FULL FATHOM FIVE
The Homicide Files—A Lincoln Munroe Novella
by Harrison Drake
Website: https://www.HarrisonDrake.com/
Twitter: @HDrakeTheWriter
Copyright 2012 by Harrison Drake. All rights reserved.
Cover Design: Harrison Drake
Formatting: Streetlight Graphics
The characters and events portrayed in this book are a work of fiction or are used fictitiously. Any similarity to real persons, living or dead, is coincidental and not intended by the author.
Table of Contents
Dedication
Author’s Note
Full Fathom Five
Acknowledgments
About the Author
Dedication
For my children, who never cease to inspire and amaze.
Author’s Note
THE EVENTS OF THIS NOVELLA take place in June 2009, roughly two years prior to the events of A Dream of Death, the first novel in the Detective Lincoln Munroe series. Subsequent entries in The Homicide Files will continue chronologically from this case, moving toward the events of A Dream of Death and the other volumes of the main series.
Full Fathom Five
“WHAT HAVE WE GOT?”
She looked about twenty-five, and judging by the shade of green her pale, youthful face had turned, she hadn’t been to many calls like this.
“Detective Munroe, I didn’t know you were here.”
I glanced at her name tag: Nealy. Sheila, Sheena, Shirley, Shawna… what was it?
“Excuse me, Officer Nealy,” came a faint voice from behind me.
“Ma’am, Sierra’s fine.”
Turns out it was the voice of someone I wished I could thank.
The woman nodded, her eyes were red-rimmed from crying, mascara cascading in lines down her cheeks. “How much longer will he be here? My brother is on his way from Toronto.”
“At least a couple of hours, ma’am. We need to wait for the coroner and then someone from the funeral home will come to get his… your father.”
The woman nodded in appreciation, turned slowly and walked back down the hallway. I’d passed her on my way in but hadn’t introduced myself yet. She’d been busy giving her statement to another officer. She couldn’t have been much older than me, and here she was having to deal with the death of her father. But then again, I’d already buried my mother and, well, my father… I didn’t know how long he had left.
“Detective Munroe?”
Another voice from behind me, this time a familiar one.
“Lincoln. I won’t tell you again.”
“Sorry, Det—” I shot her a convincing yet amiable glare. “Lincoln.”
“Better. Sierra, this is my partner, Kara Jameson.”
“Oh, hi Kara. It’s been a while. Heard you were heading to homicide.”
Kara laughed, although there was a hint of discomfort in the gesture. “Yeah, first day here. Haven’t seen you since, well not since the perv…” She paused, looked around to see whose ears might be in range then spoke again in a more hushed tone. “Not since the perv with the cat porn.”
Sierra laughed. “I’d been told you’d see it all on this job, but I never expected that. Never in a million years.”
My face must have shown my confusion.
“You didn’t hear about it? Last year we arrested a guy for possession of child pornography, charged him with bestiality as well once we found the pictures of him and his cat.”
“That’s disgusting,” I said, my head shaking of its own accord.
“Yeah, well he’s doing five years in Kingston for it all.”
“Good, I hope some of his cellmates find out. Anyway, Sierra, what are we looking at?”
“Elderly male, seventy-four, lives alone, history of heart problems. Daughter found him less than an hour ago, hadn’t heard from him in a few days so she came to check on him.” She seemed to know my next question before I asked it. “Upstairs bathroom.”
I nodded and made my way up the stairs, hardwood with a plastic-covered runner, to a smell I never thought I’d get used to and one I’ll never be able to forget. The smell of a decomposing human was completely unique, completely unforgettable. The bathroom was visible at the end of the hallway and so was the deceased, hunched over on the toilet.
I let Kara take the lead, sending her into the bathroom ahead of me. This may have been her first day in homicide, but her reputation as an investigator preceded her.
“Give me the rundown,” I said, leaving her to the scene in front of us.
“Alright,” she said, not the least bit nervous. She ran through the facts. “Elderly male with heart problems and diabetes. He’s on the toilet, shower curtain pulled down partially and still gripped in his hand. His pants aren’t all the way down, he’s sitting on part of them, so he was in a hurry.”
I nodded for her to continue.
“Pill container on the counter as well, last ones taken were…” She picked it up in her hand, a latex glove on to protect any evidence, and inspected the small partitions separating dates and times. “Last ones taken were Tuesday morning, hadn’t taken the afternoon ones yet. He’s probably been dead almost forty-eight hours.”
“Any suspicions?”
“None. No signs of forced entry. His daughter, Anita, said that the house was locked up when she got here. It wasn’t a robbery, there was almost two hundred dollars cash on the kitchen counter, flat screen TV in the main room, both are still sitting there.”
She opened up the medicine cabinet behind the mirror. The first thing I noticed was an insulin pen.
“Anita said he was diabetic, so it’s possible he didn’t even know he was having a heart attack. Nausea, sudden need for a bowel movement leads him to the bathroom where he dies.”
I looked at her, puzzled.
“Some heart attacks are painless, it’s rare but more common in diabetics. Just don’t ask me why.”
“I was wondering how you even knew that.”
A faint rising of colour filled her cheeks. “I’ve wanted this job for a long time. I’ve read everything I could get my hands on, looked at every death report I came across.”
Some of this I already knew, but she’d been doing homework as well.
I took my badge off of my belt, Detective Sergeant, a rank above her Detective Constable. It was a big show after that, me trying to hand her my badge and take hers instead. She’d one-upped me on this one. I knew it was a heart attack—or at least I was pretty damn sure unless the coroner said otherwise—but never had a clue about the diabetes connection.
Kara put her hand over her belt badge, refusing to play along. “You’ll one up me soon, guaranteed.”
“Thanks for the vote of confidence.”
“No problem.”
“So,” I said, my gaze drifting back to a dead man. “Are we good to go?”
“It would appear that way. Definitely a natural death. I’ll make sure Sierra has everything she needs, let her know what we need. Then I guess I’ll talk to the daughter again, make sure she knows what’s to follow.”
I nodded. “Sounds good.”
Cases like this were easy—obvious signs of a natural death and nothing suspicious. There wasn’t much for homicide detectives to—most never even attended the scene if the patrol constable and sergeant were both satisfied. Unless I was tied up on something more important, with no possible way of leaving, I attended. It wasn’t that I didn’t feel the uniformed division was capable of doing their jobs.
It was duty.
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I’ve always felt that as homicide detectives—really, we’re death investigators—we have a duty to the families and friends of the deceased to ensure that a full and proper investigation is done. Even if it seemed like the most natural death in the world to us it wasn’t to those left behind.
We made it back to the office not long after, with Kara driving—something I would have to get used to. I sucked at being a passenger.
We’d barely sat down at our respective desks when my phone rang.
“Detective Munroe,” I said. The phone ringing was usually not a good thing. Notification of a death investigation.
“Munroe, it’s Inspector Shetland, Bruce County OPP.”
I knew the name, but why was an Inspector from up north calling me?
“Sir?”
“How fast can you get up to Tobermory?”
“I can be on the road in five.”
“Perfect. Puts you here around three. If you want to go home and grab your own gear feel free.”
“I’m sorry, Sir. You’ve lost me. What gear and what’s going on?”
“We’ve got a body on the Arabia
Full Fathom Five - The Homicide Files (A Lincoln Munroe Novella, #1) Page 1