For the past half hour, I’ve been looking for a laptop to replace the one from the morgue. I frankly can barely tell one from the other, but Janey wrote down the must-have features and a few possible models for me to check out. Unfortunately, the ones on her list are all north of two grand, which would seriously deplete my contingency fund. We may get something back from the insurance company—Janey was supposed to call them—but that takes time and we need something to work on down in the morgue on Monday.
The budget for this office is tight, hence the outdated equipment in the lab. I guess it was sufficient for my predecessor, who was a family doctor by trade and not a forensic pathologist, but it’s not enough for me. I already pushed hard to be able to hire on Lauren, which barely squeaked past the council, so I doubt I’ll be able to get more money in the budget for upgrades.
Bunch of cheapskates. They got me at a bargain. I get paid a coroner’s salary, which is a five-figure amount, while as a forensic pathologist I’d make in the six figures. I’d have put up more of a fight negotiating if I hadn’t been so eager to get out of the rat race. They’re getting my expertise for free.
Maybe, at some point, I can get Janey to do a cost analysis. Figure out how much we could save on hiring out on a lot of the lab work I’d be able to do here if I had the right tools. Cost savings is something they might listen to.
“Did you find something?”
Janey walks into my office, with what I hope is the case report in her hand.
“Nothing that fits the budget,” I grumble. “Not a single one under two grand.”
“It might even be more than that—I filed a claim with the insurance company—but we won’t know until the adjuster calls next week.”
“We’re going to need something.”
She steps up to the desk and hands me the report. “Here, why don’t you have a quick look at this before I drop a hard copy off to the police station. On my way home I can stop by Nick’s shop, he sometimes has high-end refurbished computers. If he has something under two thousand that fits our needs, do I have your okay to get it?”
Nick is our IT person. Janey schedules him to come in every couple of months to keep our systems running smoothly.
“Good idea. Yes, by all means,” I readily agree, glad to scratch something else off my list.
I do a quick scan of the report and sign it before handing it back to her.
“Are you sticking around?”
“Not for long,” I assure her.
“Good,” she says with a smile. “Otherwise, I get the feeling Detective VanDyken might be back to drag you home.”
Janey is observant so I don’t bother feigning innocence. I’m a shit actor anyway.
I guess it’s what you get when you work—and now play—in a fairly condensed environment. People hear stuff, see stuff, and before you know it, you’re a couple without having had the benefit of consummating that fact.
I listen to her footsteps disappearing down the hall and grab for a copy of the list we’d worked on earlier. A few names stand out, like John Dunwoody and Brian Taylor. Both grieving fathers and most forefront in my mind. Some of the others I vaguely recall, but I work hard at keeping myself as emotionally distanced as possible or this job could swallow me up.
Both Jay and Keith’s names are on there as well, along with Tony Ramirez and a couple of uniformed officers. Visits from law enforcement are par for the course, as are those from the funeral homes. Rob Wenner is on the list and so are the names of a few of his staff at Benson. Same thing for Hook Funeral Home, although I don’t see them quite as often.
We have a cleaning service in on a weekly basis, but mostly for the upstairs offices. Paul and Lauren keep up with the morgue, lab, and autopsy room themselves since those need to be sanitized at least once a day. More often if we’re busy.
I grab a notepad and pen and start jotting down what I know about this case and anyone who might’ve been around when I did the autopsy on Dennis Heath. I also list names of those who might have handled his body.
I’m starting to see why Blackfoot is so focused on Paul. My assistant checks all the boxes, except when it comes to the break-in. That simply doesn’t make any sense. For one, why leave and come back? Except of course, if he was counting on the fact the morgue would be empty by then and my presence took him by surprise. He could’ve staged the open garage door to make it look like an outsider. What trips me up, though, is that he would’ve known about the files stored on the remote server and realized taking just the laptop was a futile exercise.
I rest my forehead on my arms and close my eyes for a bit. I should probably go home; I’m not doing my head any favors.
The office is quiet and the muffled sounds of activity from downstairs seem to have stilled as well. A sense of unease creeps up on me and suddenly I’m in a rush to get out of here.
Jay
“You’re full of shit, Tom.”
The guy shrugs his shoulders, looking a little too smug for my liking.
So far Blackfoot hasn’t made a lot of headway with Tom Ward but I know his reputation for building up a suspect’s confidence, so they let down their guard before he goes in for the kill.
I walked into the station at the same time Tony Ramirez did, and we both end up observing the closed-circuit video feed on the screen in a room adjacent to the one Blackfoot is questioning Ward in.
“He drives me nuts with his slow approach,” Tony complains. “I know he gets results, but I’ve got some information that might be helpful to him.”
“You get lucky with the search?”
He turns to me and grins. “Found an old fire barrel back there. It’s in the forensics lab. Other than that, any useful evidence likely washed away by that rain last night. I did have another talk with the neighbor down the road who called in the report. Says he’s seen a white cargo van around there from time to time.”
“That’s big.”
“I know, which is why I want to get word to Blackfoot. Give him something to nail the guy with.”
I catch movement on the screen.
“Looks like you’ll get your wish. He’s getting up.”
I step out into the hallway behind Ramirez, just as Keith steps out of the interrogation room. He gestures for us to follow him into the small kitchen, where he fills a cup with coffee that’s probably been sitting in the pot for hours.
“Talk to me.” He turns to Tony. “I need something to shake him.”
Three minutes later both Ramirez and I follow him back into the interrogation room. Keith sits down across from Ward, a big smile on his face, while Tony and I take up position on either side of the door. I rattle the handcuffs in my hand, just as Blackfoot suggested.
“What’s going on?”
The smug look is gone from Ward’s face, replaced by a hint of panic as his eyes dart from me to Ramirez and finally to Keith.
“Where’d you get the white van, Tom?”
He starts shaking his head before he opens his mouth.
“That ain’t mine.”
“No? Neighbors say different. They see it driving around your property, parked by your trailer. It’s all starting to make sense to me now. The foot on your property, the rest of the body parts all within a few miles. Heck, we even found the fire barrel where you tried to burn some of the body. It’s almost a slam dunk case, Tom.”