Luckily, the place didn’t look half-bad—a romance book was lying on her coffee table where she’d left it last night with a bookmark saving her place. A pair of blue fuzzy slippers were sitting beside her recliner, her fuzzy blue robe tossed over the back of the couch, and her aqua hoodie was hanging on the back of her dining room chair, her sneakers sitting beside it from an early morning run she’d taken before she’d gotten the call from the boss. Her gardening gloves were resting on top of a kneeling pad on her kitchen island, with packages of Pacific Northwest wildflower seeds of baby’s breath, flax, phlox, cosmos, coreopsis, bluebells, blue lupines, and more sitting next to that. She’d planned to plant them this morning before she got the call from the boss to come in. She hoped to do it this evening now that she was working full-time. At least during the summer, the sun set later.
The kitchen was clean after they’d had dinner and her breakfast plate was in the dishwasher. Adam didn’t seem to notice anyway, which made her wonder how his place looked, and why she was even thinking about that, she didn’t know.
“I’m going to take a quick shower. Can you be away from work for that long?” She would wash her shoes later and put on more sensible shoes for her new job.
“Uh, yeah, sure. It’s all part of the job.”
“Good. Because I’m too muddy to just wash off my feet.” She headed into her master bath and closed the door, then began stripping off her clothes. She could imagine that everyone who had seen her at the site where the body was found would be joking about her and her heels and making poor Adam carry them for her. Then she had to go and barf into a bag, and he had to carry that too.
She’d never envisioned him in that role before. A real sweetheart who didn’t have any issues with his masculinity.
She needed to fill out a bunch of paperwork when she returned to the office to change her status from part-time to full-time, at least until her boss could open the position to other applicants and find someone who was qualified to do the job.
Washing off the mud in the shower took longer than she thought it would. She could imagine trying to get it off her shoes when she returned home after work and how hard that would be once it dried on. Here she thought she would have her afternoon free, unless another body turned up or another witness needed her to do a sketch. She hoped she could manage better at the morgue and wouldn’t get sick this time.
What she couldn’t believe was that after she had dressed in nice slacks and a blazer and boots, she found Adam in the kitchen using a paper towel to dry off her shoes. He’d actually cleaned them!
“Wow, thanks so much.” She leaned over and kissed him on the cheek, since appreciating his thoughtfulness and just saying so didn’t seem to be enough.
He smiled. “I figured I would do it after I cleaned the mud off mine. Yours were actually easier to clean. Less surface area and not as many ridges on the soles as the bottom of my shoes have.”
“Who would have ever thought fewer ridges on the sole of a shoe would be a good thing.”
“Yeah, it’s harder to make casts of unique shoe imprints in criminal cases though.” He grabbed his raincoat. “It’s stopped raining at least. Are you ready to go to the morgue?”
“Do you have more barf bags in your car?”
“A couple. Yes.”
“Good. Thanks again for cleaning my shoes and all the rest. Okay, so why did you say I might be needed over the weekend for cases in the morgue if I’m already seeing them today?”
“Willy always covered them.”
“Ahh.”
“Don’t quit on us, please. Your eyewitness sketches were always on the money when we finally caught the perp and compared your sketch with the accused. Willy didn’t have your innate ability to coax details out of a traumatized victim.”
“Yeah, but these are different.”
“You’ll do great. I have every faith in you.”
When they finally reached the morgue, Sierra was apprehensive about what to expect. She was glad Adam was with her but hoping he didn’t have too much work to do and she was keeping him from it.
All three victims were men, all having been fished out of the Willamette River recently, their bodies swollen and degraded. She realized—as she wore a mask that did not help to reduce the smell of decomposing bodies because she was a wolf and the smell was so strong anyway—that Adam was right there with her, barf bag in hand.
She quickly took photographs of each of the men at various angles and then did a rough sketch of each of them as she asked the coroner, Dr. Patrick Silverson, “Ages? Cause of death?”
“Drowning. It could have been accidental. Several things come into account when trying to determine if the cause was accidental or not. Cool water slows down decomposition, but putrefaction accelerates once the bodies are removed from the water. We have to consider the water currents, rocks, branches, and other obstacles they could have come into contact with postmortem, which could make it appear that they sustained injuries due to a struggle with unknown assailants. One of the men was caught submerged under tree roots and other debris, another swept up on a rocky beach. A fisherman spotted him as he was headed through the woods to the beach to fish. He contacted the bureau and a search was conducted. The other man was found a mile downstream from the other two. It looked like they were in their forties to early fifties.”
“But no one has reported any missing men between those ages, I take it,” Sierra said, finishing up her drawing of the last man.
“No. Which is where your help comes in.” He smiled at Sierra. “I hear you’re our new full-time sketch artist. And you’re available now.”
“Word gets around fast.”
The coroner smiled again. “Yeah, your boss is super pleased about you working full-time. As to the other matter?” Dr. Silverson glanced at Adam. “Well, we’re all glad for that too.”
She closed her sketch pad. “I will try not to disappoint everyone. About the sketches.”
“You’ll do great,” the coroner said.
She thanked him, and then she and Adam ditched their masks and left the morgue.
“The smell is the worst the first time you have to deal with this,” Adam said.
“I don’t think I would ever get used to it. Now using our enhanced sense of smell to locate dead bodies? That would be a plus. Having to do an autopsy or anything else with them for a long period of time?” She shook her head. “Thanks for being there for me, barf bag in hand.”
“You did really well, all things considered,” Adam said as they climbed into his Hummer.
“Thanks. So what do you think? Foul play?”