“Okay.” We'd call the local funeral home, and have her taken there. That's where the autopsy would be done.
“Uh, Henry, before we get out among 'em, I think you might want to talk to the local ME over in Conception County.”
“Alice? Sure. Why?”
“They had a body yesterday. Young fellow, with a really ugly neck wound. Not cause of death, possibly post mortem. Not quite like this… but, enough to make me wonder.”
Back in the bedroom, Dr. Z. looked at the contents of the pillbox. He pointed to one, a little green pill with a numeral six impressed in it. “Six-milligram Coumadin,” he said. “A warfarin sodium pill. This is a really powerful blood thinner,” he said. “It requires a course of treatment, but I see that she has dosages in her noon box on Sunday, Monday, and Tuesday. The rest of the week is already consumed.”
“What for? Stroke?”
“That, and some post-heart attack treatment. Not likely here. I'll double-check, but I can't imagine why Edie would have needed these.”
“But, since she was taking them, that means, well, the bruises?”
“It doesn't take much pressure to bruise someone who is on Coumadin,” he said.
“And?… Help me out, Doc.” I grinned.
“Well, the bruises tell us less. The autopsy will look into the muscle tissues, to see how deep they are.”
Nothing, it seems, is ever black or white.
“Certainly would explain the absence of clotting, though,” he said.
After we finished up, I really needed a break. I also could have used a cigarette. Nothing like a dead body to make you want to smoke again. There's just something about hanging around a violent death scene like that that really starts to get to you.
Before I could leave the room unattended, I had to seal it. To preserve the evidence. Pretty simple, really, as all you have to do is put sticky vinyl seals on every entry point.
I did the windows, and sealed the door behind me, and did the same with the bedroom door. Before I left, I opened the door to what I'd assumed to be the bedroom closet, just to make sure it wasn't a staircase. It wasn't. I did notice several dresses that I mentally classified as “formal.” Really nice fabric. Two caught my eye in particular; one green velvet, one black with beadwork. The first thing that entered my mind was that she had a job as a hostess at a classy restaurant. Would have been a good guess, too, if there had actually been any classy restaurants within a hundred miles.
The rooms sealed, I decided to relax by seeing how Borman was coming with the interviews. I pulled off my latex gloves, put them in an evidence bag, and went downstairs. I should have stayed in the bedroom.
As I got to the bottom of the stairs, I could hear Borman say, “Just fill out the form there, Jack, and don't give me any shit.” He sounded exasperated. Swell.
I stuck my head around the corner, into what was a really period-looking “parlor,” the kind you'd see in an old movie where Clifton Webb would be chatting with Jane Wyman. Except here it was Borman arguing with good old Toby.
“Problem?” I asked.
They both spoke at once, the gist being that Toby didn't think Borman had the right to ask him to identify himself. Borman disagreed. I think the tone was set when Toby said, “You ever hear of the Constitution, Mr. Cop?”
I sighed, and reached into my hip pocket, removing my badge and ID case. I opened it, careful to avoid any sort of flourish. “Toby Gottschalk,” I said, showing him my credentials, “I'm Carl Houseman, Deputy Sheriff here in Nation County. Since you've already told me who you are, I can't see the problem with you identifying yourself to this officer.”
“He wants my date of birth, my address, and my middle name,” said Toby. “I don't have to give that. I know a little something about the Constitution.”
The problem was, of course, that they were nearly the same age. From my lofty distance of almost thirty-five years their senior, I thought I'd have a bit more luck.
I smiled at Toby. “Never say you know a 'little' about the Constitution. There's always somebody waiting to show you how right you are.” I put my badge case back in my pocket. “What you gotta understand, Toby, is that we have to treat any questioned death as a murder unless and until we can prove it's, oh, like a suicide or an accident. Okay?”
He at least had the sense to just nod.
“Cool. Now, since we're sort of constrained by procedure to assume we're dealing with a murder at this point, we have the right to ask you for a variety of personal identifiers.”
“I'm sure that's true,” said Toby. “Not to piss you off or anything, but I do have the right to refuse.”
“Yep,” I said. “You do. But then, we may have to do things that are not to your liking, to discover that infor mation.”
“Such as?” Toby looked completely self-possessed.
I was beginning to like Toby as a potential witness. Guts, fairly smart, and didn't have the sense to concede a point. “Such as,” I said, moving a little closer, and smiling, “determining your age by cutting off one of your legs, and counting the rings.”
He looked a little startled, but finally started to get the point.
“To tell the truth, Toby,” I said, as I went by him toward the window, “we'd just have to arrest you as a material witness. Take you to jail. Keep you until we either cleared the case by determining it wasn't a murder, or until you told us the basic things we have to know in order to positively identify you.” I looked back at him over my shoulder. “The food in jail sucks, Toby. And there are only three channels on the TV.”
“That sounds avoidable,” said Toby, more to get back at Borman than to agree with me.
“And while we're talking,” I said, “do you know who that is in the yard?” I looked out the window.
He moved toward the window with me. “The girl raking the leaves?”
There was only one person in the huge, manicured yard.
I nodded. “Yep. That's the one.” It was difficult to tell what gender, really, as she was wearing navy blue sweatpants, a long-sleeved dark blue hooded sweatshirt, fawn-yellow work gloves, red tennis shoes, and a purple baseball cap. A riot of color, as they say.
“Melissa Corey,” he said. “I call her Doom Girl.”
I looked down and to my right, into his unwavering gaze. “You do? Why's that?”
“Oh, she's probably the most depressed of any of us here. One of the really convinced 'life sucks' people. You know? One of those.”
I chuckled. I couldn't help it. “Yeah, I think I do.” I turned back to Borman. “You haven't managed to get her in for the basic questions?”
Of course he hadn't. He'd been distracted by his little tiff with Toby. Under other circumstances, the laboring Doom Girl could have made a clean getaway. My tone told him that, and a little more.
“I was just about to-”
I cut him off before he could reward Toby by saying that he'd been successfully distracted. “I'll talk with her for a sec. Why don't you just finish up with Toby, here.” Besides, it looked so nice out in that yard.
It was. I went out the front door, and around to the south side of the house, to my left. The majority of the leaves that had fallen onto the bright green lawn were intense yellow, translucent when the bright sunlight was behind them. The largest tree was in the middle of a grassy expanse that had to be at least a hundred feet wide, forming a green rectangle around the house. Melissa's wooden rake was making diligent scraping sounds as she methodically herded the leaves into one of a series of yellow piles that showed her progress around the yard. The sunlight was filtering through the leaves, picking up the faint swirls of dust she was stirring up as she worked.
“You're Melissa?” I asked as I approached.
She looked up at me, continuing to rake. She had a pale face, big dark eyes, with purplishred hair sticking out from under her ball cap, and a piercing with a small cube in her left eyebrow. “And you'd be?” A soft voice.