Page 3 of Unnatural Death

“I expect Investigator Fruge to be calling with further information,” I reply. “I’m sure she knows we’ll be pending the cause and manner of death until we get the toxicology results.”

Fabian heads back toward the elevator as I continue along the corridor. It begins and ends like a morbid conundrum, the receiving area the first and last stop in my sad medical clinic. No appointments are required, our services free to the public. Death doesn’t care who you are, everybody treated equally. With rare exception the only thing our patients have in common is they never thought they’d be here.

When bodies arrive, they’re rolled in through a pedestrian door and weighed on the floor scale. They’re measured with an old-style measuring rod and assigned case numbers before waiting their turn inside the refrigerator. Names are handwritten in what I call the Book of the Dead, the large black logbook chained to the chipped Formica shelf outside the security office window.

On the other side of the bulletproof glass Wyatt Earle’s khaki uniform jacket is draped over the back of his chair. The remains of takeout food are on his desk, and propped in a corner is the aluminum baseball bat he borrows from the anatomical division where bodies donated to science are stored and eventually cremated.

We have no choice but to pulverize large pieces of bones; otherwise they won’t fit inside the cremains boxes returned to loved ones. Wyatt carries the bat while making his rounds after hours. Unlike me, he’s more afraid of the dead than the living.

CHAPTER 2

WYATT IS INSIDE THE vehicle bay, the massive garage door retracting loudly. The silver Cadillac Landau hearse glides in, and he walks toward it as I watch on the security monitor.

The driver’s window lowers, and Henry Addams is behind the wheel, the two of them chatting cordially like always. The closed-circuit TV (CCTV) microphones pick up exchanges about business and the weather. The two of them ask about each other’s families, and it’s the first I’ve heard that Henry’s wife requires full-time nursing care. She doesn’t live at home anymore.

The last time I saw Henry was about a month ago, and he didn’t mention it. But I thought he seemed tired and preoccupied. I’ve known for a while that Megan isn’t well but had no idea how bad it had gotten. He drives inside as Wyatt puts on his uniform baseball cap and sunglasses. He strides through the huge square opening and into the bright morning.

A curious crowd has gathered outside to gawk at the ominous black helicopter my niece, Lucy, flies for the U.S. Secret Service. Code-named the Doomsday Bird, it’s surrounded by traffic cones and sitting quietly in a distant corner of the parking lot as she loads the back cabin. I’m making sure we have special personal protective equipment (PPE) necessary when there’s a risk of exposure to toxic chemicals, and unknown animals and organisms.

“Golly Moses … !” A metal stretcher bumps and clangs as Henry struggles to slide it out of the back of his hearse. He mutters euphemisms in his lilting Virginia accent and seems unusually aggravated. “Oh, for crummy sake … !”

An app on my phone accesses my office’s CCTV security system, and I turn off the cameras inside the bay. A section of the video monitor blacks out, Henry vanishing from view. Next, I send Wyatt a note making sure he’s aware that it’s me doing the tampering. He’s familiar with my routine when I need a cone of silence.

Copy that, Chief, he texts me back.About 30 people out here. I’m keeping my eye on things.

Nobody gets any closer.

He answers with a thumbs-up emoji.Already getting complaints as expected, he informs me.The devil herself.

It’s assumed that Maggie Cutbush is going to stir up trouble given the chance. When I replaced Elvin Reddy as chief medical examiner, I inherited his secretary, suffering with her my first two years on the job. Not so long ago, both of them were fired and repurposed as so often happens in government. Maggie no longer works for me but remains an unwanted presence like a phantom pain or a haunting.

What I’m about to confront inside Buckingham Run promises to cause the very sort of stink she wants. In fact, it’s already happening. That’s why she’s started her complaints about the helicopter before I’ve so much as left the building. She knows I’ll hear about it. She’d like nothing better than to get under my skin, to interfere with my concentration.

Do not engage. I’ll handle later, I let Wyatt know.

I walk out the door, and our vehicle bay is the size of a small hangar. On wooden pallets are cleansers, bleach, biocides, cases of PPE. There are gallon jugs of formaldehyde and embalming fluid marked with skull-and-crossbones warning labels. Walls and floors are sealed with epoxy resin, and easy to hose down. But that’s not happened in recent memory, as busy as we are.

The concrete ramp is marred by blood drips and wheel tracks dried reddish black. Flies crawl and alight on trash cans. Sparrows dart about, and that’s not uncommon when the bay door is left open, as it is right now. I can see more people wandering into the parking lot, Shannon Park among them. She’s wearing an emerald-green dress that looks 1970s.

Her bucket hat is just as old, and she’ll be holding on to it soon enough when Lucy and I take off. A former court reporter, my recently hired secretary is a world-class snoop skilled at getting people to talk. Knowing her, she’s gathering intelligence, possibly taking notes. I wouldn’t put it past her to record conversations of those around her. She’s done it before.

“God bless America … !” Henry has pinched his thumb on the stretcher, not noticing me yet.

“Good morning, Henry!” I call out as I reach the bottom of the ramp.

“Oh!” He looks up, startled. “Hello, Kay! Please excuse my manners.” He’s unusually flustered. “I’m so busy making a mess, I didn’t notice you come out of the building.”

“Are you hurt?” I ask as I reach him.

“A blood blister. I’ll live.”

“If not, you’re in the right place.”

“With all due respect, I don’t want you as my doctor.” He smiles, but his eyes are distracted and dull.

Tall and distinguished, with pewter-gray hair and a thin mustache, Henry is dapper in a black suit and Scottish tartan vest. In his lapel is a rosebud with a sprig of baby’s breath. He’s thin and seems bone weary, his demeanor shadowed by sadness.

“What have you been up to besides not eating enough?” It’s my way of asking about his personal life. “It looks like I might have to make a house call with some of my lasagna. I believe you’re also partial to my cannelloni and panzanella salad.”

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