by Laura Childs
What just happened here? she wondered.
And suddenly heard a faint clink.
What was that? The snick of a metal door, the click of an instrument being set down?
Sure it was. So Ozzie was back here. Probably.
“Ozzie,” Suzanne called, rounding a corner. “What the heck hap ...”
Suzanne stopped dead in her tracks, her words segueing to a sputter, then a dying gasp. Her mouth opened reflexively, snapped shut, then opened again. But no sound issued forth.
Because Ozzie was back here, all right. Splayed out on an enormous metal table like some sort of medical experiment gone horribly wrong.
Suzanne’s eyelids fluttered uncontrollably as she took in the ghastly scene. Plastic hoses kinked around Ozzie, his right arm stuck rigidly out to one side. And there, sticking into that arm, his very white, waxy arm, was a large needle attached to a length of tubing.
Suicide? The word exploded in Suzanne’s brain like a thousand points of light. Oh no, not Ozzie Driesden. He wouldn’t do that, would he?
Suzanne’s stomach lurched unsteadily and the beginnings of bitter, hot bile rose in the back of her throat.
Struggling to force her mind to work, to reboot her brain’s frozen hard drive, she thought to herself, Got to get help.
As that thought popped into her head like a bubble above a cartoon drawing, there was a sudden, sharp snap, like a freshly laundered towel jerking on a clothesline. A soft shuffle sounded behind Suzanne, then a cold, wet, foul-smelling rag was clamped viciously across her nose and mouth.
Throwing up her hands in protest, the pie flipped end over end and crashed to the floor. Struggling blindly, not thinking clearly now, Suzanne inhaled sharply and involuntarily breathed in the prickly chemical that soaked the rag. Her heart lurched painfully in her chest and her lungs burned like hot coals. Staggering drunkenly, Suzanne’s spinning mind spat out a single word: Camphor?
Then her head was filled with the drone of a thousand angry hornets and her knees began to buckle like a cheap card table.
No . . . chloroform, was Suzanne’s last semi-lucid thought as blackness descended and she crumpled atop the ruined cherry pie.
Chapter Two
“Breathe deeply,” urged a voice from above her. Suzanne’s eyes fluttered wildly for a few moments, then peeped open. And Suzanne found herself gazing up into the face of a kindly-looking EMT wearing a blue uniform with a red-and-white patch. He was young and good-looking, with an olive complexion and curly, dark hair.
When did EMTs get so young? Suzanne wondered to herself. And when did I start thinking guys in their early thirties were young?
That brought a semblance of a giggle mixed with a few hiccups.
“She’s coming around,” said Petra.
At hearing her friend’s calming voice, Suzanne lifted her head. Not a great idea. Her brain was still spinning like a centrifuge even though her body was laid out flat on the floor, right where she’d fallen.
Cotton in my head, Suzanne thought, crazily. And bright red cherry pie all over the floor.
The EMT, whose name tag read J. Jellen, held a plastic mask to Suzanne’s mouth and smiled encouragingly. “Breathe,” he instructed.
Suzanne fought to bat the mask away.
“It’s only oxygen,” Jellen told her, calmly. “Help clear your head.”
“Breathe the Os, honey,” Petra pleaded, kneeling down next to her.
Suzanne breathed in deeply and, a few moments later, really did feel better. She relaxed, inhaled a few more Os, then raised a hand and pushed the mask aside. “What happened?” she asked Petra. “How did you get here?”
“When you didn’t come back right away, I sent Sheriff Doogie over to check on you,” explained Petra. “He’d been hanging around the park, snarfing down hot dogs and cookies. After he left, and when I saw the ambulance heading over there—Doogie must have found you and called for it right away—I came running. Like the proverbial cavalry.” Petra put a hand to her ample chest. “Well, a cavalry that walks awful darn fast, anyway.”
“Doogie’s here?” asked Suzanne, struggling to sit up.
Petra nodded. “And a deputy.” She peered anxiously at Suzanne. “How much do you remember, honey?”
It was starting to come back to her now. Suzanne touched a hand to her head and sighed deeply. “Oh man. Ozzie ... ?”
Petra gave a solemn shake of her head.
“Dead?” asked Suzanne. Her mouth felt parched.
“Afraid so,” Petra whispered.
Suzanne pushed herself into a sitting position, gritted her teeth as her head spun wildly, then struggled to get her legs under her. The paramedic, Jellen, curved an arm around her waist and asked, “You sure you want to do this?”
Suzanne nodded and suddenly found herself being lifted with ease by the helpful paramedic. She continued to stare down at the floor for a long moment, noting the sticky smear of cherry pie and a flattened hunk of golden crust that seemed to carry the partial imprint of a shoe. Then she raised her eyes.
Ozzie was still lying there, of course. That harsh reality hadn’t changed one iota. But now Sheriff Roy Doogie and his young deputy, Wilbur Halpern, were circling the metal table like coyotes surveying roadkill. Another fellow, George Draper, the Draper of Driesden and Draper, was standing there with them, making nervous, futile hand gestures. Obviously, Draper had been summoned posthaste.
“Killed himself,” said the deputy. He shook his head even as he hooked both fingers in his belt in a kind of postmortem show of disapproval.
Sheriff Doogie, a big bear of a man in rumpled khaki, turned toward George Draper, Ozzie’s partner, now the sole owner of Driesden and Draper. “Had he been depressed?”
Draper, who was tall, gangly, slightly stooped, and looked like he might be suffering a mild bout of depression, gave a slightly furtive shrug. “Maybe. A little bit.”
“What are you talking about?” Suzanne suddenly croaked as she staggered toward them. She was fighting mightily to get her feet and legs to coordinate with her brain. But walking a straight line wasn’t easy.
Sheriff Roy Doogie shifted his bulk and bobbed his head at Suzanne. He was the duly elected sheriff of Logan county and had been in office for more than a dozen years. With his meaty face, cap of gray hair, and rattlesnake eyes, Doogie only looked slow-moving. Truth was, not much got past him.
“You feeling better now, Suzanne?” Doogie asked as she continued to wobble toward him. “You must’ve had quite a start, seeing poor Ozzie like this. No wonder you fainted dead away.”
“I didn’t faint,” Suzanne protested. “I’ve never fainted in my life.”
The young deputy let loose a slightly derisive snort. “Then how come you was sprawled on the floor?”
“If you give me a minute, instead of jumping to conclusions,” snapped Suzanne, “I’ll tell you.”
“Tell us what?” asked Doogie. A frown and something else . . . curiosity? . . . had insinuated itself on his lined face.
“Someone attacked me!” Suzanne told him in a rush. “From behind. Clamped some kind of damp cloth over my mouth and ... and ... drugged me!” She touched the back of her hand to her head, trying to recall the exact sequence of events. But everything was still fuzzy, like a long-ago dream that could only be remembered in disjointed fragments.
“Huh?” said the deputy.
“What are you sayin’?” asked Doogie. His jowls sloshed vigorously as he stared at Suzanne, his eyes suddenly wide with surprise.
“I came back here to deliver Ozzie’s pie,” explained Suzanne, “and that’s when I saw him. Just...” Suzanne grimaced as she glanced past Doogie. “... just lying there.”
“Was he dead?” Sheriff Doogie asked.
“I don’t know,” said Suzanne. “Well, I suppose he was. I mean, he must have been. He was all white and waxy-looking, just like he is now.” She felt hot tears prickle her eyes, but fought to keep them back. Men were funny about tears: Disdainful reall
y. If she could keep the waterworks under control for the time being, her story would carry far more credibility. Suzanne tried to emphasize the chain of events with another hopefully cohesive statement: “Before I had time to react and really get a decent look, someone grabbed me from behind and slapped a rag across my face. Drugged me,” she added again, for emphasis.
Sheriff Doogie seemed to be having trouble comprehending all this. “You mean they chloroformed you?”
“I don’t know if that’s the technical term,” said Suzanne, starting to feel a little frustrated, “but yes. Someone chloroformed me. Like a friggin’ bug dropped inside a Mason jar for biology class.”
Doogie snatched his modified Smokey Bear hat from his head and slapped it against his knee. “Heck you say!” Doogie still seemed reluctant to buy into Suzanne’s story.
“Sheriff Roy Doogie!” said Petra, in her sternest, steeliest voice. “You listen to Suzanne. She doesn’t make up stories!”
Sheriff Doogie ushered them all into the small parlor, the unoccupied parlor, where they sat on lumpy couches and love seats and Suzanne told her story again. Slowly, filling in the details.
Doogie went over a few parts with her. “So when you came in carrying the pie, the boxes were spilled all over.” It was a statement, not a question.
“Yes,” said Suzanne. “Like maybe there’d been a struggle.”
“And then you saw Ozzie. With the ...” Sheriff Doogie pointed an index finger at his own forearm. “. . . with the thing ... the needle ... stuck in his arm.”
“Yes,” Suzanne said again.
Doogie’s lined face sagged. “Well, shit.”
Suzanne glanced around the semicircle of somber faces. “He was murdered, wasn’t he?” she said. But she really wasn’t asking a question, either.
“We don’t know that for sure,” said Doogie, still hedging.
“Whoever attacked me had probably just murdered Ozzie,” Suzanne said, forcefully this time.
Petra, who was perched next to Suzanne, gripped her forearm tightly.
“Wilbur,” said Doogie, glancing at his deputy. “Go out to the truck and fetch my kit.”
Wilbur rose hastily and left the room.
Petra stared directly at Doogie and said in an accusatory tone, “This could have easily been a double murder, Sheriff.”
Doogie lifted both hands to belly level and made a calming gesture. “Now we don’t know anything like that. But I’m going to go ahead and treat this as a crime scene…. give it some serious investigation.”
“You’re going to call in the state crime lab?” asked George Draper. He hadn’t said anything up to this point. Now he looked colossally unhappy.
“First things first,” Doogie told Draper. “First thing I want to do is go back in there and take my own look-see. Is there anyone else besides you and Ozzie who worked back there?”
“Ozzie had a sort of lab assistant,” said Draper. “A young man he’d taken an interest in. Helped him, really. Fellow by the name of Bo Becker. I think Ozzie was hoping Bo might study for a degree as a diener.”
“Get him in here,” said Doogie.
When Sheriff Doogie, Deputy Halpern and George Draper trooped back into the embalming room, Suzanne didn’t hesitate to follow. Petra was a little more reluctant. Doogie placed a black leather case on a rolling metal cart that normally held hemostats, dissecting scissors, and rib cutters.
As Doogie dug around inside his case, Suzanne asked, “Are you doing CSI stuff now?” She was feeling better. Not chipper, but definitely curious. And angry, too. After all, someone had tried to do her serious harm.
“Don’t call it that,” huffed Doogie. “Ever since that TV show, people put too much stock in all the whiz-bang assays and tests and electron microscope stuff. They don’t realize it’s good old legwork and deductive reasoning that really solves crimes.”
“So what’s your deductive reasoning on this?” Suzanne asked him.
“Just hold on,” grunted Doogie. “First thing I want to do is take a careful look. You can learn a lot just through simple observation.” He pulled a light from his case and untangled a long black cord.
“What’s that?” asked Suzanne.
“UV black light,” said Doogie. “These days, a county sheriff’s got to be prepared for anything.”
Suzanne had to agree. Kindred had been a sleepy small town for more years than she could remember. Now, like a bolt from the blue, they had a ripped-from-the-headlines type of murder on their hands.
“Kill the lights, will you?” Doogie instructed his deputy. The deputy, stumbling over his size-fourteen feet, hurried to comply.
Doogie flicked the switch on his SPEX Mini-Crime-Scope 400, shone it on Ozzie’s knees, then slowly ran it up the length of Ozzie’s body. Everyone clustered behind Doogie, holding their breath. They weren’t sure what Doogie was going to find, but they were watching his every motion with rapt attention.
“Anything?” asked the deputy. He sounded wistful, like he’d been purposely left out of the action.
Doogie continued to run the light across Ozzie’s neck and up onto his face. Hesitating for a split second, Doogie ran the light in a circle, then his eyes widened and his jaw dropped onto his second chin. “Oh, horse pucky!” he exclaimed.
Chapter three
“What?” demanded Suzanne. She’d been standing behind Doogie at a somewhat respectable distance. Now she elbowed forward.
One side of Doogie’s mouth was pulled up in a petulant snarl. “You see this?” he muttered to his deputy. But Suzanne and Petra had already moved in, essentially crowding out the deputy. Doogie switched the black light to his left hand and pointed a pudgy index finger at Ozzie’s mouth.
Suzanne, Petra, and the deputy all peered forward and gave slow nods. Doogie’s light had revealed a few tiny white specks. Suzanne wondered if they were faint remnants of food or toothpaste or some type of drug Ozzie might have ingested or been force-fed.
But Doogie quickly answered her question.
“Somebody put sticky tape over Ozzie’s mouth,” Doogie said slowly. It seemed to be dawning on him that this was the pivotal point where taking a look-see had suddenly turned into a full-fledged murder investigation.
Now Doogie was more aggressive with his study. He shone the light slowly across every part of Ozzie’s body, returning again and again to certain areas. “Doggone,” muttered Doogie. “Stuff’s on his wrists and ankles, too.”
Deputy Halpern’s face had blanched white and he looked a little shaky.
“So what exactly are you saying?” pressed Suzanne. There was a nasty churn in the pit of her stomach. She wasn’t sure if it was the residual effect of the chloroform or just the psychic shock of gazing at Ozzie’s dead body and knowing he was for sure murdered. But Suzanne mustered her inner grit and forced herself to focus. She wanted to hear an explanation directly from the sheriff’s own mouth.
Doogie snapped off the black light and gazed directly at Suzanne with tired, hooded eyes. “Some maniac tied Ozzie down before draining his blood.”
You could have heard a pin drop.
“So murder, not suicide,” murmured Suzanne. She glanced at Deputy Halpern and took a certain amount of grim satisfaction in the fact that he looked awfully green around the gills.
“Gotta call the state crime lab in on this,” said Sheriff Doogie. ‘This is a bad situation. We’re gonna need technical assistance.” He clumped across the room, hit the light switch.
Everyone blinked when the overhead fluorescents buzzed on. Under the suddenly glaring lights, the stainless steel looked much harsher and Ozzie’s body looked even more pathetic.
“I’m going to wait outside with Mr. Draper,” Petra told Suzanne, slipping away.
Suzanne nodded, but resolutely remained in the embalming room. She watched as Halpern packed up Doogie’s case, listened halfheartedly as Doogie made his phone call to alert the guys at the state crime lab.
But curiosity had also sunk its
talons into Suzanne. It was the first time she’d ever been in an embalming room and she was finding it fascinating, if not a little grim and unnerving. Wandering about the room, she glanced at head blocks and bottles of arterial fluid, winced at the overhead Stryker saw.
Doogie hung up the phone, sneezed, pulled a hanky from his back pocket, and let loose a loud honk. “They’ll be here in an hour.”
“What’s that?” asked Suzanne.
