Chapter Two
“Barry?”
From somewhere above came the frantic voice of my mother. I opened my eyes and saw the blurred pattern of a worn hardwood floor. Splotches of red broke the tongue-in-groove lines. I tried to speak but all that came from my mouth was a groan.
“Don’t try to move. An ambulance is on the way.”
An ambulance? For Y’Grok? But he’s dead. Then my head cleared enough for me to feel the pain and I realized I was lying facedown on the operating room floor in a pool of blood. My blood.
“Democrat?” I whispered.
“He’s okay. His barking woke me. Someone shut him in the supply closet. I’ve put him in the hall.”
I heard a pitiful whine and scratching at the door. I felt like I’d been run over by an eighteen-wheeler, but I couldn’t just lie there. I struggled to my knees and blood dripped into my eyes. I’d hit the table hard enough to split my forehead. The gash was painful to touch.
I explored the back of my head and discovered an ostrich had laid an egg. The throbbing lump seemed on the verge of hatching.
Mom was leaning over me, her face etched with concern. “I called Tommy Lee and Susan.”
“Get me a chair. I feel woozy.”
“Maybe you should just lie there till the ambulance arrives.”
“No. If Tommy Lee gets here first, he’ll draw a chalk outline around me.”
Mom brought a straight-back chair from the corner and set it behind me. “Want me to help you?”
“Just steady the chair.” I crawled backwards on my hands and knees, eased to a crouch, and then raised up enough to fall into the seat. Mom grabbed my shoulder to steady me as the room spun around. I took a couple of deep breaths.
Mom looked at the blood on the floor. “If you’re okay to sit, I’ll clean this up.”
“No. Don’t touch anything. This is a crime scene.”
Her hand trembled. “Oh, Barry, you could have been killed.”
I heard the distant wail of a siren. “Put Democrat in the backyard. Keep him away from here. Then we’re going out in the hall. I don’t want the paramedics destroying any evidence.”
“Yes, dear.” She patted my arm. “You’ve never stopped being a policeman, have you.”
“I guess I can’t help it.” As Mom turned to go, I added, “And don’t say anything about Y’Grok Eban.”
Mom closed the door, leaving me alone to stare at the empty table. In the eight decades of Clayton and Clayton’s history, no one had ever lost a body. We weren’t a dry cleaners or shoe repair shop giving credit for missing items.
The siren grew louder. This would be a trip the EMTs would remember. How often does someone get transported from a funeral home back to the hospital?
“You might have a slight scar, but in a few years, people will think it’s another wrinkle.” Susan Miller clipped the suture and stepped back to admire her work.
My forehead tingled from the numbing injection. The only consolation was gazing into Susan’s beautiful brown eyes as she stared at her patient. Then her concentration softened and I became Barry the boyfriend. She leaned over and kissed me gently on the lips.
“Nice bedside manner,” I said. “We’ll have to do this more often.”
“Dinner and a movie are more my style. I’m adding them to my bill.”
Susan was remarkable—a general surgeon whose specific skills had quickly broken down any doubts the mountaineers might harbor against a woman doctor. After all, she’d grown up in these hills and could as easily talk to a backwoods moonshiner as a bank CEO. Her talent went beyond medical competency. She treated her patients as people first.
I’d met Susan at the graveside service for a seven-year-old girl. The child had fought a losing battle against a malignant tumor Susan had done her best to remove. Susan had shared the family’s grief and as she knelt by the small coffin, I could tell that her tears flowed from the deep well of her heart.
I’m attracted to a woman with a keen mind and independent spirit. Sometimes, that independence can be too much. I know. I have one ex-wife as proof. And Susan and I have experienced our rough spots. The prior December I’d unearthed the body of a murdered man who turned out to be her old boyfriend. That discovery uncovered details about Susan she’d wanted buried forever. The fallout nearly destroyed our romance. But when two people care for each other, they should find a way to keep the spark alive. We were searching.
I cautiously touched the back of my head. “Anything I should do for this nugget?”
“Rest easy. But try to stay awake all day. You’ve probably got a concussion.”
I laughed. “Rest easy? I just had a body stolen out from under my nose.”
Susan walked over to a table in the corner of the small emergency treatment room and started writing on her clipboard. “That’s why we have a sheriff, Barry, and that’s probably why Tommy Lee’s sitting out in the lobby.” She looked up from her paperwork. “Are you ready to undergo his treatment?”
Before I could answer, the gray curtain masking us from the central nurses’ station was whisked aside. A young man in a white lab coat entered. He nodded at me and then walked close to Susan. “You didn’t need to come in. I’m on call.”
The man looked like he’d been on call for about forty-eight hours. His dark eyes were embedded in even darker shadows, and the stubble on his face threatened to become a beard.
Susan laid her hand on his wrist. “Barry’s a good friend. I would have come in even if the Surgeon General were on call.”
The doctor looked at me as if I were another dog threatening his territory.
I broke the silence and held out my hand. “Barry Clayton. I had a little accident.”
“Ray Chandler.” His handshake was firm. “Well, you’re in good hands.”
“Oh, they’re great hands.”
Susan looked annoyed. I could mark my territory as well as the next dog.
“Nice to meet you.” With no further comment, Chandler left the room, snapping the curtain shut behind him.
“Who’s he?”
“A third-year resident. He helps cover for the clinic. He’s good.”
“And he knows it. Wonder if he’s related to Raymond Chandler, the mystery writer?”
“All I know is Ray’s from Akron, Ohio.”
“Home of the soapbox derby. Let’s hope Dr. Chandler’s not moving too fast. His wheels look a little wobbly.”
Susan slipped a sheet of paper off the clipboard. “You’re one to talk. I’m releasing you, but you’d better cool your jets for a couple days. Want a ride?”
I looked at the clock on the wall. 5:10 a.m. This wasn’t going to be a day to cool my jets. “I’d better talk to Tommy Lee. Can he come back here? It’s more private than the lobby.”
“Sure. But if they need the room, the nurses will boot you. I’ll send him back.”
“Go home and get some rest. Don’t say anything about the missing body. We hope to recover it without a media frenzy. And Susan, thank you.”
“Always a pleasure to stitch you up. You’re my walking resumé.” She stopped at the curtain before leaving. “Where’re you going to be?”
“At the funeral home.”
“Good. I’ll call you later.”
I slid off the examination table and retrieved a brown grocery bag from a corner chair. When the EMTs had arrived at the funeral home, I sent Mom hurrying for my clothes. Riding in an ambulance to the hospital in my underwear was one thing; going home in Tommy Lee’s patrol car was another.
I was trying to navigate my jeans under the skimpy hospital gown when I heard a gravelly voice.
“So, you finally got caught with your pants down.”
Hopping on one bare foot, I pivoted as best I could. “As usual, you got your facts wrong. I got caught with no pants at all.”
Sheriff Tommy Lee Wadkins grinned. “I might have let a prisoner escape once or twice, but never a body.”
Tommy Lee grabbed my a
rm to steady me as I fastened my jeans. His own pants were wrinkled and his orange Sheriff’s Youth Athletic League sweatshirt looked like it had been salvaged from his dirty clothes hamper. He must have snatched whatever he could find in the dark. Even the band of his black eye patch cut an irregular furrow through his salt and pepper hair.
With my jeans on, I picked up my socks. “You stop at the funeral home?” I asked.
“Yes. The ambulance had just left.” His one eye studied my forehead. “Must have been a nasty cut. Bled enough to paint the floor.”
I sat in a chair and uncurled the socks. “Who else came with you?”
“Wakefield. He’s new, but he can keep his mouth shut. And a friend flew in last night from Boston. He’s staying at our house. We were in Nam together and he knew Y’Grok better than I did. Kevin Malone. He’s Boston Police. Won detective of the year some time back.”
“Is he in the lobby?”
“No. I left him with your mom. Figured we’d head back. I’d like you to take a look at the scene before the crime lab arrives. Reconstruct what happened.”
“Sure. What about outside?”
“Reece will keep the scene secure till we’ve got enough daylight for a decent search. I told him to go easy on the tape.”
“Thanks. Mom’ll have a fit if the house looks like an Easter basket.” I laced my shoes and carefully got to my feet. “Let’s go.”
“Need a wheelchair?”
“Not with you pushing.”
The stars were still visible in the pre-dawn sky. Tommy Lee eased his cruiser through the gate of the emergency room parking lot and turned onto Blair Street. “I’ll take you home the back route. Don’t want the good citizens thinking I worked you over.”
“I didn’t know they thought you worked at all.”
“Glad to see they didn’t knock loose your sense of humor. So, how many jumped you?”
I thought about those harrowing few minutes in the embalming room. “I don’t know. I hate to admit this, but I think it was only one guy.”
The illumination from the dashboard revealed enough of Tommy Lee’s face to show his surprise, but he had the courtesy not to make a joke at my expense.
“And I didn’t get in a punch,” I confessed. “The guy was fast and experienced. Reminded me of training sessions back at the Charlotte Police Academy.”
“Well, give me the story as best you remember.”
I took a deep breath. The stitched gash in my forehead began to throb. “I heard a noise in the embalming room. I wasn’t sure it was a person. We have a vent in there and occasionally a bird or squirrel has fallen inside.”
“What time was this?”
“Around three.”
“Birds and squirrels are asleep.”
“Fine. Remind me to watch more Animal Planet.”
He laughed. “Don’t get sore. I’m just trying to prepare you for the next time.”
“The next time I’ll stay in bed and phone you.”
“Did you get a look at him?”
“I saw part of a face behind a ski mask. He’s white, about my height, and he came dressed to be invisible.”
“Did he say anything?”
“No. He just dispensed with me and went on with his business.”
Tommy Lee mulled something for a few seconds. “Just because you faced one attacker doesn’t mean someone else wasn’t there.”
A shudder ran through me. “I stepped on Y’Grok’s body.”
“You what?”
“In the outside doorway. I remember stumbling over his body like it was an old welcome mat. I think if there’d been more than one, they’d have already loaded the body into their vehicle.”
“What vehicle?”
The scene came back to me. A moonlit fender outside the door, higher than a regular car. “He had an SUV, either black or something so dark it didn’t reflect color. That’s why I think he was by himself. He must have been dragging the body when he heard me coming.”
Tommy Lee turned and grinned at me. “Man, you’re a magnet for the bizarre. I’ve had plenty of cases where I’ve found bodies but never one where the corpse disappeared.”
“Tell me. In my business, it’s not the sort of thing that endears you to your customers. ‘Sorry, we seem to have misplaced Uncle Henry, so we’ll shave a little off the bill.’ After seventy-five years, I’ll be damned if I’m going to let this body snatcher destroy the good name of Clayton and Clayton.”
Tommy Lee slowed the car as we approached our driveway. “You’re not alone in this, Barry. When he tangled with you, he tangled with me. And when he stole Y’Grok Eban’s body, he stirred up a hornet’s nest that may unleash more reprisals than our little town of Gainesboro has ever seen.”
“Meaning what?”
“Meaning I don’t have a clue what the hell’s going on, but I do know a lot of vets owe their lives to the Montagnards. They’ll explode when they learn someone stole Y’Grok’s body.” Tommy Lee turned toward me and looked as grim as I’d ever seen him. “And you and I don’t want to be caught in the middle of that firefight.”
Chapter Three
In the funeral home, a man sat at the kitchen table with Mom and a pot of coffee. Like Tommy Lee, he was in his mid-fifties. He wore a green Irish-knit sweater that hung over black corduroys. Strands of gray hair curled from beneath a Boston Red Sox cap that had seen more than a few extra innings.
Mom jumped up and hurried to me. “My goodness, Barry. Do you want to lie down?” Her eyes never left my forehead.
“No. Susan said the cut’s not as bad as it looks. And I should stay awake.” I gestured to the clock. It was only a quarter to six. “Why don’t you go back to bed? Dad will be up soon enough, and we’ve got a long day ahead of us.” I gave a nod, prompting her to say yes.
Mom understood I wanted to talk to Tommy Lee and his friend alone. “If you’re sure you’re all right.”
“If he starts to misbehave, I’ll cuff him to the chair,” Tommy Lee said.
I doubted my mother was actually comforted by Tommy Lee’s assurances. Working with the sheriff had gotten me shot at more than once.
“I’m counting on Detective Malone to keep both of you out of trouble.” She was only half kidding.
“That’s right.” Kevin Malone rose from his chair and winked at Mom. “Madam, you can depend on the Irish.” His Boston accent infused each syllable, and he swept the cap from his head in a grand gesture until it rested over his heart. “At least until the bars open.”
My mother looked at us and laughed. The three stooges, alive in her kitchen.
As soon as she was out the door, the smile left Kevin’s face. “Can we get to it?”
“Need to sit first?” Tommy Lee asked me.
“No. I need to find Y’Grok Eban’s body.” I headed for the operating room with the two men close behind.
As I stepped inside the door, Kevin stopped me. “Stand where you were attacked.”
“About here. I entered the room, flipped on the light, and saw the empty table.”
The detective gently parted the hair on the back of my head. “Someone zapped you on the left side. Nicely done. Not what we call a blackjack shampoo where they just beat the hell out of you.”
“Barry thinks there was only one guy.” Tommy Lee stood beside Kevin, scanning the operating room.
I repeated the description of the early morning events. Kevin listened carefully without interrupting, and then stepped behind the door to the hall. “Y’Grok’s body was only halfway outside and he knew he couldn’t get away in time. You opened the door, and he hid behind it between you and the body. He wasted no energy when he attacked you. Very efficient. I’d say he could have killed you if he wanted. Any idea about the vehicle?”
“No. I’d guess an SUV, but it could have been a dark cargo van.”
“They’re usually light colored,” Tommy Lee said.
I walked past Kevin. The outside door was still open. Splinter fragments showed
how the lock had been jimmied. I stepped through the rear door onto our small loading dock. The world was cast in pre-dawn shadows of blue and gray. In the murky light, I saw no sign that anything had been left behind. The cement parking area provided no tire tracks.
I turned to Tommy Lee. “It’s bright enough now. Let’s check around the house.”
Outside, we discovered where the security system had been breached. Somebody knew what he was doing. The phone line was arced to bypass the alarm junction so that cutting the wire didn’t trigger a call to the monitoring service.
Kevin examined the neatly spliced wires. “Nice work. He must have cased the house.”
“Or came well prepared,” Tommy Lee added.
We walked completely around the funeral home, scouring the ground for any clues.
“Now he’s done it.” I led them to the edge of the driveway by the loading ramp. The freshly planted petunias were crushed and mangled. “If Uncle Wayne gets his hands on this guy, he’ll choke him for sure.”
Kevin stared down at the trampled flowers. “My gram would’ve claimed justifiable homicide. When I was a kid, I made the mistake of pouring a Guinness in her window box when I heard her coming up the stairs. Killed her petunias and I couldn’t sit down for a week.”
Tommy Lee examined the petunia stems. “From the way they’re bent, looks like the body lay on them.”
“But I’m sure I stepped on the body in the room.”
“Maybe that’s where the guy left Y’Grok while he opened the rear of the SUV,” Kevin said.
Tommy Lee shook his head. “But why Y’Grok?”
Kevin gave Tommy Lee a look of disgust. “God damned politics is what I think. Somebody for or against the Montagnards is trying for publicity.”
Foolish Undertaking: A Buryin' Barry Mystery (Buryin' Barry Series Book 3) Page 2
