Board Stiff (Mattie Winston Mysteries)

by Ryan, Annelise

  “Brent swears he’s clean and has been for the past year,” Kate says. “He went through a detox program and was staying at a halfway house in Cincinnati.”

  Hurley frowns. “And you need to see him right away because . . .”

  Kate looks around to see who might be listening and then she ticks me off by sliding onto Hurley’s seat and sidling up to him. Emily, who looks even more uncomfortable than before now that she’s standing there alone, starts to fidget. I feel sorry for her so I slide over on my side of the booth and pat the seat beside me. With a grateful smile, she settles in, sitting bolt upright, her hands folded demurely in her lap.

  In a low voice Kate says, “Brent told me he owed some money to his dealers when he went into his court-ordered rehab and now that he’s out, they want it back. He doesn’t have it because he used the stuff he was supposed to sell. He says they’ll kill him if he can’t pay them back so he left the halfway house and he’s been in hiding.”

  “Kate, you need to stay out of this,” Hurley says. “Let your brother fix his own problems.”

  Kate pouts, and to my dismay, she looks adorably cute and vulnerable when she does it.

  “He’s the only real family I have left other than Emily,” she whines. “My mother is still alive, but she’s so far gone mentally, the last time I visited her she thought I was the queen of Persia. As messed up as Brent may be, he is my brother and I can’t just abandon him. Given the situation, I don’t think it’s safe to take Emily with me.”

  “Just what do you intend to do with Brent once you find him?” Hurley asks.

  Kate gives him a funny little grin, implying an apology as yet unmade. “I was hoping you could help me with that. He needs a place to hide out for a little while. It won’t be for very long,” she adds hurriedly as Hurley opens his mouth, presumably to object.

  “Are you crazy?” Hurley says. “Your brother has thugs who are out to get him and you want to bring him here to my house?”

  Kate pouts again, smiling prettily, and I can sense Hurley weakening.

  “The thugs are in Cincinnati,” Kate argues. “They’d have no reason to look for him here as long as he doesn’t leave a trail of any sort.”

  Hurley sighs heavily and rolls his eyes. “Can’t he just come here? Why do you need to go and get him? That seems unnecessarily dangerous to me.”

  “He doesn’t have any way to get here,” Kate says. “He has no car, nor does he have money for a bus or train. As it is, he’s relying on friends to loan him a couch to sleep on and to feed him. He had to quit his job because the dealers would have found him there easily. I could send him bus or train tickets, but I figure the less of a trail there is, the better.”

  “I suppose you’re right,” Hurley says with a begrudging nod. “But it still sounds dangerous. Maybe I should go with you.”

  Kate and Hurley on a road trip together? I don’t like the sound of that at all. “How can you leave now with the case we have going?”

  “I can’t,” Hurley admits. “But we don’t have to go right now.”

  “Yes, we do,” Kate says. “Brent says every day he stays in Cincinnati brings him closer to getting found. His dealers have a lot of connections and it’s only a matter of time.”

  “How are you communicating with him?” I ask.

  “I got one of those throwaway cells when Emily and I left Chicago and I gave the number to the nursing home where my mom is. I told them they couldn’t give the number out to anyone except my brother and I gave them a test question to ask any callers, a question only Brent would know the answer to. Brent was smart enough to contact the nursing home to see if they knew how to find me. From there it was pretty simple.”

  “I’m scared for you, Mom,” Emily says to Kate. “I don’t think you should go. Steve is right. It’s too dangerous. We should find another way to get Uncle Brent here.”

  “I’ll be okay,” Kate tells her. “Brent says the friends he’s staying with are friends of people he met in rehab so he had no prior connection to them. There’s no reason the drug dealers would find him there without a lot of searching and questioning. Even then they might never find him, but Brent doesn’t want to take that risk, or put the people he’s staying with in any jeopardy. Since I haven’t seen him in years, there’s no reason for anyone to be looking for me. I doubt half the people who know Brent even know he has a sister, so it should be pretty simple. Two days, three at the most. We’ll be back here in no time.”

  “Why don’t you let me call someone in the Cincinnati police department to see if they can expedite things for you and keep Brent safe?”

  Kate winces and gives him an apologetic look. “I’d rather not get the cops involved. Brent’s detox and stay at the halfway house are conditions of his probation, so technically he’s in violation. Plus the cops don’t know he was dealing. They busted him for using. If he tells the cops some kingpin dealer is after him for a debt, they might lock him up and hit him with new charges.”

  “I doubt that,” Hurley says, his brow furrowed in thought. “But the probation thing is a problem. I’m a cop. I can’t have him staying at my place if he’s in violation of his probation.”

  “Then I’ll take him to Madison and he can stay in a homeless shelter, or at the Y until I can afford my own place,” Kate argues.

  The waitress arrives with our food and Hurley and I offer to share with Kate and Emily. Emily takes us up on it, but Kate says she isn’t hungry—an utterly foreign concept to me—and asks for a drink of water, instead.

  “Thanks to you letting us stay at your place, I’ve got almost enough saved for a deposit on an apartment,” Kate says as she watches us eat. “I only need another month or two. And Brent can get a job, too.”

  “Where are you working?” I ask, liking the direction this is going. I had assumed Kate and Emily were freeloading off Hurley all this time.

  “I’m clerking at the Quik-E-Mart,” she says. “Night shift. It’s not great money, but it’s enough to get by on if we rent one of those cheap condos on the other side of town.”

  I know the place she is referring to. It was some investor’s idea of affordable condo living that was built back in 2007. Right after that, the housing market crumpled and the poor saps who bought condos found themselves owning something worth half what they paid for it. A lot of people just walked away and took the hit on their credit. A few stayed. Others moved elsewhere, but petitioned the condo board to allow for rentals. It was approved and now the place is almost solely occupied by renters. It’s not a bad section of town, but the rent is so cheap that a lot of the people who live there aren’t your upper crust of society. A fair amount of drug activity goes on there and the cops visit for domestic violence complaints a lot.

  I can’t imagine Hurley letting Kate and Emily live there, but Brent would be another story. It’s a viable option and Hurley seems to sense this.

  “Okay,” he says with a resigned sigh. “Keep your cell phone with you at all times, and I want you to check in with me every twelve hours.” As Hurley runs through a few more safety precautions, Kate nods her agreement, looking relieved.

  Emily, on the other hand, looks scared.

  When Hurley is done with his speech, Kate reaches across the table and takes her daughter’s hand. “It will be okay, Em. Don’t worry.”

  I’m not sure I agree with her, but I keep my thoughts to myself.

  Kate departs a few minutes later, leaving Emily with us. When we are finished eating, Hurley asks Emily if she would prefer to go home or hang with him at the police station.

  Much to my surprise, Emily turns to me. “I don’t suppose I could go with you to your office? I’d kind of like to see what you do.”

  “I don’t think you’re ready for that,” Hurley says. “Some of the stuff Mattie deals with can be pretty gruesome. Besides, I don’t want you getting under foot.”

  Emily’s shoulders sag and her disappointment is palpable. I sense something in her that I’ve seen
in Erika, who also has a keen interest in anything bloody, gory, and having to do with death. I’m sure Dr. Maggie would have a field day with both of them.

  “Actually, I don’t mind giving Emily a quick tour of the office and showing her some of the basics,” I say, hoping Hurley isn’t upset that I’m butting in. “She can hang in the library for a while. Arnie’s in today. I’m sure he wouldn’t mind bragging on what he does.”

  “Who’s Arnie?” Emily asks. “Does he cut people open?”

  “Not usually,” I tell her. “Although, he does assist the medical examiner from time to time if we are busy, or if the regular assistant, like me, isn’t available for some reason. Most of what Arnie does is process evidence and conduct lab tests. Oftentimes, it’s his results that end up solving the crime.”

  “Will I be able to see an autopsy?” asks Emily.

  “Probably not. But maybe we can set something up for a future date if it’s okay with your mom.” I see Hurley make a face at me. “What?” I ask with a shrug.

  “I don’t think that’s an appropriate environment for a young girl.”

  “How old are you, anyway?” I ask Emily.

  “Fourteen. I’ll be fifteen this summer.”

  “That’s older than Erika, and she’s handled the stuff in my office just fine.”

  Hurley frowns and rubs his fingers across his brow. “I wish your mom had given me an owner’s manual, or some kind of guidelines before she left.”

  “She’s always telling me I should explore new things. As long as it’s safe, she doesn’t care. She says she tried a lot of new things when she was younger.”

  I can’t help but wonder if one of the new things she tried fifteen years ago was Hurley.

  “One of Mom’s favorite sayings is how are you going to know if you like something unless you try it?”

  Hurley smiles and shakes his head. “You are right about that. I remember her saying exactly that to me on several occasions.”

  “See?” Emily says. “She would be all about letting me go to Mattie’s office. I’ve always loved science and that’s what this CSI stuff is all about. It’ll be educational.”

  “Whoa,” I say. “I don’t want you to get the wrong idea about what to expect over there. It’s not like the CSI shows on TV. For one thing, we don’t have sexy lighting and a high-tech, glitzy, state-of-the-art facility. Nor do we have gorgeously handsome people working there who get back DNA results faster than you can say, well, DNA.”

  This is a gross understatement. We have Izzy, who looks like an aging, short, balding teddy bear; Arnie, who oftentimes looks and behaves like an escapee from the nearest mental hospital; and Cass—not the other half of the Johnson Funeral Home twins, but rather our part-time receptionist-slash-secretary-slash-file clerk—who could look like anyone on any given day since she likes to dress up as characters in the thespian group she belongs to. In fact, I’m not sure I’d recognize the real Cass if I ran into her on the street.

  “I’m not stupid,” Emily says, casting me an impatient look. “I know that TV and real life aren’t the same. I’m really interested in that kind of stuff, that’s all. If you guys think I’m too naïve, or too young to see hard realities, let me tell you about the weeks that my mother and I spent living on the streets of Chicago after we lost our house.”

  If she’s trying to make me feel guilty, it’s working. Judging from the pained expression on Hurley’s face, it’s working on him, too. We share a look and a silent communication.

  Hurley says, “Are you sure you don’t mind taking her?”

  Emily shoots me a hopeful look and I smile back at her. I like the kid. There’s something about her that appeals to me. “Not at all,” I say honestly. “I think it will be fun.”

  “Thank you!” Emily says, dancing in her seat. “I promise you I’ll be fine.”

  While I do think showing Emily around the office will be fun, I also have an ulterior motive. If Emily is like most teenagers she’ll want to talk. And I have a particular topic in mind.

  I want to know exactly what’s been going on at Hurley’s house since she and her mom arrived.

  Chapter 11

  Hurley drives us to the ME’s office and despite Emily’s assurances about her ability to handle the rough stuff—something I’m inclined to believe based on what I’ve seen and heard from her so far—we take her to the library, where I figure there are enough books filled with gory pictures and the grim details of death and dismemberment to keep her occupied for a good while. If she truly has an interest in this stuff, there will be plenty of time to expose her to the real thing later on, assuming her mom is okay with it. Hurley buys Emily a soda from the vending machine and we leave her at the library table with a stack of books to keep her busy. Then Hurley and I head for the autopsy suite.

  The door to the autopsy suite is closed, but we can see inside through the window in the top half. Bernie Chase is laid out on the autopsy table, naked from head to toe, his chest and abdominal cavity already flayed open with the standard Y-incision. Izzy is up by Chase’s head, his back to us, doing something we can’t see, though sewing up Chase’s scalp is a definite likelihood since I can see an already dissected brain sitting on a side tray. Arnie is there, too, assisting from the other side of the table, currently engrossed in whatever Izzy is doing.

  Hurley grabs my arm and stops me just as I’m about to open the door, making my back muscles yelp again, though the day’s earlier activities seem to have loosened me up a little. “See what an effect you have on men?” he whispers in my ear.

  I have no idea what he’s talking about and my expression shows it. He nods toward the autopsy table and I turn to look, momentarily confused. Then I see the tumescence in Bernard Chase’s penis.

  “Oh, for Pete’s sake, Hurley,” I whisper back. “You’ve seen enough autopsies to know that a lot of men develop an engorged penis when they die.” While this is true, I have to admit that Bernie’s is impressive.

  “I have one in life,” Hurley whispers, wiggling his eyebrows at me.

  His breath on my ear is making me feel hot all over. I push him off to one side, out of view of the autopsy room. “Really, Hurley?” I hiss at him. “You’re going to do that here? It’s bad enough you’re doing it at all, but here?”

  “I can’t help myself. You make me crazy, Mattie Winston.”

  “You were crazy long before I met you. Now get yourself together and start acting like a professional. I don’t want to give Izzy any reason to suspect there is anything between us.”

  “Is there?”

  “No! Maybe. I don’t know. It doesn’t matter. We can’t act on it, Hurley. Now stop it and behave. I’ll be damned if I’m going to lose my job again.”

  I turn away, open the door, and enter the autopsy room before Hurley can mess with my mind—or body—anymore.

  “Hey Mattie, Hurley,” Arnie says. “I hope you don’t mind me offering to jump in on what would have been your first case since you came back, Mattie. I’ve been assisting a lot since Jonas took your job. Every time the poor guy came in here he swelled up like a puffer fish and started wheezing.”

  “So I heard. I don’t mind at all. I’ve cut open enough people in my time, both dead and alive, that I don’t mind sharing the fun. I’m sure I’ll have plenty of other opportunities.”

  “Have I mentioned how glad we are to have you back here?” Arnie says.

  “You have,” I say with a smile. “But it never hurts to hear it. Thanks, again. I’m glad to be back.”

  I’m flattered by Arnie’s enthusiasm and realize just how much I missed him during my hiatus even if he is a bit of a nutcase. I think nutcase might be too strong a term. After my session with Dr. Maggie, I’m more sensitive to labels like that, so I mentally correct myself and label Arnie as a conspiracy theorist with a very active imagination. The last time I spoke with him he tried to convince me that the electronic eyes built into the sinks and paper towel dispensers in public washrooms are real
ly cameras put in there by the government to monitor the activities of people who use the washrooms. Apparently, Arnie thinks the elimination and hygiene habits of the public contain secret information that might someday save the world. Arnie also informed me that the reason some species of animals are either in danger of becoming extinct, or already are extinct, is because a secret group of people who believe the apocalypse is nigh are running a Noah’s Ark–type zoo where they are protecting and breeding certain animals who will repopulate the earth after Armageddon. The dodo isn’t gone, according to Arnie. The last of its kind are stashed away in the Ark zoo, waiting for some post-apocalyptic rebirth. When I asked him why these remaining dodos couldn’t be used to repopulate their species now, Arnie babbled a bunch of stuff about changing ecosystems and maintaining a plant-animal balance.

  Even though I suspect Arnie wears a tinfoil hat during some of his off hours, I can’t help but like the guy. He’s whip smart and a definite asset to the ME’s office, though just how he came to be here is a bit of a mystery to me. I know that he worked for the LA coroner’s office for several years, but left it and somehow ended up in Sorensen, Wisconsin. Izzy has always been vague and mostly mum on the topic, and Arnie cleverly changes the subject whenever I’ve tried to bring it up. I suspect his conspiracy theories might have been a bit too much for a coroner’s office that tends to get a lot of PR attention, but for us here in Wisconsin, where wearing a giant cheese wedge on your head is considered normal, tinfoil hats barely raise an eyebrow.

  Hurley walks over and peers inside Bernie’s body cavity from a polite distance. “Got anything for me yet?”

  “I do and I don’t,” Izzy says cryptically. “It turns out the isolyser powder wasn’t a contributing cause of death after all. The powder got into his mouth, but he was essentially dead when it happened. He didn’t swallow any of it and while there was a small amount mixed in with saliva and mucus in his airway, it wasn’t enough to block it entirely. There was no trace of the stuff deeper in his lungs, so it appears he stopped breathing before the stuff made it into his mouth.”