Murder Most Lovely

by Hank Edwards

  He glanced at the young man lying on his stomach, stiff in death, and shook his head. “Oh, Dylan, what have you been up to?”

  When he realized he’d have to edit Kitty’s transcription of his findings for his final report to Musgrave—he just knew she’d add that last part—he cleared his throat and continued.

  “The object has been removed with no discernible damage to it or the tissue surrounding the area from which it was removed. It is a condom, blue in color, and quite distended as it is filled with what appear to be small plastic packets. I will set this aside and investigate the object and its contents more thoroughly after I have finished with the body.”

  Michael continued with his examination, and when he had finished, rolled the table into the double occupancy cooler. He changed his gloves, but kept his mask and visor in place as he took digital photos of the condom laid out on a surgical tray. Satisfied with the images, he carefully split the condom open along its length. Fingerprints might have been left on the knotted end, and he wanted to leave that intact.

  “I have cut the condom along its length and am removing the packets. They appear to be filled with a powdered substance. The packets are very small and have a resealable opening. There are ten packets inside this condom. Will wait for toxicology to confirm, but substance is most likely drugs.”

  Michael looked over his shoulder at the cooler door hiding Dylan’s body. He knew what he had to do…. In Slip of the Tongue, hadn’t a drug mule carried multiple condoms inside his rectum? Pity that Michael was referencing a fictional murder, but also apropos that Russell was helping with the investigation.

  “I’m going to do some more in-depth investigation to see if there are other condoms deeper inside Dylan’s rectum.”

  He retrieved the body from the cooler and maneuvered it facedown on the table. Taking up the slender forceps once again, Michael prepared himself before bending forward and getting to work.

  TWO HOURS later, Michael stood washing up at the sink. He soaped his hands and forearms and let the warm water rinse the suds away. His back was stiff from standing and bending for so long, but he was satisfied with his findings.

  He had removed three condoms from Dylan’s rectum, one blue, one red, and one clear. It seemed Dylan had been feeling patriotic about his drug-muling ways. There had been ten packets in each condom, for a total of thirty. Michael had taken pictures of everything and placed the packets and condoms in separate sealed evidence bags. Dylan’s clothing and personal effects were cataloged, and the blood and tissue samples were all taken and labeled as well. It would all be sent to the U of M forensics lab for thorough testing. Michael didn’t have an extensive lab, but he was able to do simple chemical tests to identify the drugs as heroin. Cause of death was drowning—no real surprise—but the tests would have to identify the source of the water.

  “Michael?”

  Kitty’s voice crackled through the intercom system, bringing him out of his deep thoughts. He looked over at the speaker and noticed he had neglected to press the button to open the line that would have allowed him to simply speak to her.

  “Michael? Are you there?”

  He sighed and shook the water from his hands, then grabbed a handful of paper towels.

  “Did you forget to open the line again so you could just talk to me?”

  “Yes, yes, of course I did,” Michael muttered as he made his way to the speaker and pressed the Talk button. “I’m here. And, yes, I did not open the line.”

  “Okay, no problem. I thought you should know, Hilton is here.”

  “That’s Sheriff Musgrave,” the sheriff said in the background. “I’m here in an official capacity, Kitty. Even though you’re married to my brother, you still need to afford me the respect of my office.”

  “Yeah, okay.” Kitty sighed. “Michael, Sheriff Hilton Musgrave is here in an official capacity, so I shouldn’t remind him he borrowed my husband’s lawn edger a couple of months ago and hasn’t returned it yet.”

  Michael grinned. Kitty made a point of using the sheriff’s first name at all opportunities because she knew it annoyed him. “All right. Have him wait in my office, and I’ll be right up.”

  “Will do.”

  Michael heard the sheriff’s grousing just before Kitty disconnected. He shook his head and gathered the evidence bags, as well as his written notes and the official forms, and placed them in the labeled white box. That in hand, he pushed through the swinging double doors that separated the coroner examination area from the mortuary preparation room. The rubber soles of his shoes squeaked as he crossed the tile floor, and the sharp scent of the disinfecting solution still lingered from Ezra’s more than thorough cleaning after Beatrice Neibolt had been taken upstairs for her funeral Thursday. Taking the box of evidence bags with him for Musgrave, he climbed the steps to the main floor and walked through the arrangement room and popped his head into Kitty’s office, where she sat behind her desk, looking at her iPhone.

  “Is he in my office?”

  “As requested.” Kitty looked up. “I was going to go down to Kelsey’s to get takeout for dinner because Marty’s hanging out with his buddies tonight. I can drop something off for you on my way home. You hungry?”

  “Famished.” He had been so busy working, he had skipped lunch.

  “Pastrami on sourdough with a side of fries and a pickle.” Kitty pointed her fingers at him like a gun and dropped the hammer. “You got it.”

  Then Michael remembered his date. “Actually, I’m not sure.”

  “You’re not getting your usual?” She looked gobsmacked. Michael was a creature of perennial habit.

  He felt his face warm. “I’m not sure if I should. I, um… I think I have a date.”

  Her brows shot up. “You think you have a date? Or you know you do?”

  “I-I…,” he stammered, face flaming now. “Yes, barring a change of plans, I do indeed have a date. I’m just… well? I’m not sure if we’re getting dinner or not.”

  “So that’s why you asked me to buy you a stylish outfit. For a date, not an important meeting.” She did air quotes when repeating what he’d told her, and then her face softened into a teasing smile. “And who is this date with?”

  Lowering his face to hide his smile, he said, “His name is Jazz. I met him at the signing.”

  “Oooh,” she crooned.

  He gave her an arch look before she started singing “Jazz and Michael sitting in a tree”—he could just see her thinking it. “If you’ll excuse me, Sheriff Musgrave is waiting.” He rolled his eyes dramatically, and Kitty laughed.

  Michael walked into his office and found the sheriff sitting in one of the armchairs in front of his desk. Musgrave was a big man, and it looked like he might bust the arms of the chairs if he took a deep enough breath.

  “That assistant of yours has a smart mouth,” Musgrave said.

  “Goes along with her intelligence and wit.” Michael sat down behind his desk and placed the box on top of the paperwork.

  The sheriff huffed and sat forward in the chair. “Find anything unusual? Other than the fact that his hands were cut off?”

  “He had these inside of him.” Michael picked up one of the evidence bags with the heroin.

  The sheriff frowned. “He swallowed them?”

  “Um, no. They were in his… well, pushed up into him.”

  Musgrave had a blank stare as he processed what Michael was telling him. When understanding dawned, his expression collapsed into distaste. “They were up his ass?”

  “Yes, to put it bluntly. They were lodged inside his rectum.”

  “All of this stuff was up there?” The sheriff picked up the other two evidence bags with heroin packets and shook them. “How’d he fit all these little packets up his ass? Wouldn’t they have fallen out when he pushed another one up there?”

  “What? No, they weren’t individually pushed up inside him. Each of the smaller packets inside that bag—” Michael picked up a second evidence bag and p
ointed at the condom inside. “—had been pushed into the condom inside this bag. That condom was then inserted into Dylan’s rectum.”

  “Rectum? Damn near killed him.” Musgrave chuckled, then looked guilty as he glanced at Michael. “Sorry. Old joke, bad habit. You were saying?”

  Idiot. “Preliminary tests confirm the packets contain heroin.”

  “Dammit, I knew you were gonna say that, but I was hoping it was some gay thing.”

  Michael scrunched up his face, incredulous at Hilton’s unprofessionalism. He’d always been an ass in high school, but just what the hell did he think gay men did?

  Honestly, Michael didn’t want to guess.

  Ignoring the comment, Michael continued. “I found traces of lubricant on each of the condoms, but sadly no prints. But maybe the folks over at U of M will have better luck.” Michael didn’t possess the proper equipment to process a murder, and the county wouldn’t buy it for him either.

  “I’ll have my deputy drive to Ann Arbor with all this evidence, put a rush on it.” Musgrave squinted at the bag he held and then looked at the one in Michael’s hand. “Red, white, and blue condoms? How patriotic.”

  “That was my thought as well.”

  “Did he die from blood loss when his hands were cut off?” He returned the evidence bag to the box and wiped his hands on his pant leg as he sat back in the chair.

  “No, the hands were cut off after he drowned.”

  “So the cause of death is drowning?”

  “Yes. His body was so cold from the lake, it’s difficult to determine time of death with liver temp, but judging by the lack of decomposition from the water, he wasn’t out there long. I’d estimate his death somewhere between 8:00 p.m. and 3:00 a.m.”

  “He was last seen with Mr. Withingham at ten o’clock. Said he was on sleeping pills and they cause the vic to sleepwalk.”

  “So the time window works. I’ll get you the toxicology report as soon as I have it. They’ll confirm any substances in his bloodstream and determine if the water was from the lake or another source.”

  Musgrave pondered that a moment. “Either drowned in the lake or drowned elsewhere and dumped in the lake. And somewhere in that time, the vic put rubbers of drugs up his ass and got his hands chopped off. But if the suspect was after the drugs, why leave them behind?”

  “Maybe they didn’t know he had them.”

  “But then why kill him and cut off his hands?”

  Michael shrugged. “I don’t know. That’s for you to find out. I’m just here to tell you how he died and collect your evidence, not who did it.”

  “Yeah, yeah, I know.” Musgrave drummed his fingers on the arms of the chair. “This is a little out of my league, you know?”

  “I do. It’s out of my league as well,” he admitted, pleased Musgrave was showing some humility.

  “I mean, we’ve had an accidental drowning or two, some car wrecks, and that hypothermia case. But nothing even close to this one.” Musgrave’s brow furrowed.

  “All I can say is, the victim didn’t live here in Lacetown, so you may need to work with the Michigan State Police on this. Or maybe even the FBI or DEA, since it involves drug trafficking.”

  “Fuck. I don’t want to work with any of them. The MSP is run by that bitch Drusilla Talbot, and the FBI and DEA are just bags of dicks in black suits.”

  “I don’t know what to tell you.”

  “Yeah.” He let out a sorrowful sigh, then pushed to his feet with a grunt of exertion.

  Michael placed the evidence bag back in the box and handed it over.

  “I’ll get these signed into evidence. Have a deputy take it over ASAP.” Musgrave turned for the door.

  A quiet sound from the arrangement room made them look at each other and frown.

  “Hello?” Michael got up and walked quickly to the door. Kitty was not there, but Mr. Pickles sat on a corner of the small conference table, front paws tight together and tail curled around his toes. Michael smiled. “It’s just you.”

  “Is that against health regulations to let your cat in a funeral home?”

  “Not at all. And he provides a lot of comfort to those who are grieving.”

  “Cats are creepy.”

  Mr. Pickles stretched his mouth in a big yawn that ended in a squeaky meow, as if he had no time or interest to listen to the sheriff’s opinion of cats. Then he leaped to the floor and scurried out of the room.

  Michael grinned as a fluffy tail disappeared around the corner. “He doesn’t seem to care what you think.”

  “Feeling’s mutual. I’ll call you if I have any questions.”

  “All right.”

  The sheriff started to go, and Michael said, “Hilton.”

  He stopped and turned back, appearing surprised at Michael’s use of his first name.

  “This worries me a bit,” Michael said. “The savagery of the murder, not to mention the drugs. Does it concern you too?”

  “I’m concerned as shit about it,” he said. “But I’ll be damned if I let whoever did this know that’s how I feel. Now I need to interview the author and the hairdresser again.”

  Sounds like a Brock Hammer title.

  “You spoke to them already?”

  “Yup, they came down to the station voluntarily.”

  Michael was pleased Jazz had followed his advice until Musgrave added, “So that either makes them guilty and clever, or stupid.”

  “Or innocent,” Michael added.

  “Guess I’ll find out.”

  Chapter Eight

  “YOU CAN wait in this display room,” the buxom blonde told Jazz. She’d said her name was Kitty.

  When Michael had texted seven was still a good time, Jazz hadn’t expected Michael to still be working next door at the funeral parlor. But he supposed the death business didn’t run on a schedule. He could understand that.

  Being a hairdresser, Jazz might be scheduled to work until five but end up being at the salon until seven. Russell had always acted like Jazz was lying, probably cheating because of his unpredictable hours.

  Pot calling the kettle black.

  “He’s just finishing up,” Kitty went on. “You don’t mind sitting in here, do you? The offices are private.”

  Jazz looked around the large room. Where some funeral homes went overboard with floral wallpapers, antique furniture in the vein of “look but don’t touch,” and watercolor landscapes, Jazz was happy to see that was not the case at Fleishman Funeral Home. Soft pastel wallpaper, tasteful comfortable furniture, and a few plants made the room feel welcoming. “It’s just a room.”

  “Where the deceased are displayed,” she countered, gesturing to the front of the room where heavy drapes and two pedestals framed a space for caskets. “Makes some people uncomfortable and—” Her words were cut off by a meow.

  They both looked down when a fat black-and-white cat joined them and began caressing itself on her leg.

  “This is Mr. Pickles Furryton the Third,” she said. “I suppose he can keep you company while you wait. That should make it less creepy.”

  Jazz tried not to frown. It was almost like she was trying to weird him out. Maybe it was a test of some sort. To see if Jazz was worthy of Michael.

  If that was the case, Jazz was going to like this lady. Anyone that protective of her friends was a good person.

  “Mr. Pickles Furryton the Third,” Jazz said, smiling at the cat. He knelt and held out a hand, knowing better than to pet a cat without its express permission.

  “Yes, he’s Mr. Fleishman’s cat. Comes to work with him every day,” Kitty explained.

  Oh my God, Michael just got more adorable every second.

  A grown man who named his cat Mr. Pickles Furryton the Third was a man after Jazz’s own heart.

  “I’ll leave you two to get acquainted,” she told him. “I’m headed out for the evening. Enjoy your important meeting with Mr. Fleishman.” With a flirtatious wink that surely made all the straight boys drool, Kitty saunter
ed off.

  And yes, those curvy hips definitely knew how to saunter.

  Once alone with the cat, Jazz sat down. Mr. Pickles jumped lightly to the padded arm of the chair and paraded back and forth as Jazz stroked his soft fur. He must have been doing things correctly, because Mr. Pickles was purring like a small lawn mower. But just as that thought entered Jazz’s head, Mr. Pickles tensed, looked around, then leaped from the chair and took off.

  Jazz chuckled as his fluffy white tail disappeared around the corner.

  Typical cat.

  Looking around the room, Jazz put his hands on his knees. There was an accordion-style floor-to-ceiling divider tucked behind a brocade curtain, doubtless used to shrink the big room for small services, which struck Jazz as sad. Or was it sadder to leave behind so many mourners that a funeral was standing room only? As he pondered that, he wondered how long Michael would be and hoped he wasn’t so engrossed in his work that he forgot about their date.

  Voices in the hallway outside the display room door caught his attention.

  “…very disturbing indeed.”

  That was Michael’s voice.

  Jazz stood up and moved toward the main hallway, not wanting to interrupt Michael with a client or appear to be lurking. The plush carpet absorbed the sound of his footsteps.

  “Who in their right mind shoves rubbers full of heroin up their poop chute?”

  Flinching, Jazz was startled to hear Sheriff Musgrave.

  “That, I’m afraid, is a question for you,” Michael said, his voice closer now. “I simply provide you with the evidence.”

  A split second before Jazz was about to announce his presence, Michael walked past the open doors and glanced in, doing a double take.

  “Jazz!” Michael cried. “What are you doing here?”

  With that ogre sheriff glaring at him, Jazz stumbled over his words. “Um… we were supposed to meet at seven,” Jazz said, gathering his composure and refusing to cower under the sheriff’s frown. “It’s—” He glanced at his watch. “—seven twenty. I went to your house, but no one answered, so I figured you were still here. Kitty let me in. Told me I could wait in here.” He gestured to the display room.