of the stomach.
“Ranunculus sp. are highly toxic to tortoises,” Dr. Oliver put an x-ray on a light board. “As you can see, these weren’t even digested when death occurred. There is a gastric lesion, here.” The vet indicated a small spot to Dr. Evans and to Shawn. He went on to take samples from each section, “for molecular diagnostics.”
Shawn exchanged a glance with the ME. She scratched under her ear and raised her eyebrows.
“I’m going to isolate Lyle’s DNA to detect microorganisms with real-time PCR,” the vet continued. Then, “for histology,” he took slivers of tissue, which he mounted and stained on glass slides, as Dr. Evans had done with Haviland Sylvain.