Working Stiff

by Annelise Ryan

“What?” Hurley barks. “You were here when he killed himself?”

  “Apparently. Like I said, he was alive when I got here.”

  “Are you sure?”

  I roll my eyes. “Yeah, I’m pretty sure,” I say with no small amount of sarcasm. “I talked to him up front in the showroom area. Then he disappeared into the back. When he didn’t show up again for a long time, I got curious and poked my head into the back. I saw blood coming from under the bathroom door and that’s how I found him.”

  Hurley pauses thoughtfully a moment and I see his gaze drift toward my shirtfront.

  “Um, hellooo,” I say, snapping my fingers high above my head. “Did someone tell you about the nipple incident or are you just admiring my assets?”

  “Neither,” Hurley says, looking away. He clears his throat and then asks, “Didn’t you hear the gunshot?”

  I think about that for a second and realize I didn’t. “No,” I tell him. “In fact, it was a little too quiet in there once the yelling stopped.”

  “Yelling? What yelling?”

  I tell Hurley about the muffled voices I heard. “Then it got eerily silent, except for one time when the phone rang. It was pretty loud,” I tell him, remembering how it made me jump. “I guess it could have drowned out the sound of a gunshot, though to be honest, I’m really not sure what a gunshot sounds like. Besides, the bathroom door was closed. Between that and the metal door to the showroom being closed, I’m not sure how much I would have heard anyway.”

  “Who opened the bathroom door? You?” The tone of Hurley’s voice suggests he isn’t going to be pleased with my answer.

  “Yes. After I unlocked it.”

  “You unlocked it,” he says with a tone of barely contained patience, shaking his head. “That’s just great, Mattie. What else did you do to mess up the scene?”

  His smart-assed tone strikes a nerve and I decide I’ve had enough of his bullying attitude. “Screw you, Hurley. There was blood oozing under the door. I’m a nurse, or at least I used to be. And I thought someone might be hurt and in need of help in there. I knocked first and when I got no answer I went in. What was I supposed to do, just let whoever was in there die? I had no way of knowing what was behind that door.”

  I pause long enough to catch a breath, expecting Hurley to jump in with an angry rebuttal. But to my surprise, he bursts out laughing instead.

  “You got spunk, Winston. I’ll give you that.”

  “And I did what any concerned person would have done under the circumstances.”

  “Okay, fair enough. Did you disturb anything else in the bathroom?”

  “No. I looked the guy over for any signs of life and then I left him.”

  “Okay.” He shoves a hand into his pocket and fishes out a handful of change. “Izzy should be here soon and then the two of you can process the scene. In the meantime, there’s a soda machine out front. Let me buy you a Coke or something to settle your stomach. Have a preference?”

  “Something clear. Like a 7-Up or ginger ale,” I tell him. “Thank you.”

  Hurley walks around the side of the building toward the front of the store, leaving me standing alone and unwatched. I pull the mouthwash from my pocket, chug another mouthful, swish and spit. I take a few moments to collect myself and when I head back inside, I see that Izzy has arrived. He and Hurley are standing just inside the door to the showroom area, talking. As soon as Izzy sees me, he hurries toward me, Hurley close on his tail. I see Izzy glance at the bandage on my forehead.

  “Are you okay?” he asks.

  “I’m fine. Did Hurley fill you in on the details?”

  “More or less. But he didn’t say anything about you being injured.”

  “I wasn’t. This”—I touch the bandage—“is from last night. A little accident.”

  “I’ve been calling and paging you but I got no answer. I was starting to worry.”

  Belatedly I realize that both my beeper and my cell phone are in my purse, locked inside my car. “Sorry. I’m not used to carrying the cell phone around yet,” I say feebly.

  “Are you sure you’re all right?” he asks again, eyeing me worriedly.

  “Yes, I’m fine,” I assure him. “I had a little touch of the ickies, but it’s gone now.”

  “It happens to the best of us,” says Hurley. He hands me a ginger ale and says, “Easy does it with the drink. Feeling better?”

  “I am, yes. Thanks.”

  Hurley’s kindness toward me is exciting and I bask beneath his attention. As I sip my ginger ale, I briefly consider taking advantage of his solicitous mood to flirt with him a little. But then I realize that the lingering dregs of my vomit on his shoes might not set the best stage for a seduction.

  “Well, let’s get to it,” Izzy says. He turns to head toward the bathroom, then stops and looks back at Hurley. “Is it okay for Mattie to assist me, given that she was the one who found him?” he asks.

  Hurley nods and waves us on, saying, “Judging from the mess in that bathroom and the fact that the only splatter I can see on the front of Winston’s blouse is a big mustard stain, I’m pretty certain she wasn’t anywhere near the guy when he did it.”

  I give Hurley a dirty look, pissed at both his cavalier attitude and the realization that when he was staring at my chest, he wasn’t admiring my boobs, he was checking me for blood splatter.

  I follow Izzy back to the bathroom, unsure of how well I will handle being near the body again. Normally I have a cast-iron stomach; after years of dealing with the nastier bodily secretions we humans produce, most nurses become pretty stalwart about such things. But despite my usual fortitude, the right set of circumstances can occasionally get to me. I fear this is one of those.

  But as Izzy and I don the gloves, paper booties, and waterproof paper gowns he removes from his black suitcase, I sense that my cast-iron stomach is back in place. There is a subtle shift in my mind, a mental distancing that is almost automatic to me now. And with that shift comes the clinical detachment I need. Plus, the cops have removed the bathroom door by taking it right off its hinges, opening up the room a little more.

  The first thing Izzy does is take several pictures of the overall scene, including close-ups of the wounds and the hand that holds the gun. Once that is done, we begin our exam at the man’s head.

  “Tell me what you see, Mattie,” Izzy says.

  This isn’t the first time I’ve seen how much damage a bullet can do to a head. We had three victims from a drug deal turned sour in the ER one night several years ago and one of them had incurred a similar wound. Plus, I’ve been reading up on gunshot wounds at the office, familiarizing myself with such details as ballistics, calibers, gunpowder residue, tattooing, and the geometry of entry and exit wounds. I pull from what I’ve learned and try to describe what I see before me. My task is made easier by the fact that this man is bald.

  “It looks as if he held the gun to his right temple with his right hand. This hole here in his right temple is the entry wound. The larger damage on the other side of his head is caused by the bullet exiting and taking a good portion of the skull and brain with it.”

  “Good so far,” Izzy says. He looks up at the wall to the man’s left and points toward a hole near the top of the blood splatter. “My guess is the bullet entered the wall there.”

  He stares at it for a few seconds, then turns back to the victim’s head. “Tell me more about the entry wound, Mattie.”

  “Okay. It’s a round hole about a centimeter in diameter with some signs of hemorrhaging around the periphery.”

  “What does that tell you? Anything?”

  I think back to what I’ve read. “Well, the fact that the entry wound is round suggests that the muzzle of the gun wasn’t in tight contact with his temple. If it had been, the skin around the entry site would have burst because of the pressure of gases that are released from the end of a muzzle during firing. That leaves a sort of star-shaped injury, right?”

  “Right. And other than
the bruising you mentioned, what other markings or discoloration is there in the skin surrounding the entry wound?”

  “There are these dark specks scattered around the circumference of the entry hole,” I tell him, pointing to a narrow band of spots extending out an inch or so beyond the wound perimeter. I make a quick swipe at them with a piece of gauze. “They don’t wipe off so it’s not soot. Is it gunpowder tattooing?”

  “It is.” Izzy beams at me like a proud parent. “What does that tell you?”

  “That the gun was not in direct contact, or even very close to the skin when it was fired. It had to have been anywhere from six inches to two feet away.”

  “Good. Now how about the exit wound?”

  “Well, given the extent of the damage, I’d suspect that either a large caliber bullet was used or that it was a hollow-point bullet of some type.”

  Izzy nods toward the gun near the man’s right hand. “That’s a .357 Magnum. Big enough to cause this much damage?”

  I think about it but I’m not sure. Sensing my hesitation, Izzy says, “Yes, it can, and often does. It’s a popular revolver among hunters and law enforcement officers because it’s designed to bring a target down in one shot. Now tell me what you can see about the angle of the bullet as it was fired.”

  I describe what I see, beginning with the entry wound, which is on the man’s right temple about even with the lower margin of his eye socket but set back from it an inch or so. I then move to the exit wound, which encompasses most of the left side of his forehead and temple area. “It looks as if the bullet traveled slightly forward toward the front of his head and slightly upward as well,” I say. Izzy says nothing, but he smiles.

  We continue our exam, working our way down the body. When we reach his neck, I point out the Kaposi’s sarcoma, explaining to Izzy how I noticed it when talking with the man earlier. When Izzy gets to the man’s right hand he takes several pictures of it before carefully removing the gun. He examines the skin of the hand with his naked eye and then again with a magnifying glass. When he finally sets the hand back down, he looks at me with a worried expression.

  “Tell me again the sequence of events that led up to this man’s death,” he says. “As carefully as you can and with as much detail as you can remember.”

  I reiterate the whole thing for him, and when I get to the part where the dead man disappeared into the back and I thought I heard voices, Izzy slows me down.

  “Who was the source of the other voice?” he asks.

  I shrug. “I have no idea. I assumed it was an employee of some sort who left through the back door. But I really don’t know. I never saw anyone but this guy.”

  Izzy picks up the dead man’s hand again and holds it out for my inspection. “The gun used here was a revolver and they are notorious for leaving soot on the hand that fires it because of the gap between the chamber and the muzzle. Do you see any gunpowder residue here?” he asks.

  I look carefully, using the magnifying glass Izzy used, then I shake my head. I feel a tiny chill snake its way down my spine.

  “Okay. That’s not definitive, but highly suggestive. We’ll have to do a test on his hand when we get him back to the lab to see if there might be microscopic particles of residue. Now, let’s try something else. This finger”—he wiggles the man’s index finger—“was curled inside the trigger guard when you found him, right?”

  I nod. He sets the man’s hand back on the floor, then forms his own hand into the shape of a gun, his index finger serving as the muzzle, his thumb folding the other three fingers back. “Pretend this is a gun and you’re going to shoot yourself with it in the head like this man did.” He held his “gun” near my right temple, about six inches away. “Now I want you to hold this gun and pull the trigger. Pretend my thumb is the trigger.”

  I reach up, take a hold of his “gun” in my right hand, and try to fire it, but I have to contort my hand so much, I can barely get my index finger to touch the trigger, much less pull it. I try holding the gun with my left hand instead and then triggering it with my right index finger, but it’s still almost impossible. “It would be easier if I could use my thumb to pull the trigger,” I say finally.

  “Exactly!” Izzy says.

  I put it all together and feel my blood run cold.

  “What are you saying, Izzy?” asks a voice behind me. I’ve been so caught up in what Izzy and I are doing that I failed to notice Hurley hovering in the doorway, eavesdropping on our every word.

  “I’m saying that someone tried very hard to make it look like this man committed suicide,” Izzy says gravely. “But he didn’t. He was murdered.”

  Chapter 26

  As the meaning of Izzy’s declaration sinks in, my body begins to tremble.

  Murdered. While I was standing out front in the showroom area, someone in the back of the store murdered a man in cold blood and then set the scene to make it look like a suicide. Had the killer known I was in the store? Was I left alive intentionally or merely as an oversight? Could I have done anything to prevent this poor man’s murder?

  Upon hearing Izzy’s verdict, Hurley’s attitude changes dramatically. He perks up like a hunting dog on point, rigid and attentive. Then he starts barking out commands. Several other police officers have arrived on the scene and they are scouring through the place, searching the file cabinets, sorting through stacks of papers, rifling through desk drawers, and brushing surfaces for fingerprints.

  Izzy and I continue our examination of the man’s body, wrapping him in the requisite white sheet when we are done and zipping him into a body bag. From paperwork the cops find in the office, we assume that the man’s name is Mike Halverson, though we will have to find something far more conclusive before officially establishing his ID. Other documents the cops find suggest that Halverson owned the business as a sole proprietor, with no obvious partners or corporation to share in the proceeds. But I have my doubts as to the authenticity of those papers and want desperately to get a peek at some of the financial statements.

  Izzy says he wants to autopsy Halverson as soon as the body reaches the morgue since he has to leave town that evening for a medical conference. Hurley asks if he can observe and leaves another detective in charge of the scene so he can accompany us to the morgue.

  We strip off our protective gear and bag it, then follow the body outside. We are watching the ambulance crew load it inside their vehicle when a red Toyota pulls up beside us and screeches to a halt. Alison Miller climbs out, her camera slung around her neck, her eyes wide with curiosity. She grabs the camera and tries to sneak a shot of the body bag inside the ambulance, but the techs are too fast for her and have the doors closed before she can focus.

  She frowns briefly, then sidles up to Hurley with a big smile on her face. “Hello, Steve. Something going on?” she asks in a sexy, seductive voice I find utterly inappropriate.

  “Hello, Alison,” Hurley says, smiling much broader than I like. “I can’t give you anything yet. You’ll just have to wait.”

  Alison pouts and moves in a little closer, stroking her hand along Hurley’s upper arm. “Oh, come on, Stevie. Just a hint? Please?”

  Stevie? I roll my eyes, half expecting Alison to rub up against him next, or start humping his leg.

  “I can’t, Alison.” Hurley repeats.

  Her pout deepens and she looks around, her gaze settling on me. With a smug little smile, she says, “Okay, Stevie. If you insist. But promise me you’ll tell me as soon as you can. Otherwise, I may not be in a very good mood for our date on Friday.”

  Hurley casts a quick glance my way, then blushes six different shades of red as he pries Alison’s hand off his arm. Without another word he hurries off to his car and peels out of the parking lot.

  I give Alison a smug smile of my own and saunter off to my own car. Thirty seconds later, I leave her behind in a cloud of parking lot dust. Bitch.

  Izzy and I start suiting up again as soon as we get to the morgue: gown, gloves, booties
, and face shields. The ambulance crew has already unloaded Halverson’s body, switching it from their stretcher to one of ours. Hurley is there already, too, and after donning gloves and a gown himself, he stands against the wall, watching.

  As soon as I am suited up, I push the stretcher that holds Halverson’s body onto a giant scale built into the floor. The scale is calibrated and computerized so that it will take the total weight of the stretcher and the body combined, subtract the known weight of the stretcher, and then display the remainder, which is the body weight. After noting the result, which is a rather pathetic 135 pounds, Izzy and I wheel Halverson into an X-ray room where we shoot several films of his head and upper torso through the body bag. We then wheel the stretcher into the main autopsy room, positioning it beside one of the tables. Hurley is waiting for us there, and as I wheel the stretcher past him I can’t resist saying, “Excuse me, Stevie.”

  I unzip the body bag and Izzy runs a small vacuum device along the inside of it to collect any trace evidence that might have come along with the body. We then unwrap the sheet and Izzy vacuums it as well, while I use needles and syringes to collect blood, urine, and vitreous samples from the body the way Izzy taught me.

  Izzy carefully examines the front of Halverson’s body using a fiber optic light and special goggles that make it easier to detect hairs, threads, and other near-microscopic bits of evidence. Then we turn Halverson up on one side and do the same thing on his back. There is a wallet in his back pants pocket, which Izzy removes and hands to Hurley. Inside the wallet is a driver’s license with the name Mike Halverson on it and a picture that bears a vague resemblance to the man on the table—more evidence but still not conclusive enough for establishing an identification.

  We carefully remove Halverson’s blood-soaked clothing, laying the individual pieces out flat so they can dry. Once the body is naked, we position it on a pad of rollers and move it from the stretcher onto the autopsy table. After photographing and swabbing both of the hands, we use ink and a card to record all ten fingerprints.