Dobbs looked back at Miss Driscoll’s body, then rubbed his eyes. “Nothing, that’s what. We don’t do a goddamn thing about it. If the doc falsified the report, I’m guessing it’s because the mayor told him to.”
“But aren’t you curious to know why?”
“Shit, yes—but I’m also…” He shook his head. “Look, we say anything about this to the doc or the mayor or anyone official, there’s going to be a lot of questions, then some kind of investigation, and all sorts of nasty shit for us to deal with. Maybe it don’t make any difference to you, you’re only here temporary, but me, I gotta think about my job, you understand? If a city employee makes any kind of an accusation against a city official, then they’d better have some goddamn proof or else they’re gonna be out on their unemployed ass in a hurry. You got any medical background? I sure as hell don’t. Who do you think people would believe, anyway—the County Coroner or a couple of schleps who drive the meat wagon?”
“You could take a picture of the table, we could show that to someone, and—”
“—and how would we prove that we didn’t just put all this stuff here to make it look like she offed herself? You know as well as I do that someone would think that.”
“We call the Columbus police department, get them to send over someone from their lab, they could—”
“Are you listening to yourself? First of all, that kind of call would have to come from the mayor, the sheriff, the chief of police, or the coroner. Second, even if you and me did call and somehow managed to get them to come, we’d have to sit here with the body until they arrived—and I don’t know about you, but I don’t feel like babysitting a corpse for however long it’d take them to get here. And third, how do you suppose they’d react once they dusted this place and found our fingerprints—” He pointed to the pudding bowl. “—on what is probably the central piece of evidence?”
As soon as he pointed at the pudding bowl, something occurred to me. “Why is this stuff still here?”
“Say what?”
I nodded at everything on the bedside table. “If the doc and the mayor have decided to cover this up, at least on paper, then why not get rid of the evidence, as well? Why leave all of this stuff out in plain view and risk someone being able to figure it out?”
“They couldn’t be sure that somebody would, maybe?”
I shook my head. “No—c’mon, Fred. I figured it out. If it’d been you up here instead of me, you would’ve noticed something, too. It’s almost like…”
“Like what?”
I looked back up at him. “It’s like somebody wanted you and me to figure it out.”
“But why?”
I shrugged. “Beats the hell out of me.”
“There you go, then,” said Dobbs. “Maybe there’s something to what you’re saying, okay? Maybe. But if you’re right, if they did leave all this shit out hoping that we’d put two and two together, how’re they gonna know unless we say something? If we don’t do anything, if we don’t say anything, just come in here and haul her body away like we’re supposed to, then there’s no way anyone’ll ever know. As long as we keep this to ourselves, it’s fine.”
“We can’t just do nothing.”
“The hell we can’t! Listen to me, the next time we go on a call like this, you don’t touch nothing besides the front door, the gurney, and the body, got it? We find anything weird like this again and I invite you to take a look around, just hit me, okay? I’m not that far away from collecting my pension, and I’ll be damned if I’m gonna have it fucked up for me by a CS temp! So from now on, you don’t touch nothing unless I say so.”
There wasn’t going to be a next time for me, so I nodded my head and muttered apologies.
Dobbs stared at me for a few more seconds, his features softening. “I don’t mean to yell at you, I’m sorry. But it’s a done deal at this point, all the paperwork’s been filed, and the best thing that you and me can do is just…what we came here to do.”
“I understand.”
“Do you?”
“Yeah. She’s gone, nothing we do is going to change that, and I’d rather not be the one responsible for you losing your pension.”
He reached over and gave my shoulder a little squeeze. “There’s a good fellah. Me and you, we won’t talk about this again, right?” “Right.” “Or mention it to anybody else?” “Or mention it to anybody else.”
He looked around at the tracks and computer. “Still, you gotta wonder what the hell she was doing in here, all by herself, with this crap.” I pointed toward his digital camera. “Did you get enough pictures?” He nodded. “I pretty much got the whole place before I came in here. I’m surprised you didn’t hear me banging around out there.” “I was, uh…” I looked at Miss Driscoll’s bedside table. “…a little preoccupied.” “I heard that.” He looked at me and smiled. “C’mon. Let’s go clear a path so we can get the gurney in here.”
It took us over half an hour to move the tracks, and even then it was a tight squeeze, but somehow we managed. We lifted Miss Driscoll’s body from the bed (she didn’t weigh very much, I could have done it alone), put her inside the bag, and zipped it closed. There was a cold finality in that sound that, for a moment, put me back inside the Leonard house. Christ, I didn’t want to be here. Dobbs took the lead. We’d gotten the gurney almost all the way to the foyer when one of the wheels on his end locked up. “Son-of-a…hold on a second, will you?” “Sure thing.” I let go of my end, stood there for a moment, and then noticed something. “Hey, Fred, do you have the clipboard?” “No,” he said from somewhere below the gurney. “What’d we do, leave it in the bedroom?” “Looks like.”
His head came around the far right wheel leg. “Well?”
I looked at him.
He looked back at me, then sighed. “Hey, here’s a question—when you were going to school, did you ride there on a long bus or the short one?”
“So you’re saying I should go back and get it.”
“Whatta you think?”
“I think I’ll go back and get it.”
His head disappeared behind the gurney leg once more. “I’m so proud right now.”
Back in the bedroom, I found the clipboard lying on the floor in front of the bedside table. I retrieved it and started making my way out of the room when I gave into a sudden impulse, turned back, and removed one of the numerous star-covered maps from the wall. Folding it up and slipping it into one of my back pockets, I went back to help Dobbs move the gurney out into the foyer. “You doing okay?” he asked once we were back in the hall. “I guess.” Dobbs pulled the door to 716 closed, checking to make sure it locked behind him, then said, “You look kinda upset to me.”
“This hasn’t been the best morning. Could we just go, please?”
We began moving the gurney toward the end of the hall. Dobbs asked, “So…think you’re gonna have the stomach for this?”
“I haven’t urped on your shoes yet, have I?”
“Just checking. Usually with CS helpers, this is about the time most of them decide they’d rather risk roadside trash pickup, dishwashing, or jail. But all things considered, you held your own real good here this morning.”
“Thanks.” And I meant it. Dobbs didn’t strike me as the kind of guy who was in the habit of handing out compliments like business cards at a convention, so knowing that I’d earned his seal of approval actually made me feel kind of proud of myself.
“I have decided,” said Dobbs, “that you aren’t okay, that you’re just trying to put up a good front for me. I have decided that this kind of stiff-upper-lip behavior deserves rewarding. I have decided that you need cheering up.”